More Than a Monolith CAAPLE

Today my guest is Estella Owoimaha-Church, Executive Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities–also known as EPIC. Estella, a former educator of nearly two decades, is a strong voice and advocate for marginalized communities having spoken all over the world about pressing education matters. This was a heavy conversation for me because I could feel the depth of critical urgency Estella leads with every day. In our conversation, we talk about the lack of representati...

Welcome back to another episode of More Than a Monolith. I am really thrilled to introduce you to our guest today, Maria Medrano. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Maria for about 15 years when her daughter enrolled in the school I had the honor of leading. Maria, her husband Mauricio and I quickly connected through our passionate belief in the access and opportunity for underrepresented youth. Since meeting her, I’ve continued to be inspired by Maria’s leadership in to...

Welcome back to a new episode of More Than a Monolith. Today, I have the honor of being joined by Lee Herrick. Lee Herrick is the California Poet Laureate and the first Asian American to hold the title. He is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This Many Miles from Desire. In addition, his writings appear in a number of anthologies. He served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. Born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted to the ...

Today I am thrilled to welcome our guest, Misty Her. Misty is the Deputy Superintendent of Fresno Unified School District and the highest ranking Hmong K-12 professional in the nation. Yes, in the nation. Her story is exceptional beginning with her years when she immigrated to Fresno as a young girl. After college, she returned to Fresno unified as a bilingual aide and worked her way up to now Deputy Superintendent. Please take a moment now or after you listen to...

For today’s episode, I am joined by Dr, Karen Umemoto who is a a professor in the departments of Urban Planning and Asian American Studies at UCLA and is the inaugural Helen and Morgan Chu Endowed Director’s Chair of the Asian American Studies Center. You can read more about her extensive background in our show notes. One of her many accomplishments is co-authoring the book, Jacked Up and Unjust: Pacific Islander Teens Confront Violent Legacies where she explores the harsh realiti...

We are back with another episode and I am so excited about today’s guests. Yes, guests, plural. On this episode, I am joined by five exceptional youth voices behind AAPI Youth Rising. I’ve been a follower of their work for a while now and was thrilled when they accepted the invitation to be on the show. Today we’re chatting about the genesis of their organization, youth mental health, their one day of AAPI history campaign and so much more. Please make sure to sh...