What Is Social Justice Research for Asian Americans? Critical Reflections on Cross-Racial and Cross-Ethnic Coalition Building in Community-Based Educational Spaces

Abstract

As anti-Black ideologies continue to prevail in Asian American communities, this autoethnography explores how two Southeast Asian American (SEAA) scholar-activists and community organizers contended with anti-Blackness, racism, and social justice research in their cross-racial and cross-ethnic solidarity community-organizing and educational curriculum. Utilizing an autoethnographic approach, the authors, both educational anthropologists, engage in critical analysis of their personal experiences as scholar-activists to examine the cultural experiences of being ethnic insiders and researchers. Pheng, a second-generation queer Khmer American scholar, examines the tensions in building cross-racial and cross-ethnic solidarity in Refugee Youth Organizing Training (RYOT), a multi-ethnic community-based SEAA youth leadership program in Philadelphia, PA. She argues that transformative dialogue in support of coalition building requires SEAA youth to first grapple with their historic and contemporary trauma as the descendants of SEAA refugees in the United States. Xiong, a first-generation HMoob American, details the successes and challenges of building cross-racial solidarity as a community-engaged researcher and activist within Solidarity Holds Our Unity Together (SHOUT), a Black and SEAA nonprofit organization in Dane County, WI. She points out that cross-racial and ethnic coalition building requires maintaining long-term relationships between all communities. Pheng and Xiong situate their experiences working with each organization within the context of the Minnesota Uprising and the COVID-19 global pandemic. Noting that both critical and polarizing conversations emerged within Asian American communities post-George Floyd’s death, the authors argue that their position as scholar-activists played a central role in facilitating educational workshops and dialogues to bridge SEAA organizations and the academic community. Specifically, this paper reveals how researchers can produce anti-racist scholarship alongside their community and cultivate reciprocal relationships that benefit minoritized communities. This autoethnography offers insights on the practices of socially-just and community-engaged scholarship in addressing anti-racism and coalition building in community-based educational spaces.