Am attending the Society for Research on Adolescence meeting in San Diego and love meeting up with colleagues and former students. And got to meet Ariana DeJesus Rodriguez who will be joining my lab as a first year counseling psychology graduate student next year. More to come on Ariana and her research interests and career goals.
It dumbfounds me and yet does not surprise me that the Purdue Northwest Chancellor Keon has not been forced to resign or been removed. And it saddens me and yet does not surprise me that the new Purdue University President Mung Chiang has not taken on this issue. Appreciate the latest news story by NBC journalist Kimmy Yam
The Mall of America has an Asian American Santa this year. He’s not the only Santa but he’s one of an increasingly diverse group of Santa helpers. Was interviewed by MPR about it.
View my talk here.
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to record a TEDx Minneapolis talk, titled “Finding the words to heal from racial trauma.” It was picked up and promoted by big TED to their 37 million subscribers. Thank you for taking time to watch the video and I hope it prompts you to talk with your family about racism, trauma, and mental health.
Sadly, this is not a set up for a joke. Instead, it is about an actual event that occurred at the commencement ceremony at Purdue University Northwest in Indiana. My former undergrad RA who went on to receive their PhD and take a faculty position at PNW (no longer there, BTW) posted this commencement ceremony on social media. He wanted to highlight this problematic, racist “joke” made by the chancellor. I captured the video on my phone and posted it on Twitter here. What was even worse is that the commencement ceremony was recorded and posted on YouTube but no one at the institution saw it as problematic language/speech. Within 24 hours of my tweet, hundreds of thousands of people had viewed it and news media picked it up, including NBC, Yahoo, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
I tweeted about it two days ago but the event took place days earlier. It was problematic that PNW did not initially address the issue when they posted the YouTube video of the commencement ceremony. It seems they did not think there was a problem until the video and tweet went viral. After which they took down the YouTube video of the ceremony, only to later re-post it. It also was not mentioned in the Chronicle article (and most other news sources) that several faculty and administrators behind the chancellor also laughed at his comments, thereby providing him with support for such a racist comment. No actions seem to have been taken on them. And his non-apology apology fails to acknowledge the racist nature of his comments and the historical and current context in which it perpetuates anti-Asian hate and the persistent stereotype of Asian Americans as foreigners. It is disappointing to learn that the Purdue University Board of Trustees simply accepts his apology and moves on, failing to address the systemic issues that allows a chancellor of a university to make racist comments without recourse. The university spokesperson also emphasized the need to not take his comments out of context (which is a problematic assertion given no context explains away the racism). What it does do is reinforce a toxic learning environment that I doubt would be tolerated if the chancellor had made hateful comments (cloaked as a joke) about other racialized or marginalized groups, including women, first-generation college students (whom the university largely serves).
I encourage colleagues and students to use this incident as a call to raise the visibility of Asian American concerns and anti-Asian hate on campuses. We need to hold staff, faculty, and students accountable for their words and actions. We also need to acknowledge it can be very traumatic to witness and watch these incidents and triggering for many who have gone through similar experiences.
My brother and I have created a series of comics to capture the ways in which these racist events can be experienced by children and youth and how we can begin to address these issues with our families, children, and friends.
Best Paper JPHP award winners for 2021 for our paper, Evaluating the Feasibility of the Incredible Years Attentive Parenting Program as Universal Prevention for Racially Diverse Populations, published in the Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion.
The committee of four chose our paper after a careful and detailed review of the papers published in the Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion in 2021. Unfortunately, we could not celebrate with our collaborators Judy Ohm who passed away in 2020.
Had the pleasure to take my collaborative comic – The Other Ones by Lee – on the road again. This time to Purdue University. Gave a first draft of this talk at UConn a couple weeks ago and made some tweaks. My former advisee Xiang Zhou is an assistant professor there. And my academic grandchild via Brandon Yoo, Annabelle Atkin, is also an assistant professor there. Got to meet great students and faculty. Also so happy for former advisee Christine Wu to drive down from Oberlin College where she is an assistant professor.
Well, I had hoped to share the YouTube video of my TEDxMinneapolis talk but it is not yet available. However, I do have a livestream recording of the whole evening. I encourage you to watch all the talks, listen to some of the music performed, and takeaway what you will from it all. Click here or the image below to watch the talks. My talk begins around the 1:31:30 mark.
On Saturday evening, my family and friends gathered with others to watch the premiere of this year’s TEDx Minneapolis talks. I was honored to be among them and spoke about healing from racial trauma and how families need to develop racial literacy to engage in constructive conversations. I will post the recording when it’s released to the public.
I had a couple of tickets available so I asked my grad students if they wanted to attend. Thankful to have these two students in person, along with my colleagues Dr Pat Frazier and Dr Erika Lee.
And honored to have my dear friends Kenji, Sarah, and Mike there too
On Saturday evening, my family and friends gathered with others to watch the premiere of this year’s TEDx Minneapolis talks. I was honored to be among them and spoke about healing from racial trauma and how families need to develop racial literacy to engage in constructive conversations. I will post the recording when it’s released to the public.
I had a couple of tickets available so I asked my grad students if they wanted to attend. Thankful to have these two students in person, along with my colleagues Dr Pat Frazier and Dr Erika Lee.
And honored to have my dear friends Kenji, Sarah, and Mike there too
FamiLee Lab 