279: Queering & Cripping Academia: Disability Justice & Mentorship for BIPOC Scholars with Drs. Pau Abustan and Shayda Kafai

276: Queering and Cripping Academia: Disability Justice and Mentorship for BIPOC Scholars with Dr. Pau Abustan and Dr. Shayda Kafai

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:00:00] Welcome to the top global ranked and award nominated grad school femtoring podcast. The place for first gen BIPOCs to listen in on conversations about grad school, and growth. In this podcast, you'll learn about all things higher education, personal development, and sustainable productivity. This is Dr.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yvette Martinez Vu, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with tips and tricks and everything else you need to know to successfully navigate grad school. For over 14 years, I've been empowering first gen students of color along their personal and professional journeys, and I'm really excited to support you too.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your [00:01:00] host, Dr. Yvette. Today, before we start out, I actually want to do a quick visual intro. I am a learner myself, and it's something that I hope to keep doing from here on out. So, I am wearing a hot pink shirt. Top, , with matching hot pink lips.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I've got glasses. I've got some over the ear headphones. Behind me is a chair with a, what is this, like a purple throw blanket. And I've got the mic next to me too. To the left of me. , and then, , I have some guest speakers today. We're going to be talking about queering and cripping academia, , all about civility, justice, and mentorship for BIPOC scholars.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So that's what prompts me to want to make this episode and future episodes as accessible as possible. Our two guests are Dr. Pau Abustan they/siya , a queer crip. Filipino scholar, activist, educator who centers decolonial, queer, [00:02:00] critical race, feminist, and disability justice world making in youth centered learning, animated storytelling, and coalitional activisms.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: They are an assistant professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cal State Los Angeles. In Tongva lands. We also have Dr. Shayda Kafai she/her, who is an Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies in the Ethnic and Women's Studies Department at Cal State Polytechnic University Pomona, Cal Poly Pomona for short.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Also, I'm not gonna just like, go past the part that you just asked me to change assistant to associate there. Can we just give her a shout out and a congratulations?

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Thank you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So just want to nod to that. . So, Dr. Shayda is a queer, disabled, mad Iranian femme. She commits to practicing the many ways we can reclaim our body minds from systems of oppression. To support this [00:03:00] work, as an educator scholar, Shayda applies disability justice and collective care practices in the spaces she cultivates.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: She is also the author of Crip Kinship, the Disability Justice and Art Activism of Sins Invalid. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Pau and Dr. Shayda.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Thank you so much for having us. This is going to be such a joy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Oh, thank you. Well, to get us started I would love to hear from each of you about a little bit more about who you are, about what you do, anything you're comfortable sharing about your background, leading up to your interest in today's topic.

Dr. Pau Abustan: Hi everyone, this is Dr. Pau. Hey, thank you so much for having us here Dr. Yvette. A quick image description of me is I am a gender fluid beige skinned Filipinx [00:04:00] person with dark brown eyes and black hair to my chin and I'm wearing dark green glasses and a yellow shirt with white flowers on it. And I have a Fruits Basket anime poster behind me.

Dr. Pau Abustan: That's a Hello Kitty collab, collaboration. And so a little bit about me is I like to call myself an accidental activist scholar. I am a first gen student as in my parents did go to school in the Philippines. They did graduate from college, but moving here to the United States, they were working working class jobs.

Dr. Pau Abustan: My dad was a janitor. My mom is a nurse assistant. So I didn't have much education. On what it is like to apply and go to college. So when I finally made it to uc, Santa Barbara during my undergrad thank goodness my, I had really amazing [00:05:00] friends and mentors that encouraged me to pursue college and encouraged me to do well in college. But I really owe it to my women's studies professor on how I got into this work because that day she canceled class. Well, we were all at class and she granted all of us A's on our quizzes and encouraged us to walk out with her to the anti war rally at the time in 2006. Unfortunately the United States was at war or occupying Iraq and so I went out there and I saw a table that said drop tuition not bombs and I related to that so much because I almost left UC Santa Barbara due to the Expensiveness of the university and me working so much So that was the first time I got involved in activism and I got involved with intersectional race, class, gender, [00:06:00] sexuality, teach ins, rallies, protests for an accessible university. After I graduated, I got involved in social justice nonprofits, Santa Barbara County Action Network, and Pueblo, which is now known as CAUSE, that is a social, economic, and environmental justice nonprofit in solidarity. With migrants in Santa Barbara. And it was there where my mentors shared with me, they love how I am in solidarity with community and breaking down these big topics for all to get involved with, learn about. And so I got into the Washington state university cultural studies and education doctoral program. And that is where I owe it to Dr. Barclay, the first. Critical disability studies class I've ever taken in my life. And that was where I found myself. I read Leah Lakshmi's, [00:07:00] Piepzna Samarasinha's foundational writing, care work, Dreaming Disability Justice. Dr. Nirmala Aravel's Disability and Difference and the Global Politic and that's where I found myself and my family and my communities and realized I am sick, I am disabled, we are chronically ill, we are disabled. So now for the past 12 years, I've been teaching at Washington State University, University of Washington, Highline Community College, and Western Washington. However, I am a second going on to my third year assistant professor at Cal State LA and I teach women's gender sexuality studies, disability studies, Asian American studies. I'm the leader of our youth outreach program where we reach out to youth and encourage WGSS. and Cal State LA. And also I'm involved with the Disability Justice Coalition [00:08:00] where we are encouraging the university, demanding the university create a disability cultural center, a disability studies major and minor, and more opportunities to proactively recruit disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent students.

Dr. Pau Abustan: So that's me!

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Hi, everyone. My name is Shayda Kafai. My pronouns are she, her, and I'll start with a brief image description. I have short black hair. I'm also wearing, like, a bright fuchsia colored lipstick today. And I have wooden earrings. Earrings that are the Progress Pride flag and a black tank top. And I have tattoos on both my arms.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: And I'm sitting in my home office space with a frame on the wall from Sins Invalid and a plant baby in the back. How I came to this work, you know, I was thinking about [00:09:00] how so excited, Shayda, we've talked about this before, that you had access to disability studies and while you were speaking I was thinking about how I came to disability studies kind of by accident and with the love and support of a Femtoring undergrad. I was an English major in undergrad and in my master's program I did creative writing. I was also very very much disabled at the time and really searching for ways to unlearn internalized ableism and Satanism. And I know we'll talk about that later too. But that's how I came to disability studies was a femtor who also had a chronic illness saying, have you heard about this?

Dr. Shayda Kafai: People are talking about their identity with pride. Do you know what this is about? And I hadn't learned about it yet. And so. I come to this work of teaching from that place of lack and then joy and excitement and learning about disabled [00:10:00] community. I've been a long time adjunct lecturer for like eight years before I started tenure track at Cal Poly.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: And so, really coming to this from a place also of and knowing that I'm here talking to you all because of femtorship and guidance from amazing disabled queer of color femmes.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thank you both for sharing more. I I feel so seen. This is not about me, but I feel so seen in hearing you both and I'm so grateful that you're both here. I feel like the world needs more, you know, more folks like you both sharing your stories, sharing your knowledge and your wisdom. We're here to talk about disability justice.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: We're here to talk about mentorship. We're here to talk about how to queer and crip academia. But there's also a lot of folks who may be new to these terms, to these concepts, to these spaces. So I'm curious from each [00:11:00] of your perspective, for folks who are new to disability, disability justice, queer and crip theory, can you let us know how you're defining these terms?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And what queering and cripping academia means to you.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: This is Shayda speaking and I can get us started. So I can, I'll start by defining disability justice. So disability, the mainstream disability rights movement has been going on in the, in the U S for decades. Shaydal Longmore was a disabled historian and he marked it in the thirties, the 1930s in the U S and in many ways I wouldn't be sitting here. We wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation without the labor and the organizing and the activism of the mainstream disability rights movement. And at the same time there were huge gaps with it. It was very much focused on physical disabilities, it was white centric and it was just focused on [00:12:00] disabilities. And so disabled folks who lived in the intersections disabled people of color Disabled queer folks, disabled, trans folks, disabled, incarcerated folks. People wanted to have intersectional conversations about disability number one, and they wanted to have their whole identities honored and included in the conversation for disability liberation. And so in 2005 is a way to speak back to the gaps of the mainstream disability rights movement. Disabled queer folks of color got together and started creating a movement building framework that is now called disability justice. So that's the definition for that. And I'll share some links with you if that's okay, too.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Just if folks are interested in learning more. But to your second question of What does it mean to queer and crip and what do those words mean? I'll say for myself, queer [00:13:00] and mad in particular are liberatory terms that have helped me embrace and feel empowered in my identities. And Crip is short for cripple most frequently used in the Bay Area, used as a term of empowerment, rebellion by physically disabled folks. And these are two words that really help us push back against all the normative restrictions we have in our culture that say queerness is bad, heteronormativity, cisheteronormativity is normal. Disability is bad. Neurodiversity is bad. We must be able bodied, able minded. And so these are just liberatory frameworks that have, have helped me as a person, but that also inform how I teach and how I disrupt the classroom.

Dr. Pau Abustan: [00:14:00] This is Pau, and for me, Disability Justice is very much, you know, showing love to Dr. Shayda Kafai and your, one of my favorite books, Crip Kinship, but Dr. Shayda Kafai maps out the history and the makings of Disability Justice in that book, and really shows how. Disability justice is one of its key tenets, multiply marginalized led, as we, and we as in trans people, queer people, uh, non binary, femme, black, indigenous, and people of color, have always been leading these movements because We are directly impacted by these systems that we're protesting and refusing.

Dr. Pau Abustan: So we're protesting capitalism and how that's overworking us and making so many of us chronically [00:15:00] ill. We're protesting imperialism and ongoing genocide that is killing so many of our communities, making us sick, destroying waters, sacred waters and lands. Also, not just refusing these oppressions, we are dreaming anew. So disability justice is just like what Dr. Shayda Kafai shares is Art making is creating is community is, uh, being one with the trees, you know, being, being in community with ourselves and each other and, and learning more about ourselves. So that is what queer Crip means to me. I'm currently working on a book chapter that queer is to Crip is to Philippinex. You know, I am A diasporic Filipinx and just like queer communities, like what Shayda shared, have been in [00:16:00] history and today very much discriminated against. And likewise with disabled communities, very much that these worlds. Education society is not built for disabled people in mind. And likewise, as with Filipinx Filipino people are were a current colony and territory under the Spanish rule under United States. However, now we are considered an independent state. But we're very much independent country, but yet we're very much still under the control of U. S. imperialism. There is U. S. military in the Philippines, and unfortunately trans people, women who are Filipinx in the Philippines are directly impacted. By the U S military presence there and unfortunately experienced high rates of violence. So disability justice to me is [00:17:00] its core key tenant founded by, you know, Patty Byrne, Aurora Levins Morales, Leroy Moore, all of these awesome intersectional disabled BIPOC people. But it really is that core tenant of being cross coalitional of finding the, the intricate Connections between queer, between disabled, between BIPOC, trans and queer, and so forth.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I love that. Thanks so much for breaking it down, each of you in your own way and for sharing all of this scholarship and all of the thought leaders, all of the activists, all the folks who have been leading this work, we will definitely make sure to include any links you share with us in the show notes so folks can keep doing their own learning after this too.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I am curious, you know, because each of you has your own set of [00:18:00] experiences of how you've arrived to being queer, being crip, being mad. Uh, what are some of the challenges that you continue to face since each of you have, you know, You mentioned you're both academics, you're both professors, like, what are some of these challenges that you are facing as, you know, queer, crip, mad, BIPOC scholars, and how have you or how are you managing them?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Because I, like, what are Refuse to believe that we're all just we arrive at a point where we're we're good. There's no more challenges I I say this as I'm feeling good today, but I still have my baseline symptoms. So I'm I'm curious for you all Yeah, what are some of the challenges? How have you managed them?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Or how are you managing them now?

Dr. Pau Abustan: This is Dr. Pau the challenge is that we live in a colonial system and structure within education and society. And colonization brought forth cis, hetero, sexism, racism, [00:19:00] ableism. So if we are not Of the privilege, you know, cis, hetero, white, male, that, that dominates the academy. The academy wasn't built for us and that is in terms of learning and the culture. So my challenge is, as for many of us, is that we're constantly tired of, of this, this horrible oppression that we encounter on the daily of having to explain ourselves, of having to be educating others, of sometimes being the only one in the room that is bringing forth our communities and our ancestors with us. So how I manage through that is, I find and make community if it's not there. So that is my recommendation to those listening is at during my undergrad, I, I magically found my [00:20:00] community. I found myself, I first got involved with black indigenous and people of color organizing, you know, student organizing, and then I found trans and queer people.

Dr. Pau Abustan: I found myself. As a gender fluid, non binary queer person. And then during grad school, I, it was a very much a white space and the queer spaces were very much white and didn't want to talk about race and the intersections. So with a group of students, I co founded a trans and queer and two spirit BIPOC led organization. And we changed up the culture at Washington state university. Now, there, they very much center Black, Indigenous, and people of color in their programming. And then, for here at Cal State LA, my colleague Dr. Natalie Williams Abodeja and I co founded the California Faculty [00:21:00] Association Disability Justice Coalition. That operates with CFA. And then we also co founded one in solidarity with students on our campus to try to, or demanding for a disability cultural center. So. All of this by yourself, it is exhausting. It is making us sick. Uh, so find your community, get involved. You're not alone. And you know, just finding you Dr.

Dr. Pau Abustan: Yvette and relating with you and Dr. Shayda, it just makes everything so much more comfy cozy. So find your community.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: This is Shayda. You know, I, I wonder, I had such like excitement around this question, and then I also have a lot of difficulty answering this question just because everything feels still very present and I don't really have answers on how, I'm moving through these [00:22:00] things, but I do want to name that for myself. I'm noticing that a lot of the challenges kind of rest at the intersections of ableism, sanism, capitalism. And so if the framing of the university, and this isn't my idea, this is Margaret Price's idea, and I'll, I'll share her name as well with folks. But if the idea of the academy is rationality. It's very clear that it's not madness. There's no space for neurodiversity. And she was writing a book called mad at school, where she's looking at what happens to folks who are mad or for folks who are neurodiverse and exist in this space. And I think one of the biggest struggles for me has been the Mandate of what a good normative educator is, and then on the opposite side, what the good normative student is, [00:23:00] and that doesn't really create space for slowness for naming our needs I think I've really struggled with normative time, non disabled time. And for folks who are interested like Spoon Theory or Crip Time are really exciting ways to say, Hey, everybody learns at a different pace. We move at different paces. Our needs might be incredibly different from one another. And then also with needs, I have, Felt like there is no space in academia for us to be vulnerable and honest about what our body mind needs are. I shared this realization with my students last semester that for the majority of my professional life, if my anxiety or my depression were feeling really amplified. I would tell my students and I would tell the university, right, that I'm sick or I have a migraine or I have the flu, something physical because something [00:24:00] physical is, is validated and understood versus me saying my anxiety or my racing thoughts or the urge to self harm or whatever was happening at the time. And so I really think like conversations around expectations of what normativity means in the university, especially when the baseline is rational, fast paced. Those are some of the biggest struggles I've experienced as a disabled, mad person. And then as a femme person of color, I feel like there is so much unspoken femme labor. That is expected whether it's around service work. And this is a concept from Molly Benetez. She talks about the affects of labor and how our working environments are metabolized through our bodies. So, if we're holding services. Stress if we are overworked to, to go back to some of the things, how you were [00:25:00] sharing. If we are sick, if we're fatigued, if we're exhausted and if the system is ableist and racist and saist by design, that all further impacts us. And. Although I know how you shared going to community the only other thing that I could think of that I've been doing is going and doing the interior work of really unlearning some of those messages of what good educator, good student looks like and reading folks that are leading me in that direction.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Like Mimi Cooke who just wrote a really amazing book looking at what could it mean if we're all actually unwell. in the university system and what spaces might that open.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Look that I have it here I really Felt so much. I, I am a feeler, right? So I feel deeply and sometimes I get so touched that I get like teary eyed and as I heard you both, I just could relate so [00:26:00] much because for me, the only thing that kept me going is when I was in higher ed were the communities that I was part of and when they weren't there building them.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I still, to this day, I hate to admit this, but I still struggle with internalized ableism of telling folks, Hey, I'm not feeling well and blaming my physical symptoms, which are often there, just baseline, but not acknowledging like sometimes it's because I'm You know, depression kicks in, or anxiety kicks in, or racing thoughts kick in, or you name it, something else kicks in and you know, it's just a reminder of that unlearning that's necessary and needed and to have more of these conversations And it's, it's really just such a shame that there's not enough opportunities to get vulnerable in a lot of spaces, but I think that each of you in sharing and if, in being willing to be vulnerable in this more public [00:27:00] way, and me too Hopefully it's helping to, to model for others that it's a possibility that you can hold space for yourself.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You can acknowledge your full self, your full needs. And yeah, not necessarily just have to, to revert back to what is socially acceptable because often that's ableist or sanest. So thank you both for that. We've been talking about this already. We've been kind of talking Referencing intersectionality and ableism, sanism.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So I would love for, for both of you to discuss the importance of acknowledging intersectionality, anti ableist work, anti sanist work, anti oppressive work, in our understandings of the experiences of queer, Crip, and BIPOC individuals.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: I can get us started. This is Shayda speaking. [00:28:00] I'm also feeling a lot in my body so I'm going to Shaydase for a second. So one of the things that I keep thinking about in terms of disability justice work. And specifically this comes from conversations that I was privileged enough to have with Leroy F. Moore Jr. Who's one of the founders of Sins Invalid and worked to create the frameworks for disability justice. And this is also from conversations I had with Patty Byrne. Also co founder of Sense Invalid and of Disability Justice. They both spoke a lot about spaces of intersectionality as being radically important to acknowledging and honoring our whole selves versus having to appear in spaces fragmented where only one part of our identity is witnessed, validated, honored. Or where oppressive networks are [00:29:00] only dismantled or discussed in relation to that one identity or one part of a person. And one of the things that Patty shared with me that I'm thinking of in terms of intersectionality here is the possibility for the creation of something that Patty called a Crip Centric Liberated Zone. And this liberated zone is a place where we can enter. Sometimes it can live online so it could be you going to a webinar or seeing a performance online. It could be you spending time with community going to a performance. It's you showing up in a space and knowing that your needs are going to be met and held in really intersectional ways. And just because I mentioned Sims Invalid, they are a performance, project out of the San Francisco Bay Area. That does disability centric disability justice centric performance work and education. And [00:30:00] the first time I went to one of their performances it was the most intersectional, anti oppressive, anti ableist, anti sanist body positive space, queer space, trans space I had entered. Where there were gender neutral bathrooms, it was scent free to low scent, there were roomy chairs for people's bodies there were sign language interpreters, there were audio descriptions and so crypt centric liberated zone is where you enter full and whole and held by community and, That was one of the things I was thinking about in terms of the importance of intersectionality, but what it could mean also for us to create these type of spaces in our classes for ourselves, for our students. Going back, Pow, to one of the words you use to world making, how can we create And dream and transform these really oppressive spaces [00:31:00] of learning into something that embraces our needs and is slow and helps all of us show up as our whole selves.

Dr. Pau Abustan: This is Dr. Pau and for me, the importance of intersectionality, I always go back to my ancestors Filipinx, women, trans people, queer people that were thrown to the crocodiles by Spanish colonizers. And they tried to erase us, but as Dr. Lenny Strobel in her book, Back from the Crocodile's Belly shares, we're back, you know, we're here and also this relates to people of Turtle Island. As Dr. Miranda shares, Dr. Deborah Miranda, unfortunately, likewise, Chumash people, especially those who are trans, who are queer, who are women were thrown to the dogs. So, [00:32:00] this is intersectionality is historically to today people at the intersections of identities and we are committed to intersectional liberation because then and now they're trying to erase us, they're trying to degrade us and when I say they, it's these systems of education, of society. Everywhere we go, you know, even pop culture, we're rarely or accurately fully represented our stories, our histories, our futures. So intersectionality is always everywhere. So for me, understanding this is important. Women, trans people, queer people, BIPOC, disabled we're constantly being painted as less, as not productive enough, as not good enough, as scary, uh, you know, who we are, you know, asking for support, asking for an extension, asking for a [00:33:00] deadline, uh, cancelling. We're then labeled, you know, not a good friend, uh, not a good student, not a good teacher. And yeah, I have a book chapter coming out with Dr. Shayda Kafai and Dr. Melanie Jones in their edited anthology, Mad Scholars Reclaiming the Neurodiverse Academy. It's coming out this summer, but I discuss how, you know, let's get rid of this ableism, this sanism. And stop this whole dichotomy and binary of good and bad, you know, teacher, student, friend, family member, and let's embrace each other for who we are. And so in my class that I teach at Cal State LA and my classes, I try to Communicate this with students that they just need to come to class as who they are or even not come to class take care of themselves and in our learning.

Dr. Pau Abustan: We're also learning intersectionality everywhere. So for [00:34:00] example, Mia Mingus, queer, Crip, Asian scholar and activist talks about how Frida Kahlo is a Crip ancestor. You know, Frida Kahlo, Mexican artists, queer artists. She was disabled and she wrote, she drew and created most of her art from bed. Leah Lakshmi, the author of Care Work and The Future is Disabled, discusses how Harriet Tubman, Black disabled woman, The history tends to leave her disabilities out, but she was disabled and she led her people to freedom through the Combahee River and the Underground Railroad. Gloria Anzaldúa, right? Queer Chicana feminist foundational in women's gender sexuality studies. She wrote a lot about her chronic illness. And likewise with Audre Lorde, Black lesbian feminist wrote about her cancer. And Jose Estaban Munoz, right, queer of color [00:35:00] scholar, uh, wrote about the lineages and how we owe it to Black indigenous and people of color, womenists, womanists and feminists. And especially how Marsha P. Johnson, you know, Black trans woman and Sylvia Rivera a Puerto Rican trans woman, they were not only advocating for trans and queer communities, they, they were advocating and organizing for BIPOC, for houseless, for sex workers, those most impacted by systems of prisons, borders, walls, policing.

Dr. Pau Abustan: So this is intersectionality. All of us, we've always been intersectional and many of us have always been engaging disability and disability justice without the name of it. You know, especially, uh, BIPOC surviving these systems of colonization, capitalism, and imperialism. We are here, we're, we're, we're doing the work.

Dr. Pau Abustan: So, intersectionality. [00:36:00] It's awesome.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Doctora Yvette here. Oh my goodness. Yes, intersectionality is everywhere. And I, I just, I love everything that you shared that my, my performance studies background. I'm like, yes, you're just like naming some folks that I'm like, yes, yes, yes. So I got a little excited there. But now going back to the topic of disability justice in particular, I would love for each of you to share whatever you're comfortable sharing about how these principles can be applied to mentorship in particular.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's a topic that comes up a lot among my listeners, the importance of mentorship, the struggle with finding mentors. It's an even further struggle for those of us, uh, who, Some of us that are neurodivergent, myself included, autistic, like I struggle with socializing and maintaining relationships, even to this day.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So yeah, anything that you can talk about, we've been talking about how everything is [00:37:00] interconnected, but, but disability justice principles and how they relate or can be applied to mentorship.

Dr. Pau Abustan: This is Dr. Pau so in terms of the disability justice principles for mentorship, you know, for those looking for a mentor, find that mentor that supports disability justice, tenets of wholeness, sustainability. So that means a mentor that is patient, that accepts you for all of you, where you don't feel like you have to hide a certain part of you or issue that you care about. And also I want to support bring love to Dr. Mimi Kook, Dr. Mel Chen, and Dr. Gina Kim. They have the most amazing writing. In disability studies quarterly, that is about how work will not save us. And it's an anti capitalist politic. [00:38:00] So if you're searching for a mentor, find a mentor that encourages rest, that encourages joy, that encourage you, encourages us to go back to our humanity and take care of ourselves instead of working ourselves to death. And if you are that mentor, Like, like us here, you know, let's try to support that anti work politic too. How can we slow down? How can we rest? How can we joy? How can we refuse, you know, colonial education that's purely about Tests and reading and writing and sitting and instead doing something else.

Dr. Pau Abustan: So in my classes, we, we play games, we play Hello Ria. We'll sing, we'll dance, we'll shake it out. I've had my students lead Tai Chi and I lead hula hoop dancing with my students. You know, like, how can we go back to ourselves and each other before all of this? Systems of unwellness that Dr. [00:39:00] Mimi Cook talks about. So that is what I would recommend for finding a mentor or being that mentor. Let's not replicate these harmful systems, but let's free us all. How can we liberate and free us all?

Dr. Shayda Kafai: This is Shayda. Yes to all those things. And I, I was thinking a lot about, I was thinking a lot about the principle, the disability justice principle of, Interdependence and collective access. I mean, one of the biggest things that I've learned from disability justice and disability studies critical disability studies, is this idea that independence is a myth. It's mythology, it's constructed, we all, whether we're disabled or not, rely on each other. For our [00:40:00] survival and our thriving. So whether it's getting a ride from a friend to school or sharing food or fill in the blank, right, we are all interdependent on one another. And I think this philosophy of interdependence is so powerful because in mentoring relationships, it's communicated to me a lot about reciprocity. So if I'm asking my students to show up. Be vulnerable, be honest, tell me what they need even and especially if it's around rest or other things that might be going on in their lives as somebody who values interdependence and reciprocity, I need to do the same as their mentor. As their femtore, right?

Dr. Shayda Kafai: I need to also communicate my needs as they come up which is such a beautiful piece of collective access. We all need to work on making spaces accessible for one another to the best of our abilities. And so I think that reciprocity, interdependence, um, and just being vulnerable with the folks we work with is [00:41:00] so radically important and will create spaces of liberation that push back against the sanism and the ableism of the academy where. Your educator is not a person anymore. They can do it all. And there is no struggle there with, with when in reality we are struggling, we are getting sick. We are getting burnt out. This last academic year was a year of burnout for me for so many reasons. And so I, I rely on those two. Principles, including how you mentioned sustainability just as a way for us to change some of these norms and create space for our whole selves, whether we're the mentor femtor or whether we're the student.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This is Dr. Yvette. A couple things came up with what each of you shared. I was actually thinking just in terms of like a little behind the scenes nod, like even the way that we started our recording today reminded me of how you can build these spaces in [00:42:00] that we made sure everybody was set up in a way that would allow them to feel accommodated where no question was a silly question.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: We're not made to feel ashamed for You know, advocating for our needs. And I love that. And, and even slowing down, like we didn't rush to do this recording. We scheduled it several months into the future because we knew we were compassionately thinking about our future selves and that that timing just happened to be better for all of us.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So I appreciate you both for that. And then in thinking about advocacy that's kind of leading me to thinking about advocacy I'm wondering for our listeners, which I know they're primarily my listeners are first gen BIPOC students for those that that have disabilities or are learning to better advocate for themselves.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: How can they do that? And on the other end of things, if you have any thoughts about this too, how can administrators, [00:43:00] faculty, staff advocate to better support queer, crip, BIPOC students in particular? You've already nodded to this, so if there's anything else you want to add, this is a great, you know, time to do that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And if not, we can also transition to another question.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: This is Shayda. Do you mind if I answer the second part of that question first? So to Other educators, administrators I think it's really simple. Believe us. Believe your students. Not all disabilities are visible, nor do they have to be. So just, just believe us, period. When we say we have a need. Or when we need, you know, access and we need accommodations in a classroom setting or a work setting. Just believe us. And I mean, that comes with, like, buried under that answer. Not buried, it feels close to the surface. Close to the surface of that answer is a lot of frustration and rage. For hearing all the stories I've heard about students [00:44:00] asking for their needs to be met and not having them met or not being believed or faculty thinking they're being lazy because they're asking for more time. and then with the first question of advocating for yourself. I think one of the things in addition to asking to make sure things are clarified for you, and I share this as a student who was really intimidated to do that making sure that you have your mentor, femtor, community members that you can go to if you communicate a need and it's not being met to strategize, get help writing emails.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: It is your political right. It is your right as a student. Student, as an educator, as a human being to have your needs met, to have your access needs met. So relying on your network of folk to support you if that's not happening, so that you can find ways through the barriers that ableism and sadism often place in [00:45:00] front of us when we were trying to learn.

Dr. Pau Abustan: This is Dr. Pau following Dr. Shayda, definitely, you know, advocate for yourself by knowing that you're not alone. So don't advocate alone. Advocate and strategize with community. Alice Wong, Mia Mingus, and Sandy Ho have a movement called Access Is Love. And it's amazing. And you know, we're, we're here together, even if it's someone not on your campus, there will be someone else, you know, in another university, another part of the globe that will be there with you advocating with you. But the biggest way all of us, you know, students, staff, faculty, admin can better support. is to have those institutional changes. So get involved in activism at Cal State LA. We're working on trying to make built in access [00:46:00] everywhere. So every single event having American Sign Language, having captions, as Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha and Dr.

Dr. Pau Abustan: Shayda share, Having scent free spaces, making sure as many events are as on the ground floor, you know, imagine if there's an emergency and the elevators are not working, how are wheelchair users and cane users and more folks like me with chronic pain supposed to go down the stairs or up the stairs or wherever they need to go? And so having that built in access, you know, professors and staff and students being gentle on ourselves and each other for not meeting deadlines, for not having perfect grammar or spelling, for not writing coherent papers, you know, what is like linear anyways. And so yeah, making sure that also the university recruits, hires, [00:47:00] and retains. Multiply marginalized people, people that look like the students, people that understand and get the students, the students don't have to explain themselves, and also making sure disabled students are retained at the university and graduating. So, we're not alone, let's organize together. So,

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This is Dr. Yvette. I want to be mindful of time? So, I just, this is going to be the second to last question. If there's time, Anything else you were hoping that I'd ask or if there's any other topic you were hoping to cover today, this is a great time to say more about that.

Dr. Pau Abustan: This is Dr. Pau my question is, is how are we taking care of ourselves and our community, if you're willing to answer, Dr. Shayda. But for me, I love to [00:48:00] schedule things that I get excited for, so I'm really nerdy. So Dr. Shayda and I, we're gonna meet up at the Natural History Museum with a bunch of, you know, other LA spoonies, you know, those who identify as chronically ill, neurodivergent, disabled, and I would love to do that.

Dr. Pau Abustan: I love going to the aquarium, museums, because it is in my Animal Crossing New Horizons video game world. It's very comfy, cozy, you know, I write about this, but it's this worlds of gentleness and softness and routine. I'm all about it. So let's make it happen. You know, potlucks, nature, baths, nature, forest bathing, gardening, anime.

Dr. Pau Abustan: Those are all my comfy cozies and, and dream worlds. And you know, let's make it happen. That's how I take care of myself. And that's how we take care of our communities.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: I love this [00:49:00] question. The way I've been taking care of myself lately we just created a raised bed yesterday and we got some vegetable children and I'm really excited to, you know, continue gardening. We're building a fence right now to keep out the like, like feral cat colony that's, that we're, that's living in our backyard. But that's how I've been experiencing joy lately. Just like being outside gardening playing with the plants, repotting the indoor plants, just that kind of like slow joy that you were talking about. And the question that came to me was how have we Shifted or unlearned. And I guess this is for everybody.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Like how have we shifted and unlearned our own internalized ableism and sanism and what has been most medicinal for us in that work or in that process? Cause I don't think it's ever done.

Dr. Pau Abustan: [00:50:00] this is Dr. Pau, I think the most healing for me is really just going back to, you know, Chen, Kook, and Kim's work will not save us. We, we should stop investing in systems that are killing us and making us ill. And let's start nourishing ourselves in each other. So I love that Dr. Shayda, slow joy, gardening, you know, like nourishing ourselves, you know, if I can, I will, you know, Tricia Hersey's nap, nap ministry.

Dr. Pau Abustan: I will, I will take a nap as much as I can. I'll build it into my schedule. You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are on my schedule. A gentle walk is on my schedule. Doing nothing is on my schedule. That this is part of us and we need to honor all the wholeness of us. So, resting I love turtles. [00:51:00] So, yes, being slow, resting, yeah. Playing in the water.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: This is

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Shayda.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: oh,

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Oh, should I answer the, should I answer the question too, or? Yeah? Okay, I see the thumbs up. Okay, cool. You know, what I've realized lately is a lot of my internalized sanism and ableism and just The things that keep it in place, which for me I think are people pleasing and perfectionism. It's also a lot about the, the shame around disability in immigrant communities immigrant families, my own in particular. And so I've been thinking a lot about You know, disability not being a bad word or a bad thing, or if you have it, it's not a bad thing, but I'm realizing that a lot of my internalized ableism and zanism is coming from those places of family narratives and just people pleasing imperfectionism that became skills of survival because of [00:52:00] complex PTSD. And so kind of wrestling and reckoning with those things has been helpful to name so that I can unlearn these systems. And then when the university and the world remind me again about them, I have to re unlearn. Like, I feel like it's a very cyclical process. It's not linear. It's not something I'll do just once.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This is Dr. Yvette. I wasn't sure if y'all wanted me to answer any of those questions.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Please!

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I'll try to be brief. I know we're like almost at time. So for Dr. Pau's question, I love tending to my inner child, and I also happen to have children, so it kind of just works. I love going to museums too, so just a shout out to going to all these science museums, natural history museums, all the museums.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I love time in nature, especially time in parks, because as a Child, I lived a very sheltered life and I didn't really get to spend time outdoors. I love going to [00:53:00] arcades because I grew up in a swap meet and I would always be playing with, with, Games. So arcades, game nights, board games, all the games, video games.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And then I like going to checking out new vegan restaurants, , here. I, I'm in, I'm in the traditional homelands of the Nuwu in the Las Vegas area. I've been here for just under a year and just exploring some, some places where there are foods that I can tolerate and that don't cause allergies or intolerances is always fun for me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I and then in terms of the anti ableist, anti sanist work, what's been most helpful for me has been learning more about white supremacy and in learning, you know, figuring out ways to undo that. Compassion, compassion for others and self compassion. I feel like compassionate for me personally is an antidote to oppression.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's anti oppressive work. Being in community with others. I experienced that. I experienced so much isolation after getting COVID for the first time [00:54:00] and developing long haul symptoms and really, really struggling with my health that I needed to reach out and build community. I realized that it wasn't just enough for me to have community with my BIPOC friends, , and with my Mexican family.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I needed folks who had had some shared lived experiences around COVID. Disability and around chronic illnesses in particular, and that has been incredibly helpful that actually led to me even getting further diagnoses and modifying my lifestyle and doing that stuff of building into my schedule, my needs, building into my schedule, my values, building into my schedule, the areas of my life I want to prioritize.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: that has been huge for me. So yeah, there's still a lot of learning clearly that I have to do, but that has been very, very helpful. So we're right at time and I want to just let you both know that I really, really loved having you both. I want to make sure that folks can tap into supporting you and your work.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So if you [00:55:00] don't mind sharing, how can folks connect with you? How can folks support you and your work?

Dr. Shayda Kafai: This is Shayda, I can share that although I'm not the best at it, I'm trying to get better. I, I'm, I am on Instagram. It's my first and last name and I'll share, I'll share that with you And I'll also share my email. Email is great. I check my email often and I welcome and invite folks to reach out.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: I'd love to have more conversations about this.

Dr. Pau Abustan: This is Dr. Pau, you can find me at Cal State LA Women's Gender Sexuality Studies. My email is there as well. And on Instagram, I am dr_pau_phd reach out.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Doctora Yvette again thank you both so much. It's been an honor to share space with you. I have, this is going to [00:56:00] be one of my like hall of fame episodes. I just loved it so much. I feel so like, like I'm being so selfish having this conversation with you both, but I'm not because we're going to share it with everybody else.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So thank you so much. I hope this is not the last time that we are in conversation and in community with one another.

Dr. Shayda Kafai: Thank you so much. This has been so nourishing. It's been really good to meet you. And Shayda, as always, it's so nice to see you.

Dr. Pau Abustan: This is Pau. Maraming salamat. Many thanks in Tagalog.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thanks so much for joining me in the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. If you like what you heard, here are four ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you email me a screenshot, I'll send you a surprise freebie. The second way is to get your copy of my free Grad School Femtoring Resource Kit.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: which includes essential information to [00:57:00] prepare for and navigate grad school. You can access it at the link in today's show notes. The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at grad school, femtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The last way to show your love is to order a copy of is grad school for me. My graduate school admissions book for first gen BIPOCs. Thanks again for listening and until next time.

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