Process Log 10/5–10/12

It’s been a big week! There are many different parts of this project in motion — collaborations, design, website, and I'm getting a camera soon!

Design update!

Issue #1

Issue #2

Collaborators update!

I wrote a pitch, which is all linked here.

I’m working on my agenda for each of these meetings, which is here.

And I find myself wanting to develop a sort of disclaimer. I want to address:

• Diaspora, and the problems with lumping all Asians into the “Asian American” category.
• Why I have chosen to cast a wide net: though the US has treated Asians as one group through things like media portrayals and data collection, it’s important to me to add to a multiracial ethnic identity and storytelling related to mental health by featuring individuals telling their own story. I don’t want to exclude people by making this only for East Asians, or only for 2nd generation immigrants.
• Though I will share data that lumps us all into the same category, I want to hear individuals talk about their unique relationship to the Asian diaspora and to mental health so we can get more of an authentic idea of what our experiences are really like.
• I am not an expert on this topic. I have the lived experience of being a 2nd generation asian american femme and struggling with mental health. I happened upon an article about the rates of suicide in as am women, that led me down a rabbit hole, which led me to find information that was obscure to access and not common to hear about from media, friends, or family. I related so much to this data, and thought of others I had noticed were working in this area. Like a wave growing on the horizon. This is important to me, and it has been important to others I’ve gotten to talk to about it. So as long as I’m finding other people who find this important enough to spend their time on, I feel good about it.
• What I offer here is only the entry point to a long process. This is not the end all be all of mental health work.

Meetings Update!

• I had a handful of meetings last week with collaborators Michi, June, Yumi, and Amina. I also had a great meeting with Dan. I want to think about — what is considered when I talk about mental health? How do we frame “Asian American” as an identity, what historical legacy am I including? What does the writer and poet in me care about and get excited about?

Thesis Writing Structure

Q: What’s your project & why are you interested in it?
__________. [INTRODUCTION]

Q: What problem or context is your work responding to?
How does your work relate to existing work other people have been working on?
________ is the issue and context I’m responding to. and I’m learning and inspired by _______ [BACKGROUND]

Q: So, what are you making actually?
_________. [PROJECT]

Q: How did you make it?
__________ [METHODS]

Q: Does it work? How did you change and tweak it until it worked?
_________________ [TESTING/RESULTS]

Q: What does your project mean for other people?
This is important because ___________ [CONCLUSION]