Lessons From the Past: Yellow Peril in COVID-19 Times
As part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we’re partnering with Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA), South East Asian Resource Center (SEARAC), National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA), and The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) on a webinar discussing Asian American mental health through both a historical lens and through the lens of the current pandemic. RSVP Here!
Our Panelists
Moderator: Shirley Ann Higuchi, JD is a Senior Director of Legal and Regulatory Affairs for the American Psychological Association and past president of the District of Columbia Bar. In 2014, Shirley was appointed to the Federal Law Enforcement Nominating Commission by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC. She also chairs the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (www.heartmountain.org), which runs an interpretive center at the site of the camp where her parents were imprisoned. Her forthcoming book about her family and several key incarcerees, Setsuko’s Secret: Heart Mountain and the Legacy of the Japanese American Incarceration is due out this year by University of Wisconsin Press. Follow her on Twitter at @HiguchiJD. She will discuss portions of her book that address multigenerational trauma.
Panelist: Dr. Satsuki Ina, Professor Emeritus in the School of Education at California State University, Sacramento, was born in the Tule Lake, California Segregation Center, a maximum-security concentration camp for Japanese Americans during WWII. She has a private psychotherapy practice in the San Francisco Bay Area specializing in the treatment of community trauma. A community activist, writer, and filmmaker, she has produced two award-winning documentary films. Currently, she is co-founder and organizer with Tsuru for Solidarity, a direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates building solidarity with other communities experiencing forced removal, detention, deportation, and family separation. She has developed and implemented cross-community Healing Circles for Change to address the trauma of shared community trauma. She is featured in the recent PBS series, “Asian American” aired earlier this month. She will talk about her family history, and how it has informed her work and motivated her to be part of a civil rights movement.
Panelist: Dr. Carolee Tran is an Assistant Professor at UC Davis department of psychiatry and the first Vietnamese woman to become a psychologist in America. She received her Ph.D. degree from Boston University and did her internship at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Tran has worked in the mental health field for over 30 years and specializes in the treatment of trauma. She has authored multiple publications on issues pertaining to providing culturally-informed mental health care, trauma, and a memoir entitled The Gifts of Adversity. She is also a Vietnamese refugee who escaped to the United States in 1975. Her documentary My Vietnam War Story was shown in conjunction with Ken Burns’ documentary The Vietnam War, and was nominated for a regional Emmy in 2018. Her harrowing escape story has been featured on Capital Public Radio and multiple newspapers and magazines.
Panelist: Dr. Gordon C. Nagayama Hall is a Professor of Psychology in the clinical psychology program at the University of Oregon. His paternal grandparents emigrated to the United States from England and his maternal grandparents emigrated to the United States from Japan in the early 1900s. His mother and family were incarcerated at Poston, Arizona during World War II because they were Japanese Americans. His parents were married at a time when there were still anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Dr. Hall served as President of the American Psychological Association (APA) Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues (Division 45) and as President of the Asian American Psychological Association. He was Editor of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. His blog for Psychology Today is “Life in the Intersection: A Multicultural Psychology Approach.” His research interests are in culture and mental health with a particular interest in Asian Americans.
