Patrick Armstrong
Hey, everyone! Welcome to Conversation Piece with Patrick Armstrong. I am the titular Patrick and this is the show where my guests and I discuss what piece of the conversation we aren't talking about, but should be. Special shout out to all of my returning listeners and a high five and hello to everyone joining us for the very first time. Thank you very much.
The month of May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, or APAHM, and is meant to celebrate and reflect on the history and peoples that make up our beautiful diaspora. As part of that reflection, this month I'll be sharing nine conversations with my friends and folks I greatly admire in the community as we discuss those missing pieces of the Asian American conversation: what we know, what we might not know, and what we can do about it. These are the APAHM conversations.
My guest today is a Filipino American anti-bias, anti-racist educator, ethnic studies researcher, motivational speaker and cross-racial coalition builder. He is currently a PhD student in the Education Leadership and Policy Analysis Program at UW Madison, focusing on ethnic studies policies and how they translate into practices. I am honored to welcome Toni DelaRosa to the show – Hey Tony!
Tony DelaRosa
Hey, What's good? I'm happy to be here.
Patrick Armstrong
Man, it feels like I've known you forever, even though we've only met in person like one time. But before we hop into the conversation, I introduced you a little bit, but do you mind telling any listeners who may not know you a little bit more about yourself?
Tony DelaRosa
Yeah. I'm a father to an almost two year old, Sebastian Rizal DelaRosa. He’s half Filipino and half Cuban – or let me go backwards – 100% Filipino, 100% Cuban. [laughs] See? This is what happens when I introduce myself first with family [laughs], and then husband to my wonderful best friend and partner, Stephanie Jimenez – we met while teaching – and then son to my father, who is Pampangan and my mother is from Cavite of the Philippines. I try to go back to the regions as much as I can.
And last I would say my big project right now is being the author of Teaching the Invisible Race: Embodying a Pro-Asian American Lens in Schools. That's essentially it, like, where can we bring Asian American ways of being, practices, mindsets, policies, programs in the school wherever school is defined.
Patrick Armstrong
I love that. And I want to say this is the first time I've ever interviewed someone where they've introduced themselves with their family. And I absolutely love that. I think that's incredible and I think I will. I would love to hear more of that. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for modeling that.
Tony DelaRosa
Yes!
Patrick Armstrong
So let's just dive right into it: the series is called The APAHM Conversations. We're talking about that conversation around Asian America. For you, what parts or pieces of that conversation about our community do you think we should be talking about more right now but aren't?
Tony DelaRosa
Oh, then dang like back to what you just said. I feel like I just started hearing from – there's a lot of things – but just a little moment about family. Like I want to hear about people's families coming into how they're shaped and how they're socialized and who they are, right, coming into the conversations. I know you, from you. I don't know your adoptee experience.I don't know how that has shaped you other than what I've read or seen on forums or on social media or just friends I'm doing work with. It's like all considered with the purview of work. So if I could hear a little bit more and talk and listen to stories from people's families outside of work, that would have been so nice, that’s part one.
Part two is, I know for a fact that we're not talking enough about, although this is considered a tied-in ethnic studies, Asian American education policy that is moving rapidly right now across the nation – which is so cool to see – I'm hype! This is my research topic, but it's just different per different region based on the policies. Just to give you some background, education (ed) policy really just started K-12 recently in 2022, I believe, with the TEACH Act in Illinois, mandating Asian American studies, history essentially, community, equitable community history can be taught in all schools, right? Really cool to see that take the stage, especially amidst the Stop Asian Hate movement, right? We need this.
The community was demanding education and this is happening. So this is cool, a direct solution that's being devised through legislation and that's just taking off in New Jersey with the Make Us Visible coalition in Connecticut, Florida, New York, here in Wisconsin, we're having our own bill that's proposed. So there's so much happening right now. It's still emergent, but the emergent stages are fun.
So I'm doing field studies around that and that's generally the big topic that I can speak to now: where are people at, where their minds are at, where the tensions are with this movement? Because I study the lifecycle of the coalition form: what do they talk about? And for me, how do they advocate for the policy? What does the policy go? How does it fail? How does it go back and then fall in the hands of educators? And then how does it impact students?
So that, to me, that's the whole dissertation and the whole book, right? And that's going to take many years to study, so I'm still at the beginning stages of it. And I think within this podcast, this short time, I think that will honestly take a big chunk of it for today.
Patrick Armstrong
Yeah, absolutely. So, thank you for sharing that, one. And I think, you know, my follow up questions are usually how do we deal with these things within the community? How do we deal with these things, and how do people outside of the community deal with these things? And I think these both touch on each of those things. So I want to go back to what you brought up, that first point about families and their actual stories, how do we get these oral narratives and how do we get more of them?
What have you seen from, just your time in the education space as that piece of it? I'm thinking from an adoptee perspective. Kim Park Nelson, she wrote a book called Invisible Asians where it's collected a ton of oral narrative. How have you seen that change for our community over the time that you've been in the education space?
Tony DelaRosa
It's still, sadly, pretty emergent in my mind. I mean, this is a really big question, first of all. So I'm trying to answer it in a way that is accessible and makes sense.
From my standpoint, I started adopting it more because it felt more humane to do. It felt more grounded in where I am at – I'm a 33 year old father now, you know? My salient identity has – that’s such a humanities word [laughs] – but my salient identity has shifted so much. I used to identify by my ethnicity and my race – hella Filipino American, hella Asian American, Brown Asian, activist – by the things that I did. But recently as a father, one, I’ve intentionally done it and it has forced me at the same time, to identify as just a father right now.
And then when I identify that way, I know that it's connected and it tells me I'm connected to a whole lineage of everything, which makes me think about constellations, it makes me think about leadership, and it takes me even to like – this is not linear now. This is all conceptual, just popping off.[laughs] My brain is everywhere. My brain is also going towards this idea of individual versus collectivism. Collectivism is more of an Asian diasporic idea or value. In the Philippines, we have kapwa, which is like, interconnectedness, right? That's something I'm relearning now at this stage, as I'm 33. It's still pretty emergent, I would say, when it comes to education, when it comes to Asian American studies.
I think what I hear mostly is a lot of people who are doing anti-bias, anti-racist work, organizing, have been doing that more and seeing that and then now, I guess it's up to me and others who are educators. We're at that intersection of schools as orgs to start translating into the school building, where learning is happening essentially.
Patrick Armstrong
And how does that work from that perspective? For someone like me who's not in that space, how do you take what you have here and build it into these curriculums, these schools, these educational pieces?
Tony DelaRosa
Yeah. I mean, I think that's perfect that you brought up that oral narratives piece because my book has a lot of oral narratives. Honestly, I interviewed so many people for every chapter: a chapter on disability, a chapter on cross-racial coalition building. What I was learning was that I really wanted to know who those people are and who are their ancestors.
So I just started asking like, who's an ancestor? That is, you know, maybe it's not a living ancestor, maybe it's someone who's just influenced them because I am drawn to people who think of their identity as temporal. It's like, “Okay, I'm a part of this movement, not a moment: a movement. And part of my book thesis is this book is a part of a movement: one little moment in this movement.
I put a poem in there talking about that. We need to teach the movement and all of its parts. And I know even if we teach within that framework, this idea of teaching a movement of, “Oh, you know, when is Asian American – when was the first term coined? Why was it coined? You know, like all the way up to now. It's a difficult and daunting task; also a critical and hopeful and powerful task to do.
Patrick Armstrong
Yeah!
Tony DelaRosa
And I think that's the task, right? Making sure that homage is given. And when you think about our identity as temporal, part of something that came before and that we're passing down, I think it opens the door for more people to consider who they're connected to, how they were socialized into being.
A framework that I use that's helpful in the book is Dr. Bobbie Harro’s Cycle of Socialization. This idea of socialization codifies every piece of how our knowledge, how our way of being – ontologies, way of knowing, epistemology as a way of seeing the world and manifesting who we are – comes to be. And the first interactions are family, right? It names that, it's cool.
We start our lives innocent and we have families giving our socialization. Then it goes into institutions, right? And then it goes into other systems. And then there's punishments that get involved that reinforce institutional knowledge and then etc., etc.. And then there's a pathway to liberation, which I think is the next version of that framework.
So I think having that framework in that book, talking about it explicitly, talking about it accessibly, is helpful in translating how I just talked about family and bringing it to schools in classrooms.
Patrick Armstrong
I love it because I think a lot of educators that I talk to talk about, you know, when we have these kinds of conversations, it's one thing to come with the facts and the data. It's another thing to come with the actionable items: how do we utilize and use this information and move forward where we can all do it together?
And I love this idea of our identities being temporal or temporal in nature. I have never thought of it that way. That's very interesting and something that I'm working in my brain right now and trying to process that's a very interesting concept.
Tony DelaRosa
Man, I'm processing that now because I didn't mean to say that, but in this conversation it happened!.
Patrick Armstrong
But it makes so much sense because, like you said, we're all when we realize or become aware of how interconnected everything is, and especially within our own communities and our own families, we can really start to see where we can move to and move forward. I've been using this analogy of we constantly are moving one step forward, two steps back, and it feels like we don't make progress. We want to move to step forward and one step back where we're at least taking that first, that next step.
And I think thinking about the intergenerational connections, the way that we transcend time, the way our communities transcend time from the things that happen at each point is really important. Where does this passion come from for this type of education, specifically this type of community work? Was it passed down through your family or is it something that you just came upon during your own journey?
Tony DelaRosa
I wish I could say it was for my family. I feel like I'm digging back now. I'm doing re-interviews of my family. My wife jokes with me because, even to the point of me asking, like, how old are my parents or when is their birthday, when did they immigrate? And I'm like, we should know this knowledge, but I don't know this knowledge. Why don't I know this knowledge? Right?
And I have to critically examine, like obviously it’s part me. I'm an adult. I have agency to ask them and know this stuff. And then also I question like, why wasn't it important to me and why wasn't it important to them to tell me these things, explicitly pass it down? Because I don't think in my family personally, we talked about the past a lot or talked about lineage a lot.
I think up until now, I think lineage really got important for me, probably around 2020, explicitly, when I was working with Teach for America – I did Teach for America in Indianapolis – but I started moving around the country and then I had the opportunity to launch and lead a summit called the AANHPI Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Corp Member Summit in 2020 with Soukprida Phetmisy, queer, Viet-Lao, amazing artist and educator, and we led this summit and the theme was ancestors to descendants, flat out.
And I was like, “Wow, that's what happens when we focus on one thing and make it actionable.” So that was a theme and everyone had to incorporate that in their workshops, their talks. You know, Liz Kleinrock was there for some of that, the first time I met Liz Kleinrock, a mutual friend of ours. Dr. Roseanne Gutierrez, who I'm working with now out of UCLA.
So a lot of having just that theme, the thing about it was it resonated with the Asian American community. And ever since 2020, it just keeps spiraling back. And I think again, that temporal peace, I love knowing that that part of me, that memory, is still so summonable, if you will. It's still part of the body. And I think that's a powerful part of somatics; you did it, now it's with you. But how do we tap into it with our new lens and reiterate it. I think that's powerful.
Patrick Armstrong
I think that's real power. Just hearing you explain, it was very powerful because now I'm thinking about my life and certain moments that I'm calling back on, especially over the last three years on this journey, how I can recall almost minute details of that. But it just shows how foundational those moments were or that moment was at that time to leave that kind of mark. Absolutely powerful.
You brought up the TEACH Act and so, we talked about families and how we can, as Asian Americans work to address this part of the conversation we're not talking about by thinking about our families, thinking a little bit more temporally about our own identities and our communities like collective identity. The TEACH Act is something that people can do outside of our community to help foster or facilitate conversation around our community.
What other things can folks outside of our community do to help address this missing piece of the conversation around Asian America?
Tony DelaRosa
For example, I'm going to contextualize this in what I'm doing now. I'm doing a fields method study of understanding the impact of ethnic studies and where they're at, all across the country. I'm interviewing in New York, Illinois, I'm interviewing people from Wisconsin. And people are at so many different stages. So, one, we can’t make a blanket statement where everyone is and where they should be, right? It's going I guess one thing is definitely going to the community.
Two, we don't have to wait for policy, like you said. I mean, we could just get these stories told now. I talked to a district here in Wisconsin and the district leader was like, “Tony, come back to us like two years from now, because we're still establishing a foundational teaching and learning curriculum. We're doing alignment.” And I get that. I get that. And you want to take that first step first, but don't let that get in the way of what can actually be true now and what needs to be true now. Because kids, one, you have AAPI students at your school, AANHPI-identifying students in school, so we need it now for culturally relevant, sustaining pedagogy.
So bring us in. I'm telling you, I'm offering you a service and a lot of it is designed, since I'm a researcher, for free at this point because I just want to try out and test pilot things. So there are people who are willing to do that, not everyone, I know, but there's a lot of consultants out there. Obviously I'm not the only one. There's so many consultants, educators, editors in your building who are willing to start doing and piloting and testing and putting Asian American education woven into your classroom or as a separate class. That's another, more infrastructural option. that would take a lot more time and space. And that's what I've seen most schools do, either offering a separate class or offer the curriculum that's woven into everything else.
And the latter one with curriculum woven into everything else, you can come to us; have your district come to us, We'll lead a training with y'all, maybe hire us as Asian American activists in residence, you know?
Patrick Armstrong
Sure.
Tony DelaRosa
Attach us to your school. Have us stay there for a while as you're building your framework core, we can work with your teachers, awesome, midway through just to mitigate and I actually provide the service now, right? So we're not waiting for the idea of, we don't want to let perfect get in the way of like goodness and greatness and things I just need to happen, you know?
Patrick Armstrong
Right. I think it sounds like this idea of being proactive versus reactive, essentially it's on the side of the infrastructure, on the side of the institution to come out and seek you out, seek people who do the work that you do in order to make sure that we're not just building something for the future, but like you said, taking advantage of what we have now. And a lot of times it feels like these things are reactive, like we wait for a tragedy to happen, and then it's like, “Oh, well, now we need to pass legislation, now we need to change curriculum,” whatever it might be. And it's like, “Well, no, it's a little bit too late for that.”
But now it's ‘now’, like, let's take advantage now.
You talked about how you're doing this now, you're doing the outreach, which is another problem in itself; be proactive, institution, and reach out to Tony. He should not be reaching out to you.
Tony DelaRosa
Exactly.
Patrick Armstrong
You talked about how for the most part, you get pretty good reception, but you also run into people who are, maybe, resistant, who don't always want to do that work. What would you say to somebody who is doing what you do and is, maybe not at the level that you're at right now, but is wanting to effect change in that same way, who runs into some of the pushback?
Because I feel like the people that you work with probably don't always come out of the gate at first and say, ”Yes, we want to do this.” They give you a little pushback and it's like, “Well, we can help you or I can help you in this way or that way.” What would you say to somebody who's trying to do that from, not the same perspective, but a similar one?
Tony DelaRosa
So there's basically other means out there trying to get the work in, right? I even thought about leading a team. Honestly, I was like at one point to a design person like we should have a team and I can help coach them through the process, right? Which is an idea I have for the future, because they need it.
But if you're doing this on your own and you want to and there's a lot of people I can list that can do this work just by lived experience, right? Better than nothing. Honestly, I want to acknowledge the political climate. I'm in Wisconsin, so, you know, either, or. You’re really blue in the middle but everywhere else, right? It's difficult and all those regions need it.
So there's Asian Americans there and there's non-Asian Americans. And when there's non-Asian Americans, you all need it even more because you're not going to get access to those narratives. So you need it.
So really, there's multiple ways to get to the same outcome. You need to have consent with the organization you're trying to work with. And it's like, I'm trying to learn and unlearn too, because I would go, before my own activist side would come up, and – I'm conflating my activist side with my ego of like, “Oh, I know what you need,” you know? – But coming in that direction is never, you can use that direction with anyone and they’re going to feel like, “What? He thinks he knows what I need?” Even if it's an organization that is “pro” these policies, I still have my question like, “How can I best support you right now?”
I do have a list of things that I think would be helpful as a foundational place to start. So that consent aspect, understanding what they need, because that foundational piece helped me when I talked to that director of curriculum. Basically, I now know that they can still have this. My part two is I'm going to reach back out. I'm not going to give up.
So my other feedback for this person is, don't give up. Now you have this knowledge doesn’t mean it's a sunset to the work that you're about to do. There's another way, and this is part of the resilience and also getting innovative like, “Okay, so they need this. Okay, I'm going to try another at-bat and be like, “What about these teachers who are ready to go? Can you identify a few teachers? I am willing to provide my resources here in this way.”
And they might tell you ‘no’. Cool. So now you know. One part of it is just not giving up in that situation, giving it multiple at-bats to see because you're still diagnosing what they need and they're still diagnosing what they need because they don't know what they need. [laughs] So that's a learning experience. So they're both mutually diagnosing a situation and you might just have a little bit more lived experience from the Asian American diaspora, but they have the contextual experience so you're aligning organically.
Lastly, I would say come prepared, right? If they're going to ask you, “What is your curriculum and what is your topic and what it can look like for – they give the options like, maybe we were ready for a class – what would that curriculum look like for a class structure?” Be ready to talk about that. Or, if it's ready to weave into curricula, be ready, not just to talk about ELA or humanities lessons, social studies, what if it’s science? Science needs it too. All STEM fields need it, right? So how do you talk and weave in that and pre-prepare for that conversation?
That's something I was always almost scared about because I was a humanities teacher and I was like, “Do I have what it takes to tell people how to weave an AAPI narratives in STEM? Beyond the “Include ‘Tony DelaRosa, Filipino’ as a name or a picture in your graphic organizer,” Nah, that’s surface level stuff. [laughs] So be prepared to go deep if they want you to go deep.
And I think those are the two things right now. I guess the last piece is there's always work to be done somewhere else. So just don’t give up. There's always work to be done. I might have wanted to do it in Madison or Verona, but maybe they're not ready for it right now. And I went through my diagnosis with them and they're like, “We’re still not ready.” There's so many different places. And I think that abundance mindset is super essential to keep us going. So I’ll leave it at that.
Patrick Armstrong
Absolutely. That's a great way to end that, because I think we get into this mindset of scarcity and like we have to do it here and it's only here and that's the way we'll do it.
Tony DelaRosa
Here and now, only. [laughs]
Patrick Armstrong
Well, that's the only way we'll know success is if we do it here in this tiny bubble. And it's just like we take one step out, we can see, “Oh, there's so much more that I can I can have an impact in.” So I appreciate you sharing that as well.
Who, right now, are you learning from in the community? I know there's tons of people, so it's impossible to name just one. But anybody right now that you’re really vibing with? Anybody that you feel like you're learning a lot from at the moment?
Tony DelaRosa
Yeah! Do they have to be AAPI-identifying?
Patrick Armstrong
They do not.
Tony DelaRosa
I would like them to be. But in this case, I think one person that's sticking out, I've read their article, ethnic studies scholar Dr. Nolan Cabrera. I don't know where he's a professor at right now. But I read an article and I want to meet them on ethnic studies as a structure where he outlines in that article – it's more like a brief – but essentially I had thought ethnic studies was X, like one fixed being like a curricula, but it’s a criticality. It’s a bunch of values and structures and systems and a way of pedagogy and teaching. So the fact that he just basically stretched it out and talked about each point: it's criticality, plurality, intersectionality, right? It’s a pedagogy!
But also like he brings in concrete explanations as to how to implement that, how to actually put that into practice, which I love because, again, a failure of like what we're, I guess I would say, theorist policymakers is that when it comes to practice, that's when we really know the testament of the impact, right? If it's actually going to be substantive or not. So I think Nolan Cabrera is doing great work of connecting policy ideas and theories into practice.
Patrick Armstrong
Amazing. Well, I will have Nolan Cabrera's work or whatever I can link in the show notes, dear listener, you will be able to find that there. Thank you for sharing that as well.
We're coming up on our time here and I want to be mindful of that. Two quick questions. You said that you do celebrate the month. I know people have a lot of different feelings about heritage months, specifically; anything specific that you're looking forward to in the month of May?
Tony DelaRosa
Yo, so I have to say, I'm excited to go and check out this TAAF thing because I got the TAAF Award, so I'm like–
Patrick Armstrong
Yes, congratulations!
Tony DelaRosa
I'm like, What does this mean? What does this really mean, honestly? Because, you know, we do this work, you know I'm doing community work all the time and all of us are doing community work. So any one of us could have gotten this award. So I'm wondering, like, what does this mean? What is it? What can I do to make sure this is a distributive effort? Because in my mind, I thought it was going to be multiple people because I saw the episodes.
So I’m going to talk with them and see what the process is. Go to New York, do the thing, meet the TAAF folks, and again, with that lens, just come as a learner, see what they're doing. They're people, when I posted things about it, said, “TAFF is new,” and “I don’t know what they're doing about it.” And I'm like, “Well, then let's learn from them. Let's see what's happening and have an open mind about it and figure this out.”
But I'm excited to go. I'm taking my cousin with me. He is the godfather of my son, so we rarely have time to have Brown boy joy, like Brown Asian boy joy. So we're going to do that together. He's a DJ, so we're going to have some drinks, we're going to have some food, Asian food. And I get to take him like we were just hanging out when we were younger, to hang out and enjoy New York together. To end on family, that is something that I'm really excited for.
Patrick Armstrong
That's amazing. Yes. Congratulations again. TAAF has been doing some incredible things. So I think they are somebody that we need to look out to and learn from as well to see what they're doing in the community. They are bringing people together. And I think when they're able to highlight voices like your own, voices like myself or Rohan's voice, Alice’s voice, that's amazing. It's an incredible opportunity. And I love that you are the winner. I was like, “Tony’s about to win this because literally every person I see posting about it is for Tony, and I'm here for it.” I'm absolutely here for it.
Tony DelaRosa
I appreciate you, brother.
Patrick Armstrong
How do we best support you moving forward?
Tony DelaRosa
Oh, yeah. I'm trying to be more direct with it: please follow the work. I'm only on Twitter and Instagram. I try not to take too much like Tik Tok. [laugh] Follow me at Tony Rosa Speaks at gmail.com and my book’s coming out, if you have the means to purchase the book – Teaching the Invisible Race: Embodying a Pro Asian American Lens in Schools – everything that I'm going to be talking about from now until next year is going to be centered around that because it is a community book. It has so many different voices and oral narratives within it and just frameworks, mindsets, manifestos in it, poetry. Kind of like a halo-halo, if you know that desert, it's kind of like a halo-halo, pedagogical book to really not wait for policy, right?
We can really start teaching Asian American studies now in K-12. So the book will help you do that.
Patrick Armstrong
Amazing. When's the book come out?
Tony DelaRosa
October. Filipino American American History Month. 2023, this year.
Patrick Armstrong
All right. October of this year. Are the preorders available yet?
Tony DelaRosa
You know, the pre-order is available but I guess this is the first time I'm telling people on the show!
Patrick Armstrong
Ooooooh! [laughs]
Tony DelaRosa
it's live now. So I guess I guess everyone's going to know, the preorder is there. It's on all places where books can be found right now–
Patrick Armstrong
Amazing.
Tony DelaRosa
–-like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I'm really trying to partner with places like Yu & Me Books and other locations where we can actually get the funding to the communities that are Asian American owned. But for now, if you want it and you can get it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Patrick Armstrong
Awesome. Thank you so much, Tony. Again, really, really appreciate your time. It's an honor and a privilege for me to be able to sit here and have this conversation and thank you for sharing it with all of our listeners. Seriously, it means so much for you to be a part of The APAHM Conversations, this series specifically.
Tony DelaRosa
Well, Salamat for having me.
Patrick Armstrong
Absolutely. For everybody else, you can find all the links to everything that we talked about, Tony and I talked about in this conversation here in the show notes and you can find us at Conversation Pod Piece on Instagram. If you do feel inclined, you can leave us a rating or a review, that will be greatly appreciated on whatever podcast player that you are listening to this right now, and if you are interested in supporting the show in the future, feel free to hop in my DMs or visit my website patrickintheworld dot me.
Until next time I am Patrick Armstrong and this has been Conversation Piece. Thanks Tony.
Tony DelaRosa
Thank you.