In this blog post, I’ll introduce my thesis supervisor and instructor, Professor Cathy Schlund-Vials, and her areas of interest. I’ll also provide a summary of my meetings with the professor. In these meetings, we talk about my thesis’s progress, topics I should probably cover, and subjects that are relevant to my thesis. Lastly, I’ll end by writing a reflection about the meetings I’ve been participating in.
Let’s start with a little introduction to Professor Schlund-Vials, the professor of my Asian American Literature course. Here, we read and discuss books emblematic of the Asian American experience, whether that be about immigration, generational trauma, or discrimination we face as minorities. Drawing upon her knowledge of Southeast Asian history and current affairs, Professor Schlund-Vials skillfully creates engaging lectures relevant to the class’s assigned readings.
Regarding our meetings, the professor has provided me with direction and resources for my thesis. For example, because my contract emphasizes Asian Americans, a vastly broad group, we’ve narrowed the targeted demographic to Chinese Americans. Additionally, with her advice, we’ve established a link from Asian American studies to economics, another focus of my contract. Through looking at historical American legislation targeting Asian immigration, we’re able to build a connection to economic structures such as liberalism and neo-liberalism and concepts like globalization.
More on the development of my thesis, not including the introduction, I’ve concluded that it would be in my greatest interest to break down the paper into three sections: the framework, the theory, and economics. The framework section constitutes a breakdown and historical analysis of neo-liberalism, a concept that makes up the current economic ideology of the United States. This will later be used as a segway from the second section to the third section. The theory portion of the thesis will dive further into the idea of the Model Minority as well as its implications on Asians in the status quo. The economics part will explain the role of Asian Americans in American economics. I plan on using statistics and models to demonstrate the impact the demographic has on the economy.
Another important aspect of our meetings is the mini lectures about essential concepts that will be included in my thesis. For one, I’m able to understand the root causes of the Model Minority Myth as well as identify instances in which I’ve personally experienced this phenomenon. More about the Model Minority myth, I see how it interacts historically with Asian populations and how it structures the relations Asian Americans have with other ethnic groups within America. And although not directly in professor Schlund-Vials’ field of study, I’m also able to understand liberalism and neo-liberalism better, ideas stated earlier to be crucial to my thesis writing.
Undoubtedly, Professor Schlund-Vials has been invaluable to my research. Not only has she provided me with several paths forward for my thesis, which I plan on taking, but I also appreciate that any questions or ideas I bounce off her are received with constructive feedback or affirmation. In writing this blog post, it becomes increasingly apparent that I’m far more ahead than I had ever imagined I would be at this point. With that being said, I’d like to thank my professor one last time. I hope we continue to have more productive meetings in the future.
