Unfurling Asian American Leadership

Purpose: This paper addresses the liminality of Asian American leadership by pulling together the experiences of 18 justice-oriented Asian American leaders who offer leadership guideposts attending to the cultural wealth of justice-oriented Asian American leadership. Similar to a 보자기 (pojagi), the experiences of the Asian American leaders referenced in this paper are pulled together like fabric scraps, reconstructed and restored to present a framework connecting past and present justice oriented Asian American leadership. Method: Using Asian Critical Theory (AsianCrit) and past justice-oriented Asian American leadership legacies, this study engaged 18 justice-oriented Asian American leaders virtually, over two-plus years in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, to gather data on their lived experiences as leaders in educational and nonprofit settings. The findings of this study surfaced themes that reconstructed significant elements of justice-oriented Asian American leadership arising out of participants’ conversations and reflections. The emergent themes of collective critical consciousness, humanistic and creative activism and research, pursuit of justice, and collective struggle are the fabric scraps that inform the Asian American Leadership 보자기, a version of Asian American leadership reconstructed and restored. Implications: There are three implications to consider as a result of this study. First, the Asian American Leadership 보자기 reinforces the need to uncover the experience of Asian American racialization as a way to add outsider knowledges. Second, the 보자기 emphasizes the concept of theorizing through a collectivist frame, where justice-oriented Asian American leadership is conceived through lifting up the experiences of others. Third, in the practice space, the 보자기 offers specific practices which reinforce leadership is about creating change with and through others. The Asian American Leadership 보자기 can be used in the work of justice-oriented leadership to create spaces in schools, organizations, and communities to heal and sustain communities foregrounded in love.