Making Waves in Academia: Asian/Asian American Feminist Mentoring as Activism

Abstract

Multicultural Feminist Mentoring (MFM) models have provided an important foundation to address the further need for conceptualizing a mentoring model that is specific to Asian/Asian American (A/AA) experiences. In this collaborative autoethnography, six researchers in three mentor-mentee dyads explored what it means to pursue Asian/Asian American feminist mentoring (A/AAFM), through dyadic and group interactive dialogues and collaborative analysis. A/AAFM can be conceptualized as anti-racist praxis, where each mentor attempted to consider mentoring as activism within academia, being grounded in values stemming from A/AA experiences and feminism. Results yielded a model of A/AAFM which emphasizes a convergence of multifaceted racial and cultural identities, feminist values, and activism. Three specific processes emerged: being holistic, relational, and mutual; a focus on community and intergenerational generosity; and intentional flattening of the power hierarchy. Implications for training and activism are discussed.

Keywords:

• Activism
• Asian
• Asian American
• feminism
• mentoring

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this paper we utilize the terminology Asian/Asian American (A/AA), with the recognition that there are numerous terms to refer to people of Asian descent in the US. We chose this terminology given the composition of our research group (i.e., individuals who identify as Asian and/or Asian American) who generated the mentoring model, and in order to include experiences of Asian international students. In addition, we did not use the term Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) in order to honor the unique experiences of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations, whose experiences we do not capture in this study.

2 In this paper, we utilize the terminology mentee to refer to individuals who may be more junior in experience and training in a mentoring relationship. When describing other scholars’ contributions, we have reported the terminology used by the scholars that may be different from mentees (e.g., protégés).