Mellon Public Scholar Katherine Nasol: Research as Movement Building in AAPI Communities
By Lindsay Baltus on October 22
Katherine Nasol, PhD student in Cultural Studies and 2019 Mellon Public Scholar, is a community organizer at heart. As an undergraduate at Stanford, she says, 'I didn’t think I would touch research, because I was interested in social justice issues and supporting queer and trans communities of color.' But then, in the process of developing an honors thesis about trafficked Filipinx migrants in the US and Hong Kong, she was introduced to community-based research. 'I realized that community-based research is needed for social movement building and social justice,' she said. Over the summer of 2019, a Mellon Public Scholars grant allowed Nasol to continue this movement-building work with two organizations fighting to strengthen and protect their communities.
'Rise, Resist, Unite: The Stories of AAPI Women and Girls' is a story-gathering project Nasol co-developed with AAPI Women Lead. That organization’s goal, according to its website, is 'to strengthen the progressive political and social platforms of Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the US through the leadership of self-identified AAPI women and girls [and] to challenge and help end the intersections of violence against and within our communities.'"