Beyond the Fellowship

For the longest time, I couldn’t articulate why this was such a transformative experience. I had been in rooms full of brown people before – I had a big family and frequently attended South Asian community events – but nothing had ever felt the way that affinity group did. Years after the fact, I came across a post shared by writer Blair Imani that made it all click: “Having shared identities doesn’t automatically create community. Shared values are key.” The people in that space weren’t just South Asian; they were South Asians I had met at a youth leadership conference, who were all committed to creating positive social change. 

However, the clarity that realization provided was fleeting. Almost as soon as I found my answer to that initial question, another question arose: If the secret to community was shared values, why was it so difficult for me to find other South Asians who shared my values? Why, when I joined social justice-focused student organizations at my university, did I rarely see people who looked like me? Why, after so many years, had I not been able to find the same sense of belonging I had experienced in 2018? 

As the sociology student that I was, I turned to the literature for answers. Knee-deep in a research journal, I came across an article that deconstructed the relationship between the model minority myth and Asian American activism. I had known about the myth through lived experience, but my sociology education had helped me to understand that it was much more pernicious than the “Asians are smart” stereotype might initially suggest. As I had learned, this was a narrative intentionally invented and pushed by white supremacists in the wake of civil rights movement, and its purpose was to dismiss systemic racism by making an example of a select group of academically and financially successful Asian Americans. The myth fed the argument that upward mobility was achievable for all through hard work and falsely suggested that racial disparities were a product of individual failures, rather than systemic barriers.

The article I found deepened my understanding of the model minority myth as it pertains to Asian American involvement in social justice efforts. It perpetuates, among other things, “the monolithic image of Asian Americans as successful in society and thus unaffected by racial oppression and uninterested in activism” (Yi & Todd 2024). With this given, it began to make sense to me that internalization of the myth – which occurs when Asian Americans believe the stereotypes associated with the model minority image – may manifest in decreased engagement with social justice efforts. Given the ubiquity of those stereotypes, I had observed internalization of the myth to be a common phenomenon. 

As I conducted interviews for my own senior thesis research, a qualitative study that explored South Asian American identity within the context of the model minority myth, I came across participants who similarly struggled with finding community. One interviewee shared her journey in finding “South Asian friends who are also activists” after growing up around brown people who she described as unengaged in advocacy (Patel 2024). 

Given everything I had learned from my research and from my lived experiences, it became clear to me that building community would require finding South Asians who actively resisted the model minority myth, and felt a deep necessity to create positive social change. When I received the offer to become an FAO Schwarz Fellow at Reading Partners in New York City, little did I know that the move would lead me to find exactly that. Both within and outside of work, I’ve met people who exist at the intersection of my identity and values. From the folks I’ve met in the AAPI affinity space at Reading Partners to those I’ve gotten to know through my weekly yoga class at Saratoga Park, one of the best things to happen since moving to NYC has been finding people who have helped to recreate the feeling I first experienced seven years ago. 

This dissonance between the imagined ideal of the holiday season and the pressures of our hyper-consumerist reality make this time of year uniquely burdensome for so many with spending too much or not having enough money to spend being cited most often (58%) followed by finding the right gifts (40%) by U.S. adults as sources of increased stress during this time, (APA, 2023). 

Not only are these practices harming human health, but they also place additional pressure on already over-burdened natural systems through increased fossil fuel and natural resource use coupled with dramatic increases in household and commercial waste, (Dennings, 2022). This begs the question: How can we cultivate the abundance we crave in this season without further exacerbating these issues, and more importantly, what practices can we implement into our daily lives this year to lay the groundwork for a less extractive, more peaceful holiday next year?

I would argue that a promising answer is, funnily enough, exemplified by the interconnectedness of those same natural systems. It requires a shift from this transactional economy – encouraging consumption of ever-increasing amounts of resources in the hopes of perpetual economic growth – to a gift economy – where resources are shared, and value is measured in relationships rather than transactions. 

In her 2024 book, The Serviceberry, Indigenous scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer notes how the eponymous tree exemplifies this reciprocity. The serviceberries on these trees provide food for birds who, in turn, spread the seeds to new locations and enable the ongoing proliferation of the species, (Illingworth, 2024). The birds are showing their gratitude to the serviceberry by passing on its gift of food to the surrounding environment by ensuring new opportunities for more serviceberry trees to grow and nourish future birds. 

Another example of this gift economy I often use in lessons with students in my role at Audubon Mid-Atlantic is all the natural relationships formed around oak trees. For example, just one native oak tree can provide a home to over 500 species of caterpillars, and those caterpillars pass that gift along to local birds like chickadees by providing the necessary nourishment to raise fledgling broods to adulthood, (Appalachian Audubon Society, 2023). Beyond this, when oak trees drop their acorns in the Fall, they provide food for local small mammals like squirrels as they prepare for their hibernation. The squirrels then pass this gift back to the oak trees by dispersing and burying these acorns throughout their shared ecosystem – paving the way for more future oak trees to grow and continue nourishing and housing the next generation of insects, birds, and mammals.

These examples show us how we can cultivate abundance in our communities by not just saying “thank you” or exchanging material goods but opening opportunities for ongoing relationships of reciprocity. Implementing this in our own lives can look like inviting loved ones over for a potluck, starting or donating to a little free library where knowledge can be continually given and received, or teaching a loved one a skill so that they may use it to give back to others. 

In my work with Audubon Mid-Atlantic at The Discovery Center in Philadelphia, I aim to nurture these reciprocal relationships between the members of our community and the shared environments in our neighborhood by opening opportunities for students and neighbors to connect with local birds and ecosystems. 

Building these connections and encouraging ongoing land stewardship is the basis of an ongoing Nature Journaling and Crafting series I host at the Discovery Center. This month, I encouraged attendees to share the abundance of the holiday season with our local birds by making decorative pine-cone bird feeders that will nourish them through the coming Winter. By hanging these feeders outside our homes and in our neighborhoods, we passed on the gifts like cleaner air and water, cooler temperatures, pest control, and general beauty and liveliness that local and plants and birds provide for us back to them – setting the stage for the continued exchange of these gifts over time.