In this article, we offer a specific example from our programmatic research and teaching praxis during the COVID-19 anti-Asian hate pandemic period. We demonstrate how Asian American Studies community-centered knowledge coproduction and narrative generational wealth investment can address critical experiences of young learners from underrepresented, religiously-diverse populations through content that supports culturally sustaining child development and challenges disparately impactful realities of racism, misrepresentation, and systemic Western biases which undermine their health and wellbeing. Focusing on religious themes in relation to child development was not an explicit intention of our collaboratively developed storybook project titled, Hira Makes a Sound. Nevertheless, centering a women-led, intergenerational Nepali immigrant story in both our process and final product necessarily led to foregrounding religious, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of diasporic family and community life that are essential to coping and development for the fictional lead character, Hira, and her loved ones. Robust story data themes—paradoxically grounded in the ether of a shared Gurung worldview—provide generative lessons for researchers, educators, artists, and community advocates who work with or need to account for the lived experiences of young learners within religiously diverse, multi-generational immigrant family households and community ecologies.

AbstractAuthors discuss how educators at two Minority Serving Institutions center culture and identity in intensive writing courses that support student success.

This article first describes two high-impact, foundational examples in Asian American Studies over three decades that successfully established and sustained inclusive and equitable educational environments at an urban, public, and federally designated Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Institution (AANAPISI) research university. Secondly, the article introduces the purpose, process, and product of a fresh programmatic example of cross-generational, community-centered storytelling initiated during the contemporary dual-pandemic period of COVID-19 and anti-Asian hate. Through these examples, we argue that AANAPISIs with longstanding Asian American Studies curricular and pedagogical commitments to transformative educational praxis can offer especially valuable insights for U.S. higher education precisely because the purposeful, strategic attention to developing equitable, inclusive learning environments is so well-developed. Within our own context, we specifically highlight the impacts and importance of developing long-term ecologies to support culturally sustaining curricula and storytelling co-production processes led by core faculty with students and alumni. These examples are particularly salient for under-resourced, predominantly commuter institutions where student engagement with faculty and peers in classroom environments is so vital.

Being a [UMass Boston] college student in a strange land is not easy, even though we are trying very hard to do our best. But there is no way to change our mother tongue to be American and it is hard to change our way of writing.

AbstractCollaborations between 2‐ and 4‐year funded AANAPISIs with shared student and community profiles offer unique opportunities to leverage resources to efficiently and effectively serve their students.

AbstractAsian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions can align their support systems for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students and veterans to create conditions for AAPI student veterans to thrive in college.

This article draws qualitatively on the experiences, reflections, and expressions of Asian American student veterans through Asian American Studies courses and activities the authors have led in the decade between 2006 and 2016, at an urban public research university that is federally designated as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution, and recognized annually among four-year universities as “best for vets.” Beginning with a brief introduction to Asian American military service historically and currently, we note the lack of research and resource materials available nationally that is informed by or responsive to the backgrounds, perspectives, and needs of Asian American student veterans in college. We then provide a synthesis of rich documentary evidence based on Asian American student veterans’ voices, to illustrate the value of Asian American Studies curricular strategies and pedagogical approaches, particularly through digital storytelling, that create integrative contexts for their holistic connections and contributions as Asian Americans, as veterans, and as university students. Beyond the classroom and campus, we also offer concrete examples of community-centered connections through Asian American Studies that enable Asian American student veterans to engage with public sites and local civic organizations that share significant legacies of Asian American veterans’ leadership and service across generations.

Cervical cancer is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, which can be prevented by vaccination. Mothers play an important role in promoting vaccination and health education. However, Cambodian American mothers reported to have challenges to play a role as primary health educators due to lack of health knowledge and language and cultural gaps. Therefore, this study aims to understand the Cambodian American daughters' and mothers' awareness, knowledge and social norms of HPV vaccination and their health communication and vaccination decision-making.We conducted a pilot randomized clinical trial to promote HPV vaccination. In this study, we have only reported findings from baseline data examining individual, interpersonal and social determinants of HPV vaccination behavior among 19 dyads of Cambodian American mothers and daughters.Both mothers and daughters demonstrated low levels of awareness and knowledge. A significant relationship was found between the daughters' HPV vaccine decisions and their perception of their mothers' intention on HPV vaccination for them.Culturally and linguistically appropriate communication strategies such as storytelling or visual presentation approaches may be more effective than the current practice of using information-based written materials to promote HPV vaccination and health education among Cambodian Americans.

Purppose: To develop a theory-guided culturally grounded narrative intervention to promote HPV vaccination behavior and examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of the intervention among dyads of Cambodian American mothers and daughters. Method: The principles of community-based participatory research guided the development and evaluation and involved two phases: Phase 1: Development of storytelling narrative intervention videos which focused on a series of HPV vaccination-related messages and which integrated the narrative theory with the revised network episode model (rNEM); Phase 2: conducting the pilot RCT with 19 dyads of Khmer mothers and daughters aged from 14 to 17 years to examine the feasibility and acceptability of the study. Findings: Recruitment was completed in 7 months with an overall retention of 84%. The acceptability of the intervention was high, as reflected by the number of positive comments on the narrative video. Preliminary data indicate that vaccine uptake at one-month follow-up was the same (2 vs. 2) between intervention and control groups. However, daughters in the narrative intervention group reported higher intention to receive HPV vaccination within one month compared to the control group (4 vs. 1). Conclusion: All the procedures to inform a full RCT were examined, including identification of eligible participants, recruitment, randomization, intervention adherence, and short-term follow-up. The positive preliminary outcomes and feedback support the feasibility and potential effectiveness of the theory-guided narrative intervention.

The authors present specific challenges, possibilities, and critical intersections that have emerged in their teaching and learning with both refugees and veterans in Asian American studies courses.

This article describes influences on intergenerational communication within refugee families about sociocultural trauma and explores how education may positively affect this communication process. Drawing on qualitative research and grounded theory through a larger study concerning intergenerational effects of and communication about trauma in Cambodian American refugee families, this article highlights ways that education may contribute to healing broken narratives within refugee families affected by war and genocide. Although focusing on Cambodian American experiences, we suggest that the role of education may be similarly helpful in facilitating intergenerational communication for other individuals with personal and familial experiences with trauma, such as students from refugee families who have fled Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia, and other sites of forced migration.

Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have individually and collectively invested enormous trust in US educational institutions on behalf of themselves and their children. Ironically, though, as we have argued elsewhere (Kiang 2006), by not entering the field of education directly with comparable commitments, AAPIs have seemingly left the roles of leadership and decision-making within those institutions to others. But, in this first of three special issues of AAPI Nexus that focus on education, we begin to map a changing landscape.

Response to Dr. Mark E. Pfeifer's featured article