8 10 91 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/92b43c23e72a8f67a627d44ac02f70e3.pptx e902bd69c264cb74410c607453bf1676 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180418_ahall_master Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jimenez-Hudis, Aracely Seiller, Emily Title A name given to the resource Amy Hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-18 Type The nature or genre of the resource image Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/1a5ff7c451a420742e6338b01daa9c39.pdf 89c2c1c695448128266716e243fa89cc PDF Text Text �Amy Hall is a Chinese-American woman who was raised in Connecticut and a suburb of Philadelphia. In our 45- minute interview she always returned to the idea that since a young age she had always been interested in humanitarian work, serving others any way she could. Ms. Hall mentioned in the interview that her experience growing up as a Chinese-American girl in predominantly white spaces made her want to help others who also felt left out of society. She has been able to achieve that goal through working with a high-end fashion company called Eileen Fisher for the past 25 years as both the Director of Social Consciousness and, as of earlier this month, Vice President. As Director of Social Consciousness, Ms. Hall had the combined multilingual and cross-cultural experience to effectively negotiate with the many people in Eileen Fisher’s supply chain. Eileen Fisher also works very hard to switch over to totally environmentally friendly and sustainable practices, from labor reform among their suppliers and workers to changing the fibers they use and even recycling old Eileen Fisher products into new products for limited edition sale. We have an example of reconstructed recycled clothes here on the slide. This is just one of the many styles offered in the new collection. Projects like this has a huge impact on the environment. I don’t know if you guys know this but the fashion industry has a huge waste issue. The financial success of the fashion industry literally hinges on the fast rotation of in versus out styles. Besides this, clothes are often made with plastic or synthetic materials and these fabrics go through a washing machine particles from the clothes called microplastics seep into the water supply, and since they’re microscopic they can’t be filtered out by treatment systems. (clip1). One of my favorite parts of the interview was when Ms. Hall described how she learned from a large scale mistake. �For some background, Eileen Fisher wanted to find a way to give the workers making its clothes healthcare but after getting one supplier on board, they learned the hard way about a flaw in the plan. (clip2). I think this was a really important part of the interview because it reflected the fact that American practices and moral values are not applicable everywhere else in the world. It reminded me a lot of our numerous in class discussions about American moral imperialism and how just throwing solutions tailored for US social problems won’t magically fix social problems abroad. Poverty and the working class are not the same everywhere and I think this excerpt perfectly demonstrates that if U.S citizens actually want to create change abroad you actually have to be on the ground, working with locals to create lasting solutions they actually support and want for themselves and their families. 3:50 - on diversity 5:00 - interest and language, Spanish→ Chinese 7:00 - work in human rights, how she got interested. 10:40 - work in fundraising isn’t exactly what she hoped it would be 13:30 - community relations manager four years into working fr EF, commitment to ppl in supply chain 22:07 - 23:20 - EF and sustainable practices, fibers 23:30 - Ms. Hall speaking about failure and learning from mistakes 23:50 - 26:04 - The Mistake (clip2) �We centered our first bulk of questions around her early life, growing up in Connecticut and Philadelphia, and then her college career. From there we delved into more detailed questions about her classes, her major, studying abroad, and if she had any role models in her life. After that, we tried to direct the interview into her time working for Eileen Fisher, INC. Before Eileen Fisher, she works for three non-profits, and found that her skillset rested in fundraising. Yet, she found this wasn’t a great fit for her personality. Fundraising wasn’t satisfying and it didn’t bring her the impact she had, it made her feel too far removed. She wished to work hands on within the communities she helps. It was difficult to manifest what she wanted to happen, happen. She walked away from fundraising at the age of 32. She ended up getting an administrative position, as the assistant to a CEO of a small, fashion company. The CEO ended up leaving the company a few months later. — Four years later, she was given the title community relations manager. This was Eileen Fisher. She has now been working for the company for 25 years. We backtracked a bit after this bulk of conversation, asking about her time studying abroad in China in 1979. We asked if she had ever been back to China after that. She goes quite frequently, once every year or two now to visit suppliers for Eileen Fisher. Questions about Eileen Fisher, sustainability and human rights that would eventually conclude the interview. �Aracely and I truly tried to capture her life and everything she has built and grown into within the short frame of our interview, and Amy was more than willing to speak on her life, even without prodding. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180418_ahall_ppt_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jimenez-Hudis, Aracely Seiller, Emily Title A name given to the resource Amy Hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-18 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/dfe71d29a321e1b6629bd42fcf9c7816.pdf df21a55ae043e345c3680acef2e0b75c PDF Text Text Aracely Jimenez-Hudis and Emily Seiller AAS 307 Final Report May 9 2018 Section I - Interviewee information Amy Hall Vice President, Eileen Fisher April 18, 2018 4:30 p.m. EST Objective: to obtain an oral history from Amy Hall documenting her childhood, collegiate career and professional careers. Section II - Pre-Interview Process After our interview with Charlene Barshefsky fell through, we wanted to research and schedule an interview with Amy Hall as soon as possible. A simple google search of “Amy Hall Eileen Fisher” turned up her LinkedIn profile, which was very helpful in providing a skeletal outline for different possible interview questions. Ms. Hall had all her education and work experience listed and although we were not completely familiar with all the places she has worked, research on these organizations also gave us a good starting point for formulation questions. We broke up our list of questions into four main sections: Early life/childhood, education, early career and current career/reflection. Ms. Hall has worked at Eileen Fisher for the past 25 years so we focused a lot of our questions on the current career/reflection section. Although we came up with interview questions separately, we met prior to the interview itself and divided the questions in half for each of us to ask. Since we were able to conduct our interview over Skype, we thought it would be best if both of us were fully engaged in the conversation rather than have one person ask questions and the other mostly just take notes. Here are our interview questions as they were originally organized: Early Life - Where did you grow up? - Are there any childhood experiences that influenced your career path? - Have you always been interested in sustainability? Education - What was the most valuable lesson you learned at Georgetown University? - Did you have have any influential mentors during your undergraduate career? - What were some of your life or career goals when you graduated from Georgetown? - What prompted you to get your MBA in 2008? Career Early career - Tell us about your time at the Institute for International Education. What was your most challenging project as Manager of Resource Development? Current career - Tell us about your position as Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher. - Do you think the fashion industry can be a leader in the movement toward sustainable practices? - What projects or innovations that you spearheaded at Eileen Fisher are you most proud of? �- How do you think your background in Linguistics has influenced your career, the way you communicate ideas or the way handle certain projects? What advice do you have for people looking to either lead more sustainable lives or enter a career in sustainability? Do you think purchasing power at the level of the individual consumer has a significant impact on creating an atmosphere/culture of sustainability and environmental awareness? Section III - Interview Summary 1. We definitely got complete answers to most of our questions. After a couple minutes went by during the interview we quickly noticed that Ms. Hall had a lot to say about her life and career and she actually ended up touching on a few of our questions unprompted. As a result, we let Ms. Hall lead the flow of the interview for the most part, letting her speak at length and connecting topics to one another. One example that comes to mind is when Ms. Hall was describing how her study of languages in college helped her get to the position she has now at Eileen Fisher. 2. Our interview was a mix of structured and unstructured. As we mentioned in the answer to the previous question, we had set categories of questions but if Ms. Hall began to speak at length about a topic, we let her, even if it was not necessarily in a precise chronological order. 3. Throughout the project, the workload was shared equally. The initial interview inquiry letter was drafted on a shared Google Doc, as were the interview questions and this very report. Even our presentation was divided equally. In the interview itself, our approach was very similar. As previously mentioned, we split up the questions beforehand and each of us asked our fair share of probing questions, some we had planned on asking and other we asked on the spot. We also made sure to not let there be long gaps in the interview. For example, if we were at a stage in the interview where we were asking questions pertaining to particular section of questions, one of us would jump in with either a topic switch or a new follow up question. 4. While Ms. Hall did not refer any outside links or resources, she did encourage us to check out the Eileen Fisher website which has a lot of information about its human rights and environmental sustainability initiatives. Section IV - Interview Transcript EMILY SEILLER (ES): Where did you grow up? AMY HALL (AH): Until seventh grade I grew up in Connecticut and junior high and high school in a suburb of Philadelphia. They were both suburban and in terms of the Connecticut experience my family was the diversity in the town. My father was Chinese and my mother Caucasian and both were born here so being in CT and being Asian in appearance though obviously American in upbringing was an interesting experience. This goes back to the ‘60s and �people just looked at us as different and weird and not like them. There was a lot of bullying and ostracising and stuff like that. ARACELY JIMENEZ (AJ): Did that situation change or improve when you moved to the Philadelphia suburb? AH: When we got to Philadelphia we were still very much a minority. There were a handful more, very small number of Asian kids in the schools, maybe fewer than ten. And probably fewer than four African-American kids, it was very white-oriented. How that influenced me though was when I got to college. I always loved languages and so when I applied to college I really wanted to study languages. My primary language at that point, besides English, was Spanish and I thought I would be a Spanish major. But when I got to college and saw how many Spanish majors there were, the intake counselor asked me what other languages would I want to study and I said “Definitely Chinese,” because of my background I’m sort of curious about it. So he said I should write about it in my application and in doing that I ended up actually majoring in Chinese even though I had never studied it before, nor had I ever known anything about it. My point about that is, I think growing up and feeling different from people and wondering what that Chinese thing in my background was all about caused me to study the language and reconnect with my roots. AJ: Were there any experiences in your early life that influenced your interest in sustainability or non-profit work? AH: It’s funny, I don’t even think of myself as working in sustainability because my work covers multiple areas. It’s part environmental sustainability, it’s also human rights and it’s also women and girls. So growing up, partially because I was so bullied, and I was mortally shy, I just always had a lot of compassion for other people who were also left out. I would just automatically gravitate towards them and I would just feel really badly about them and I wanted to help them! So I was thinking about what to do with my life and I said wow, I just want to do something that helps the world, because for myself it had been a tough upbringing. I thought about being a social worker but I didn’t think it quite suited my personality. Nobody told me when I went to college that it’s really hard to get a job with just a language unless you want to be an interpreter or a translator, which was not my thing either. When I got out of college I wasn’t sure what to do. The kind of work I do now didn’t exist back then and I also had no interest in working in business because I was really interested in helping people. So I got a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language and in doing that I discovered that my shyness made it really hard for me to actually do the work. I had trouble being in front of a class for a long time, keeping them entertained. It was a really harsh discovery so I went into the nonprofit world and found a job in Chinatown in New York City. I started as the assistant of the executive director but because I was the only native English speaker on staff, they started asking me to help out with grant requests. When the time came to look for another job, I realized I was acquiring a skill set around fundraising. So the next three jobs I had were working in nonprofit. I worked for Asia Society, I worked for China Institute. I was fundraising, writing grants, doing events and after doing that for nine years that’s when I realized that was also not a great fit for my personality �because I didn’t like rejection. Fundraising just didn’t feel satisfying to me, I didn’t feel like I was having the impact I wanted to have, and I think I was too far removed from the actual work of the organizations, I wasn’t out there hands on with people or communities. When I decided to walk away from fundraising I decided just to take any old job for a couple years until I could figure out what to do with myself. By now I was already thirty-two, so I had already had a career. Long story short I ended up getting an administrative assistant job to the CEO of this tiny clothing company that I had never heard of. The reason I chose that was because growing up I used to make all my own clothes. The CEO left the company within six months, they never replaced him. It was a small and growing company so I just started helping out wherever I could. One of the things I was able to do successfully was start responding to organizations who were sending in letter asking for donations of merchandise I said, well I used to write letters like this, I know what to do with those letters, I’ll organize a system. So four years later I was given the title Community Relations Manager, and that to me was the perfect marriage of what I had been doing with this new situation and I was able to suddenly feel like I could have impact. Well, this was Eileen Fisher, and this is now my twenty-fifth year with the company. The year I got the title Community Relations Manager, 1997, Eileen Fisher made a commitment to the people in its supply chain because we were hearing all kinds of news stories about sweatshops and we thought wow, we’re so small nobody would think to include us in those articles, but we sure could’ve been, and we’d better do something about it. They were looking for someone to do something about the people in our supply chain and I got that job and I didn’t apply for it but the reason they looked at me was because of those languages I had studied! They wanted someone who had cross-cultural experience, who had lived in China and I had all of that. AJ: You just mentioned that you lived in China, could you expand on that? AH: When you’re a language major typically you do a study abroad program and at the time I was in school, I went to college in 1979. So where do you go to study Chinese in 1981, this would have been my junior year, the option was either Taiwan, Hong Kong (where they speak Cantonese, not Mandarin), or mainland China had just opened. It had opened to the West in 1977 and they had just started exchange programs in 1980 or 81. My best friend was studying Chinese and she went to Taiwan and I thought well, that’s cheating, you have to go to the real China. So, I went to China. And when I had landed in China, I had already studied Chinese for two years at that point. Nowadays I think they teach it much better but at that time it was a new language to be taught and they hadn’t figured out how to do it efficiently and my two years of Chinese language study included tons of historical articles. I knew five different ways to say invade or invasion because so much of the historical literature was based of military stuff. I also know a lot of folk tales, but I literally did not know how to say “I’m hungry” or “Where’s the bathroom.” We knew no vernacular, we didn’t study any of that. So when I landed in China I was mortified that I actually couldn’t say anything that was useful. I could give you a whole philosophical treatise on something. So I spent the first three months really miserable and then suddenly it just started clicking and my fluency picked up and I made a lot of friends. I felt like a guinea pig, I was one of four Americans segregated in our own dormitory with about twenty-five Japanese students who were mostly businessmen learning for business purposes. It was a very isolating experience, we were watched all the time. I made Chinese friends and the only reason �I was able to do that is if I don’t wear any makeup and if I dress a certain way, I can look a hundred percent Chinese. I blended in if I wanted to but it was really risky. At times I was really close to either getting myself in trouble or getting my friends in trouble because they weren’t supposed to mix with Americans. But it was an amazing year, well before the country started to modernize. It was still very communist, everyone was wearing Mao jackets, everything was rationed, there were no modern conveniences at all and we were in Shanghai. It was quite an impactful year and it did make think about going into international relations. I was at Georgetown and got a scholarship when I was finishing up my fourth year of school to study international relations at Taipei University but something happened and I wasn’t able to take advantage of it. ES: Have you been back to China since then? AH: Yes, many times. On a personal level, I did briefly marry a man who was from China, so we went and visited his family once or twice. But on a professional level, I started going back to China with this new role at the company. By then I was in my mid-thirties and it been many years since I graduated from college and my Chinese fluency was really poor. I went back and found a local Chinese language school and took classes to refresh and so I developed our early auditing protocol for our suppliers-- I will say also at the time, and even today, our US based suppliers are mostly Chinese speaking. The owners will speak English but most of the workers don’t speak a lot of English. I had to learn new vocabulary, I had never spoken about working hours, wage documentation, human rights, so I had to learn all that vocabulary. But I do get to travel to China, I don’t know if I go every year, but maybe every other year I go back. Actually I was there last year and I’m going next month. But it’s about once or every two years I go back to visit suppliers. ES: Do you think the fashion industry, and Eileen Fisher, can be a leader in the movement toward sustainable practices? AH: Many people say that we are already but there’s a lot of things that we do that are beyond what the average apparel company does. We our sights set on changing every single fiber we use over to some environmentally low-impact fiber, whether it’s organic or recycled so we’re moving in that direction. We also have very high expectations for the people in our supply chain regarding living wages and worker voice, worker happiness. We work at all levels of our supply chain, we have goals around all our fibers, the chemistry, the carbon, the water. AJ: In the past twenty-five years you’ve worked with Eileen Fisher, can you tell us about a project that you’re most proud of? AH: SO what’s interesting about that question is, this is the reality of this work-- a lot of the things that we’ve done, have failed, and we’ve learned an awful lot from it. An example is, some years back I’d always been frustrated with the fact that our suppliers here in New York City, or any of the US based suppliers, it’s not typical for them to offer health benefits, something we take for granted as employed American citizens. We looked into what it would entail for our �suppliers to offer health insurance. We worked with a health insurance provider and we got one of our suppliers to agree to a pilot program whereby we would pay a premium to the supplier for every single piece that they make which would go toward health insurance premiums for their employees. All US suppliers are relatively small, this one at the time had thirty-five or forty workers. Only one third of them signed up for health insurance. We had a representative from the health insurance company come and talk to them, it was all fully translated. The workers, it turns out, were so suspicious. They were used to going to their acupuncturist, or going to the emergency room when they had a real problem. Very few of them wanted to be bothered with any kind of forms they would have to fill out, some kind of referral form if the needed to see a certain kind of doctor. It turns out, one of the reasons they liked not having health insurance was because they could reflect a very low income and get access to government benefits. By giving them health insurance, it raised their income and suddenly they didn’t qualify for some of the benefits like government housing. So after six months all of the people who had been in the program dropped out. We realized we can’t always apply American values to other people’s experiences, whether they’re American, new Americans or in other countries. We always think about that when we go to other countries but we didn’t think about it in terms of the immigrants here. We think if they’ve come here they want the full experience but in fact they didn’t. It showed us we can’t make assumptions about what other people want or need. AJ: Do you think the purchasing power of an individual consumer can have an impact? AH: It totally can. I’m going to be speaking next week at FIT at Fashion Revolution Day, April 24. I think consumers need to exercise their power much more than we do. It’s too easy right now to buy a ten dollar H&M shirt or Forever 21. We all do it, I have two daughters, they shop, they like stuff. It takes more time to go an research and think oh my gosh, I’m tempted by that over there, I’m gonna save my money and invest in this beautiful sweater. I could either buy four over here or one over here and this one is organic and it’s going to last for ten years. That is a behavior change and a mindset change that is really hard to live up to when you’re surrounded on a day-to-day basis with the magazines and ads. However, I can tell you one time we received a single note from a single person saying how disappointed she was that we used angora and how could we do that knowing the conditions that angora rabbits are raised in. And we thought, wow we never really thought about that so our manufacturing leader went to China where the angora had come from and scheduled a tour of some angora rabbit farms. I was sufficiently appalled by the conditions of the rabbits that we dropped angora after that and just one letter from a single customer. For me, that illustrates a power that people can have if they really take the time to learn about the issue and send a note in. I doesn’t mean every single time we get a note from a customer we go and do something, but a lot of times they will wake us up to issues we weren’t aware of. ES: You mentioned you were speaking at FIT, does your company strive to work with fashion students? AH: Sure, we do a lot. Three or four years ago maybe we worked with professional organization called the council of fashion designers of America, the CFDA, and with them we organized a �competition that went out to twenty or twenty-five fashion or design schools in the country and we selected three winners. We were looking for three talented designers to come work with us for a year. Well it turned out, completely randomly, that all three we chose came from Parsons. They came and worked with us to create a line of clothing out of the clothing we were now taking back, we take back previously worn Eileen Fisher clothes and we hold on to it and we create new things out of them. Those three design students started this new line for us which we call ‘Renew,’ and it was the beginning of our whole circular initiative. But in addition to that we bring students in as interns, we go to schools and work with classes or speak to them about what we’re doing to inspire them, we provide materials to schools, leftover materials. AJ: How long has Eileen Fisher been recycling clothes? AH: We started in 2009 and we have two stand-alone stores that only sell previously worn Eileen Fisher clothing. We started by taking clothes back and reselling them but we realized that forty to fifty percent of the clothes we take back can’t actually be resold because they’re too damaged. So we keep everything and we sort it, it’s a very manual process, and we make new things out of it. So we might cut the clothing into pieces and sew it into something like a dress, a tunic or something. Or we’ll cut them into small pieces and we have a felting process that makes upholstery quality fabric. Our two stand alone stores that sell Eileen Fisher Renew clothing are in Irvington New York and Seattle. AJ: I want to move back briefly to your time at Georgetown. Did you have any mentors during your undergraduate career? AH: Not as an undergraduate, I was really undirected, that came much later in life for me. AJ: If you could change one thing that you did at Eileen Fisher, what would it be? AH: I’m not sure I can answer that specifically. What I could say is if there’s something I wish I had known how to do, but I didn’t figure this out until at least ten years into my job, I wished somebody had told me that to be successful and really good at this kind of work I do now, it would have been really good to know this. When I think about the kind of work that I do, which is environmental sustainability, human rights primarily, saying that we want to be a certain kind of company, talking with other teams in the company, talking with other businesses outside the company as an influencer, so what does that require? It actually requires very strong organizational development skills, culture change skills, because what you’re actually doing is changing people’s behavior or mindset. SO, we’ll go and speak with the owner of a factory and say, hey Mr. Li, I know you’ve been doing things this way the entire time you’ve been running this factory and maybe your father did it this way, but let me say we now know we need to do this thing differently. And he’s comfortable because he’s making money doing whatever he’s doing and we need to come in and say, ‘this is better because you’re going to help the environment, you’re going to help all these people and your story may get out on the internet, maybe get on our website.’ Convincing them, anybody in our supply chain, anyone in our whole sphere of influence, it can take many conversations, many visits, many pilot projects, trial and �error, it can take that something is the right way to go. It usually requires of them additional money, process change, pulling them out of their comfort zone. Knowing how to manage that human behavior change would have been really useful. People are coming out of college with environmental sustainability degrees, human rights degrees, but I don’t think they’re coming out of college really knowing how to work with people because really what this is all about is getting people to shift their way. And maybe that’s what business in general is all about, I’m not sure, but in this work it would be really useful so I think it should be taught in college. AJ: That kind of work is a lot like topics we’ve been studying in class that has to do with social movements, do you consider yourself part of a broader social movement? AH: I do, in certain instances we think of ourselves as activists, we do a lot of policy work, we go to Capitol Hill, someone in my team goes to pipeline protests. We really are creating a new standard for business, we’re trying to reinvent how the business of fashion should be done in this century. How do you do it in a way that not only does less harm, but eventually nourishes the environment, nourishes the planet, leaves people in a better state than when we first arrived. A lot of what we do is work that hasn’t been tried by another company and in that regard I think we’re activists. It’s definitely two steps forward, one back and it’ exhausting but it’s worth it. ES: Do you have any upcoming projects that you’re excited about? AH: There’s so many! Something that we’re talking about right now is how do we get the whole company, even people in facilities, to really embrace all our values and make their decisions through those lenses, so I feel that is the next big thing. The other big thing, I’m not directly involved in this but I’m excited about it, we did a mapping project where we tried to figure out why our carbon footprint was so high. Basically we figured out quickly that our carbon footprint is high because we airship much of our product from China. So obviously, we should not be airshipping but seashipping, why are we airshipping so much? Through the process of designing and developing the product, they end up with not enough time to send it by sea so often they send by air. Where we are right now, there’s a whole bunch of people working in the company to completely shift our internal processes to shorten the development timeline of a product, give our suppliers more time to do what we want them to do. I mentioned earlier that there’s a lot of failure in this work. Some of our suppliers, we’ve been working with them for over twenty years and yet the core issues have not changed a whole lot. Workers still get paid pretty low wages, hours are still really high, why is that, why can’t we nudge them forward? We figured that because we don’t actually give them enough time to get the product done because we’re putting too much pressure on them. We place the order, we change the order, we update the order, we placed the order for a hundred, now we want two hundred and we still need it delivered on this date. So they run out of time and they airship it, and they don’t want to tell us that they had a lot of overtime and they don’t want to tell us that they weren’t able to pay a higher wage because we’re still paying them the same original amount that we agreed upon. We realized that the suppliers were not able to do their work ethically because of what we’re doing. So we have this whole project to shift our internal process to alleviate the stress on the �suppliers and ultimately lead to higher well-being for the workers. So we’ll see, it’ll be another year or so before we see if the intend result happens. But it’s really exciting, this kind of work doesn’t happen at other companies. Section V - Interview Analysis The interview in its entirety was both meaningful and enlightening— it is not often you are given the opportunity to speak to someone with so much life experience who continues to make changes in the world daily. It was very wonderful that she had given us the chance and time to hold the interview, and Amy Hall was incredibly insightful and enthusiastic to the very end. I would say, however, that the most meaningful topic occurred during her talk of getting healthcare to those who work in the supply factories here in America and elsewhere, and the shock of realizing that most, if not all, did not want to partake in the healthcare program and would rather keep to their own customs and cultures— we cannot force American values onto others, even those who live here, and even if one believes what they are doing is for the greater good, it may not be that way towards those they wish to aid towards a more fulfilling life. I do not believe any aspects of the interview were necessarily not useful, any bit of information on her life and the story she had to tell came off as necessary and important. I think there would’ve been tons more to talk about if we had really gotten into the ins and outs of Eileen Fisher, her past careers, and even her recent trips to China which we didn’t really dissect in their entirety due to time constraints. All of the in class presentations were interesting and useful in their own ways— the careers of the women interviewed ranged through classes, cultures and societies. And it was enriching to hear all the stories told. Personally, I found the interview of the laundry owner the most fascinating, perhaps because it was significantly different than the others in that way. It was eye opening and gave us an insight into the life of someone often overlooked and regarded as insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Her life truly spoke to the idea of soft roles. She wasn’t a powerful politician, an author, a diplomat, a lawyer, a ceo. Her connection to her culture felt true and wonderful, and everything that was presented to the class was genuine. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180418_ahall_doc_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jimenez-Hudis, Aracely Seiller, Emily Hall, Amy Title A name given to the resource Amy Hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-18 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/17f3e9c8e7157f95e1d6c8d571a90353.pptx 026d9014d02a0700a912348660b45f60 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180423_rlipson_master Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tucker, Benjamin Lubin, Ashley Title A name given to the resource Roberta Lipson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-23 Type The nature or genre of the resource interactive resource Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lipson, Roberta Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/2d81f43c6b991222b3e0cad932449966.pdf be5c5dfdbe886131d29fd25086636b5e PDF Text Text Roberta Lipson is the cofounder and Chairwoman of United Family Healthcare, the largest operator of for profit hospitals in China. Roberta founded its flagship facility, Beijing Family Hospital in 1997, after earning the trust and respect of Chinese officials; many of whom were skeptical at first of privatized healthcare services in China, given their sordid past. As we’ve learned from the article Opportunities and Obstacles for Women Physicians in the Twenty-First Century, ”the mere presence of more women in medicine is not enough to produce a better healthcare system”. Roberta represents a shift towards equality within the governing bodies of hospital systems. Not only does Roberta act as the Chairwoman of United Family Healthcare, but she also routinely serves as a board member on both the American Chambers of Commerce in China and the U.S. China Business Council. Roberta spoke on the gender disparity she routinely sees in her professional life. (Play clip 19:15- 20:11) This disparity has not caused Roberta to become callused or defensive. On the contrary, as she puts it, “we have a […] consensus-driven leadership approach in our company, and I wouldn’t change it so I could look more like a man”. 1 �The questions we asked Roberta Lipson were centered around her personal life and how her successful businesses have affected it. Being a woman in her position within a patriarchal country may be hard for some, but Roberta seems to handle it with grace and humility. She goes in depth about how she was able to give her all to her business. (quote) basically reiterating the “it takes a village saying”. In hindsight she does wish she could of spent more time with her family but she knows they’re proud of her nonetheless. She goes on to speak about the future of United family Healthcare by stating what her initial goals were and how the company has reached and exceeded her expectations. (quote) By evolving with the times but still keeping true to the initial identity of the company United Family Healthcare. 2 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180423_rlipson_ppt_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tucker, Benjamin Lubin, Ashley Title A name given to the resource Roberta Lipson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-23 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lipson, Roberta Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/ec177adb8833c2061667ac4a4850e6fe.pdf 13c605ba26fca40da147828bccf5f6ca PDF Text Text Benjamin Tucker Professor Christoff AAS/POL 307 5 May 2018 Final Report Section One Person Interviewed: Roberta Lipson Title or Position: Chairwoman of United Family Healthcare Date, time and length of interview: April 23, 2018, 9:08 PM, 37:34 minutes Objective: To obtain a full life’s history of the interviewee, with a particular focus on the interviewee’s career. We sought to learn how gain insight into Roberta’s companies, as well as her own personal contributions to relations between Asia and the United States. Section Two Our pre-interview research consisted of a Google search which led us to 3 past interviews conducted with Roberta (The Beijinger, SupChina, and CityWeekend). These interviews were read and analyzed to garner any information pertinent to our project. A filmed interview conducted by CCTV was also watched not only to obtain more information, but to gain a feel for how Roberta spoke and responded to questioning. We also found information listed on Roberta’s LinkedIn, as well as a page of information regarding Roberta’s professional statistics on Bloomberg’s website such as age (62), location of corporate headquarters (Bethesda, �Maryland), educational history (Brandeis and Columbia), and titles and board memberships. We created a list of potential questions for Roberta, making sure not to ask too many questions that she had previously answered in other interviews. This list was sent via email to Roberta’s assistant for review. Questions for Roberta: Early Life: 1. When and where were you born? 2. What were your family’s dynamics growing up? Continued Education: 3. How difficult was learning Mandarin/Cantonese as an adult, while simultaneously earning your MBA at Columbia? 4. What was the ratio of men to women in your MBA program? Did notice any discrimination based on your sex or gender while earning your degree? 5. Were you single when you moved China? [Conditional] Did you feel any trepidation moving to a foreign country by yourself (having to live alone/ speak a secondary language)? What was your living situation like before meeting Elyse Beth Silverberg? Challenges in China: 6. Why did the Chinese government initially give the idea of United Family a “poor reception” when you began discussing its inception during the early 90’s (SupChina, 2017)? 7. You’ve said in the past that the only folks who have access to United Family Hospitals are those “who have money and really good private insurance”. How can the Chinese �government incentivize talented physicians to choose employment as family practitioners and clinicians in the healthcare tiers normally reserved for the impoverished (SupChina, 2017)? 8. Why is it so difficult to provide adequate modern medicine through a non for profit system? 9. Does United Family Healthcare have any plans to provide services, perhaps through rural clinics, to the less wealthy people of China? 10. Do Chinese government officials still consider healthcare one of their obligations to the people, or has the for profit system become normalized? 11. Have you faced any discrimination based on your sex or gender while working in China? 12. In what ways has the flow of information between the U.S. and China changed over the past 30 years? I know you had previously mentioned in another interview that when you first began importing ultrasound technology, which had become commonplace in the states, medical practitioners in China hadn’t even heard of the device. Has information exchange improved? 13. Does United Family Healthcare provide services to rural migrants? Reflections on Career: 14. Do you have any regrets in your career? 15. Does the future look promising for the healthcare industry in China? 16. Over the course of your career in China, have you encountered a large number of female CEOs? �17. In your opinion, what is the political relationship dynamic between the United States and China? 18. Do you think your work with Chindex and United Family Healthcare has strengthened relations between the U.S. and China? 19. Do you believe your work as an entrepreneur has affected your personal life in any way? [Conditional] Did you have to give up family life to excel in the workplace? 20. What would you say is your primary goal for the future of Chindex and United Family Healthcare? Where do you see the company and yourself in 10 years? 21. How has the hukou system affected your clients/ patients in terms of being able to receive healthcare? 22. As a woman, what was it like being the primary decision maker during business deals with US exporters. [Conditional] Do you feel that you had to change your behavior being surrounded by men? 23. Do have any personal memories of an individual who has been provided services from one of your hospitals? Section Three 1. I think we obtained complete answers to our questions. Roberta was very forthright and candid. The only question that required coaxing was that concerning Roberta’s behavior while in the company of other executives, who by our understanding of her answer, were almost exclusively men. After some deliberation Roberta provided us with another answer that seemed quite honest. �2. Our interview was a mixed format. Our questions were sent to Roberta prior to our conversation, and although we primarily stuck to those questions, we also deviated at times and spoke adlibbed. The tone of the conversation began formally and became friendlier as it progressed. 3. “Why do you think that is?”- This question was in response to a statement Roberta made after describing the challenges of attracting doctors from the public sector to the for-profit model of healthcare. Her answer, while rich with information, did not address this this specifically and need elaboration. “You said at first that it was difficult to attract talent to China; could you elaborate on that? Besides the language barrier, what are some cultural differences that are apparent?”- This probing question was proposed to have Roberta elaborate on her previous answer. 4. Background research was completed by Ben and Ashley. The list of questions was brainstormed by both Ben and Ashley, and typed out by Ben. Contact between Roberta Lipson’s assistant Melissa before the interview was maintained by both Ashley and Ben in order to establish a date and time of interview, as well as to exchange contact information in case the Skype call was disconnected. The transcript of the interview was written by both Ben and Ashley. This report was written and reviewed by Ben. 5. Roberta referenced us to her LinkedIn which contained articles that described the issue of diversity within her company and within healthcare in general. Section Four Ben & Ashley: Hello Roberta! Roberta: Hello! �Ben: How are you? Roberta: I’m doing well. Could you explain to me your project before we begin? Ben: Sure. We are conducting with women from all sorts of walks of life. We were assigned you by our instructor Professor Christoff. Roberta: Oh how nice! Ben: She thought that you would be a very interesting person to talk to seeing as you’ve had firsthand experience working in Asia, and we thought it would be a great pick as well. Ashley: Our class is an Asian studies class on women and relations between the U.S. and Asia. Roberta: Ok, great! Good good good. Ben: Could you tell us a little bit about when and where you were born? Roberta: Sure, I was born in 1955, June, in Brooklyn, New York. Ashley: Oh my goodness! Roberta: I lived there until I was five, and then moved to Long Island until university, living in a very homogeneous environment; probably 98% of my public school classmates were upwardly mobile, Jewish, liberal kind of people. Which, probably, fueled my interest in things that were different at the university. Ben: Yeah, we understand you earned a masters in business administration from Columbia. Roberta: Yeah. �Ben: And you studied Mandarin or Cantonese while you were earning that degree? Roberta: So I studied Chinese and Asian history undergraduate. Ben: Oh, ok. Roberta: At university I studied Mandarin Chinese, and then went to Taiwan in my junior year to continue my studies, and then came back and went to graduate school at Columbia University straight out of college. And continued a little bit of my Mandarin studies then, but I had a dual finance and marketing major, but my desire was always to use that degree to get to China and do something in China. Ben: In your class, would you say that you were one of the few women who pursued… Roberta: If I remember correctly there was either 35 women or 35% women but I don’t remember what that was. I’m embarrassed to say, I suspect it was more like 35 women. Which is much better than the ratio that I usually find myself in here now when I’m among my peers. Ben: Oh! That was one of our follow up questions for later on, do you mind if we address that now? Roberta: I got to it in advance. Let’s keep going in your order. Ashley: Did you move to China alone? Roberta: I did. When I got out of business school, I was looking for a job in China but couldn’t find it, because I guess it was too early. So I worked for almost 2 years in a pharmaceutical company in Jersey. I worked and then I got job to go to China and work �for an American company that was invited to open an office in Beijing; and yes, I was single. Ashley: Oh, I see. Ben: And you met your husband in China? Roberta: I did, ten years later. Ben: Oh, so in the interim you started Chindex, with Elyse Silverberg. How did you begin that operation, how did that come about? Roberta: Well, she had moved to China more or less at the same time, maybe one month before I did, but she was here studying at Peking University. She came from a similar background that I did; she also grew up on Long Island. She studied Chinese in college at SUNY Albany, and she came here to do her Mandarin studies. And she came around looking for a part time job with our company. So, we hired her, and two years later the company had changed its strategy, and we decided to start Chindex. So we met by chance. And actually a Chinese businessman from Hong Kong met her and she actually had been working part time in the office of China business council, and this Hong Kong businessman had met her and their office was also in the Peking hotel “Hey you ought to meet this other Jewish girl from Long Island on the 16th floor!” And that’s how we met. Ben: Would you say she was instrumental in getting the initial ball rolling in terms of starting United Family Healthcare? Because you’ve said in the past that it was very difficult to be taken seriously. �Roberta: At that point it wasn’t so difficult to be taken seriously because we were helping Chinese hospitals to import equipment that they desperately needed from the United States. I would say that it was really helpful to have a partner when we started the company and not to be a hundred percent all alone but at least to have one other person that was in it with you. From that perspective she was quite instrumental in that she was willing to take this leap with me. Ben: I’m happy you had that sort of partnership and that you weren’t completely alone in those first few years. In such a foreign environment that must have been very strange. Roberta: Yeah, it was good to have a comrade. In fact, it wasn’t only the first few years but our partnership lasted in some ways until now. She’s retired from operations but she’s still a director on our board. Not too long after that we took in a partner who also retired recently but remains a director. Ben: In terms of privatized healthcare, do you think the Chinese government is moving towards that becoming the norm, or is public access still the normal… Roberta: Yes, the Chinese government has stated that they want private healthcare to play an increasing supplemental role and they’re trying to implement policies in support of that. Now, if you look at just the sheer number of hospitals in China, about 50% of them are private. However, they have only about 20% of the total bed count, and only about 15% or less of the patients. �Ben: So the public hospitals are severely overcrowded? Roberta: They’re overcrowded and they’re dominant, yes. So our healthcare system, United Family Healthcare, operates in a little bit of a niche market. We target 10% of the people who can most afford to make choices in healthcare financially. Ashley: What are some of the challenges in providing modern medicine a nonprofit system? Roberta: Through a non-profit system? We’re actually a for profit company, and I guess we can say our biggest challenge is finding talent. For example, administrative talent, because private healthcare is relatively new in China and most of the experienced managers are those we’ve trained over the years. So there’s not a ready pool of hospital management talent. Because in the Chinese public system, generally surgeons take the role of administrators for a couple of years at a time while they’re still doing surgery. So it's not a completely transferable experience from the public sector to the private modern management sector. So we have to import of our talent, and then we have the challenge of “can those people adjust to China if we’re importing them, or do they have language barriers. So that slowly but surely alleviates itself. Private investment in healthcare has become one of the hottest sectors in China. We have a lot of competition of course; people want to hire the people that we’ve trained. There’s the traditional medical world in China, tradition bias towards private healthcare from the academic side. Although United Family has built a reputation that is probably the most reputable, �most trusted brand in healthcare in China, still it's still a big decision from doctors to go from public academia to the private system. Ben: Why do you think that is? Roberta: It’s a really long story. Ben: Ok! [laughter] Roberta: It stems from early, unscrupulous players in private healthcare who started out by attracting people to the STD market, saying “we’re going to cure your sexually transmitted diseases” and charging a lot of money and over-treating and over-testing, playing on people’s fears that didn’t want their STDs to be known by government run hospitals. It started out that private healthcare had a really bad reputation that we had to overcome by doing, really, always ALWAYS doing the right thing. Ben: It seems like, from your previous interviews, that you’ve focused on women’s health in particular. It seems like you’ve had some really good stories about… Roberta: In the beginning, women’s health was the easy fit for Chinese women because the actual patient experience was so bad for women in the public hospitals. I have to take a little break, remember what I just said, I need to read something in the paper very quickly. I’m sorry. Ashley: That’s ok! Ben: It’s totally fine. Thank you for your time. [Pause in the interview, Roberta reads briefing and responds to her assistant in Chinese regarding changes that need to be made to a written statement] �[Roberta returns] Ben: Hello! You were just telling us how female healthcare was the easiest to target. Roberta: So, since women were having a terrible, terrible experience in the public system, we were showing a completely different, joyous approach to childbirth. And because childbirth is a set package of services, we could tell them one price. They wouldn’t have to worry that it was going to get more expensive. “This is what it's going to cost”. So it was easier for women to make the decision to have that joyous experience. The first people who came to us were movie stars and people who been abroad and seen other ways of healthcare. They were willing and excited to talk about their experience at United Family, because it wasn’t like they were talking about their broken leg or their cancer or something like that. They were talking about something really joyous. They would go the press and talk about their luxurious experience. After their babies were born they would bring their babies to us for pediatric care as they got older and more and different healthcare needs as they got even older. They would continue to come to us, but because they had talked about their childbirth experience, we kind of became known for that. We started as sort of a primary care, community hospital, but because of that we’ve now grown to be a tertiary care hospital system over many cities providing a full range of healthcare services. But because early on most people talked about the childbirths, most people have this impression that we’re primarily a women’s hospital. Ben: That must have been good publicity, like you said. �Roberta: Yeah, it was good publicity, but on the other hand we have over the years suffered because of this idea that we’re a women’s hospital; which has changed to a certain extent. People now know more about what we do. Ben: Do you still import technology through Chindex? Roberta: No. Well, Chindex does, but we sold that medical equipment distribution business to Folsom Pharma three years ago so I’m not really involved in it anymore. But the company continues to do what it’s always done. But we import technology for our own use; for our own hospitals. Ben: You said at first that it was difficult to attract talent to China; could you elaborate on that? Besides the language barrier, what are some cultural differences that are apparent? Roberta: Well, not only attracting outside talent but also asking Chinese doctors who had an iron rice bowl in the public system. Asking them to give up the iron rice bowl and come and work for our little teeny startup new idea situation. And same thing, to ask midcareer doctors in the United States, experienced people, to give up their practice that was maybe successful. Because we only want people who are good and successful to give that up and come across and do this experiment in private healthcare in the world’s largest socialist country was daunting! So it was definitely challenging. Ben: Yeah, I can see that. Are there any changes you would have made during your career in terms of talent you’ve chosen, or hospitals you’ve established? Is there anything you would go back and change at this point? �Roberta: Yeah, I mean everybody has things that they could have done better in their career, but generally speaking I’m happy, good. Things are good. Ben: Great, that’s good to hear. Ashley: How would you say that your career has affected your family life? Roberta: Wow. Well first of all I’m very lucky that my parents were supportive and encouraging even though I know they hated having me so far away; including now. My 95 year old mother living in Florida doesn’t love the fact that not I’m living close by, so definitely that’s been hard. But my parents have been amazingly supportive troopers. Oh jeez, I didn’t call her this morning. So I try and call my mom every morning, and it means a lot to her. I just realized, with all that’s happened this morning, I missed the call, which is really bad. Ben: We won’t keep you for much longer if you need to call her. Roberta: It’s too late to call her now anyways so don’t worry about it. I’ve worked really hard and long hours, and I was lucky enough to meet my husband after I got to China. He comes from New Jersey. Not from a completely dissimilar background to mine. It was partly really good luck, and partly, he was Elyse’s first cousin. He still is Elyse’s first cousin. He came to visit her on his way on his bicycle trip; not planning to stay in China at all. But then we met and one thing led to another and he never left. I was lucky enough to have him remind me to take time out to smell the flowers and to connect with my family and friends. That’s been great, we’ve had three sons. It was wonderful being in China in a way, because it’s possible to have very good help with child care here. Basically, there were always three women in our house who were the partners of my �husband and myself in raising our children and most of my children, generally, I think they feel that they’re fortunate to have almost 4 mothers, rather than 1, and still are very close to the ladies that helped us through their childhood. They are now all in their early 20s. So being able to have a family, and have a career, and build a company I think is something that may have been harder to do “not” in China or in the US where child care is not that readily available and affordable and acceptable. I honestly wasn't able to spend as much time with my kids growing up as a stay at home mom would have, but I think generally speaking they're proud of me, and considering what I’ve done, to be worthwhile; that their sacrifice of not having me home all the time was something that ended up with a good thing and they appreciate that. Ben: Are they finishing university now? Roberta: No, they’re all out of school. Two of them are in China actually now. One is a musician, and one is an editor for an English language magazine in Guangzhou; editor, reporter, writer. Ben: That’s great! Ashley: That’s amazing! Ben: That’s one of the things we’ve talked about in our class, is positions of soft power and how those can affect U.S. Asian relations. I’m sure he has a unique perspective and is able to share that through that paper. Roberta: Yes, and my husband is a journalist as well. He writes for The Economist magazine. We talk about things like that [inaudible] all the time. They, I think, have �found it really interesting growing up in China and mostly appreciate it. I think especially when they look at what's going on in the U.S. we’re all kind of happy not to be there. Ben: It’s very scary. Roberta: It is, it is. It’s also really hard because it used to be possible to be proud of the U.S. and its values and now it’s really embarrassing. Ben: What kind of rhetoric are you guys hearing over there about the states? What’s our image like? Roberta: I think that the Chinese see our leadership as a joke. And they see what's happening in the U.S. and think it's an opportunity for China to take its place on the world stage. They kind of thank Trump for giving them the opportunity to fill the vacuum that we’ve caused. Ben: Do you think they’re up to the task, can fulfill that position well? I know that's a difficult question to answer. Roberta: No, I think they have a strategy where we don’t. Ben: That seems to be the case Roberta: China really has an impressive strategy. You know I'm not making a value judgment good or bad but I think it’s hard to say well intentioned… yeah, certainly as well intentioned as the United States was in trying to rule the world. Ben: Can we shrink the conversation back to healthcare? Roberta: Sure! Whatever you’d like. Ben: What's the corporate culture like there? Is it predominantly men? �Roberta: Every culture, as I say whenever I’m outside among my peers, it’s very rare that there's more than 10% women on any panel, or in any sort of government led meeting, or industry led meeting, even though healthcare is more predominantly female than other industries. When you get to leadership peers, women are sadly in the minority. That's something we’re proud of. Our company, I think that all of our numbers, if not a majority women in leadership roles, certainly not less than 50%. We are very proud of that. Ashley: Would you say you had to take a firmer stand or over compensate because you’re a woman in a leadership role? Roberta: Internally? Ashley: Well, to everyone else. To your employees, or to business partners. Roberta: No, no. Certainly internally… We’re a firmer stand… Do you mean tougher? Ashley: Yeah. Roberta: No, no. The question is “tougher than what”? I don't try to compensate for the fact that I’m a women by being a tough guy. I think we have a pretty much a consensusdriven leadership approach in our company and I wouldn't change it so I could look more like a man. Ashley: That’s good. Well what about externally? Roberta: Externally? It’s hard to… Maybe sometimes I feel the need, but not really. I kind of feel like my style is what it is and I’m not sure if I consciously compensate or try to be tough. Every once in a while like anybody in a situation would say “Ok, this calls for being a tough guy and you do it”. �Ben: Where do you think your company has played a role in terms of U.S./Asian relations. Do you think that you’ve opened up more diplomacy? Do you think you’ve softened relations? Because I remember growing up we didn't hear anything about China, now there's more and more information coming out but it’s still very regulated. Do you think your company has played a role in that? Roberta: I think that increasing understanding through contact on the grass roots level, you know, on this side in China, showing people a really ethical place to work. We have over two thousand employees and over the years maybe we’ve touched ten thousand people’s lives or more. And patients, certainly hundreds of thousands, millions of people. And to show that coming from an international US originated company, I think has been wonderful. I’m a real believer in grass roots, people to people understanding. Being able to play a good role in keeping peace and harmony in the world. Bringing lots of American technology to China has increased Chinese people's appreciation for the level of technology in the US. Which people still respect, even if they don't respect our leadership. Ben: We don’t either. Roberta: I've always been on the board of either of the American Chambers of Commerce in China, AMCHAM, it’s not the U.S. Chamber, it’s AMCHAM China, or U.S. China Business Council, I’m on the board of directors of that. So that’s always encouraging discussion, every year there delegation which I’ve been on before and I will be on this year again, of U.S. business leaders in China that go back to talk to people in �Congress about the relationship and our view from on the ground. We’re talking to Chinese government leaders all the time, so yeah I think we do play a role. Ben: What does the future hold for United Healthcare? Do you have any big plans that you want to announce? Roberta: Yea, well from the beginning, from our first hospital our goal was not only to provide healthcare to as many people as we could, good evidence based healthcare in a respectful environment, but also set an example for different models of healthcare that could be reflected in reforms in the Chinese public system. We feel like by example we have done that. We see some of the things we’ve done echoed in the public system including the focus and investment we’ve made in the importance in primary care. Including proactive preventative health rather than just disease intervention. We see all of that being reflected in Chinese policy and we hope to be able to continue doing that. We’re now involved in an insurance partnership that is kind of like a Kaiser HMO, and we think it’s a really good approach to healthcare, and we hope that we’ll get acceptance and grow and build more places where Chinese people can enjoy the wonderful healthcare that United Family provides. Ben: Very well said. Do you have any more questions Ashley? Ashley: She’s pretty much answered all of mine. Roberta: Let me just say one thing. Ben: Yeah, of course! Roberta: So, I understand this is more of like a women’s role in the relationship kind of thing. So, I have some articles on Linkedin that are relevant on diversity. �So if you check my Linkedin I think there are some things that are relevant on how we do diversity in our company and the importance of diversity in healthcare. So, I would recommend you have a look there. Ben: We’ll check it out. Thank you very much. Ashley: Thank you so much. Roberta: You’re very welcome. Good luck. Ben: Thank you for the interview! Roberta: Will you share what you write? I don’t need the transcript but I’ll be interested in the product, what you end up writing. Ben: I’ll make sure you get a copy. Roberta: Ok, very good. Thank you! Ben: Thank you for talking to us! Ashley: Thank you for the interview! It seems that Roberta has created a company in which there is equal opportunities for women, both in direct care and administration. Roberta did mention that outside of her own company, and within China, the great majority of CEOs are male; as is the trend in the rest of the world. I think that future interviews should focus on the policies of United Family Healthcare concerning diversity and equality and how those policies might be implemented in other industries; not only in China but in other countries as well. Section Five �I found Roberta’s life story incredibly inspirational. Roberta’s initiative and ability to seize the opportunities presented before her allowed her to capitalize on China’s burgeoning private business sector. It was excellent to hear that Roberta did not compensate or compromise her identity as a female in order to succeed in China’s private industries. It was not particularly useful to hear about the publicity United Family Healthcare received during its first years, as this was not pertinent to our research. I would like to learn more about the challenges faced by China’s public healthcare system under hukou policy, as those questions were not addressed during our interview. I found similarities between ours and Beyza and Stephanie’s presentation. Both of our groups faced problems when established a Skype connection, as both of our interviewees’ had privacy blocks placed on their internet access by their respective governments; Roberta’s by the Chinese government and Economy’s by the U.S. government. It was clear from our interview that we can learn quite a lot here in the United States by observing and analyzing what is happening right now in China’s private business sector. Roberta Lipson’s career showcases the relative lack of gender discrimination taking place within China. Roberta’s dedication to learning the language of Mandarin has allowed her to integrate herself in Chinese culture on a level that is inaccessible to non-Mandarin speakers. In this way Roberta has subscribed to one of the tenants of the Art of Social Change as described by Kwame Anthony Appiah. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180423_rlipson_doc_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tucker, Benjamin Lubin, Ashley Lipson, Roberta Title A name given to the resource Roberta Lipson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-23 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/8f5b62578d0889b9ca077bd36b6b4106.pptx 9313979e9eb2264e673f4d201bf34e94 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180416_elui_master Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cho, Sandy Lim, Katie Title A name given to the resource Eileen Lui Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-16 Type The nature or genre of the resource interactive resource Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/1dd61cd7becb2b847914a12b408053dc.pdf f53c6649dcc098e505b9c1a418dabdd3 PDF Text Text Experiences as a women – considered as more emotional, just wanted to go against the harsh system NGOs – certain issues they can and can’t touch. Not all the money is going to the people. Wrote to UNICEF about how the govt was holding student documents and students weren’t allowed to go to school because of missing documents, but UNICEF didn’t answer her letter. Hopes for the future – mentality change. Everything happens in a cycle, so it will take a few generations to start on a clean slate but women should do as they see fit, whatever needs to be done (clean or work, etc) 1 �2 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180416_elui_ppt_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cho, Sandy Lim, Katie Title A name given to the resource Eileen Lui Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-16 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/aee4dff069ff730df540aecdecf00dbf.pdf 566067fa5aa145a3acc3ced5619f45c6 PDF Text Text Sandy Cho & Katie Lim AAS/POL 307 Professor Christoff May 9, 2018 Final Report Section One: Person interviewed: Eileen Lui Interviewee’s title or position: Founder of “Children of Tomorrow”, Coach/Mentor, Entrepreneur, Marketing Communications (MARCOMs) Consultant, Author, Certified Fitness Trainer, and a housewife. Date, time, and length of interview: April 16, 2018; 9 PM Eastern Time (7:30 AM Myanmar Time); 1 hour, 3 minutes and 24 seconds. Your objective in conducting this interview: Our main goal was to ask Eileen Lui about her childhood, her parents’ careers, her mission and goals in life, and how she came to accomplish them. Overall, we wanted to get an idea of the steps she took to get to where she is now in her life. Section Two: Prior to the interview Katie and I prepared ourselves by collecting any information we could get on Eileen via social media, LinkedIn account, previous interviews in Myanmar media, and YouTube videos. We were fortunate to get a handful of information and data on Eileen Lui. Since she is very well known in Myanmar, it was not hard for us to conduct a background search. These were the sources we used to gather Eileen’s information prior to the interview: �http://www.asianentrepreneur.org/eileen-lui-soyai/; https://www.linkedin.com/in/eileen-lui419448/; https://www.myanmore.com/yangon/author/eileenlui/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMhQaWE-q7o; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ByvrogCTMg; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ZmB_uCGPY; https://www.facebook.com/cotyouthcentre/; https://www.facebook.com/unwomenasia/photos/a.125861380908222.24093.124151414412552/ 755807207913633/?type=3&theater. After going through all these sources, we narrowed it down to what questions we still needed to ask and what questions we could follow up on. We didn’t want to ask her the questions that were typically thrown at her in other interviews, so we decided to create interesting open-ended questions. We created 15 questions in total. Google docs. was our platform to share these questions and make necessary edits, if needed. The plan was to take turns asking each question. Due to the conflict in all our schedules, we had to come up with a day and time to conduct this interview. Time zone difference was another obstacle for us, since Eileen was 12 hours ahead of us. Eileen is also a very busy woman and for her to make time was difficult. In the end, Katie and I decided to go by Eileen’s availability. Eileen said she’s usually available early in the morning which is night time here. At first, we didn’t know where to find a place for the interview. Finally, on the day of the interview, we tried to reserve a room in the library but they were all occupied and outside the library was too loud for us to conduct the interview. Eventually, we found an empty space on the second floor of the Student Activities Center. I arrived half an hour early before the interview to set up the laptop, and to make sure the camera 2 �and recording application were all working properly to avoid any potential technical issues. These were the questions we asked Ms. Lui: Interview Questions: Childhood 1. Where were you born and what were your parents’ occupations? 2. What was your childhood like? 1. What were some goals you had for yourself as a child? OR 2. What was your dream career as a child? Why? Career 3. I understand, you are an entrepreneur, an author, fitness trainer, a voice for the youth and at the same time you maintain a full-time career in Myanmar. 1. How and why did you come about taking on these positions? 2. Can you give us the details on how you manage to do all these? 3. What do you want to achieve from doing all of this? 4. What do you think are the impacts of your efforts? 4. In the Asian Entrepreneur interview, you answered and I quote: “I’ve been living like a gypsy across Indochina with the intention of saving the world.” Would you please elaborate on what you mean by this? And how do you intend on “saving the world”? 5. Based on our background research, you’re the founder of SoyAi. Can you tell us about the SoyAi and how it came into being? 6. What about the Youth Centre in Myanmar? What influenced you to establish this community? 3 �7. I remember you once told me, how you started out with a big group of kids and only ended up with a small number. Was it because their families didn’t support the program or other personal reasons? 8. Based on your previous interview with Myanmar Entrepreneur, you expressed a certain opinion about NGOs. Could you elaborate more on why you feel this way about NGOs? Thinking back 9. What countries have you visited and done work in? Could you please elaborate on those experiences as well as any hardships you may have faced while traveling? 10. In all the countries that you’ve traveled, how are women different from each country? Example, gender equality, women’s rights and other discriminations they may have faced. 11. As a female, did you ever face any racial/ethnic, or gender discrimination? If so, could you elaborate on one experience and how you dealt with the situation? 12. In your own perspective, what are your thoughts on women in Asia and women in the West when it comes to women’s rights and how their culture plays a role? 13. Would you say, in today’s world women are more able to liberate themselves and able to voice their rights? Or is there still a gender gap? 14. As a woman, you have done a lot to create change in your community. In our course, we learned of many situations where “women were agents of social change”. How do you feel about this phrase and do you agree with it? 15. Finally, to end this interview, what is one thing you hope to see in society (in your lifetime or the future)? 4 �SECTION THREE (10 points; 2 points each) Answer these questions: 1. Did you get complete answers to your questions? Explain For many of our questions, we got more than complete answers. When Eileen answered our questions, it was like she was telling us a story. Especially when we asked her about how she came to receive the many titles that she had (e.g., entrepreneur, an author). She would include a lot more information than what we were expecting. There were many times where she would think of something relevant to what we were previously talking about and bring it up in the conversation. 2. Was your interview structured, unstructured, or mixed? Explain Our interview was mixed, but a majority of it was structured since we stuck to the questions that we had written down prior to the interview. We moved along the interview by asking one question after another. However, we skipped over some of our questions based on her responses, because sometimes Eileen would provide an extensive recollection of information for one question, but would be sufficient for the following two-three questions. We only asked additional questions when trying to clarify something that she had previously said. 3. What probing questions did you use? Explain All the questions we had were based on the previous research we had done on Eileen. One of the probing questions we had was about her opinions on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) because in a previous interview, she had mentioned that she did not like to be addressed as an NGO. Thus, we decided to ask her to explain more on why she felt that way. Another probing question that we asked was about her experiences in the countries that she had lived in (i.e., Myanmar and Cambodia). Since she is a woman and has experiences being a foreigner in 5 �another country, we were interested in whether or not she had experienced any discrimination and if she had experienced difficulty in her work space. In addition, we asked Eileen about topics that we had discussed in class in order to see if her perspective differed from our classmates’ responses. For example, we asked her how she felt about argument on career vs. family for women, since the topic was discussed in class and we thought it would be interesting to see if this argument is also present in other countries beside America. 4. Explain your team approach. That is, who did what? For the most part, we approached the project collaboratively by doing the tasks separately and then we would each add or edit what the other had done. For example, when we were creating the interview questions, Sandy first started the list of interview questions. I added my own questions from the research we had on her and rearranged the questions so that they would transition smoothly when we asked them to her. During the interview, we each switched off to ask Eileen the questions and we took turns to respond to what she said for our questions. For the powerpoint slides, we met together to put all the important parts that we wanted to mention in our slides and then we each did condense the information on a slide (Sandy did process and I did content). Everything was done over google docs so that we could each edit it on our own time. 5. Did the interviewee give you any documents or references to articles to read, or did she mention other people for you to talk to (or research)? Explain Eileen did not give any additional resources to research. She did, however, mention about UNICEF in Myanmar. SECTION FOUR (30 points) 6 �Insert your interview notes/write up here. Remember to be accurate and concise. Consider what was said, any emerging trends your interviewee mentioned, different interpretations, and recommendations for follow up interviews. The first two questions that were asked about about Eileen’s childhood. We first asked about where she was born and what her parents did for a living. She spoke about being born in Malaysia and how her parents were teachers. She further clarified what level of education they were working at and their specific positions at the school. We then asked her about her childhood dreams. She laughed while saying how she wanted to be a police woman so that she could catch all the bad guys. To follow up, we asked her what her parents wanted her to be and she said they wanted her to be an accountant or lawyer. In addition to her answer about her parents’ goals for her, she joked about how much she disliked math. Following these two questions, we asked her about her career. Based on our previous research, we knew that she was an entrepreneur, author, fitness trainer, and a voice for the youth. Thus, we asked about how she came about taking on those positions. For this question, she provided us a very long and detailed answer of many events that she had encountered to get where she was now. She was very enthusiastic when she was explaining everything and at certain points, she displayed her frustration with her experiences through changes in tone and eye movements. She talked about many of her achievements, as well as the many issues that occured along the way and her attempts to resolving such issues. Moreover, she recounted many memories that have shaped her into who she is today. Eileen started off by explaining why she was in Myanmar, which was because her husband had gotten transferred there in 2012. She talked about her search for something to do because she didn’t want to be a housewife. She laughed and further added how it was impossible 7 �to be a housewife because there was no electricity or water. Following this, she talked about her job at Citi Mart, and about how she wanted to do something more than just work. The first home Eileen found had 26 children and she recounted one instance she had with one of the children. She had asked a girl what she had had for lunch and Eileen exclaimed that they only had papaya salad, emphasizing how ridiculous the situation was. She then talked about how she was introduced to a monastery with 200 children, about her frustration with the adults there, and her disapproval of how everything was related to money. She spoke of one memory where she had donated a TV and started noticing that the moms were charging the children to use the TV, which Eileen had not expect would happen. She then talked about her solution to this problem, which was to create her own youth center. She expressed the difficulties she had with starting it up because of the money, but she then expressed her gratitude and excitement of how her friends and family had supported her through it all. Following this, she talked about how she was done with simply donating her salary, because she didn’t think it was sustainable. She brought up her company called Soyai, which was designated for the 18 year old boys that she was working with. She talked about her frustration with the monks and how they disapproved of her not giving the money and instead making the boys work for it themselves. She even experienced emotional blackmail since the monks would say that they had no money to send the children to her. She recounted her experience of pitching her story to the public about Soyai, about her goals for the company and the very essence of it all. When she talked about all the achievements Soyai had accomplished, especially with the boys themselves, she spoke with honor and was genuinely proud of all the company has gone through to become what it is today. Moreover, she recounts memories of the initial struggles of getting the company started and the many experiences she had with the boys. 8 �After Mrs. Lui spoke about her career, we asked her further probing questions based on our research, like about her opinions on NGOs. She described her disapproval of NGOS, like UNICEF, for using donations for administrational things, like paintings in an office. She contrasted herself from these NGOs, since she was using 100% of the donations for the children, because it felt weird to not be giving it all back to the deserving recipients. She also mentioned an experience she had when she tried to bring up an issue to UNICEF, regarding the government obstructing the ability for boys to attend school. For an organization that receives so much money, she never heard back from them about her issue. Once we heard everything about her opinions and history of her career, we asked for her opinions about topics that were talked about in class. Based on the way she recounted her memories, Eileen expressed herself as a very strong and independent woman, who was persistent in her determination to create change in her local community. With that said, we asked her if she had ever experienced discrimination (as both a female and foreigner) in the many countries she had visited in South Asia. Eileen then recounted her frustration as a foreigner and efforts to fight the system that was already present in the community. This is very similar to the experiences of the women we had read about in class. She also added how she was stereotyped as a woman since people expected her to be emotional and would judge her for her appearance. We then asked her about her opinions on the discussion between having a career and having a family. She used her own experiences to express that there shouldn’t be an opportunity to choose, because people should just do what they need to do. If they think they should focus on their career right now, they should, instead of listening to what other people have to say. She further added that people must first change their mindset, and change the ideas that people are being brought up with. She believes that because women are raised a certain way, it is almost like they are 9 �brainwashed and this consequently impacts how they would act in the future. In other words, women become stuck in these categories/boxes. Despite the strong impression she gave off, she also believes that women who are fighting the system are still a minority, and that there are still not a lot of women that are trying to end gender inequality. As a conclusion, Eileen didn’t provide recommendations for a follow-up, but she did leave a final message. She believes that without changing the mindsets that people are raised with, there will be a very slow change in terms of gender equality. Section Five: Your Analysis: We’ve gained a tremendous respect and admiration for her work. In today’s world, it’s hard to find people like Eileen. Creating her own safe haven for underprivileged children in Myanmar and reassuring them that there’s hope in life is what makes Eileen unique from other individuals. Knowing the fact that she is not a member of any organizations such as the U.N or the NGOs and that she works alone with the help of her friends and families shows that this is her true passion. She’s doing all of this out of kindness and her true desire to eradicate poverty. To us this is more meaningful than anything else. Judging from her responses, it is clear Eileen is not the type to give up easily once her mind is her on a goal. She has many potentials, dreams and hopes for the kids in her youth center. Throughout this interview, we don’t believe there were any aspects that were not useful. Since we did not have sufficient time, we would have like to know more in details of her other trips to Cambodia and Vietnam. Also, what other programs or ideas does she have in mind for the children in Myanmar? It would be interesting to know if she has plans to build her own organization and help all the other children in the Southeast Asia as well. 10 �From our class presentations, the presentation on Dr. Ling Ling Ho was interesting to observe. She is currently the head researcher for University of Wisconsin. She witnessed the era of the Chinese civil war. Hearing the story from a first person is much more fascinating than reading it from the books. It’s scary to know that back then the only way to stay alive and be safe was by joining the Chinese army. Children were on the streets and had no educational opportunities. It was risky and dangerous for her to be seen with her Western (British) boyfriend in public during the civil war because it was a period when China was anti-Western. The other presentation we also liked was on Sarah-Ann Smith. She was an ex-foreign service officer for the U.S government at China and Taiwan. She was also a professor at the University of South Carolina. Her role as a diplomat developed a better understanding relationship between Taiwan and the U.S; help people understand each other. The most interesting thing to find out from this presentation was that Sarah-Ann was the fifth woman in the U.S Foreign Service. Other groups did a fantastic job on their presentations as well. Overall, this course has given us a lot of knowledge about women and the movements and revolutions they’ve started or contributed to. Katie and I can agree that after completing this course we have a better understanding on how history has a big impact on today’s society. It’s all a big wave of movement. If the women we learned about in class didn’t take the initiative, then we (women) would still be living in a male dominated world. 11 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180416_elui_doc_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cho, Sandy Lim, Katie Title A name given to the resource Eileen Lui Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-16 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/6dc5b2f9a718c7af92289f712dceb730.pptx ac0225954400883f28d089db106fc8b5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180412_spark_master Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kim, Joshua Tang, Yawen Title A name given to the resource Sarah Park Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-12 Type The nature or genre of the resource interactive resource Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017