1 10 91 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/6b324366a6cd5b6151a2546f1aa7d633.pdf 64f2f3655e11205ed9dd58240ef63d0e PDF Text Text Melissa Yanfen Huang & Tenzin Kunsel AAS 307 Final project 05/01/18 SECTION ONE (5 points) Person interviewed: Nancy Yao Maasbach Interviewee’s title or position: President of Museum of Chinese American (MOCA) Date, time, and length of interview: April 10, 2018 at 2:00 PM. Length of interview: 1 hr 3 minutes. Your objective in conducting this interview: To learn and understand the role of Nancy Yao Maasbach as an influential woman in the U.S-Asian relations and how her enriched experience in different Chinese communities shaped her goals as the president of MOCA. SECTION TWO (10 points) Description of the pre-interview research (What did you find out prior to the interview about the person and/or place with which she is affiliated? How did you prepare for the interview?) List your interview questions. Before the interview, we searched the name ‘Nancy Yao Maasbach’ on Google, in hopes of finding out more information about her. We read her biography on the MOCA website, which gave us a general idea about her accomplishments in life and experiences she had prior taking the role as the president of MOCA. We learned that she was the perfect representation of the U.SAsian relations as she had many years of experience both living and working in Chinese communities. Then, we moved on to her linkedin account to see her education background and professional experience. We found out that she had attended Hunter College High School and moved on to Occidental College where she earned her Bachelor's in Diplomacy and World �Affairs. Then, she moved onto Yale University where she received her Master of Business Administration from the Yale School of Management. During her undergraduate years, she was involved in research in China studies, which most likely gave her the exposure to the field that she was truly interested in. She moved on to working overseas where she was constantly involved in different Asian communities. After this in depth pre-interview research, we could not wait to find out more about her and how her experiences shaped her as the influential woman she is today. In order to prepare for the interview, Melissa and I decided to first check if our laptop was functioning properly to avoid any technical difficulties while conducting the interview. After checking, we agreed to equally split the questions that we were going to ask. Thus, Melissa asked the first 8 questions and I asked the remaining 7 questions on our list. After splitting the questions, we practiced our own parts on our own. Later, we came together and did a quick rundown of what our actual interview would run like. While doing the rundown, there were times where Melissa and I would pause and not know what to say. During those moments, we agreed to exchange encouraging words to prevent awkward silence when conducting the interview. This strategy allowed for our actual interview to run smoothly without any confusion among us, and the interviewee. Interview questions: 1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Ethnicity, education, languages you can speak, hobbies,etc. 2. How was your childhood like growing up in New York City as Asian American? 3. Did your childhood have an impact on your professional career? 4. Were you the first one ever to attend college in your family? �5. How was your college experience? 6. How did your college experience shape you into who you are today? 7. Do you believe your major/minor played an important role in becoming the President of MOCA? 8. Why did you want to take that major/minor? 9. Was there ever a time where you were in denial of your Asian ethnicity? 10. Have you ever been treated differently as a woman with Asian background in the professional field? 11. Did this apply into some of your professional pursuits you’ve taken such as in Goldman Sachs? 12. Can you describe your experience working in Hong Kong after you left Goldman Sachs? 13. What were some of the challenges you faced while transitioning? 14. Now that you are the President of MOCA, what are some future goals that you would like to accomplish for MOCA and the greater Asian community? 15. Is there anything else that you would like to add? SECTION THREE (10 points; 2 points each) 1. Did you get complete answers to your questions? Explain We got complete answers to most of our questions. We started off the interview Skype call by asking her to “Tell us a little bit about yourself, including your ethnicity, education”, which was an open ended question. From this question, she gave us a very thorough response. She told us about growing up in NYC where she faced racism as a young girl and went on to other topics from there. Since she was very well spoken and provided us with a lot of information, she even answered some of the questions we had on our question list as she was �telling us about her experiences growing up. There was one question that we felt she did not fully understand, which was when we asked her “Have you ever been treated differently as a woman with Asian background in the professional field?”. In the process of answering this question, she had to pause a few times to think. She told us about some of the story of her ‘cheating the system’ by not paying for metrocard fare when she would go on the subway with her father. She felt that it was wrong and confronted her father about it, but her father saw it as her being rebellious because “no one was looking” anyways. We felt that her story related to another question we asked her earlier, which was related to her being in denial because of her Asian ethnicity. Though she did carry on to tell us that there were circumstances where men would tell her inappropriate things at the professional workfield, we were looking forward to find out if she faced any discriminties working as an Asian American woman. We felt that she could add on more information to it. 2. Was your interview structured, unstructured, or mixed? Explain Before conducting the interview, Melissa and I thought the interview would be structured since we had practiced earlier before the interview. However after interviewing Miss Nancy, the the interview turned out to be a mixed interview. Melissa and I agreed that it was a mixed interview because Miss Nancy was able to provide answers to questions that were asked, and also gave additional information which answered some of our other questions that were yet to be asked. This prompted us to formulate and ask follow-up questions on spot, and also actively listen. These follow up questions paved the way for the next set of questions that were yet to be answered, and it also helped guide our conversation. 3. What probing questions did you use? Explain �Many probing question ranging from Miss Nancy’s ethnicity, childhood growing up in Flushing, Queens, her college and work experiences, to her current position as the president of Museum of Chinese in America were asked. Of them, we asked Miss Nancy, “Can you describe your experience working in Hong Kong after you left Goldman Sachs? What were some of the challenges you faced while transitioning?”. When asked about her experience in Hong Kong working for Goldman Sachs, and the challenges she encountered after quitting her job and making the new transition, Miss Nancy answered saying that while living abroad, “you have a lot more time by yourself...to observe and process” things. After discussing about the “alone time” that Miss Nancy had while working in Hong Kong, Miss Nancy connected it back to her time working in Goldman Sachs where she felt like she had to “prove” herself. Moreover, she wished that she was more mature at the time. These were good probing questions to ask because we were able to truly understand her motive behind why she decided to quit her job at Goldman Sachs, and how she was able to recover and find herself during the “alone time” she had. Overall, her intriguing responses truly influenced the course of our interview and the follow up questions that we asked after. 4. Explain your team approach. That is, who did what? Our team approach was by splitting up the work into half between Tenzin and Melissa. Melissa met with Professor Christoff to obtain interviewee’s contact information and confirmed the interview letter that was sent to the interviewee afterward. Then, Melissa reached out to Nancy Yao Maasbach and maintained communication with the interviewee via email while Tenzin sent out email reminders to the interviewee before our official interview on 4/10/18. For the list of questions we asked Nancy Yao Maasbach, Melissa came up with the first 8 questions, meanwhile Tenzin came up with the remaining 7 questions to finish up the Skype Call interview. �When the interview was done, Melissa typed the transcripts for the first half of the interview, meanwhile Tenzin typed the other half of the transcript. In preparation for the presentation slides, Melissa uploaded the complete interview video to her google drive and shared it with Tenzin so each of us can find specific clip from the interview that answer the question to each of our slides. Melissa was responsible for the ‘Content’ slide and Tenzin was responsible for the ‘Process’ slide. Lastly, for the final report, Melissa and Tenzin split up the questions evenly again. This time, Melissa answered the questions relating to the contents meanwhile Tenzin answered the questions relating to the process of the interview/presentation. 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 The interviewee did not provide us with any articles to read, but she did mention at the end of the Skype Call that if we ever needed another woman to have an interview on, she would be happy to provide us with the names and contact information upon request. SECTION FOUR (30 points) 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. Interview Notes Nancy grew up in Flushing, NY, in a bilingual family. Nancy speaks mandarin, she is Shanghainese & Chongqing descent. She felt that she had the “Soft image”, but she did not want to let her soft looks deceive others and take advantage of her. There was a time when her classmates on the school bus randomly made fun of her for being Chinese, she fought back by �cursing them out with the ‘F’ word. This was her very first encounter of racism.That was when she realized the power in her, that she is not willing to settle and let boundaries confine her.” She also mentioned how people would group her with other Asians in her class, and said how “Kenny Lee was destined to be with her.” She Went to Hunter college high school, president of student body, soft ball player, had a role in theater (got the script she wanted) but she had to give it up because her priority to get into a prestigious college like Harvard. However, she got rejected from Harvard. Rejection from Harvard allowed her to realize that she was not mature enough. At Hunter, she felt mediocre because she was not performing well academically. In middle school, it was easy for Nancy to get good grades which is why she said that her middle school didn’t prepare her enough because she had to compete with people who were not first generation immigrants. At Occidental College, her English professor pulled her out and asked her if Chinese was her second language. She felt targeted and unintelligent. She said this was due to reason that Hunter didn’t educate them on grammar. That’s why she felt like she wasn’t able to write at a college level, and often time she finds herself messing up her grammar while talking. However, she corrects herself when this happens. At Occidental, she minored in theater. She said that mentorship from an early age would’ve helped her to discover her career path in theater. This is why she truly encourages Asian Americans to have this relationship because it is important to get guidance and find what you are �passionate about. Moreover, she wants to inspire Asian Americans born in the U.S. and Asia to pursue careers that they want to pursue. When applying for jobs, Nancy was looking for a company that was well known and had prestige. That was Goldman Sachs. Nancy said getting accepted to work in Goldman Sachs was sort of like a redemption to get back at not getting accepted to Harvard. When they hired her, they thought she was a “China Hire”, but she had to confront them that she was not from China. Even though she was fluent in Chinese, she was not from China and thus did not have any relationships with other investment bankers in Shanghai or Beijing that will help promote the company. Her encounter with a coworker at G.S. made her realize that she doesn’t want to work there. Also, Nancy felt like she was a minority when working in Goldman Sachs. Nancy’s father worked for the first airplane company “Pan American” that gave them free tickets for international travel. This gave nancy the exposure to international relation from a young age. This also allowed Nancy to enjoy travelling and enjoy the process. Nancy’s mom went to college in Taiwan for a year, but never finished, and came to U.S went to bilingual school in New York. She remembers helping her mom with her college essays when she was 7 years old, and told her mother to improve her English. Thus, she did by subscribing to a magazine that had essays, and her mom would read it and translate it. Nancy used all her Chinese new year red pocket money ($60) and applied to Yale theater program, but did not get accepted. She realized she did not try hard enough, and said she “winged it” without enough practice, and was not mature enough for the program. She also �talked about the disadvantages being an Asian women. For instance, there were a lot of uncertainties about her potential, and inappropriate jokes were made in the international relations field that she was pursuing. Nancy briefly talked about the modesty of Asians and Asian Americans through her parents experience when they attended her 2nd grade parent teacher conference. She can resonate with this modesty when people praise her for her accomplishments. When people compliment her, she finds herself being modest with the compliments. Thus, her husband encourages her to accept the compliments when people compliment her. Furthermore, Nancy mentioned that she puts the museum first and cares more about building a positive reputation for MOCA than receiving an award for her service. As a result, she finds it hard to balance being a good wife and a good mother, and often feels like her professional and personal persona are different. “In China’s development, the markets were really beginning to form and I love the macro, the macroeconomic, the macro political components of living it and breathing it. I mean before I worked there in Hong Kong was Goldman starting in 1999, and I had worked there in 96’ and 97’ in two instances with CNN. I had followed the pre hand over and then the handover coverage for CNN. I love it. I was such an observer in that space...If you meet me in person, people are always like “oh” you’re so outgoing and all this, but I think in the core I really do like to research and study what is happening in the dynamics. Like I’ve had a lot of time alone. When you live abroad in international settings you have a lot more time by yourself and that's something I’ve learned to appreciate and I do appreciate. There’s a lot of that time on the plane, when you’re by yourself. There’s a lot of that down time when your family is not living with you because you’re 10,000 miles away that you’re by yourself and you’re having a cup of coffee by yourself. And �there’s a lot of that time in Hong Kong when you’re an expat or whatever you want to call it where you have a lot of time to observe and take down things so because I’ve had that very international sort of random places, I just feel like I’ve had a lot more time to observe and process some of those experiences. And it was good It was a very good time I did theater on the side as well there And it was difficult I felt like I had to prove myself In a somewhat tricky environment where There were assumptions about me. I felt like they hired me because they thought I was the China hire and I kept like saying Look I'm from Flushing, Queens Like born and raised. I speak Mandarin But I'm not your China hire I don't know anyone in Shanghai. I don't know anyone in Beijing And I mean my Mandarin is good but i'm not a native speaker. I’m catching up with myself a lot and my professional career, I kind of always feel like there are pockets of things I didn’t get exposed to. I feel like I wish I was a little bit more mature when I was working at Goldman. There weren’t a lot of people I knew who were investment bankers at Goldman and so I was really trying to figure out a lot of that by myself and also as a woman. You think about some of the people you may know. There are like generations of bankers, and some of them are White Anglo Saxons or they’re Jewish Americans and their parents and their grandparents are all bankers or their uncle was a banker. I really didn’t have anyone I knew who was a banker. I had to trial and error a lot of stuff.” “Everything after [Goldman] seemed easy after that. I wanted to leave Goldman because to be honest I felt that you know I paid back my loans that was a big part of my comfort level. And I kind of felt like my personality was changing a little bit, and I didn’t like that about myself. That was one thing. You know I’m Christian. My parents aren’t but I am. I went to church on my own from a very young age and I think fundamentally I was always seeking how I could be a more loving person. And I think for some reason and I’m not blaming Goldman. I don’t think it’s a �Goldman culture persay because certainly there are people who are god fearing good people working at Goldman, but for some reason the culture was affecting me in a way that I felt like I wasn’t being the best person I could be, and so like the moment sort of woke up to that and I think it was some interaction I had with a stranger where I wasn’t too sure. I was unhappy with myself in just that interaction, and it gave me a quick wake up call and I thought maybe my time is done in this institution. Then, getting myself right with who I am and how I want to interact with people on a daily basis regardless of where I worked. I think that was really important for me to sort of understand and recapture that. Everything else after I feel like it’s been pretty straight forward and really wonderful and special.” “ I was trying to redeem myself in a lot of ways… Goldman was a little bit of my redemption path. I’m good enough and I’m gonna look for the most difficult job that is the most competitive at the best firm. I felt satisfaction from getting it… it was something that I needed to accomplish to… it was making up time for something that I have not accomplish or didn’t live up to my potential.” SECTION FIVE (25 points) Your analysis: What aspects of the interview did you find to be particularly meaningful? What aspects were not useful? What more would you like to know? What other in-class presentations did you find particularly useful? Explain My partner and I found the actual interviewing aspect of the interview, being able to see her emotions through the videochat to be particularly meaningful. When our interviewee, Nancy Yao Maasbach, talked about growing up being pushed into certain roles because of her gender and the constant pressure to be a successful woman, we could see that it was a time of uncertainties for her. There was a lot of pauses when she thought back to this part of her memory �and all the things she could have done to pursue acting. Preparing a bunch of questions for the interviewee to answer was not useful because she answered most of the questions as she talk about her childhood, education, professional agendas and family relations. I would like to see the different roles she has in her daily life. I would like to know more about how Yao Maasbach’s days goes in a work day as the president of the museum and how she spends the remaining time with her family as a wife and mother. From the many excellent in-class presentations, I found the presentation on Sarah Park to be particularly useful because it portrays the life of a traditional Asian woman. The in person interview at Ms.Park’s laundromat makes the whole interview more realistic and relatable. At some point when Ms.Park mentioned about saving up money for her children’s education by not having a cellphone, it was very touching to see how much a mother can give up to contribute for her family. When she describes her strong devotion for God, I see a similarity between the missionary women we learned about earlier in class and their great dedications to missions motivated by their religion. Overall, the class itself and the readings provided us an in depth analysis on women and their international relations. We learn to appreciate and understand the works of women more than before. � 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_20180410_nyaomaasbach_doc_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Yanfen Huang, Melissa Kunsel, Tenzin Yao Maasbach, Nancy Title A name given to the resource Nancy Yao Maasbach Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-10 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/4588caf40f05d228fc370f668db399ea.pdf 68b151a16662a02ae8025afc1b549c5e PDF Text Text Image Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicawang/2016/07/25/from-goldmansachs-to-nonprofit-nancy-yao-maasbach-and-the-museum-of-chinese-inamerica/#3150960b1c2d �What is your interviewee’s mission or goals in life and how is she/he fulfilling this? How does her/his mission or goals relate to women’s roles in US-Asian relations? What did you learn from the interviewee that 1) reinforced things we learned in class and 2) provided new information? - Nancy Yao Maasbach is the president of Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) and her goals in life is to bridge the gap between Chinese Americans and Americans by providing the platform for individuals who struggles with fitting into his/her communities to explore their imaginations. Nancy struggled with expressing herself as she felt confined by social norms and expectations to do certain things in certain ways. Nancy shared with us her immense passion for theater, in which she was a theater minor when she attended Occidental College. - Nancy had spent all her “hong bao” money from Chinese new year on Yale’s application fee for their theater program, but only to be turned away with a rejection letter. She thought she wasn’t good enough. Luckily, Nancy was able to redeem herself through other areas of work when she received her masters in business administration and gained a job as an investment banker overseas at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. Recruiters thought Nancy, ‘China hire’ where people expected her to have connections with the China market. She struggled for a long time to redeem herself through hard work to show that even though she was not a China hire, she was still capable for the job. It was �this job that challenged her to work to her full potential and eventually come to the realization that she wanted to help others who struggle with expressing themselves like her. - Nancy’s role as the president opened up doors for her to help those who struggle with being confined to certain ideas and stand for themselves. Programs at the museum allow people in the community to better understand the historical background of the Chinese communities in America and some of the struggles they faced. Nancy’s goals relates to women’s roles in US-Asian relations because Nancy was able to overcome the barriers that confined her thoughts and constantly trying to improve her role as a woman, which can really motivate other women in U.S-Asian Relations to follow the same path. Even though she still struggle with how to be a good mother, good wife, and good daughter, Nancy allowed us to see what it takes to be a woman in her position. Nancy shared similar goals as many other women we have learned about from our class, which is to take actions on matters that we value on. Just like the missionary women who went oversea to spread Christianity, Nancy was able to raise awareness in understanding one’s culture or identity before confining them to a certain specific norms. We were able to learn the importance of self-exploration and perseverance from Nancy. She allowed us to realize how important it is to speak up for ourselves and go with our intuitions when we are pursuing our interests. The process is what matters the most because what we learn from the process will be major factors that determine what we would like to do in the future in life. �How did the questions you asked your interviewee influence the type of information you received? If working in a team, explain your approach and provide an example of your active listening. Also, what were some of the verbal and non-verbal cues? Refer to the “How to Conduct an Interview” discussed in class. We asked Miss Nancy a variety of questions ranging from her ethnicity, childhood growing up in Flushing, Queens, her college and work experiences, and about her current position as the president of Museum of Chinese in America. The questions that my partner, Melissa, and I asked definitely influenced the type of information we received. For instance, in this one minute video, we ask Miss Nancy about her work experience in Hong Kong after leaving Goldman Sachs, and the challenges she encountered while making the transition. When questioning about her experiences, Miss Nancy answers saying that while living abroad, “you have a lot more time by yourself...to observe and process” things. After discussing about the “alone time” that Miss Nancy had while working in Hong Kong, Miss Nancy connected it back to her time working in Goldman Sachs where she felt like she had to “prove” herself. Moreover, she wished that she was more mature at the time. This response influenced the course of our interview and the follow up questions that we asked after. Before interviewing Miss Nancy, Melissa and I (Tenzin) had decided to equally split the questions that we were going to ask. Thus, Melissa asked the first 8 questions and I asked the remaining 7 questions on our list. Miss Nancy was able to provide �answers to questions that were asked, and also gave additional information which answered some of our other questions. This prompted us to actively listen and formulate new follow-up questions on the spot. These follow-up questions enabled us to move our conversation forward, and Melissa and I were both able to add our remarks in between conversations to avoid any awkward silence. While talking to Miss Nancy, her tone helped give meaning to her spoken message. When discussing about her childhood experiences growing up in Flushing, Queens she sounded very enthusiastic and happy to reminisce and talk about her past. This cue was expressed in a “Rate” way. However she also expressed her regrets and sorrow while in Hunter high school. She felt mediocre and not at the same level as the other kids because of her test scores and her GPA. During this conversation, we could tell that her tone and pitch of her voice was decreasing. We could also tell that her high school experience was not as great as she hoped it would be, which became increasingly evident through her facial expressions, eye behavior, and posture. Her face looked more serious, eyes were down, and her posture was not as straight. These were a few among many of the verbal and nonverbal cues we captured. Overall, this approach proved to be very effective and we were able to have a very interesting and enriching interview with Miss Nancy. The Interview lasted for an hour and 3 minutes. � 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_20180410_nyaomaasbach_ppt_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Yanfen Huang, Melissa Kunsel, Tenzin Title A name given to the resource Nancy Yao Maasbach Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-10 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 Yao Maasbach, Nancy 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/487a24118a373306d299a46a4831e003.pptx b3db25f6c5d9aeb07186ca946f174b0f 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_20180410_nyaomaasbach_master Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Yanfen Huang, Melissa Kunsel, Tenzin Title A name given to the resource Nancy Yao Maasbach Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-10 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 Yao Maasbach, Nancy 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/e44eaa214cce278c92dbbee1c5728f81.pdf 24a1af9fb209a3f1e90760effaeb3dd4 PDF Text Text �Ms. Kolenda’s overall goal in life is to cultivate and promote a strong understanding and respect for Asian culture within American society. Throughout her professional life, she has continuously worked towards this goal. Between 1981 and 1996, Ms. Kolenda volunteered in China as an English teacher and then was hired as a paralegal for a law firm in Beijing shortly after. Through these experiences, she mastered the Chinese dialect of Mandarin and acquired a personal understanding of how the Chinese culture functions. Shortly after returning to America, Ms. Kolenda explained to us that she had started a family and decided that her occupation as a lawyer for a New York City law firm was very rigorous and not a family friendly career. As a result, she decided to alter her career path accordingly and landed a job in 1998 as a program officer for the Henry Luce foundation’s Asia program. In 2008, she was appointed to the position of director within this same program which is the position she still holds today. The Henry Luce Foundation’s Asia program has the main goals of fostering cultural and intellectual exchange between the U.S. and Asia and creating scholarly and public resources to promote a strong understanding of Asia within the United States. These goals are achieved through the process of monetary grant making to select academic institutions which is one of Ms. Kolenda’s main responsibilities as director. Overall, Ms. Kolenda’s careers and personal experiences throughout her life have greatly contributed to the topic of women in U.S.-Asian relations. She has worked to build a symbolic bridge between the United States and Asia and places a strong importance on educating America’s future generations on Asian culture. Overall, the information we obtained through our interview with Ms. Kolenda strongly reinforced several topics we have learned throughout this course. In addition, it was a very unique experience in that it not only solidified several topics within this class but also gave us a more personal and realistic perspective of women in U.S. Asian relations by allowing us to hear it first hand from Ms. Kolenda, who works in that field herself. �The interview lasted a little over an hour (1:01:40) We had a mixed interview structure. Prior to the interview, we prepared a list of questions from which we sent a few general questions as well as a few thought provoking questions to Ms. Kolenda, so that she had an idea what we would be discussing during the interview. This allowed us to not waste too much time coming up with questions on the spot and hoping that she would be able to answer them properly. We did find however, that some questions would be asked on the spot, in response to an answer that she had given us, which were examples of us actively listening. For example : After answering our question concerning any descrimination for being a woman that she felt might have been in her way as she was working in China, she answered by saying no, but she always got the feeling that they would have preferred working with a man. We followed up with a question asking if she would have preffered that to have been out in the open, rather than lingering around in the darkness. We did not have a set method for how we would ask questions, we just let the conversation flow naturally. Ms. Kolenda was very chipper and made having a conversation quite easy, even inviting us to tour the foundation if we are ever in the city! There was a lot of smiling and joking going on between us, which made for a very comfortable atmosphere. �Just a little humor! She loved it =] � 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 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. 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/. 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. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_hkolenda_ppt_dis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 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. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Winters, Kristen ; Ozdal, William ; Kolenda, Helena Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Helena Kolenda http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/bce347696b6aaa44bb072be4688faff9.pptx b5b89827d139bb94856a6e14b522cc95 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 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. 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/. 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. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_hkolenda_master Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 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. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Winters, Kristen ; Ozdal, William ; Kolenda, Helena Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Helena Kolenda http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/54c918ade4f74a685a83ffab84e73c9c.pdf 0b11d61e6b9149a732bda70a159311a8 PDF Text Text Kristen Winters William Ozdal SECTION ONE: Person interviewed: Helena Kolenda Interviewee title: Director for the Henry Luce foundation’s Asia program Date/Time/Length: November 21st/10:05am/1:01:40 Objective for conducting interview: Gathering a better understanding of what Ms. Kolenda does within the Henry Luce foundation and to better understand the role that both Ms. Kolenda and the foundation play in U.S. Asian relations. SECTION TWO: Prior to our interview with Ms. Kolenda, we conducted some preliminary research on her as well as the Henry Luce foundation and its Asia program. This preparation allowed us to ask more specific questions which took a more in depth approach to Ms. Kolenda’s life and work experiences. For instance, going into the interview, we knew that Ms. Kolenda had spent time in China between 1981 and 1996 as a volunteer English teacher and later was hired as a paralegal for a law firm in Beijing. In addition, we were aware that shortly after she returned to America she was hired in 1998 as a program officer for the Henry Luce foundation’s Asia program. She worked as an officer for ten years until she was appointed to director of the program in 2008 which is the title she still holds today. In terms of the Henry Luce foundation’s Asia program itself, we were aware through prior research that it pursues the two goals of fostering culture and intellectual exchange between the United States and Asia and creates scholarly resources which look to improve the understanding of Asia within the United States. In addition to conducting �prior research, we also prepared a few questions in advance which we sent to Ms. Kolenda via email so she had an idea of what approach we would be taking. The questions we based our interview off of which includes the ones we sent to Ms. Kolenda in advance are as follows: Biographical/Background - What is your name and current job title. - Tell me about your family, what professions did/do your parents hold. Are they in similar fields? - Education (public/private school and higher education) - What was your first job, did it influence where you are today? - Did you do any kind of internships/volunteer work before working with the Henry Luce Foundation? (Time in China) - What nations in Asia have you visited, can you tell me about the impact of U.S. – Asian relations within them? Foundation - How did you come in contact with the Henry Luce Foundation? - Have you held any previous positions in the foundation? Do you have any plans to change positions in the future? - What would you say, is the most satisfying aspect of your job? - What are some of your most accomplished successes with the foundation? - What are some of your failures, and what did you learn from them? - Have you ever met any memorable people through your foundation work? - Has this political season effected the way that your foundation has been supported? �Future - What are your future goals for both yourself, and the foundation? - Where do you see the foundation going, after you have retired? SECTION THREE: 1. Did you get complete answers to your questions? - Ms. Kolenda answered our questions fully, even expanding on many of them, providing us with a great deal of opportunities to ask follow up questions. 2. Was your interview structured, unstructured, or mixed? - It was mixed. While we had a list of questions prepared to ask Ms. Kolenda, even sending a few to her in advance so that she could have an idea of what we would be discussing, the conversation took a more natural path. This unplanned path allowed us to not only ask questions from the list we prepared, but also to delve deeper into questions that we had not previously thought of. 3. What probing questions did you use? - At one point Ms. Kolena was talking about how the foundation receives money, through their endowment, which allows them to not worry about fundraising, and to focus only on giving back to the public. 4. Explain your team approach. That is, who did what? - Our approach to conducting this interview was to ask Ms. Kolenda questions and allow the conversation to progress naturally. We didn’t really have specific roles during the interview, although we did make a point to ask specific questions that we had come up with ourselves. �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)? - Near the end of our interview, Ms. Kolenda recommended a book given to her by a dear friend of hers Dr. Wang Zheng titled : “Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1964”. Ms. Kolenda also invited us to visit her in NYC to tour the foundation and meet the people who work there! SECTION FOUR: Interview Transcript Will: Please state your name and title for the record. Helena: Hi I am Helena Kolenda, I am the program director for Asia at the Henry Luce foundation. Will: We wanted to start off by getting a little background about you. Maybe early life as a child, if that had any influence on your life today in terms of working with the Henry Luce foundation. Growing up as a young woman, can you tell us a little bit about (your) family life such as parents and siblings? Helena: I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. My mother worked in the medical center, supporting research by different doctors in things like genetics and psychiatry. Her last position was assistant to the president of MD Anderson cancer hospital. My father was a professor at Rice University in the philosophy department. My parents were divorced when I was quite small. My father remarried a professor who was an anthropologist and her area of research was India. So, I grew up in a background of academics. My mother was not an academic but she did work in that type of research area. I traveled a lot when I was small with my father in the summers because he and my stepmother Pauline Kolenda would have sabbaticals and they liked to spend the sabbaticals travelling so I was lucky to get exposed to travel as a youngster. And because of the �stepmom’s work in India, I also had the opportunity to spend a little time in Asia starting with a trip when I was sixteen. I went with her to India but on the way to India we stopped in Japan and Hong Kong. I was already in high school beginning to get interested in East Asia philosophy, particularly Buddhism, and through the poetry that linked to zen, I got interested in different languages, Chinese in particular. So, I ended up studying Chinese at the University of California Berkeley. Will: We know you spent about ten years in China working as an English teacher and working with volunteers. Did you spend time in other countries doing similar work? Or was it just China? Helena: In terms of working, I was really only in China. I have travelled to many countries in Asia but have only worked in China. I have live in Taiwan for a year also as a student. Will: Do you speak Chinese? Helena: I do. Will: Aren’t there multiple Chinese languages? I know there is Mandarin and others, how does that work? Helena: I speak Mandarin, there are different dialects. Cantonese is the other big one which is spoken in South China, Hong Kong, and the Guangdong province. Taiwan also has what's called (unclear) dialect which is from the province of Zhejiang(?) because a lot of people initially went to Taiwan from Zhejiang(?) province, they migrated there over many centuries and took the language with them. But I speak Mandarin which is the official language of the People’s Republic. Kristen: In terms of the ten years that you spent working in China, I read that you were not only an English teacher but you were also an attorney. I was wondering if there were any challenges you may have faced in landing those jobs, particularly based off your gender? �Helena: As a volunteer English teacher, the organization I went with, Volunteers in Asia, was in the early eighty’s when gender issues were a sensitive topic. People who were chosen for the volunteer positions was based off who applied. So, a lot of women applied but there were no hurdles in that, I just assumed I was going to get chosen and I was. There was a lot of sensitivity within the organization to gender issues but culture more generally because it was encouraging people to spend time overseas. And so we were talking not only about our roles as Americans but also how we would interact with men and women in Asia as well because of different cultural expectations. When I applied to work for the law firm in Beijing as a paralegal initially, the woman who hired me in that office, was a woman so she was quite supportive. Her boss, professor Jerome Cohen, was a bick figure in the Chinese legal studies field. He had taught at Harvard for many years before he went back into private practice with the lawfirm because at that time it was difficult to do field research in China. But as an attorney in a moment when China was opening up to foreign investment, he could go in representing foreign companies and it was a way to do field work, hands on investigations through the negotiations that he was involved with. He also was a very open person so I never felt that my gender was counted against me in any of the jobs that I have had. Sometimes in Asia, not so much in China, but in other parts of Northeast Asia, Japan and South Korea particularly in the earlier years, I think there was a sense that women should not be taken quite as seriously as men, particularly younger women. So, I was never treated with overt disrespect but there were times when I did have a feeling that the people I was working with on the other side of the table would have preferred to be interacting with a man rather than with me. Will: Do you think that is worse? The passive feeling? Would you have rathered those feelings be in the open so you could have that conversation as opposed to it just lingering in the darkness? �Helena: I don’t think at that time it would have been possible to have that conversation. Had it been an obstacle to the work I was trying to do then I probably would have had a phrase but I was fortunate enough that it never occurred. Will: When exactly did you start working with the Henry Luce foundation? Helena: I joined the Luce foundation in 1998. Will: So it was shortly after your time in China. Helena: Yea, I came back from China in 1996. I had a daughter and I stuck it out one more year in New York and it was very tough. It was hard work, brutal lifestyle which was not very family friendly so I decided that I needed to make a change and I was lucky enough again through my boss, Jerome Cohen, who knew people at the Luce foundation, he knew I was looking for a change. So he said why don’t you go over, they are looking for a program officer, why don’t you go talk to them. Will: So that is how you started with the foundation? You became a program officer in the Asian program? Helena: That’s right. Kristen: It says that in 2008 you were appointed to the position of director. What were the types of things you had to go through to get that appointment as director from officer? Helena: Well I worked for ten years as program officer and my boss at that time who was the director retired. They could have hired somebody from the outside but because I had been there for ten years and certainly knew the landscape of the work we were doing, I guess they had enough confidence in me to step into that role. Will: How many officers are there? �Helena: Our total staff is twenty. We have five different programs in the office: American, art, theology, higher education, Asia women in science and engineering. So not a large group. Will: How does the higher education aspect differ from the others? Are they different/similar? Helena: The thread that runs through all of our programs is scholarship in one way or another. The Asia program is the only program that is geographically focused and that has to do with the history of the Luce family. The senior Luce’s were missionaries in China. Henry R. Luce, their son, was born and raised in China and then he came back and made a lot of money in Time magazine and established the foundation to honor his parent’s work. The family had this sense that not only did they go to be missionized in China, mainly in the area of higher education, but when they returned to the west, they really wanted to share what they had learned about Asia to Americans. So that is why we have an Asia program that has a geographic focus. But all of the other programs have some kind of thematic focus. The higher education program works primarily with higher education institutions in the United States and a lot of our other programs also work in the United States. Will: With the Asia program I know you give scholarships out. Are there any other aspects to the program? Do you work with Asian Americans for certain projects? Do you help Asian Americans in Asia? Is there more than just giving scholarships? Helena: The part of the program I work on is not the scholar part. We have a Luce Scholars program which sends eighteen young Americans to Asia for a year of experiential placement. They work in some kind of job but it is not an academic scholarship, it is more of a experiential, cultural placement in an organization in Asia. That is an individual fellowship program. The rest of what we do, which I direct, is grants to institutions. So colleges and universities primarily in the U.S. receive them to support teaching and research on Asia but also we do fund some �institutions in Asia, typically for collaborative work that involves America in one way or another. We do some policy work, supporting think tanks that are involved in research about Asia or in policy dialogue, what we call track two dialogues with Asian counterpart. So most of the work that we do involves collaboration and exchange with Asian partners, although most of the grants that we make are U.S. based but we see it as a two way flow which clearly involves participants from the other side. When you talk about Asian’s in America, certainly many Asian Americans are involved in the projects we support. In academia, for many decades, there has been a split between Asian studies and Asian Americans studies. Asian American studies has been put into a basket of ethnic studies or cultural studies. Interestingly, those two are coming together now within scholarship because there are so many flows between the United States and Asia and there are what people call transnational Asian studies or diasporic studies because there are just so many connections between Asia and Asia America. So the grants that we give involve graduate student fellowships or other opportunities for Asian Americans as well as others. Will: Do you see any danger in the future with the recent election of Donald Trump as President of the United States? Particularly from the view of possible isolationism and your work with Asia. Helena: It is something that is a little bit too early to tell what will happen. I think we are concerned that if the U.S. moves toward a more isolationist position that there may be more challenges for our work as it goes back to the Bush Administration and even back to the mid-90s, there is something called Title Six which provides congressional funding to the department of state and to the department of education for international and area studies programs. Starting in the mid-90s and again in 2011, there were big congressional cuts for that funding. That funding goes to universities, usually research universities, to support national research centers on �different world areas. So it supports language training, the library work, big centers for East Asian studies and Southeast Asian studies, all different areas. The cuts were quite extreme. For example, in 2011 the cuts took about 50%. So those centers then have less money for teaching languages, supporting graduate students in doing other work, or outreach for K-12 education about Asia because there is no money. These Federal cuts were also accompanied by cuts at the state level to the state universities at least and the universities themselves have been crushed. In 2014, the amount of money was raised again but we are anticipating that Congress may again try to slash budgets like that and that could impact international studies and education. The role of a private foundation is that we can come in and try to fill gaps but we can’t fill the gap of Federal funding. Our Federal budget for Asia is no more than eight million annually, and you are looking at multi million dollars that go from the Federal government to all of these teaching and research centers around the country. Kristen: In terms of the budget cuts, I saw that in 2010 the Henry Luce foundation came out with the Luce Initiative on Asian studies and the Environment and I was wondering how the budget cuts could have affected the implementation of that and how it has affected the foundation as a whole and where it is bringing the foundation in the future? Helena: We are a private foundation and our funding comes from an endowment that was established initially when Henry Luce gave Time magazine stock to set up the foundation. Time isn’t doing so well anymore but for many years that stock was worth a lot and the endowment grew and we have an investments management that manages the fund so we don’t have to fundraise at all. We rely totally on our endowment, which of course is affected by the stock market which can go up and down. We were hit really badly in 2001and again in 2008. Foundations by law have to give away about 5% of the annual average of its endowment. Our �endowment is about eight hundred million and we would need to give away roughly forty million each year. For Asia specifically, we usually have between seven and eight million. We are allowed to do that without having to pay tax on the endowment, except for a very modest task because this 5% giving is seen as a public good within the public interest. The politics can affect us through the effects of the stock market so the endowment can go up and down. The Luce Initiative on Asian studies and the Environment was a special grant competition. It’s a five year competition that was aimed at trying to encourage more conversation between Asianists on campus and people in other fields that typically had less opportunity to engage in Asia stem fields and there seemed to be a need to have people talking to one another to promote more awareness of Asia among environmental studies people since Asia and the U.S. are big players for prospective climate change and other environmental issues. On the other hand, to have Asianists more aware of environmental issues. The grants for that program go to liberal arts colleges. So there endowments can be hit by the stock market but they are not recipients of the Federal funding, they don’t get Title Six funding, that is only for universities. So our reason for starting that initiative was not based too much on economic issues in the sense of trying to assist with college budgets but more so to try and encourage work in more interdisciplinary work in an area that we think is important for the future. Will: Has there been any talk of fundraising and donations? Does the foundation particularly want to stay away from that? Helena: We are considered a private foundation as opposed to an operating foundation. Operating foundations do fundraise so I think we could do that if our board of directors felt there was a need to do so but it would probably mean changing our status. Will: Are there any failures that you can specifically recall within the foundation? �Helena: Early on, the foundation was made up of a smaller, less professional staff. In the eighties, the foundation made an effort to professionalize the staff and have people who were subject matter experts in the work that we covered. Before, a lot of decisions were made by a smaller group of people many of whom were linked to the Luce family. We are not a family foundation, we are a private foundation so the decisions are not made by the family, they are made by our court. Also the grants early on were much smaller. As the endowment grew, there was a feeling on the board that we needed to professionalize the staff. Those of us who were hired now do have some background in the area we cover. So based off our research and interaction with people in the field, our staff will come up with ideas for initiatives that we think are important and will then make a proposal to the board. We have two types of grantmaking which are responsive grants which respond to inquires from the field. So we have three board meetings a year and we get inquiries all the time from colleges, universities, think tanks, and a wide range of non-profits because all of our grants need to go to non-profits. So we have a process here reviewing these requests. As a program staff, we take the ones that we think have the most merit and also fit within our budget and we recommend them to our board for funding. So that category of grants is responsive in that it's the field telling us what is important and that they need help achieving their goals. The other part is something that we determine is important. We set the guidelines, it’s a grant competition so there’s an RFP to request for proposals usually among a universe of institutions that we consider eligible for that project and then institutions apply to participate in the competition. So these two ways of grant making work in concert. The responsive grants help us know what is going on in the field and that info helps us determine what we will do in the special grant competition. One reason we were interested in Asian environment is because we were seeing this growing interest in environmental studies as well as �a growing interest in Asian studies and why not put those together. So the failures can happen along two lines. One can be that a proposal that we think is very viable might not turn out that way, sometimes for reasons beyond the control of the people who brought it to us or a change in a political situation. For example, in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square protest and the resulting crackdown there were a lot of collaborations between American and Chinese scholars that we were supporting. A few of those were not able to continue because of the politics in China. Sometimes projects fail because one of the key people in the project leaves and goes somewhere else and sometimes the idea itself may not pan out to be as viable as it was in the beginning. With respect to the special initiatives, the staff prepares a proposal to our board. The board must approve and only after that can we send out proposals and work to make those grants. Sometimes that process involves the board not liking the proposal which can result in a slowdown and a lot of work to try and convince the board to pass it. We also have another initiative on religion and international affairs which is worldwide and not related to Asia alone. It looks at the fact that in international affairs, people have traditionally not looked at religion as a factor. Partly because of the separation of church and state in American government. In religious studies, people are not really focusing on international relations. But if you look at the world today, there are so many instances when those two communities need to be talking to one another and understanding the ramifications of each other’s work. This initiative took the board some time to agree to the parameters of its design. Kristen: Are there any personal accomplishments or accomplishments of the foundation overall that particularly stood out to you and that you found the most fulfilling or successful? Helena: The Asia and the Environment Initiative is something that I am personally excited by and proud of. It is still underway, we are just about to make the fifth year of grants. But I have �done a lot of site visits to the campuses to see the work unfold. Each grant is a four year grant so there are opportunities to see it from the start up phase through implementation and how it’s affecting research, course development, student research, study abroad opportunities, and interaction with counterparts in Asia. Prior to this time we also had an initiative for five years on archeology and early history in Asia. The reason we had that was because we were hearing from the field that there were some scholars around North America who were doing work on Asian archeology but there were no strong programs for training a new generation of archaeologists to work in Asia. This is at a moment when every time you put a shovel in the ground you would recover some site with centuries of history. There’s a problem with development of sites being displayed, looting, and all sorts of threats to the material that’s coming out of the ground and yet this material that is being studied is telling us so much more than we knew about the history of China for example. So it seemed like there was a need to encourage more development of that field and over five years we funded ten new faculty positions and a lot of collaborative research. We funded fellowships for North Americans and Asians to spend time in each other’s countries working with other archeologists. I think the fruit’s of that initiative are something that I am quite proud of. Will: When you say you visited sites, you are talking about different college campuses that are receiving these grants and implementing them into their programs. Does the foundation have any influence on what specific colleges implement that or do they propose it to you and you approve it through that process? Helena: Once it is approved then we are fairly hands off, we defer to the institutions, they put forward a plan and we honor the fact that they are the ones on the ground and know what is happening the most. Where we might have more influence is at the proposal stage where there is �a lot of back and forth with the applicants to refine a project, ask questions so that we understand what needs to be done and based on our experience we might say that we have seen things similar to what you are proposing and ended up not working too well and you might want to tweak it a little bit. It is a conversation and after a grant is made, there is a proposal and there is this beautiful plan but in reality it is a lot messier. We might need to revise the budget or reshape it throughout the process and accommodate the needs. Typically, unless something is really going wrong, we just take a step back and let them do the work. Kristen: Have you met any memorable people that would stick out most in your mind? Helena: I have had the chance to meet former President Jimmy Carter who came to our office and was doing work in China through the Carter center on village elections in the 90s. The secret service had to come to our office first to check everything out. He is such a gracious and inspiring person so that was exciting. Some of the work we do involving policy, these track two dialogues I was talking about, that involve policy makers from the U.S. and Asia and different kinds of dialogue. In one of those I got to meet the former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, and see her at work. On the other end, people in Asia who are doing incredible work. One women I met a few years ago in Burma is matida(?) who was a Burmese surgeon, writer, and human rights activist who was a prisoner of conscience. There was a military gupta in Myanmar that was in control for many decades until recently now that there are democratic elections and things are quite different. For many decades the military was pretty repressive and this surgeon wrote about her concerns about the way people were being treated and she was put in prison for six years in solitary confinement for most of that time. She said the only thing that kept her alive was the fact that she did Buddhist meditation everyday. Because of her writing she has been awarded a number of different prizes. She has now been released and is working in �Myanmar again and she is on the Pen international program which is an organization which tries to defend writers who are under attack in different countries around the world, she is a member of their board because they supported her when she was in prison and wrote letters on her behalf and advocated for her release. So she is a very inspiring woman. One other example is this last summer I met Keiko Oguda(?) who is a eighty year old survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. With our Luce scholars group in Japan this summer we went to Hiroshima and had a chance to go to the museum there after President Obama had been there and they had a display case with the speech that he had given and also two paper cranes that he had folded which represent peace. The survivor we got to meet was eight years old when the bomb dropped, she survived because her family lived a couple of kilometers outside of the epicenter. She gave us her statement about her experience at that time and then afterward. She was the most cheerful, kind individual you could imagine in spite of the fact that she had such a horrific experience. Will: What are your personal goals for the future and goals for the foundation? Where do you see the foundation going in the future? Helena: One initiative that we are considering right now is on Southeast Asia. We have a longstanding interest with Southeast Asia beginning in the eighties in the wake of the Vietnam war there was a lot of disappointment, anger, frustration which led to a drying up of the field within American higher education. So in the late eighties and early nineties we invested a fair amount in providing support for new faculty divisions or library development or graduate education for collaborative research to help strengthen the field of Southeast Asian studies and that made a big difference. As I mentioned earlier, there is sort of a boom bust cycle with congressional funding for area studies and because Southeast Asian languages don’t get huge enrollments in universities, it is easy for universities to cut those programs. It is valuable to study �other countries, cultures, and histories for the lessons they can give us and for expanding our understanding of the rich variety of human experience. However, it comes to the attention of policymakers at moments of a crisis such as 9/11 when no one was able to speak arabic and all of a sudden there needed to be a placement of money of arabic studies and Russian studies had declined after the fall of the Soviet Union but now Russia is becoming an increasing threat so we need to train Russian speakers again. So why not just keep at it for all of the reasons beyond the policy questions. Right now is another moment where Southeast Asian studies are under some siege because of financial reasons often as well as the fact that a lot of faculty are retiring and when they retire, they are not necessarily replaced by someone else who does Southeast Asia. A foundation like ours can make a difference by offering money and therefore signaling this is important. Offers some incentives for institutions to meet you halfway and commit to investing in funding. It has been twenty years since we did our last initiative on Southeast Asia. It is beginning to become the focus of attention because of the South China sea issues and because of China’s rise. As far as my own future, I have a few more years before I retire. I love my job, it is very exciting. I get to work in all different areas of social sciences, humanities etc. It is a great way to learn and feel that the funding we are providing is helping others do important work. **The next few minutes of the interview, Ms. Kolenda asked us about ourselves and our majors in particular. Helena (closing statement): One of the things that we have also tried to encourage with respect to working in China is women in gender studies. That was based on observations over several decades looking at where there were some interests on the side of Chinese scholars and activists for expanding their knowledge of what was happening within gender studies in the United States and in the west. After China opened up in the late seventies to more interaction with other parts �of the world. Over several decades we have provided funding for different types of collaborations between the universities in the U.S. and China on women and gender and help to try to foster the development of programs that would support this work and I just got this book, “Finding Women in the State: A Socialist, Feminist Revolution in the People’s Republic of China” by Professor Wang Zheng who is at the University of Michigan. She has been a real leader in this field working with Fudan University in Shanghai, China to train women from all over China in these summer institutes that bring faculty from the West and China together to provide institutes for young Ph.D.s or graduate students or new faculty on that subject area. Will: Do you have any advice for anyone seeking more knowledge in any academic studies? Helena: There are so many resources online so that’s a good way to explore possibilities. There are all kinds of databases that can give you information about scholarships that exist. Just talking to people that you know are doing work that intersects with your interests in these fields is a good way to learn about others, make connections, and network a little bit. Don’t be shy to reach out to people. SECTION FIVE: Some aspects of the interview which we found to be quite interesting, were the parts where we asked miss Kolenda about the foundation and its finances. How it got money, how it decided to distribute the funds. Learning how the organization generates money through its endowment, which is completely dependant on the stock market, gave us a greater appreciation for the world market as a whole. It didn’t seem like it at first, but major decisions in many countries, can have ripple effects that can damage the funding that the Luce foundation (and others like it) will receive, which in turn can hurt the great work that they do. There weren’t really any aspects of the interview that we didn’t find helpful. Miss Kolenda was very thorough at explaining and �answering any questions we had, and helped guide us to understanding how the foundation worked, and all the great work it did in cultivating Asian culture in the United States, and helping the newer generations have an appreciation for the rich culture that exists in Asia. We would have liked to know more about her political views and how the foundation adjusts to different political atmospheres, but the conversation was not going in that direction, and we didn’t want to force an awkward question or go far off topic. Some of the other classmates presentations were really spectacular. We found some of them to be very insightful and meaningful. Presentations such as the one did by Marie, Julia, and Rubab, on Alexandra Toma. She seemed like such an interesting young woman (only 31!), with an extensive background, and a true passion for helping people. It is our wish that more women like her not only be the focus of study for students, but that they are showcased and admired for the hard work they put in each and every day. Another presentation we found to be useful was the one done by Lauren, on her grandmother, the WWII nurse. What made it so unique was that it was done on her grandmother. That showed us that, while everyone was doing their interview on some important women in U.S. Asian relations, maybe we don’t have to look so far to find someone who has made a profound impact on the world. Hearing her tell the story of her grandmother, allowed us to reflect on our own lives, and our own grandmothers (and other relatives) and better appreciate the lives that they have lived. We can only hope to aspire to make a difference such as these women have. � 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 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. 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/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kolenda, Helena ; Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_hkolenda_doc_dis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 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. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Winters, Kristen ; Ozdal, William Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Helena Kolenda http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/5e77699039d6d1362b65d1a123e530cb.pdf f7f51044e947e957b8514f7f19b59366 PDF Text Text Laura Vega Mariko Kora Final Project SECTION 1 Person interviewed: Interviewee’s title or position: Date, time, and length of interview: Your objective in conducting this interview: The person we interviewed for our final project was Rosemarie Barnett, an Indian-American immigration rights attorney based in New York. The interview was conducted on April 4, 2018 in professor Christoff’s office at 7pm and it approximately lasted for one hour. The interview was done through Google Hangouts and was video recorded.The objective of the interview was to find out about Mrs. Barnett’s childhood, the events that led up to her current position and how her missions and goals as an Asian-American woman relates to US-Asian relations. SECTION 2 Description of the pre-interview research (What did you find out prior to the interview about the person and/or place with which she is affiliated? How did you prepare for the interview?) As soon as we were assigned a prominent Asian-American woman to interview, we began our research. Using keywords such as “Rosemarie Barnett lawyer” and “Rosemarie Barnett immigration”, we found several links on the Google search engine that gave us information about our interviewee. The first link we accessed was Mrs. Barnett’s LinkedIn profile. This provided us with background information such as where she attended both �undergraduate and graduate schools, as well as her previous job experiences at large law firms, and her current position at her own firm. The second link we found led us to Mrs. Barnett’s professional website. This website gave us a plethora of information on the practice areas Mrs. Barnett specializes in: immigration, matrimonial/family law, personal injury and commercial litigation. Additionally, it provided us with a list of her pro bono experience, which is one of the topics we decided to ask her about during the interview. Once we had a rough basis of who Mrs. Barnett was and the law firms in which she was affiliated, we drafted questions that would give us more insight on her life before college. We specifically wanted to know more about her life in India because we were unable to find that information through our research. Other questions we wanted to ask Mrs. Barnett related to her career; what steps she took to jump start a career in law and if there were any difficulties she faced along the way because she is an Asian-American woman. Interview Questions 1) Early Childhood/Biographical - Mariko a) We heard that you spent your childhood in India, could you tell us about your experience living there and at what age did you move to the U.S.? i) How was it transitioning to the U.S., what were the biggest cultural shocks you had or differences. ii) Would you identify yourself as American, Indian or Indian-American? iii) How do the gender roles in India differ from the U.S.? b) Could you tell us about your family life in India/the U.S.? i) How do they differ in terms of cultural aspects? �ii) Could you tell us about your parents and the influence that they had on you? Do you have any siblings, how was your relationship with them growing up? 2) Education - Laura a) Where did you attend school in India? i) Where did you attend school in the U.S.? ii) How would you compare and contrast these experiences? b) How did you decide upon what you wanted to study/what inspired your interest in law and becoming an attorney? 3) Career highlights Mariko a) We’ve read that you have worked with clients including a constitutional law scholar from China, a transgender woman from Mexico and recent child arrivals from Central American countries, could you expand upon your experience working with these people? i) What are some things you have learned from working with such a diverse clientele? b) How was the transition from working at a law firm to opening up your own practice? Were there any challenges you faced? i) What was the deciding factor that caused you to open your own firm? �Laura c) What difficulties (if any) have you faced in your career because you are an Asian American woman? d) Could you give us your opinion on the current US Immigration policy, what or how do you think improvements could be made? (mention DACA) 4) Reflections upon their career/what they would change a) If you could change anything about your life/career, what would you have done differently? Why?​ (Laura) b) Do you still go back to India/do you have any relatives there? What are some ways you embrace your Indian culture/background? ​(Mariko) c) How do you go about finding a career that satisfies you? d) How do you progress in your career/get ahead (as a woman) in India or the U.S.? i) Are the rules of “progressing” up the ladder different for men and women? SECTION 3 1. Did you get complete answers to your questions? Explain Mrs. Barnett was an outstanding interviewee because she always went beyond the confines of the questions we asked her and included plenty of details to further explain her answers. For example, when we asked about her upbringing in India, not only did she tell us about her parents and four other siblings, but she also delved into India’s culture, schools, and general way of life. We were fortunate enough to be able to get very complete and detailed information about Mrs. Barnett’s entire life story in just one hour because of how eloquently she spoke and her overall candidness throughout the interview. �2. Was your interview structured, unstructured, or mixed? Explain Our interview was definitely mixed. A majority of our questions were unstructured because we wanted to get Mrs. Barnett’s opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics such as the current U.S. immigration policy and the differences between how women are treated in India versus the United States. Several of our questions were structured, like “Where did you attend school in India?” but for the most part, it was a good mix of both structured and unstructured. 3. What probing questions did you use? Explain Most of the questions we posed to Mrs. Barnett were probing questions because we had a sense of her background information, but wanted her to go more in depth into her story. Some examples of probing questions include “Could you tell us more about your family life in India and the United States? How did they differ in terms of cultural aspects?” and “​How was the transition from working at a law firm to opening up your own practice? What was the deciding factor that caused you to open your own firm?” 4. Explain your team approach. That is, who did what? When preparing questions for the interview, we worked together to compile a list of both open and closed ended questions for our interviewee. We discussed what we already knew about Ms. Barnett through our previous research and what we wanted to know more about (e.g. India, her childhood, the process of opening her own law firm). During the interview itself, we took turns asking each question, and each of us would expand upon a question or add our own comments to converse with Mrs. Barnett. We also decided to both take notes during the interview to ensure we caught every detail. �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 No, Mrs. Barnett did not give us references to people or documents. She did, however, mention Professor Christoff and how the two of them initially met. This topic was brought up during the interview when we asked Mrs. Barnett how she and her family continue to celebrate their Indian culture while living in the United States. Each year, she prepares a large, traditional Indian dinner spread for her friends and family, she dresses in Indian clothing, and even has Indian dance performances and henna tattoo stations, occasionally. Mrs. Barnett revealed that aside from this annual extravaganza, she does not get to celebrate her culture as much as she would like to, but she doesn't feel the need to because she is Indian on the inside and that is enough for her. SECTION 4 Interview Transcript Mariko - ​We heard that you spent your childhood in India, could you tell us about your experience living there, and what age did you move to the U.S? Ms. Barnett - ​I lived in India, I was born and raised there and my father was an Engineer. He was a very hard working man, and we were a family of five kids that moved around alot. He died when I was 10 years old. We also lived in Taiwan for a couple of years, because of his job, we were there when he died. After his death we moved back to India, and it was a tough time because if you know anything about Asian cultures it’s all about legacy and family property - my father’s side of the family started a big family property fight with my mother, and it became a �very ugly situation. We ended up without very many resources. I wouldn’t say we were poor, but I wouldn’t say we were comfortable. My mother was a brave woman, she said “I’m gonna invest in one thing, not in your dowries but in your education”. We went to an exclusive boarding school and it set us up for life. I was lucky enough to find out about a scholarship at a small women’s college in Massachusetts and received it, I was 21 by then because I had done a couple of years of college in India. I came with nothing but a couple of bucks in my pocket. My mother was scared to send me off into the world, but I decided that I was here for the long haul and decided to stick it out. The first half of my childhood was very pampered, but then the second half was finding out about how life isn’t so perfect, but it made us very close as a family. Laura - ​Could you talk to us about the cultural shock you had when you came to the United States? Ms. Barnett - ​ Oh my goodness it was culture shock. I came from a very big cosmopolitan city called Bombay (now called Mumbai), to a very small college town in Massachusetts. It was a huge shock in terms of differences in technology. In India at the time we didn’t have any cable television. For example Americanized media such as MTV and seeing a much less repressed society was a culture shock. There was lots of music, drinking and dancing, but the framework was in a small college town. Outside of the college I wasn’t use to hearing the crickets after dark, it was all trees, no tall buildings or cars and the quietness drove me crazy. It felt like I was in a horror movie. I was this big city girl from a third world country but thrown in to a first world country, but in a small town. It was a strange time, and the food was so different too. I would crave my Indian food, but at the same time I found American food great, but it made me so fat. �Mariko​ - How do you think the gender roles differ between India and America? Ms. Barnett - ​When I first came here I thought it was a gender or discrimination free paradise in comparison to India. I thought it was so easy to be whatever you wanted to be here, and I still believe this to some extent when compared to India. But now having lived here for 30 years I see that it’s not as perfect as I thought it was in the beginning. When I first got here I thought it was amazing that I could wear shorts, and not having to worry about people touching me or saying dirty things and not having to be escorted by a man. In India I would always buck the norm, and be bold and daring. I come from a small sub-culture of Christians we always spoke English and wore Western clothes, we always stood out, and because we wore western clothes people automatically assumed that we were easy targets. I always grew up feeling uncomfortable. I remember coming back from boarding school often an easy target, but at the time we just thought of it as it is what it is. I remember one time standing up for myself on a bus yelling at the person who was rubbing himself up against me. I told the bus driver to kick him off of the bus, and the bus driver told me to get off of the bus “dressed in a dress like that”. It was a long baggy dress and then he kicked me off. Stuff like this would happen all of the time and I learned that you just had to be quiet, it was ugly horrible stuff. Coming from that and coming to the U.S. it was liberating. Of course there’s violent crimes here , but it seems like nothing compared to there, and if I were doing the things I did here in India it would have been guaranteed that I would be dead or raped. �Laura - ​How did you decide you wanted to get in to Law? Ms. Barnett - ​Growing up I was always someone who was very argumentative. People always joked that I should be a lawyer. I never took it seriously, because in India it was very expensive, and my mother did not have the money. We all thought that we had to be practical, so I got a bachelors in commerce. My real true dream was to have become an Engineer, but again the thought of putting my mother through this expense was not acceptable. When I came to the U.S. to a small liberal arts school I just decided to get a Bachelors in Business. I always picked classes based on what was available to me because I was a scholarship student. The law didn’t really happen until I went on to get an MBA and I took a law class which fascinated me and made me think this is what I really wanted to do. When I was in grad school that was when I met my husband to be, we got married after grad school, but then life happened and we had two kids. I put it off for a while, when the the kids were toddlers, I then went on to law school at 31. While I was in law school I also had my daughter. Mariko - ​We’ve read that you have worked with clients including a constitutional law scholar from China, a transgender woman from Mexico and recent child arrivals from Central American countries, could you expand upon your experience working with these people? Ms. Barnett - ​Sure, yeah I’ve always been interested in immigration and helping people who face some very bad experiences. I’ve worked at very large law firms up until 5 years ago. At these law firms they encourage you to do pro bono work. From this avenue I got involved with a couple of nonprofits that do this kind of work. Through Human Rights First I got to represent the �Chinese Legal Scholar - just because he wrote a couple of essays about China’s one party system he got thrown into jail we successfully were able to win this case. Once I started my law firm my natural inclination was to focus more on immigration, by taking more classes and getting more training. I represent a lot of children from Central America and getting them special immigrant juvenile status, I also work with a lot of women and families fleeing from the crazy gang violence from these countries. Laura - ​You mentioned that you worked at a lot of large law firms up until a couple of years ago, so can you discuss how it was opening up your own practice? Mrs. Barnett - ​Sure, I never saw myself as someone opening up my own practice, because I saw myself as a big firm kind of person. I thought I would be a cog in a very big machine, and be happy with that. There was a couple of things it was very stressful, and required a lot of hours, hard work and pressure to excel; to be better than anybody else. The work was very tough, and everyone was a type A personality. Honestly there was a lot of discrimination against women, and Asian women, in particular Asian women who were older than the rest. Even though I had graduated second in my class I was recruited by larger firms, but the minute I was there you could tell I was never going to be on partnership track. My destiny was set from day one even though I was thinking I was gonna work really hard, it’s a meritocracy. There was a bias against me and women like me, we would be stuck doing a lot of the boring work such as document work in the background, and we didn’t get to go to court. It was other people who got to go to a courtroom, unless I was doing pro bono work. Institutionally there isn’t a commitment to developing everyone’s careers in a fair and equal way. One time I remember going to a job �interview as a third year law student, and half way through the interview the guy told me I know you’re smart but im going to say no because your kids are the same age as my kids, and my wife and I met at this law firm as first year associates, and right now she’s home because three kids requires one parent to be home. I couldn’t believe at how sexist that was , and I told him right away there’s going to be one parent the dad. He said I’m doing you a favor, I know you want a career but this kind of career at a white shoe firm is not for you. I swear if that happened to me 10 years later I would have made a big stink over it on social media. Most people are not going to stand up and say something because they just want their career going. That’s what I did I was highly offended and highly upset, but didn’t do anything more I really should’ve pushed now that I think about it, it was a missed opportunity. But I thought, do you really want to be labeled as a trouble maker? So you just decide to walk away from those fights. So, that was one of the reasons I left the big law arena. Bottom line I was a mom I had other responsibilities, I wasn’t just solely a career person. The money was super rewarding in a big firm, but in other ways it was not good at all. In 2012 hurricane Sandy hit and it destroyed my house; that was dealing with being “homeless” and living in a motel, it just made me realize I can’t do the 14 hour days in the city anymore. I was thinking maybe I’ll just do some contract work, but then I decided to start my own practice. It was very scary, but I had a friend who had started already and she showed me the nuts and bolts. Mariko​ - Could you give us your opinion and current U.S. immigration policy, what or how do you think improvements could be made? �Ms. Barnett​ - How the laws are being implemented are very draconian, everyday there are new changes being made. For example with marriage petitions you find that there’s more requests from the government such as the number of interviews and denials which have increased. It’s like the law in some ways has remained the same, but the way they are implementing it is stricter. In Immigration court it’s way worse, before we use to be able to settle out certain cases if they werent a risk to national security, and they were here basically because they’re running away from violence or poverty, they weren’t going to be a problem in this country. A lot of times you would have to write a memo as to why they’re deserving - like a plea bargain, and now they don’t do this anymore. Every case has to go to trial, every trial is strictly enforced against the immigrants, and it’s very tough. Immigration policy needs to change, yes I agree that we need to have better security at the borders, but at the same time this is a country of immigrants, and it doesn’t make any sense that we have millions and millions of people that live here undocumented. A lot of these undocumented people are paying taxes and are working really hard but there’s no way for them to become documented and become a part of American society. I believe that so many people are left uninformed. I felt that under Obama, the law enforcement side was kept strong, and it tried to keep families united, but he also deported a lot of people too, but at the sametime if they were families, children and women and fleeing from violence they had a fighting chance, but now they don’t. I really hope that things change in Washington, something needs to be done. Anyone who practices immigration law is sick to the stomach as to how bad it is. I have a trial coming up and I have to prepare my clients ahead of time to save money ahead of time, because I know they’re not going to win. It’s hard to think of these people who are so hopeful. People say they arrived here with no VISA, but may be we would be doing �the same thing if we were facing the same violence and threats to ourselves. General violence is not enough for an asylum case. The laws are very complicated, you have to be a legal scholar to understand half the laws out there. Laura:​ So we know that you opened your own practice only five years ago, but so far if there’s anything you would change about your life or career what would you have done differently? Ms. Barnett:​ I think I would have started my own law practice a while ago, actually. To think of the 12 or 13 years that I spent at these big firms.. Yeah it was decent money but it was at such a cost. Like I said, I always felt I was the back room lawyer; I felt like I never had a chance and it was always exhausting...and you’re always terrified of being fired because everyone is so good! Everyone’s a star from their own hometown or their own law school so it’s the best of the best. You’re either in the top 5% of a smaller law school or you’re from an Ivy league so everybody’s a type A, flashy kind of person and it’s exhausting to be there all the time. I feel like, yeah, it was an accomplishment to swim in those waters but for personal happiness, which is actually something very important, and people don’t give it as much importance, especially women, I think I would have done this a long time ago. If I look back, I should have been practicing by myself for 10 to 12 years by now, instead of just 5. Mariko:​ Going back to India: ​Do you still go back and do you have any relatives there? What are some ways you embrace your Indian culture/background? Ms. Barnett:​ I don’t go home as much as I’d like to; the last time I went was in 2015 for my sister’s 25th wedding anniversary. My mom lives with me now, which makes traveling hard. My �kids also like India; one of my kids who’s in college spent a summer there, but the other two haven’t had a chance [to go] yet. We’re very Indian at home, but like I told you earlier, we’re from a subculture from India that is more Westernized anyway. One of the ways we celebrate is once a year, I throw this big Indian dinner and I cook everything. This is how I met your professor, as a matter of fact! I don’t get to celebrate being Indian that often but I feel like I’m so Indian to the core that I don’t need to celebrate it because I am it! Laura: ​What advice would you give to people in our generation who are looking to find a career that is satisfying for them in the long run? Ms. Barnett:​ I have this conversation with my children a lot, actually, and their friends too. I find a lot of people in your age group are very lost because there’s so much pressure on you guys. You’ve grown up in a world where there’s a lot of information out there at all times but you guys get bombarded too much. You’re already so jaded because you’ve seen the world through this lense where you see the good and the bad, and the bad seems to come hurtling at you all the time because of the media. You guys have a lot on your plates and I would say the one thing you should really focus on is to try and drown out all those negative voices. The good thing about living in this generation is that there are way more opportunities for you. You have to be creative, you have to keep thinking, and my biggest piece of advice to people your age is that life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you really want it, it will happen. Mariko:​ ​How do you progress in your career/get ahead (as a woman) in India or the U.S.? Are the rules of “progressing” up the ladder different for men and women? �Ms. Barnett:​ Yes, absolutely! One thing that women do is that we work very hard; we always think if you work really hard and you hand in a piece of work that’s perfect, you will be rewarded. We automatically have this really great work ethic. Always do that anyway, but we have to borrow from the men’s playbook. We have to learn how to brag about ourselves, we have to learn how to market, we have to be shameless self promoters. I still find that hard, but then I realize, ‘Wait a minute, I have accomplished quite a bit,’ and you should be unabashed about promoting yourself in the workplace. Let your work speak for itself, absolutely, but also learn how to take an opportunity. The deck is not stacked in our favor. Once you understand the rules, you’ll win. Laura: ​In India, do you think women still face the same struggles progressing next to men? Mrs. Barnett:​ Absolutely. It’s still hard there, there’s still a lot of violence around women. It’s hard to be a woman in India in that sense because you still have to worry about things like sexual harassment. You cannot work super late at night unless you know for sure that there’s a car to take you home; the biggest perpetrators of this violence are cab drivers. In India right now there’s an extremist right-wing movement; it’s all about returning to traditional principles and that’s actually bringing the rights of women even lower. Career-wise, it is getting a little better for women. There’s a lot more opportunities, but if you ever asked me if I would go back to live in India I would say no. The bottom line is, it’s not a place to establish a career. And that’s what I have to say about that. Both:​ Thank you so much for your time, we really appreciate it. �SECTION 5 What aspects of the interview did you find to be particularly meaningful? An aspect of the interview that we found to be particularly meaningful was hearing about the difficulties and discrimination that she faced as an Asian American women. Although these kind of experiences may be shocking or painful to some we thought that they are what build character, and makes an individual stronger in some cases. For instance when Mrs. Barnett discussed the time that she was rejected by a law firm due to being a mother of two, it was particularly shocking, but it gave us insight on how even in a country such as the U.S. that represents itself as liberalized and open, women are discriminated against solely for their gender. Although her husband was fully capable of taking care of their children, the fact that she was a woman made it unacceptable for her to hold the position as the breadwinner in the family. Initially when coming to the U.S. Mrs. Barnett believed the states to be completely discrimination free, but instances like this made her realize that this was not the case. Another meaningful aspect of the interview was her emphasis on the importance of personal happiness and how ultimately life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Particularly, we found the career advice that she gave to us as young women of our generation to be quite memorable. She stated that in order to overcome the barriers that we face as women, we need to become more assertive and appeal to others about our capabilities and to borrow from the “men’s playbook”, since “the deck is not stacked in our favor - [but] once you get the rules of the game you’ll be able to win” . This quote really stuck out to us because it emphasized how much women are at an disadvantage in society, but with some effort and utilizing more masculine qualities women can become just as successful. Just as it was emphasized in the missing 33 �percent video in class, women are often times not properly taught or given the tools to become leaders. This is often done not on purpose, but naturally which is why it is essential to actively make society realize that women need to be taught the rules of the men’s playbook. What aspects were not useful? What more would you like to know? Although we did not find any of the aspects of the interview to be unuseful, we thought that if we were students that were interested in pursuing a career in immigration law the interview would have been even more meaningful in further understanding the career. For example we asked her about how she would change the current immigration law system and her experiences working with a diverse clientele and she also gave us very detailed and raw responses on the difficulties that many refugees and immigrants face today in obtaining citizenship. Although neither of us are planning to pursue a career in law, the discussion sparked a lot of interest on how the current political climate is after the change from Obama to Trump, as well as how many of the undocumented citizens today are struggling to become accepted and integrated in to a part of American society. After conducting the interview we thought that we would like to learn more about her siblings and how their lives turned out to be despite having a similar upbringing as Mrs. Barnett. We also thought that we would further like to hear and discuss her work and experience on the cases she is presently dealing with and more about her work life as an attorney. During the one hour we spent with her we were able to get a great grasp and idea of her personality, upbringing and how her experiences have made her to be the person that she is today. In terms of personal �details she was very open with us, so there was not particularly anything that we were missing from her in that aspect. What other in-class presentations did you find particularly useful? During the in-class presentations we learned about many different Asian-American women with interesting backgrounds and careers. On the first day of presentations we learned about Nancy Wang who was a dancer and social worker, her goal was to help serve the people in her community and to blend the gap between the West and East Asian culture. On the second day of presentations we learned about women Such as Amy Hall who is the VP of Eileen Fisher a women’s wear company that heavily promotes environmental sustainability, as well as Sarah Park a woman who runs a laundromat business with her husband, and cherishes her family and Christianity with pride. We found the presentation on Mrs. Park to be quite useful because of how different her background and career was in comparison to other women. Despite not having the most prestigious career, her story gave us insight on how many Asian immigrants who do not come from the most privileged backgrounds pursue and work endlessly to make a career for themselves. On the last day of presentations we learned about women including Dr. Ling Ling Ho who grew up in a privileged family in China, but was keen on pursuing education, and was very much aware of her privilege. We thought that this quality in Dr. Ho was similar to how Mrs. Barnett valued her education and used it to prepare herself for the world. Dr. Ho enlisted in the army, and started off as a nurse but later went on to pursue her medical degree, and the biggest struggle she faced came from having a language barrier. We also learned about Sarah-Ann Smith an ex foreign service officer, writer and professor whose main goal was to help people better understand each other and similarly to Nancy Wang was to bridge the gap between U.S. and �China. The main thing we took away from viewing everyone’s presentations was seeing the similarities and differences between every woman, but observing how each individual woman’s experience woven together completes the fabric of women in US-Asian relations. The interview we had with Rosemarie Barnett was absolutely delightful, she was an extremely eloquent and engaging speaker and before we had realized, we had spent nearly an entire hour speaking to her. She was very transparent with us throughout the interview and from learning about her childhood in India, to her journey in discovering her current career path, we were able to obtain a meaningful understanding of her experiences and life as an Asian American woman. � 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_20180402_rbarnett_doc_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vega, Laura Kora, Mariko Barnett, Rosemarie Title A name given to the resource Rosemarie Barnett Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-04 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/b4def59ea087e88fe8e721864d9c767c.pdf 7aee18cd86fa37cc28b7f8f3460528ae PDF Text Text Biography Rosemarie Barnett is an Immigration Rights Attorney based in New York, she was born and raised in an affluent family of 7 (3rd sister) in India and she has also spent time living in Taiwan. Her family encountered financial difficulties after the death of her father when she was 10 years old. After his death her mother made an emphasis on investing in an education rather than dowries (which was more typical in India), and was sent to an exclusive boarding school. She later attended a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts through a scholarship, and out of practicality she decided to obtain a Bachelors in Business, but her true dream was to become an Engineer (she was not able to pursue this due to finances and her school). Upon graduating she went on to her MBA, and took a class related to law which sparked her interest in pursuing a career in law. She met her husband while earning her MBA and has had 3 children between earning her MBA and law degree. Since earning her law degree she has worked at an elite law firm for 12-13 years and has since opened up her own practice. Main points/relation to Asian American Women Rosemarie has emphasized the importance of personal happiness and how ultimately life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. She talked to us about the many incidences she has faced due to the fact that she was an Asian American �woman from being harrassed on a bus in India as well as being told by a hiring manager that she needs to be taking care of her children, despite being qualified for the position. In Order to overcome these barriers she emphasized that women need to become more assertive and appeal to others about their capabilities and to borrow from the “men’s playbook” 1) 2) Reinforced things we learned in class - Mention relation to Missing 33% video a) One of the questions we asked her was what is some advice you can give to women who want progress and get ahead in their career, and how different is this process in comparison to men. Video we watched in one of the lectures called the b) “Missing 33%”, or why women could not become as successful in their careers in comparison to men. It was revealed that often times mentors would try to build the confidence of women, while they spent time teaching the actual business to men. Because of this difference in mentoring, the gap between men and women was developed. Provided new information - Advice for young people finding their careers - Focus on trying to drown out negative voices, think about what you like to do. The bright side of living in this generation is that there are way more opportunities and options. In her generation the goal was working for a large company with great benefits. She mentioned internet business, bloggers and things that are unconventional, embrace the freedom and the opportunities that are available now. �Introduce clip: a) How do you progress in your career/get ahead (as a woman) in India or the U.S.? i) Are the rules of “progressing” up the ladder different for men and women? Step 1: Pre-Interview Research ● Once Professor Christoff told us which prominent Asian-American woman we’d be researching, we started with a Google search on Rosemarie, which led us to her LinkedIn profile and her professional website. Her LinkedIn provided us with background information like where she attended school, and her previous jobs at large law firms, which is where she started out. Her website led us to more up-to-date information on her current law firm that she runs, and the various cases that she has covered in the short five years since opening her own firm. Step 2: Preparing Questions ● Once we had a rough basis of Rosemarie’s life and work, we drafted questions that would give us more insight on her life growing up in India because the Internet did not tell us much about that, as well as some �thought-provoking career-related questions like things the things she did to jump start her career and what kind of difficulties she has faced along the way because she is an Asian American woman. Step 3: The Interview ● We were very fortunate that the person we were interviewing was a great speaker. Whenever we would ask a question, even something basic like “Where did you attend school in India?” she would often go on personal anecdotes and give us even more insight than we had asked for, which was very helpful. She told us a lot about gender biases in India, and the challenges women face in today’s society to be taken seriously or just as seriously as their male counterparts. An example of a time where we used active listening was when she told us the story of how she came to be a lawyer, and we referenced parts of that story when asking a follow-up question on what she would have done differently on her path to success. In regards to verbal cues, the only noticeable changes in her tone was when she talked about her father’s death and the impact it had on her family (which is understandable because it’s obviously a heavy topic). Her body language throughout the interview was very relaxed, she kind of spoke to us like we were her kids asking for advice (because her kids are around our age) and because she was comfortable, we were also comfortable throughout the conversation. � 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_20180402_rbarnett_ppt_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vega, Laura Kora, Mariko Title A name given to the resource Rosemarie Barnett Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-04 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/827cf9bfcbfa296062236826dff74769.pptx ffa0c41d35eeec43825ce05e82871063 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_20180402_rbarnett_master Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vega, Laura Kora, Mariko Title A name given to the resource Rosemarie Barnett Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-04 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/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