STORY CIRCLES FOR ASIAN AMERICAN FEMINISTS IN THE ONGOING COVID-19 ERA

This dissertation study was first and foremost motivated by a desire to uplift and center the voices and stories of an often invisibilized group of people in education and literacy scholarship: Asian and Asian American women, feminists, and gender nonconforming people. In this effort, I brought together a group of eight participants for a “story circle” experience, where for eight weeks, we gathered once a week for 90 minutes on Zoom to share personal narratives with one another centered around themes of Asian American and/or feminist identities. By conducting this story circle, I asked the questions, “What happens when a group of Asian and Asian American feminists gather to share stories with one another? And what are the unique affordances of such an affinity- and community-based learning space?” I found that 1) the story circle space’s anti-neoliberal characteristics were vital in enabling the type of dialogue and storytelling that took place in the story circle; 2) participants used the critical literacy practice (Luke, 2012, 2017, 2018; Street, 2003) of counterstorytelling (Delgado, 1989; Ladson-Billings, 2013; Martinez, 2020; Solórzano & Yosso, 2007) to push back against white supremacist conceptualizations of taxonomizing cultural, ethnic, and political identities; and 3) participants also used counterstorytelling to critique externally imposed “majoritarian narratives” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2007) for how Asian American womanhood or feminist identities should be lived out. These findings suggest that for this group of participants, the story circle served as a space of resistance against white supremacist epistemological and cultural hegemony and that collective counterstorytelling in affinity spaces can enable Asian and Asian American women, feminists, and gender nonconforming people to narrate towards cultural evolution and healing in their identities.

Author dc:creator

• Lee, Ayoung, Noh

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stornaiuolo, Amy

• Education
• American Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/61040

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.upenn.edu:20.500.14332/61040