MSW field placement at A/PI DVRP


Performance, Fantasy, or Narrative: LGBTQ+ Asian American Identity through Kpop Media and Fandom
Linda Kuo, Simone Perez-Garcia , Lindsey Burke , Vic Yamasaki & Thomas Le (2020): Performance, Fantasy, or Narrative: LGBTQ+ Asian American Identity through Kpop Media and Fandom, Journal of Homosexuality, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2020.1815428

Abstract: LGBTQ+ Asian Americans experience intersecting forms of oppression, and due to the limited research on this underserved population, it is important to understand their lived experiences and the factors that enhance and endanger their health. The absence of positive representations of LGBTQ+ Asian Americans in the media upholds stereotypes and feelings of invisibility that have harmful effects. Studying LGBTQ+ Asian Americans using Kpop media offers a new and timely way to understand these identities and outcomes of well-being. This study qualitatively explored how 16 college-aged LGBTQ+ Asian Americans identify with Kpop and reconstruct representations to protect themselves from negative influences surrounding their identities. Using grounded theory methodology, this study found that Kpop functions as a source of representation and social connection that supports LGBTQ+ Asian Americans. Findings also illustrate how LGBTQ+ Asian Americans engage in Kpop fan labor to create narratives that can mitigate the harmful effects of marginalization.

I secured funding, mentorship, and led a team through the recruitment, data collection, and analysis process. This study was driven by a personal investment in exploring the power of narrative and agency in my close communities, and a fascination with examining a particularly compelling social phenomenon I see emerging in media and culture.

secondary revision of memory
One of the peer reviewers for my manuscript gave me this critique, one which I keep turning over and over in my mind, and one which I may not decipher the meaning of for a long time, if ever.
"the researchers might be working with data that are subject to an unacknowledged, or at least an under acknowledged, kind of secondary revision – the lining up of memories of the past in a way that make the present appear logical or as the result of individual choice, when it is likely more complex than this.”
This may be the reason why questions that prompt reflection about the journey and where it goes are so difficult; because it relies, to some degree, on chronological sense and cause-and-effect relationships. I don’t think I can adequately capture any set of events in the past, which happened at the same time as a certain set of thoughts and feelings, in a way that forms a narrative. The more I think about the secondary revision of memory, the more I feel unequipped to come up with any sort of past, present, or future.

(Dis)Orientation Guide
A disorientation guide is a publication created, published, and printed by college activist communities across the country. This publication aims to provide a critical perspective to how the university operates and offer resources and candid reflections to help students engage in issues of identity, justice, solidarity, and organizing. The guide’s name is a play on our goal to provide students with a wider array of knowledge than a university-directed orientation could. The first UMD Disorientation Guide was published in 1970 as the UMD Radical Guide. This publication leverages our collective knowledge to help new students navigate the University of Maryland.

This is my editing/publishing project. I led a team to solicit submissions, organize contributors, provide editorial support, create formatting design, and implement marketing/distribution of the 2020 UMD Disorientation Guide. We published on August 23, 2020.

The UMD Disorientation Guide