First Gen Coalitions: Making Connections between Black and Asian Student Experience feat. Jim Lee

In this episode, LT reconnects with longtime friend and colleague Professor Jim Lee (Asian American Studies, UC Irvine), who played a pivotal role in her transition from undergrad to graduate school. Together they reflect on their shared journey through UCLA in the 1990s—navigating the promises and limits of multiculturalism, coalition-building between Black and Asian students, and the hidden curriculum of academia.

From memories of the Rodney King era and Prop 209 debates, to pop culture touchstones like Dawson’s Creek, The X-Files, and Buffy, LT and Jim weave together stories of scholarship, friendship, and first-gen identity. They also explore how chosen family, imposter syndrome, and parenthood continue to shape their lives and teaching today.

This conversation is as much about solidarity and survival as it is about joy, fandom, and building lasting first-gen coalitions.

For more info:

https://www.smartgirlbook.com/

https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=5634

https://tupress.temple.edu/books/pedagogies-of-woundedness

https://www.humanities.uci.edu/news/james-kyung-jin-lee-honored-prestigious-book-award

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Focus On Grad School
• 0:33 Introducing Professor Jim Lee
• 3:20 Building A Diverse UCLA Cohort
• 6:40 Early 90s LA And Study Stakes
• 10:25 Cross-Racial Learning In Practice
• 14:45 Limits Of 90s Multiculturalism
• 20:10 Institutional Memory And Advocacy
• 24:04 Cohort Culture And Pop TV Rituals
• 28:56 First-Gen Definitions And Inclusion
• 33:19 Choosing Programs With “Nice People”
• 36:10 Imposter Syndrome And Gatekeeping
• 41:10 Teaching Against Mastery Performance
• 46:05 Care-Centered Classroom Practices
• 50:05 Parenting, Identity, And Allyship

Transcript

Sam: 0:04

Hey everyone, we're back this week. Uh continuing from uh our episode on first gen undergrad experience and particularly we were focused on undergrad um the first gen with black experience in undergrad um and the cohort and communities that provide support recognition, which we've covered throughout and is all over Smart Girl. We're really focusing on the graduate school experience today, first gen graduate school. Um and we're thinking specifically about meaningful conversations uh in uh smart girls graduate school chapters um between black and Asian graduate students and how those connections have uh continued in LT's professional journey, but also in a lot of her cohorts. Uh and we have uh uh a legend with us today from the UCLA grad program uh that that we are all alumnus of. Um and that is Jim Lee, uh Professor Jim Lee, and uh hi uh and LT is going to do the honors of introducing Jim to all of us.

LT: 1:25

Okay, Sam, welcome to the Dawson's Creek episode. Here we go.

Sam: 1:32

I would have worn my Pace Joey Shipper outfit, but I didn't know. Okay.

LT: 1:37

It's just in my heart every day, so I don't need to wear anything. Um, yes, this is gonna be an amazing episode. Um, and I was saying earlier when I set out to write this book and I was thinking about my first gen story and then on to graduate school, it didn't really it wasn't until I started writing that it really occurred to me some really central figures um who became important who become important almost like secondary characters. And one of them is my buddy Jim Lee. And I'm so excited to have him here today um to talk about our connections, both like prof like I don't know if professional is the right word, but just like with academics, but also outside of the classroom, which has actually been way more impactful. All right, let me shut up and just bring Jim into this conversation. Jim, say hello, please.

Jim Lee: 2:28

Hi everyone. Uh I'm Jim Lee. I teach in the Department of Asian American Studies at UC Irvine. Uh, I also work in disability studies and medical humanities, and it's just a delight to be in this space with Sam and LT. Um I was rereading uh LT's book yesterday and kind of texting our mutual friends about you know kind of the little snippets here and there.

LT: 2:54

Thank you for being here, Jim. Uncle Jim, actually. Uncle Jim, and maybe we'll maybe we'll get to that as well.

Sam: 3:01

I hope so that we'll be able to talk about all of that. Um all right, so I'm gonna um kick us off with some questions. Uh you all take it where you would like to go. Um and my my first question to y'all is really about connection in graduate school. Um, if you could talk a little bit about how did it start, how did it change over the course of graduate school, and how has it maybe changed as you both evolved in your careers as professors and administrators? And of course, we know LTs, our listeners probably know LT's trajectory into graduate school as well, pre-meeting, Jim. Um, so Jim, if you'd like to share any of that for yourself as well, you're welcome to.

LT: 3:48

I can kick us off, Jim, if if you like. I'll just set the stage a little bit. One thing that stands out to me, Jim, I don't know if you remember this, but when Jim and I were in the same cohort of the doctoral program in the UCLA English department, and one of the things that was told to us repeatedly is that we had a very big class and we had a very diverse cohort. And I think we owe a lot of that to Valerie Smith, who's now president of Smith College, and she was the director of graduate studies at the time. So, I mean, this was my, you know, my first experience in graduate schools, not Jim's first experience in graduate school. I'm sure he'll talk about that. But this is just all I know is just seeing folks from all over the country, from just different backgrounds and whatnot. I I don't, Jim, I don't remember exactly when we first met. I'm sure it was probably some orientation or something like that. I just remember hitting it off with you almost immediately. And we had a few classes together, not many, because you were are you had already come in with a master's degree. And I just remember us hanging out at a couple of department department parties that you hated going to. But what do you remember?

Jim Lee: 5:03

Well, I definitely remember hating departmental parties, and I still do. Um I remember even though I had I had had two years of grad school under my belt, I remember being very nervous on the day of orientation um and kind of feeling like I was just kind of kind of embarrassed myself. I mean, I think that both you and I kind of even throughout grad school, um, you know, I think we you and I shared that sense of imposter syndrome that we kind of that kind of always was lurking there. Um but let me back up. Let me sort of talk a little bit um about uh my trajectory into grad school. I had um graduated, I think the same year as you from undergrad and then took a year off.

LT: 5:44

88. I was 88.

Jim Lee: 5:47

You graduated in 1988?

LT: 5:48

Oh, from undergrad, sorry, sorry. Yeah, 92. I got not graduated in 94. I don't know when you okay.

Jim Lee: 5:55

I graduated in 92. Um, so two years earlier, um, took a year off, and then uh got one into UCLA's um uh master's program in Asian American Studies. Um I grew up on the East Coast like LT did, and um folks who grew up in the East Coast who want to do Asian American Studies know that there it is an Asian American Studies wasteland and has been for decades. And I can talk about my theories as to why, um, but really wanted to uh get into Asian American Studies. I discovered it late in college, and the only programs that had you know professional graduate degrees was were in California, and that's why I approved myself as uh you know a lifetimer East Coast kid uh transplanting in California and learned a lot. Uh I I arrived in the fall of 1993, and so the LA uprisings had just taken place about 14, 15 months prior, and you could almost smell the smoke still. It was very much on people's minds. It was really kind of it really shaped um as Asian American studies student what we were what we were being charged to kind of really think about. Like how do we kind of move forward uh as a community, right? Uh a community kind of both in coalition and in crisis at the same time. And I think that that that shaped our cohort LT, right? Um so that you, you know, there was an intentionality in bringing a diverse cohort together. And I think more importantly than that, of kind of bringing kind of different folks together, we felt a sense of responsibility to really kind of read each other's stories. And so, like the fact that both you and I took Sonia's class in Chicano Lit, it was one of the first times Chicano Lit was being offered at UCLA. Like we both didn't know this archive, but we felt this responsibility to learn it. Um, and then likewise, you know, I ended up taking the affirmative action babies class with you a year or two later. Um, and I think it was really helpful for us to kind of really think through kind of um black life, brown life, and all of its complications. And that just at least for me, just deeply informed kind of my scholarship, but also just kind of the way I wanted to live in the world. So um, so that was kind of my experience of kind of you know meeting you and just yeah, I I think what I appreciated about you, LT, was just how open and curious you were. And that's just been a harm hallmark of how I've known you. You've just been like relentlessly curious, and it's something that I've deeply admired about you.

LT: 8:36

Well, thank you, friend. Um man, you brought up some things I had I had not remembered, and maybe even suppressed a little bit. Um Sam, I know you also asked about the evolution of um Jim and LT. Um, one of the things that deepened our relationship was after I had my son, with both kids actually, but Jabari was born um my second year in grad school or something like that. Um and one of the things that's important about that is I I talk about man, like this my journey leaving the East Coast, coming to California, and basically leaving my biological family behind, and then having to create chosen family. Um, and Jim was a big part of that and was known very uh just very well known as Uncle Jim to both of my kids, actually. And um I'll just share this story quick. I don't know I'll just share it because I I think it's really important that there was a time when Jabari was in school and was asked to bring, it was such a stupid ass assignment to bring a dish from his home country. And we're like, oh my God. I mean, we are not, we're you know, black Americans don't, we're not immigrants, we don't have an immigrant story. And he very innocently said, Well, I want to bring something from Korea to represent Uncle Jim, right? It was so sweet. Oh my gosh. And he meant that with his whole heart and his whole chest. Um, and it just opened, that's probably another book or story about like my children's trajectory through school. But it was also I also I just share that story to share what what you and Julie meant to us, especially my kids when they were young.

Jim Lee: 10:31

Oh, thank you. My favorite story, my favorite Jabari story is um one time, I don't know if it was you that called Jabari a nerd or some classmate called turn called him a nerd, and he blurted out, I'm not a nerd, I'm a mammal. I'm like, case closed. Case closed.

LT: 10:51

Yes, I love it. I I use that as a quote on my core syllabi for a long time.

Jim Lee: 10:57

Uh no, it was just, I mean, you were the first friend who had children and uh uh in and kind of in my kind of uh kind of friend group. And so it was really striking to sort of see you and Rob try to navigate kind of your respective professional journeys while you were literally changing this little child's diaper, and and not only changing his diaper, but trying to get him to poop, like just like you kind of wiggling his legs. I'll add that's kind of an indelible kind of kind of not traumatic memory, but just an indelible memory. Um was something that I that came to mind when Julie and I had kids, you know, what more than a decade later, right? Yeah, yeah. I do remember feeling a little jealous that that both both of your kids were grown and you were still like vibrant in your like you know in our 40s? And I'm just you know, we're gonna be decrepit when our kids are grown.

LT: 11:54

They come back.

Sam: 11:58

I'm so with this on every level, both having um experience. I when I I got to UCLA, it was right before you were having your um shower. I moved and you were having your you you were having Zoe, but it was you were having your birthday shower or your baby shower is what I remember. And I didn't know you then. Right. Like I I had met you in the hallway once, right? But Courtney was going, and I and um, you know, again, that experience of being uh in a cohort and having um sort of one person or one person every three or four cohorts have a kid, right? And and it really changes you if you're the first to have a kid. It was another way in which you were a pioneer. Um okay, sorry. Um so uh I wanted to uh then build on something that you talked about, I think, particularly when you were talking about um the diverse class, right? And how that was impressed upon you, uh, and also the significance of taking courses like uh Sony Saddlebar Halls to kind of lit class and feeling a responsibility to know different kinds of traditions. Um, and knowing you both as scholars and as humans, uh, you both came up in the academy during this era of multiculturalism. Um, and you've both critiqued its possibilities and its limits. Uh so you've you've outlined its possibilities, but also critiqued its limits in both of your scholarly work as well as other kind of organizing work uh institutionally. Um, how do you think the rhetoric of multiculturalism affected your outlook on Black and Asian connections? Um, and where where did or do you see the limits of those connections? And one of those places might be to go in to your theory of why Asian American studies, why you go to the West Coast for it, right? Even thinking about those geographies, because to me that's so significant. LAUCLA, right, becomes so significant to what the responsibility is to multicultural uh knowledge base, even if not to multiculturalism as we think about it.

Jim Lee: 14:28

Yeah. There are multiple entry points to that question. LT, did you want to start?

LT: 14:35

Just a little bit. Uh I'm happy to, because this will take us, this could take us in a lot of different directions. One of the things I want to say, so Jim, even though you and I were in the same cohort, by virtue of you having coming come in with a master's degree, you were further along than me. So I was always, and you know, I talk about this a little bit in the book, but I was like keeping an eye on you. Like you kind of you and Connie sort of gave me an idea of what to expect next. One of those was the GE cluster interracial dynamics. Um, and that GE cluster was so pivotal in my academic career and just the way I thought about so many different things. And um, we're gonna, I'm gonna shout out King Kok Chung, um, a couple a couple other faculty as well. But the structure of, I mean, the focus of that interracial dynamics course, at least when I was a TA, and I think with you as well, Jim, was on Asian American and African American, black and Asian relations. Was it like that when you were a TA? Or did it come after me?

Jim Lee: 15:39

I think by nature, the fact that two of the um uh faculty were Richard Yarbrough and King Kok Chung, agreed, both of whom were you know assistant professors at the same time in the English department, both of whom came up, kind of kind of really faced the kind of deeply, deeply structured, not just structural, but traditional white supremacy of that English department in particular, and English departments writ large. Right. Uh so I think both of them kind of struggled together. And then, of course, both of them were in Los Angeles when the uprisings were happening. So I think, again, it deeply shaped kind of the way that they taught, and so therefore, kind of the way that we kind of, you know, uh they that determined the way that we TA'd, um, certainly. Um and I think, yeah, I mean the fact that we were kind of we were, you know, having to really ask these kinds of deeply um important structural questions about the racial positionality of Asian Americans and black students in the university and beyond, uh, I think was on everyone's mind. I mean, this was the era when affirmative action was being attacked, bilingual education was being attacked, you know, had this kind of this kind of earlier iteration of anti-immigrant sentiment, all that stuff was kind of being kind of was kind of overdetermining our lives. And we had all those ballot initiatives all throughout the mid-90s, and you know, and you had the UCs banning affirmative action and the like. Um, so I think that that kind of very much shaped um that class in particular. Um, and it certainly shaped my kind of thinking throughout the that decade.

LT: 17:14

Absolutely. I was learning things I just never had never been exposed to whatsoever. And then along with that, um, seeing you and Mike Mirosh and you know, a couple other folks grappling with their dissertation topics. So I was I wasn't at that point yet. I was, you know, I was still taking classes, but you um and some other folks were already at the writing stage. And so I was just picking up on new language and vocabulary and things that um I just hadn't heard of before. And so, you know, I had that joke about like, what are these in in the book or like what are these terms? Like, are they made-up terms? Like post-post modernism. Yeah, but um, I don't know if you want to say a little bit more about I mean, because that's your early work, but what that was like for you.

Jim Lee: 18:01

I mean, I think that we were grappled, Mike and I, Mike Marchiga, who was a few years ahead of me, uh you know, uh third generation Japanese American, his dad was a gardener, kind of came out of that kind of experience. Uh no, he's yeah, he's just third generation. Um and he was kind of asking these critical questions about you know urban space in the 80s and 90s. Um, and of course, deeply informed by the work of Ruthie Gilmore and her kind of critique of uh the prison industrial complex. And so we were kind of thinking about these things together, but kind of intentionally thinking about them as Asian Americans. Uh, this was an era in which you had transnational Asian capital coming into the Southland in the form of Japanese capital, kind of redeveloping little Tokyo. You had transnational Chinese and Taiwanese capital coming to the San Gabriel Valley, um, and kind of all this kind of settlement and wealth that we would now call kind of Asian cellular colonialism today. Uh, we didn't really have that language, we were grappling with it, and so Mike and I would go to protests against the new Otani Hotel and their treatment of Latinx workers. You had undergrads coming out of UCLA, um kind of you know, kind of jumping into labor organizing. So you had Vietnamese immigrant alumni of UCLA speaking fluent Spanish to organize hotel workers and the likes. And so we were really kind of grappling with this kind of over-determined sense of how how what Asian Americans were supposed to be, you know, and it would be decades before I could really kind of think through Asian Americans and model minority discourse and really kind of dispense with the idea that my friend Aaron Ning has been sort of screaming at Asian American studies for decades, which is the model minority is not a myth. It is a form of subject formation that is aspirational for Asian Americans. We need to really grapple with that in a serious way. And I think that that was something that I very much needed to kind of think through that would end up becoming a chapter in my dissertation. Um, but it was something that we seriously had to work out, and I think that's part of part of the limit of multiculturalism was trying to find a kind of narrative for Asian Americans that would kind of be parallel to the narrative of black and brown students, and it just didn't fit, right? Uh we need to sort of really wrestle with the with model minority discourse in a serious way. Um, and it's really kind of in the last 10, 15 years in Asian American study scholarship where we've kind of really grappled with it in a serious way. And I think that was one of the, I mean, if we if there were one of many limitations of kind of multiculturalist rhetoric of the 90s is we didn't really know how to deal with that. What ended up being a kind of impasse between black and Asian students.

LT: 20:53

And so there I was just really just listening and overhearing a lot of these conversations. Like, like I said, with you, Mike, and others. And when I think about it now, though, those our interactions just seem so normalized. Like it's just like like I I hadn't thought about it till you said it earlier that yeah, here we were taking all of us taking Chicano lit, right? Or it or just learn or in the affirmative action babies class. It was just not to romanticize it, but I I do want to give credit that that's what was happening at that time. And it our cohort did feel different because then I saw what happened in later cohorts, sorry Sam, where it just wasn't like that anymore. So if to me, it it felt like a really special time to be in the department.

Jim Lee: 21:45

You know, one of the things that's great about being at a place like UCLA, I think to a certain extent, Berkeley, um, you know, is Asian American studies, African American Studies is all part of this ethnic studies rubric that's been around since the late 60s, right? You know, and and um you have the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, the Ralph Bunch Center, where you have folks who have that kind of long-term political and institutional memory. I mean, I think one of the reasons why Asian American Studies has continued to struggle for now four decades on the East Coast or any place, namely outside of California, particularly in the elite institution, private institutions of the Ivy League on the East Coast, is administrations bank on what I call activist obsolescence, right? This idea that students kind of may push for an ad Asian American studies or something else, but administrators wait for them to graduate. And if there's no institution that can kind of tell students, oh, we've been here before, right? This is like the matrix. Like, you know, every five to ten years, there's a new generation of students that think, oh, we we're pushing for Asian American Studies as if it's never happened before, where it's been happening for the last 30 years. Have a place like the UCLA Asian American Studies Center or Cal State Northridge, where you have a Yoda-like figure like Glen O Matsu, who remembers what it was like to be a graduate student in during the San Francisco State Strike and during the UC Berkeley strikes of 68 and 69, that's really, really powerful and important. And I think that that's really um one of the reasons why, you know, um, you know, so the the places where Asian American studies have thrived are places that are uh that have that institutional memory and have some sense of, even if it's performative, a public mission. So the places that outside of California, where Asian American Studies has more or less thrived, have been the public institutions, UIUC, University of Michigan, to a lesser extent, UT Austin. All of the IV leagues, as we have been seeing over the last half year, feel no public accountability. They are accountable to basically the head fund hedge fund managers that run upper admin.

Sam: 24:08

Speaking of not romanticizing things, um I thought that we would transition uh and then set of you you all have addressed so much around California, around the region around where you all have done your work, and there's more to say about that. But I wanted to go back to that those grad school days, and I want to think about some of the stuff you all um did together. Uh and so we we open with a definition to create uh really resurging interest even more given the movie that Katie Hans is shooting in New York right now uh with Josh Jackson. But tell me about what you all did together. Like grad school cohorts are so fascinating, right? What you know, we're talking about big things that gelled you together for it, right? As well, and they're not separate from this. Tell me about the sort of experience of being in a cohort together, what brought you all together, up to and including pop culture. Like my cohort was America's next people in the bachelorette, right? Like I was in a different era. Tell me about your people.

LT: 25:28

Jim, do you want to go first?

Jim Lee: 25:31

So uh so I will say that before the Dawson's Creek iteration, we had an earlier iteration of folks that kind of started with me. We were kind of longtime X-Files fans, and so back when X-Files was on Friday, that was our Friday night kind of hangout thing. And then, of course, X-Files moved to Sunday. Um, and so it was just a great opportunity for a bunch of us in H Burk and Studies to just kind of come together and just you know have potlucks and like. And then once LT and our that cohort came on board, that was when the WB was really kind of hitting it hard. And so Dawson's Creek, and then later Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, um, and then Angel. So that was kind of our pop culture thing. But the other thing that I will say that we did is we just kind of like I mean, I I can't I I must I might I must imagine that from the perspective of a senior faculty member in the Department of English, we all look like a bunch of lazy motherfuckers because we hung out in the North Campus Cafe outside of class. We just pretty much hung out there all day. Um, and just kind of, I mean, and but that was for me the intellectual formation because we would sort of weave in and out between what we were talking about in classes versus to what we were watching on TV, to what we were listening to on the radio and the like, and then and then kind of go into the personal, I mean, that kind of interweaving of the personal, political, the pop, um, was really kind of how we kind of shaped um uh our friendships, uh, but also shaped our commitments to each other. I mean, I think that's one of the things that I loved about our codehard is that we enacted, and again, not I don't think this was intentional, but I think we all wanted to build the community, right, um, with each other that we hope the world could be. Like we were going to try to marvel that ourselves. Oh my gosh, Jim.

LT: 27:33

Oh, don't make me cry. I hate you. I completely uh just yes, I co-sign on all of that, and I even sort of cue that up and preview it when I talk in the book about my campus visit to UCLA, and I'm like, oh, I'm there, and it's during a break, and I'm meeting people who are asking me about TV shows. And it was specifically Karen Keeley. I know I remember this like Karen Keeley and a couple other people. Um, but um, we did hang out, we hung out a lot in North Campus. We just hung, we just we did we had like a pumpkin carving party. Like we were just we just made up reasons to hang out and dress up. I remember one time we dressed up. Why did we dress up, Jim? We came to school, we came to class dressed up. I don't I don't yeah, I have pictures of us like all wearing button-down shirts like on purpose. Like, I don't know what the deal was.

Jim Lee: 28:28

Um maybe we're we maybe we were kind of channeling boys to men or something.

LT: 28:32

I may I wouldn't put it I wouldn't have cosplaying like traditional professors or something. No, we wouldn't have done that for sure. We wouldn't have done that. We would have been mimicking something else. But um, but absolutely, and just the way that we talked about TV or what have you, almost in the same way we talked about any other text, right? Just but but in a way um that was also fun. Um, of course, through Jim, I met one of my other best friends, uh Anna Alvis, um, another amazing scholar, thinker, pop culture aficionado, who also was a Dawson's Creek Buffy X-Miles fan. Um, and funny enough, I wasn't I wasn't into all the fandoms, but I never and was but still was invited to come and hang out. And I think that kind of just mirrored um what we were experiencing in class. Like even if that wasn't my thing, I was still welcome. And I just just it just obviously had an impact on me just in terms of like my teaching, my pedagogy, just the the content that I offered in my classes. Like I really, I think, really, really leaned into the pop culture stuff. Um, and you'll s and of course that's really evident in in my dissertation.

Sam: 29:55

Um it's evident in smart girls. Too, right? Like one of the things I would ask to about this is not just how it showed up in your work uh collectively, right? But also just um and certainly grad student cohorts in memoriam have found ways to connect, but you alluded to your your visit before your prospective student visit, right? Um and I know the comparison in the book is to pen, right? Um kind of I'm curious about how much you're being a part of a cohort that has a lot of first-gen identified grad students, right? Um made that the inclusive and also you know, high low. I of course don't believe in those distinctions, right? But but made that bridge much more fluid. So you weren't just sitting there talking about the content of the seminars, like you did that, but you were like that was part of the X-Files, that was part of Dawson's, etc.

LT: 31:06

Actually great, because you know, Jim, I don't know. I I said one of the reasons why I wrote the book is because I'm saying, wow, I didn't even know I was first gen. We definitely would not have been using language of first gen to college. Jim, I don't even know if you identify as first gen to college or not. How do you where what's your identity when it comes or your entry point when it comes to like being first gen to college?

Jim Lee: 31:30

I'm definitely not first gen. My dad actually was uh the only he was first gen, he was the only person in his family uh of his generation to go to college. But it kind of the context was very different. My dad was born in 1941, and so he was an eight-year-old kid when the Holocaust of the Korean War kind of broke out. Um so like his experience of going to college was deeply shaped by kind of the just the the shit show that was South Korea for for so long. Um I mean I I will I will say that you know, being the child of immigrants, even though my dad did go to college, they had no understanding of the US academic culture at all. And so I, you know, I was pretty much a latchkey kid when it came to kind of thinking through college and later and then later grad school. Uh certainly when I decided to major in English and then do ethnic studies, my parents thought I had kind of lost it completely. Um both of those things were just kind of unimaginable for them. So there that so there I would say that that's the relationship that I I would have to your experience as being first gen. Um but yeah, I I I I don't I Well, Jim, I feel like we would have had that kind of conversation.

LT: 32:53

We wouldn't have been saying first gen. We would have been talking about our parents and families and trajectory. I actually, when you started talking, I was like, oh yeah, we actually had that conversation. I remember you talking about your dad, right? And and I think so, Sam, I think the bridge we can build here is when I was in a position, you know, much later on to create programs for first generation college students. I was incredibly mindful of conversations like Jim and I um had. And so UCLA was is one of the first programs to use a definition, a very inclusive definition to say students whose parents have not completed a four-year degree in the United States. Specifically, exactly, because I knew what that would have meant for Asian American students. Um, maybe again, it wouldn't have been a direct tie to me and Jim, but just all the conversations that I was having. And then of course it was Tracy Bonavista who's um identifies as Filipino, who said to me, LT, you know your first gin, right? And I'm like, what? No idea. So all those things would have sort of like would have been in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, as I later on became an administrator.

Jim Lee: 34:10

Yeah. One thing that I tell students, and I actually mean it, and it's something that I learned from Mike Mershiga when I was trying to decide on grad schools. Um, Mike said, in all seriousness, uh, go to the grad program with the nice people.

LT: 34:25

Yeah.

Jim Lee: 34:26

Um, and I actually think that actually that's a really great value to have. Um, and I think one of the reasons why I remained at UCLA was because I knew that the community that I had kind of built in my two years in the MA program, these were folks who were very serious about what they wanted to do. They were serious about kind of the intellectual political kind of um stakes of their projects, but they were also very, very light in terms of themselves. And that was something that, again, it's possible that I could have experienced this at some of the other graduate programs, but what I experienced in those perspective orientations was a kind of uh this expectation that everyone had to take themselves seriously all the time. And I just didn't want that. I needed I needed a kind of lightness and a kind of fluidity and just a kind of a humor to life that you know I think if had I not gotten that at some of the other programs, I I I might not have continued.

LT: 35:30

Um Hey Jim, can we go back to something you said earlier before we move on? Um because it was a little bit shocking to hear you say, like, oh, I was experiencing imposter syndrome. Again, me looking up to you um almost like a big brother. I'd have been like, what? Like you were one of those, and to this day, like one of the smartest people I know. Um, can you talk a little bit more of like what what that imposter syndrome was like for you? I guess particularly at the beginning of of the the doctoral program. I I don't think I knew that, but may uh who knows? We're old now, we're looking back.

Jim Lee: 36:08

I mean, no, I I mean I think that that's it's I I think being, you know, maybe the one of two Asian Americans uh majoring in English at the time at Penn. Um and one of the things that I learned at Penn and then throughout grad school is one of the what that what students are trained and indeed rewarded to do is to perform mastery all the time. Right. And um I think if you grew up in certain kinds of households and communities, that's kind of cultivated at the dinner table, right? That kind of witty kind of banter where you're kind of you're supposed to demonstrate kind of a kind of effortlessness in kind of intellectual conversation. Um that didn't that did not come at all organically to me, so I had to kind of work at that. Um and you know, that can that can be a challenge. And so I think you always feel like you know, there's that one book that that you didn't read. It's you know, that that one you know student colleague that kind of quotes verbatim from either Shakespeare or some esoteric verse that you can't do.

LT: 37:22

Dear dah.

Jim Lee: 37:23

Yeah, I mean, you know, so there so you had kind of that. And so I think that that kind of that worms its way into you and it never quite leaves. And so even though when I was writing book two, like I would, you know, message my friend Aaron, be like, Oh, this is absolute garbage that I'm writing. And so I think you kind of all that kind of lingers with you always. And then I will say there were moments in my time in grad school where that was kind of then reinforced. So you had I had a uh a senior scholar whose class I had taken, who you know, who claimed that she really enjoyed my paper, but who later apparently when it came times to um when I applied to the the the you know PhD program in English, said to the admissions committee, he is not fit for graduate study. So um, you know, and Kingcock had to fight to get me in. Um so you so there are those moments as well, right? Where you're just I mean, it's kind of like your your um uh your experience at uh at Maryland with the with the honors guy. Um you get those things that try to sort of that that that become concrete examples of oh, you don't belong here, right? Uh so that I think that that kind of always uh that that that sense of imposterism is kind of again, it's structural. We're all kind of meant to feel that way. Um and it's one of the reasons why the first thing I say in my grad seminars is we will not perform mastery at any point in this class, right? You will ask questions that you feel like you're not supposed to ask, and we will answer them as honestly and robustly as we can.

Sam: 39:00

Thanks for sharing. I love this so much because this is like, you know, um uh was so true, obviously, of my cohort just a few years later, but then also uh so deeply still true about graduate school now and having to come in, um, having these same conversations with students in my office who are like, I haven't read what these kids have read, I haven't. And I have to say, well, yeah, you have, right? Like you just don't talk about it, right? Because you read it once for class, like you know it. Um also that like we're not there to talk about what we think we already know. Uh and it's a performance, and that you know, all you're doing in the grad classroom. And I wonder how you see this in the program right now, um, is is those like trying to break down that set of performances of mastery, right? That are that of already knowing uh and showing up for what you you already know, um, both because it's alienating to everyone, because you don't already know, right? Um, but also because it keeps you from knowing anything else, right? It keeps you from asking about what you don't know. That's what I always think about it as, is like, what are you not letting yourself even consider? Uh what I often say is when you show up and you're like uh, you know, pointing out this is racist, right? Which is tends to be the mode of my classes of folks coming in and being like, I already know. And I'm like, but are you patting yourself on the back because you figured that out, right? Or are we gonna ask different questions, not because it's not racist, it's racist, right? But like, how how is it working, etc.? Um, and I'm curious how you how you all see that now in terms that maybe are in the fields that at the time when you were studying in a traditional English department felt more insurgent and like folks didn't know, but now both of you teach in more transformational pedagogy spaces. Is it still happening? Is that still what you see? But around your own subdiscipline, right? Around Asian American studies, around educational transformation, right? Like, is is do you still see that in the classroom? That kind of performance of mastery.

LT: 41:33

I don't know if you want to start, Jim, or are you still thinking?

Jim Lee: 41:38

Uh I mean, I mean you you definitely do still see that. And so, you know, I mean, I'm I'm very quick to shut that shit down in my classes.

Sam: 41:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just curious because I'm in an English department, so of course we still do it, right? Yeah.

unknown: 41:50

Yeah.

Jim Lee: 41:51

And and so I'm trying to intentionally cultivate. I mean, you know, I I um convened this uh symposium last year at UCI called care as the first student learning objective. And I actually take that very seriously. Like I, you know, I tell my students, both undergrad and graduate students, your first responsibility is to care for yourself and each other, right? That is the foundation of learning. Um and so trying to kind of build in um a reward structure uh a structure that rewards that kind of collaboration and care, right? Uh, and kind of building kind of assignments that can that that do that. Um because I want to try to the best of my ability, even though I can't fully control it, right? Because things are not in our control. But the kind of feeling that we had as that cohort in 1995, like how do I cultivate that to the best of my ability as a teacher? And and so kind of just sort of having the students kind of look at each other and say, look, we want, you know, I want you all to look at each other in the face and say, We I want we we want each other to thrive. Like we don't want any of these folks to be let go, to be discarded, to be set aside or to be left behind, right? Um and you know, and I tell my students all the time, like, you want to find your people that will be there. And and and the way that you do that is you just kind of work at it all the time. Not just in the seminar, but just kind of outside of the seminar, just kind of check in with each other, text each other, you know, show up to each other's, you know, part ones or whatever, um, or whatever kind of other kind of milestone you have to kind of get through to survive in in graduate school. Um, so I think it's part of it is kind of seeing and acknowledging the fact the culture still remains and will probably be toxic for their for the remainder of our careers. So, how do you kind of cultivate that counterculture intentionally in your classroom in the in those spaces that you can control?

LT: 43:47

Yeah, I'll just say really quickly, same for me, Jim. I actually teach uh graduate students in a school of educational leadership at Santa Clara University. And I there's that moment I talk about in the book where like it's my first quarter or something like that, not knowing these theorists and writing them down like separately and saying, like, who the hell is this? Writing the name out phonetically. And more recently with my graduate student, I talked about that moment, what that was like for me. And I was like, hey, let's normalize this, let's understand that we all don't know everything and there's gonna be some unfamiliar terms. And so there was actually an assignment where they where I had the students like, what are three or four terms that you didn't know, right? And we actually created a shared Google Drive and a shared um glossary, I think it was, where everyone contributed. And I was like, you can all you can have the it it it doesn't matter if someone also put that word in there, but let's just normalize the fact that sometimes we're confused, we have unfamiliar terms or folks or theorists, and you know, make that an assignment. And students said they really, really appreciated that, like, oh, it's not just them, right? And that because that's the feeling that that we often have.

Jim Lee: 45:06

I am a huge fan of the shared Google Doc in classes, and all of my classes, um, my students write in real time so they see each other kind of nice. And then in my graduate seminars, um, if I'm assigning a book, I'll have I'll assign uh everyone has to read the introduction to a scholarly work, but then I'll assign individual chapters to different students. And so for students to fully understand a whole book, they need to read each other's summaries. That's kind of what I try to sort of cultivate. Again, it's kind of the collaborative, kind of shared knowledge as a way of kind of as a kind of intentional scholarly practice.

Sam: 45:44

I love it. And as a way not to be opaque, right? Like you're not trying to hoard the knowledge for yourself. You're trying to be like, we do this together and we know it only together, right? Uh, which I because again, I think so much of it you find out that even the performance, the folks who are performing, right, it's not always, right? But it's often because they feel like they don't know, right? And they're having their own crises of it. Again, not always, right? But some of the time. Um so just uh to kind of close us out, um, you're both parents, uh uh and and at different times, as Jim eloquently spoke about. Um can you tell us a little bit about what you've witnessed in your kids growing up in SoCal, growing up with, you know, professor and then beyond professor, uh university affiliated uh parents that you maybe didn't see in your own childhood or young adulthood? And it doesn't even have to be comparative as much as it's like what has surprised you about your kids, right? Um it goes to the, you know, LT telling the story about Uncle Jim and uh uh wanting to bring a traditional dish, right, um, uh, from Korea and identifying his family that way, right? Like, what's something that has sort of surprised you about having kids in relationship to all the stuff we've been talking about, around cross-racial um uh friendship, right? Around um cross-racial politics, um so just around being in Southern California, not being first gen, either US or student, etc. Um, I know I have I have a lot of myself for my kids.

LT: 47:42

I'll I'll I'll jump in and say I I this is what I do pat myself on the back for. Um Jabari and Zoe, my son and daughter, are not assholes, and they're in fact the opposite of that. Um they are very kind, they are very thoughtful, they are strong allies for folks, and I think that's a big part of how they grew up, what they saw. Um, I remember um just um Jabari being involved in the Nosotros club in high school, and it just wasn't a thing, right? Not in a performative way, it was just like an extension of um what he experienced at UCLA literally growing up on a college campus. Um, so that's I I think that's really, really cool. I think that's a big part of just who they are as people. Um, and that we see that like when even when it comes to like the first gen identity, clearly very not first gen, but Jabari's involvement in the first gen juice merchandise, right? That was all his idea from from the beginning, and then seeing Zoe's involvement as well. So I I love that for them and for the world.

Jim Lee: 49:04

Um, I think for me, I mean, parenting, so my kids are um significantly younger than LT's kids. Um, my older one's 20, the younger one's now 15. Um, and I'm not sure if LT can speak to, will want to speak to this, but both of them have gone through uh respectively mental health challenges over the last five or six years. Um, and so one of the things that I have learned from them is just um one, just even even as as intentionally we were trying to avoid the kind of pitfalls of monominority discourse being Asian American in Southern California, in particular a place like Irvine, it's just part of the air that we breathe. And that kind of toxicity will seep into any kid. And so just becoming hyper, hyper vigilant and aware of that and the extent to which that you know damaged uh uh our kids, but also damages you know most Asian American kids that I encounter in the classroom, of just kind of recognizing and sort of actually naming it outside, you know, naming it aloud in class has actually been very powerful for my students. Um but the other thing that I think I've learned from them is just um one, how deeply heteronorrative social life is and how toxic that can be for queer kids, both of my children I also identify as queer. And so just becoming very intentionally creating kind of safe space for just not just queer students, queer people, but just queerness at large, right? Just kind of cultivating that culture has become very, very important to me. Um and then just kind of just realizing um, you know, when my older one came out as gay, I said, Oh, you know, I have colleagues in the gender and sexuality studies department. Um, you know, they they they could really kind of help you. And my older one turned to me and it's like, Dad, I can teach you a thing or two as well. And I was like, Okay.

LT: 51:00

Ah, there we go.

Jim Lee: 51:02

All right, you're the expert. I'll shut up.

Sam: 51:08

I love it. They're they're humbling, that is what I will say. Um uh thank you both. And to super close us out. What's a song your kids have introduced you to that's made made its way into your faves, or like is it an earworm that you hate that is your earworm, right?

Jim Lee: 51:34

Um, my younger one has been in a K-pop phase for about three or four years, and uh she is um on the autism spectrum. And intuitively, her one of her favorite song is a songs is a BTS call song called Epiphany. Um and the chorus to that song is uh I'm the one that I love. Um, and it's become kind of an anthem for me as I kind of think about her journey. Um uh and how important it is, especially for her as a as an adolescent, to kind of really kind of claim that as her own. So um, so sorry, that's a little too earnest and a little cringe, but that I'll go get it.

Sam: 52:18

Whatever I love cringe because of that, as a time when they love a song about, you know, and they hate it when we talk about it, but about why it makes them feel something, right? And what it makes them feel. Uh, because there's some songs that are just bangers, right? But there's some songs that are bangers because they make you feel, right? A particular thing. So I I I encourage cringe, but LT.

LT: 52:45

Joey and I were just talking about this the other day. She has definitely influenced my musical taste over the years. She's introduced me to Halsey, to I think the 1975, to different K pop groups. Um, but most recently, she introduced me to this song by T-Pain. Speaking of a banger called Church. Oh my gosh, that song is amazing. Um, and I'll probably be sharing it a lot. And it is not, listen, y'all, it is not like gospel. It's not that kind of church. It's gonna take for work or church, yeah. It's not safe for work or church. But shout out to Zoe um for uh introducing me to a number just expanding my expanding my musical taste.

Sam: 53:39

I love it. I love it. I love this conversation. I love being heartfelt and cringe as we talk about music and Dawson's Creek and the LA uprisings. Right. And like, you know, I wish for some subtranscendent K-pop demon hunters soundtrack for everybody because I've got tweens and that's where I'm at all the time this summer. That's what I wish for for everyone. Um, this is a great conversation. Thank you both. Um can't wait. Can't wait to hear more. Until next time.

Jim Lee: 54:18

It's been a pleasure. Thanks, y'all.