Been an especially long few weeks, so I am really grateful for the affirmations I have been receiving from colleagues lately. Most unexpectedly were awesome comments from an optional assignment some Macalester kids wrote up after my recent presentation. Makes me proud and seriously kept me going this week. Mostly I was myself, I spoke the truth, and I was honest about my experiences. I still am figuring stuff out all the time, so this felt incredibly validating too. Maybe Professor Huynh wouldnt be such a bad gig after all? * I wanted to say thank you so much for coming to speak to and inspire Macaleser students. Your candor really touched and uplifted students.You excel at putting really complex ideas into words, and that is a gift that obviously benefits you in your chosen profession. One of the reasons this thank you note is tardy is that I created an assignment where I ask students to write a reaction paragraph to some sort of course event. In many ways this was an optional assignment at this point in the semester, because most students have fulfilled their quota of required response paragraphs. Students also had the option of responding to your talk or another speaker. This is all to say that my sense is that the responses students wrote were because they genuinely felt moved and engaged by what you had to say. * Yay. Some deidentified example quotes and sensitive details omitted for privacys sake... getting youths to think about stuffs gives me butterflies: * I have rarely ever encountered such candor when discussing issues of micro-aggressions and oppression... I found her talk particularly interesting because I have struggled in dealing with anger while also considering the other person when dealing with micro-aggressions. It is difficult to both legitimize that anger and also have meaningful conversations about that anger. The ways that Ms. Huynh demonstrated such conversations illustrate ways to work with anger in contexts in which anger is not necessarily welcome... I personally related to the ways in which Ms. Huynh discussed micro-aggressions because it demonstrated a capacity for growth that did not consume her life. Ms. Huynhs ability to deal effectively with oppression in the workplace both illumines a path to follow but also the wider office culture of the United States as a whole, in which it is easy to subsume the people (and therefore their emotions) for the goals of the organization or the bottom line. * What surprised me right away was that Denise was helping minorities in the local community with pretty much the same, if not, harsher variations of the microagression she deals with daily... confronting a social problem is probably one of the hardest things we have to do when it has potential to be unsuccessful or detrimental towards your daily life. The examples of microaggression Denise mentioned happen everywhere, and yet it’s sad that they are said unintentionally...There is a lot of pressure for all minorities, of race and gender, which needs to change. * I really appreciated the candor and compassion Denise Hanh Huynh offered in her presentation last week. She discussed many of the challenging experiences she has had working as a woman of color in the nonprofit sphere, as well as the difficulties she has faced as a private individual. In particular, she focused on the prevalence of microaggressions–seemingly minor actions that, with or without intention, hurt someone else... I found her discussion of this topic, and racial/gender discrimination in general, relieving to listen to. Often when I hear discussion of gender discrimination, I hear speakers frame it as infrequent, as a result of personal faults, or at least as an opportunity to “rise above it”. Listening to Denise eloquently describe both how widespread the casual discrimination is and her resulting anger helped me to feel validated in my own experiences with gender discrimination (as well as helped me to better understand her experiences as a woman of color). I especially appreciated her suggestions for methods to deal with the microaggressions, which did not downplay an individual’s feelings, such as anger or frustration, but rather offered strategies to mitigate future discrimination. I think that Denise’s frank presentation offered a critical step forward in talking about discrimination and dealing with it personally. * I enjoyed Denise Hanh Huynh’s presentation, and in particular the unabashed way she described the occurrence of microaggressions in the non-profit sector. Huynh’s perspective on the matter was plain and easily understood, and left me feeling more knowledgeable on the everyday discriminations of a nonprofit environment. Prior to hearing Denise’s presentation, I assumed Asian Americans (among other minority groups) experienced discrimination in nonprofit workplaces as well as for-profit ones, but I wasn’t sure what forms they might take. I thought her presentation gave a good definition of microaggression, and also gave a number of solid examples of the concept she has experienced. As someone who has had some experience working in the nonprofit sector, I think Denise accurately portrayed the less savory side of nonprofit work, though I hardly think it was a pessimistic enough picture to make someone want to never try nonprofit work altogether... she simply called nonprofits (specifically those she has been a part of) to account for the problems. Her presentation also included her efforts to push back against these issues, particularly by her membership in various Asian-American leadership groups, which seems like an organized and effective way to reform nonprofit work. Denise’s presentation brought a clearer understanding of how discrimination is alive and well in this facet of the modern world, and explained the ways in which it is combated. * What I found most interesting about Denise Hanh Huynh’s speech was that she was working locally and applying her anthropology degree heavily. Although I was aware that there is domestic anthropology, I found it fascinating that it was possible for a dedicated research group to form around the pursuit... Further it seemed like the work they were doing was particularly helpful to the groups they worked with, and not purely research oriented. Now I may be alone here, but I’d never conceived of an anthropological group working in this style, and it was absolutely a divergence from my image of anthropologists as exclusively sponsored by university... Without already being aware of whether or not I’d like to commit to an academic lifestyle, it gives me more comfort in the pursuit of anthropology, that should I decide the academic world is not for me there may be alternate options in which I could apply my knowledge. Overall its wonderfully surprising to see anthropology extended beyond academia and serving some heavy benefit to, at least, Wilder Research.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 01:09:42 +0000