This is an ode to 88rising and the Head in the Clouds Festival.
Younger me would have never imagined an entire music festival filled with Asian and Asian American artists as a true celebration of culture, identity, and music.
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Actively Listening
Actively listening to our students is the most important teaching strategy there is. We can decenter ourselves as teachers when we focus on what our students have to say and share every day, in and outside of the music classroom.
Black and Asian Solidarity
BLACK AND ASIAN SOLIDARITY
IS A WARM, GLOWING EMBRACE,
A COMMUNAL SPACE, A RESTING PLACE, WHERE OUR COLLECTIVE STRENGTH IS IN UPPER CASE ALONG A YIN-YANG PENCIL TRACE, FILLED WITH HARMONY AND GRACE.
Unlearning emotional suppression
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZOCsU8sUPV/ As an Asian American, I learned at a young age to suppress my emotions. Whatever I felt did not matter in the bigger context of what my family was doing in order for us to survive in America. I internalized that crying was always weak, and outwardly showing any negative feelings should not happen.ContinueContinue reading “Unlearning emotional suppression”
As you rest in Golden Power, Michelle Alyssa Go.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CY5HjjlMjpq/ 我们是金的。我们是金的。 We are golden.We shine bright with our golden light. Our community shines bright with your light. You shine bright, Michelle Alyssa Go, as you rest in Golden Power. For my entire life I have taken the subway,Turning my head this way, then that wayWho will help if I call out hey, Who will help if someoneContinueContinue reading “As you rest in Golden Power, Michelle Alyssa Go.”
Affirmations for Teachers
I am an amplifier. I amplify my students in our world, not by “saving my students” nor by “being a voice for the voiceless”, but rather by holding microphones and megaphones to what my students share with me and each other.
Affirm And Amplify Individual Identities Within Our Collective Humanity
The notion of “a single truth” or “the universal truth” is white supremacy at work attempting to silence people of the global majority from sharing their identities, perspectives, and lived experiences for multiple truths to exist.
We each hold multiple truths.
Our lived experiences are truths.
Our identities are truths.
Our cultures are truths.
Reframing the common question “Where are you from?”
Decolonize the idea that the question “Where are you from?” must be answered with a geographical location.
We are from what we say we are from, who we say we are from, where we say we are from, and anything we say we are from that is authentic to who we are.
We each have a multiplicity of identities, and we define for our individual selves if and how we want to respond to this question when we inevitably continue to be asked this throughout our lives.
Our Collective Humanity
Language matters. What we say matters.
For too long, we have relied on the societal equalizer of being part of “one human race” to evade conversations of race, racism, and systemic inequities.
To say that we are part of “one human race” simply does not suffice. The phrase “one human race” causes erasure of identities, dismissal of injustices, and gross generalizations of cultures and peoples.
We can no longer seek to only “equalize” ourselves in systems that perpetuate injustice.
Our language can be an act of resistance.
We belong together.
For my grandfathers and my grandmother, who I’ve never met
I am your wildest dream each day from sunrise to sunset
Today is 清明节 (Qing Ming Jie), a day that means literally clear and bright
In many Asian cultures, it’s a day of rituals for our ancestors’ spirit and might
And for them, our ancestors, our presence, our future, for all to hear
it’s not just we belong here
It’s we belong – together.
ALICE TSUI 徐晓兰 