teaching
Read my conversation with Augsburg's Student Newspaper Echo here.
COURSES TAUGHT
California State University, Dominguez Hills
"Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao Americans: Culture, History, and Identity" (Spring & Summer 2020)
This undergraduate course focuses on the experiences of the Southeast Asian diaspora (SEAD) in the United States. Particularly, it explores the shared and unique refugee experiences of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Americans. This course relationally understands the SEAD experiences enabled by U.S. imperialism overseas as closely tied to domestic racial and gendered management at home. Deploying critical frameworks informed by critical refugee studies and queer/feminist thoughts, we will examine questions of History, Memory, and Remembrance through scholarly texts, creative materials, and cultural productions. Unit I begins with the historical context of the Vietnam War, the Secret War in Laos, and the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia––historical events that led to the displacement of millions of people from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam to the U.S. We will then examine how each group negotiates their resettlement into a racially divided America. Unit II will examine the ways in which SEAA history is erased, obscured, and recuperated into a larger project of U.S. national memory and the impact of such knowledge production. The final Unit showcases how refugees and the “generation after” find other alternatives to grieve, remember, and re-imagine their history.
California State University, Dominguez Hills
"Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao Americans: Culture, History, and Identity" (Spring & Summer 2020)
This undergraduate course focuses on the experiences of the Southeast Asian diaspora (SEAD) in the United States. Particularly, it explores the shared and unique refugee experiences of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Americans. This course relationally understands the SEAD experiences enabled by U.S. imperialism overseas as closely tied to domestic racial and gendered management at home. Deploying critical frameworks informed by critical refugee studies and queer/feminist thoughts, we will examine questions of History, Memory, and Remembrance through scholarly texts, creative materials, and cultural productions. Unit I begins with the historical context of the Vietnam War, the Secret War in Laos, and the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia––historical events that led to the displacement of millions of people from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam to the U.S. We will then examine how each group negotiates their resettlement into a racially divided America. Unit II will examine the ways in which SEAA history is erased, obscured, and recuperated into a larger project of U.S. national memory and the impact of such knowledge production. The final Unit showcases how refugees and the “generation after” find other alternatives to grieve, remember, and re-imagine their history.
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University of California, San Diego "Queer/ Immigrant/ Women of Color World Making" (Summer 2018 ) "Asian American Cultures(s) and Identiti(es)" (Winter 2018) "Dissecting Systemic Violence and Reclaiming Embodied Knowledges via Art-Making" (Summer 2017) |
Pedagogy
Having experienced schooling under a communist state, I understand first-hand the danger of what Paolo Freire calls “banking method”––a failure of the education system to inspire students’ self-realization, creativity, and critical thinking. As an immigrant, I have encountered the problems of immigration, racial, gender, and sexual inequalities persisting in American academia, and the increasing corporate culture on campus. These experiences instilled in me a commitment to empower and uplift students from all walks of life, and especially trans/queer students of color and women, with diverse abilities. My teaching practice centers student life experiences and learning objectives to provide students with critical thinking, research skills, and meaningful lessons beyond the classroom. Challenging the top-down approach in classrooms, I commit to learn from students. I look forward to the challenges and excitement my students bring to the classroom and to translate them into learning opportunities.
My teaching is organized by combining three elements undergirding intellectual exchange: relationality, compassion, and methodological reasoning. Relationality is a framework that draws from M. Jacqui Alexander’s emphasis on women of color consciousness and C. Wright Mills’ famous concept of sociological imagination (1959), both of which highlight the importance of learning about different histories and structures of power in relation to individual experience in the world. I emphasize compassion as a pedagogical tool, drawing from community guidelines developed in social activism circles, to guide students about how to speak their truth with respect to the collective space and in relation to others. Finally, I establish the fundamental role of methodological reasoning in forming thoughts and expressing ideas, which encourages students to address beyond the “what” to the “who, when, why, and how” that underscores their arguments. Together, these three elements contribute to develop a shared culture and language within the classroom, tending to the oftentimes hidden dynamics of race, class, and gender, in order to foster a stimulating and civil environment for everyone to grow intellectually and socially.
My classroom is informed by my academic training on race and intersectionality, my bilingualism and transnational perspectives, and my experiences as a multimedia art practitioner. My classroom functions as a place of academic training, self-expression, creativity, and especially applied praxis—the will and ability to apply learned theories to the real world. These approaches run through the courses I developed and taught on different topics, from the diaspora, student/social movements in the U.S., race and ethnicity, to women of color feminism, queer theory, cultural and media studies, Asian/American studies, sci-fi films, and more. I bring together materials from theories, literature, contemporary arts, and digital humanities to construct a well-rounded classroom environment for students to analyze difficult concepts about power and agency, oppression and resistance.
My teaching is organized by combining three elements undergirding intellectual exchange: relationality, compassion, and methodological reasoning. Relationality is a framework that draws from M. Jacqui Alexander’s emphasis on women of color consciousness and C. Wright Mills’ famous concept of sociological imagination (1959), both of which highlight the importance of learning about different histories and structures of power in relation to individual experience in the world. I emphasize compassion as a pedagogical tool, drawing from community guidelines developed in social activism circles, to guide students about how to speak their truth with respect to the collective space and in relation to others. Finally, I establish the fundamental role of methodological reasoning in forming thoughts and expressing ideas, which encourages students to address beyond the “what” to the “who, when, why, and how” that underscores their arguments. Together, these three elements contribute to develop a shared culture and language within the classroom, tending to the oftentimes hidden dynamics of race, class, and gender, in order to foster a stimulating and civil environment for everyone to grow intellectually and socially.
My classroom is informed by my academic training on race and intersectionality, my bilingualism and transnational perspectives, and my experiences as a multimedia art practitioner. My classroom functions as a place of academic training, self-expression, creativity, and especially applied praxis—the will and ability to apply learned theories to the real world. These approaches run through the courses I developed and taught on different topics, from the diaspora, student/social movements in the U.S., race and ethnicity, to women of color feminism, queer theory, cultural and media studies, Asian/American studies, sci-fi films, and more. I bring together materials from theories, literature, contemporary arts, and digital humanities to construct a well-rounded classroom environment for students to analyze difficult concepts about power and agency, oppression and resistance.
