Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Celebrate AAPI Heritage With Eight Antiochian Stories

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and it serves as a time to celebrate and reflect on the culture, history, achievements, and continued work of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. Here at Antioch University, we take this time both to recognize the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and to remember past injustices that our Federal, state, and local governments have perpetrated against these communities. Antioch is opposed to discrimination of any kind, and we try to live up to the example set in 1942 when Antioch alumni set up special scholarships for Japanese-American students who had been forced to withdraw from West Coast universities due to the U.S. policy of forcible internment and relocation. The welcoming of Japanese-American students in this period, when many of their families were incarcerated in concentration camps, is a proud moment for our institution. Today, there continue to be hate crimes and discrimination against folks with AAPI identities, and we stand strongly against this. 

There is so much to celebrate in AAPI Heritage Month. Here at Antioch, our community is rich with scholars, artists, activists, and citizens from the many different ethnicities and heritages that fall under the umbrella of the terms Asian American and Pacific Islander. We have collected eight stories here in the hope that you will take some time to read and learn more about these remarkable Antiochians.


Advocating to Center Equity and Cultural Awareness in Social Emotional Learning

Caryn Park

When Caryn Park was a small child, her parents moved the family from South Korea, where she was born, to the U.S. so that they could pursue their education. While her parents were international students, Park found herself enrolled in a public school classroom in a small midwestern town. She had to learn the language, and she also had to learn, she explains today, “this whole different way of being, of relating to other people.” She learned English so well that she forgot how to speak Korean. In many ways, she was living up to our society’s expectation that immigrants must abandon customs, traditions, and language to become American. But that wasn’t her parents’ plan, and after six years, they moved the family back to South Korea. She re-learned the language of her birth…


Leveraging Her Identity and Experience, Marina Masaki Brings Mental Health Awareness to Asian-American Communities

Marina Masaki

When she was a kid, Marina Masaki’s family didn’t talk openly about sex. This wasn’t unusual for a young person growing up in the U.S., and in particular in Japanese-American families like the one she grew up in. Many parents are uncomfortable discussing sexuality with their children. But today Masaki sees how this can put kids at risk later on. She wants to change that, because at some point in their lives almost everyone will need to communicate about intimacy…


Podcast Episode: Reconciling Psych’s Problematic Foundations With Its Transformative Potential 

S5E03- Dr. Jude Bergkamp

PsyD Chair Jude Bergkamp is a true believer in the potential of psychology to transform lives and help heal society—but he doesn’t believe that this can happen without reconciling the field’s problematic foundations with a knowledge of how systems of power impact practitioners and clients. In this interview on Antioch’s Seed Field Podcast, Jude explores what social justice means, what it means to become a therapist, how identity shapes practice, how systems shape identity,  and the challenges that students face as they enter a flawed but important system.


Don’t forget the “PI” in AAPI

Antioch Voices, Sierra Nicole

“Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is an opportunity to remember the history, pain, and joy experienced by both communities. However, on the other hand, quite often, it feels as though the “Pacific Islander” part of the acronym is a forgotten add-on. As a hapa-haole person with deep connections to my Indigenous Hawai’ian ancestors and culture, I see the ways that ‘Pacific Islanders’ are underrepresented and erased. Ultimately, I think it would be best if we got rid of the acronym AAPI and separated these regional groupings. ‘Pacific Islander’ issues and needs differ from those of Asian Americans…”


Research Spotlight: Shirley Lo Wins Prize at APA Convention

Jude Shirley Dr Lynette Bikos

For Shirley Lo, traveling to her first in-person APA Annual Convention proved to be exciting. That’s because Lo, a third-year student in the PsyD in Clinical Psychology, won an award for her poster about colonization and decolonization in Hong Kong—a deeply personal and sometimes difficult topic for Lo, who was born and raised in Hong Kong during the period when this city-state in the South China Sea was much more autonomous from mainland China than it is today. In a recent email interview, Lo reflected on her experience at APA ‘23 and her plans for the future….


Huijun “Nikki” Li Receives Leader of Tomorrow Award from the American Dance Therapy Association 

Huijun “Nikki” Li Receives Leader of Tomorrow Award from the American Dance Therapy Association

Dance and Movement Therapy alum Huijun “Nikki” Li was honored with the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) Leader of Tomorrow Award. It is given to a dance/movement therapist and Professional Member of the ADTA who demonstrates leadership within the first five years after becoming a Professional member of the ADTA. Criteria for the award are based on significant achievements, such as serving in Chapter leadership roles, creating a program for providing dance/movement therapy services, advocacy in regulatory or legislative affairs, completing or publishing a research project, public relations/marketing achievements, winning a grant, or other successes.


Kyoko Robertson Appointed Graduate Student Representative for the Association of Counseling, Sexology, and Sexual Wellness 

Clinical Mental Health Counseling in New England student Kyoko Robertson has been appointed as the graduate student representative for the Association of Counseling, Sexology, and Sexual Wellness (ACSSW). ACSSW’s core mission is recognizing the significance of acknowledging sexuality as a universal human experience and striving to establish a unified perspective within the counseling field. Robertson is also a proud and honored member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc…


Tomoyo Kawano Uses Power of Dance to Deconstruct White Supremacy

Tomoyo Kawano

When thinking about her passion for Dance/Movement Therapy, Kawano says, “The words that come to me are unconditional acceptance and loving connection.” Part of what she and Stewart are trying to do through the arts is to help students, and subsequently their clients, with learning a new way to engage in dialogue—to feel into that embodied knowledge….