Replanted elsewhere: Getting to the root of solidarity

ABSTRACTThis paper brings together two scholars, Filipina/CHamorro and Cantonese (respectively), to engage in collaborative story-sharing sessions. We accessed our upbringings, K-12 and postsecondary educations, relations with processes of coloniality and racialization, and critical consciousness formation to situate our lives and knowledges in how Asian diasporic peoples have sought to challenge systems of oppression through radical intellectualism. We consider how this radical work has been necessarily connected to practices of what has been referred to as “thick solidarity” or “co-conspiracy.” We share how we came to an understanding of solidarity as protection, the importance of considering power relations and formations, and the need to sustain value systems. We discuss implications for broader work in what might be called, in the lineage of Cedric Robinson and his invocation of the Black radical tradition, the Asian radical tradition. AcknowledgmentsWe would like to thank Kat Bornhoft for reviewing and cleaning the transcripts we used for this paper.Disclosure statementWe have no known conflict of interest to disclose.Additional informationNotes on contributorsShena SanchezShena Sanchez, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Research Methodology at the University of Alabama. Her research focus is on critical qualitative inquiry, student and educator identity, and the socio-historical and political contexts of schooling.Casey Philip WongCasey Philip Wong, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Social Foundations of Education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University College of Education and Human Development. He researches and collaborates with communities to affirm, foster, sustain, and revitalize educational institutions and relations that critically center overlapping and interconnected African/Black, Indigenous, Latine/x/a/o, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities.