In light of the current violence happening inside and outside of our classrooms, scholarly/pedagogical erasure and censorship, and the looming effects of an increasingly oppressive regime, it is important to protect all centers of knowledge production. Focusing on our conference theme of creating a radical collective future, it is important to use spaces such as AAAS as a site of not just camaraderie, but as a place of knowledge sharing and strategic planning for our survival. This roundtable will have its participants discuss how Filipinx American scholars deal with escalating anti-intellectualism through the practice of liberation pedagogy using Filipinx American Studies for such practice. Participants will draw from their own journey as faculty to respond to a rapidly changing environment. In doing so, we will explore how we all work to fight not just individual scholars but as a collective resistance. As part of the roundtable, we will also work in collaboration with attendees to further build solidarity across disciplines, our fields, and the larger diaspora.

Our roundtable plans to engage with the audience on practices, critical reflection, and the decentering of essentialist notions of scholar activism. Led by Reuben Deleon as chair and Dr. Rick Bonus as discussant, this roundtable will include Dr. Wayne Jopanda who will speak on the tensions of practicing a liberation-centered Ethnic Studies pedagogy amidst the constraints of the campus “Time, Place, and Manner” policies (TPM) regarding community organizing. These spaces examined range from student organized spaces, cross community collaboration, and opportunities for community engaged scholar activism/artivism grounded in critical hope. This contribution engages the concept of students and faculty critical hope within the university, one that is grounded in shared struggle, collective action, and liberatory resistance within and outside the campus. Dr. Michael Schulze-Oechtering Castaneda will draw upon his research on a praxis of labor solidarity, co-constructed by Filipinx cannery workers and Black construction workers in the Pacific Northwest, "no separate peace," to make a case for the political possibilities of engaging with scholar-activist traditions that develop outside of academia. No separate peace, as a praxis of solidarity that worked across a range of political contexts geographic scales - from urban multiracial coalition politics to the development of international networks between U.S. workers and those in the Global South - evolved parallel to the Ethnic Studies' institutionalization within the academy and anticipated multiple debates within the field of Ethnic Studies, from the study of labor diasporas, racial capitalism, and relational racialization. Castaneda, by using "no separate peace" as a case study, will stress the importance of engaging with community-based scholar-activist tradition, especially in a political climate where institutionalized forms of Ethnic Studies are under attack. Camille Ungo-Santos will draw from her experience as a Filipina American teacher educator, drawing learnings from her Asian American Studies background, a group of grad students and alumni who center Asian Critical Race Theory in their work, and relations with the Filipino diaspora to support current elementary science teachers in various classroom settings that range from supportive school and district DEI commitments to outspoken parent and family anxieties regarding the current political climate. In our work together, we take up multilingual pedagogies, critical disability justice frameworks, and meaningful family engagement. She hopes to share how teacher education becomes a site of collective resistance when grounded in Filipino American Studies, building upon anti-colonial praxis that extends from university spaces to K-12 classrooms. Dr. Dina Maramba will discuss the role of advocacy as it relates to Filipinx Americans in higher education. In particular, she will draw upon her experiences as both a Professor and former student affairs practitioner whose research praxis intersects higher education, Filipinx studies and critical qualitative methodology. Lastly, she will revisit The “Other” Students: Filipino Americans, Education and Power as a focal point to further engage and re-engage us in the possibilities of transformative change in our educational spaces. Dr. Stacey Anne Salinas will discuss her experiences as an Ethnic Studies faculty in a community college environment and the various barriers she has experienced as an Ethnic Studies professor, focusing on topics such as the larger institutional and statewide struggle in drafting Ethnic Studies curriculum, advocating for Asian American students’ needs in a rural county, and her attempts at preserving her own peace in the classroom and the workplace as a woman of color. Lastly, Salinas will conclude with how a pinayist pedagogical approach in teaching American history has helped her affect her classroom spaces to reflect her community goals and intentions informed by Kapwa.