More Than a Monolith

In the season three finale of "More Than a Monolith," Dr. Priya Nalkur—psychologist, executive coach, and author—delivers a heartfelt keynote from CAAPLE Con25. She explores the power of vulnerability in leadership, the importance of reframing mistakes as stepping stones to growth, and the transformative impact of sharing our stories. Through personal anecdotes and insights, Dr. Nalkur invites listeners to honor those who gave them a turn, embrace their full selves, and create spaces of inclusion and belonging. Join us for a powerful call to courage, connection, and authentic leadership as we close out a season dedicated to identity, wellness, and the power of voice.

In this episode of "More Than a Monolith," Dr. Shana Henry sits down with Janice Munemitsu, author of "The Kindness of Color," to explore the powerful true story of two families whose acts of solidarity changed the course of history. Janice shares her family's connection to the landmark Mendez v. Westminster case, the challenges faced by Japanese Americans during World War II, and the enduring impact of kindness, integrity, and community. Together, they discuss why these stories remain hidden, the importance of sharing intergenerational experiences, and how everyday acts of courage and allyship can inspire hope and change in our own communities. This episode is a call to action for listeners to uncover, share, and learn from the hidden histories that shape us all.

In this powerful episode of "More Than a Monolith," Dr. Stefan Bean, Orange County’s 12th Superintendent of Schools, sits down with Dr. Diane Kitamura for an inspiring conversation about resilience, community, and transformative leadership. Dr. Bean shares his extraordinary story—from his birth in Vietnam and overcoming adversity as a child with polio, to becoming a passionate educator and single father of four. Discover how his personal experiences shaped his empathetic approach to leadership, his vision for uplifting vulnerable students, and his commitment to fostering equity and innovation in Orange County’s schools. This episode is a testament to the power of community, the importance of giving back, and the impact of leading with heart.

Explore the transformative power of rest, storytelling, and collective healing in Asian American communities in this heartfelt episode. Our guest shares insights on mental health, intergenerational trauma, and the importance of culturally rooted wellness practices. Learn about the journey behind the book "Where I Belong: Healing Trauma and Embracing Asian American Identity," and practical ways to foster self-compassion and community care. This episode is a powerful reminder that healing is possible when we honor our stories and embrace our identities.

Join us for a powerful episode recorded live at CAAPLE Con 25, where AANHPI superintendents from across California share unfiltered reflections on identity, equity, and the courage it takes to lead. Moderated by Dr. Diane Kitamura, this panel dives deep into the challenges and triumphs of educational leadership, from recruitment and retention to cultural roots and systemic reform. Be inspired by stories of resilience, actionable insights, and a vision for a more inclusive future in education.

This special episode of "More Than a Monolith" features a candid, deeply personal conversation about identity, belonging, and the complexities of being Desi in America. Recorded live with audience participation, the discussion unpacks the often unspoken question: Are Indians really Asian? Listeners are invited to explore the nuances of cultural labels, microaggressions, and the search for belonging within the broader Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) framework. Tune in for honest reflections, stories of growing up between cultures, and insights on how we can all create space for authentic self-definition and connection.

In this episode of "More Than a Monolith," host Shana Henry sits down with Dr. Meghna Bhatt—storyteller, educator, and advocate—to explore the transformative power of storytelling within the South Asian and AANHPI communities. Together, they discuss how sharing personal stories can foster healing, challenge stereotypes, and build authentic connections. Dr. Bhatt shares her journey into storytelling, the importance of safe and courageous spaces, and practical advice for those new to sharing their stories. The conversation also highlights the work of organizations like Capital Storytelling and Gulabi Stories, offering listeners inspiration and resources to begin their own storytelling journeys.

In this powerful episode, host Shana Henry sits down with keynote speaker, educator, and author Tony De La Rosa to explore the complexities of Asian American identity, the journey of unlearning internalized oppression, and the ongoing fight for representation in education. Tony shares personal stories, insights from his book "Teaching the Invisible Race," and poetry that challenges listeners to rethink advocacy, allyship, and the role of ethnic studies in schools. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about radical love, authentic leadership, and building coalitions for lasting change in and beyond the classroom.

Today my guest is Estella Owoimaha-Church, Executive Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities–also known as EPIC.  Estella, a former educator of nearly two decades, is a strong voice and advocate for marginalized communities having spoken all over the world about pressing education matters.  This was a heavy conversation for me because I could feel the depth of critical urgency Estella leads with every day.  In our conversation, we talk about the lack of representation ineducation, data disaggregation, the lack of care for our Pacific Islander communities and so much more.   We encourage you to continue to conversation with us by sharing this episode and tagging us on twitter or Linked in.  Today’s episode is sponsored by SoundMind, an immersive wellness platform students can use as a mind management tool for emotional and phsyical wellness using music therpay.  Used by over 250,000+ students across the nation SoundMind is the leading mental health app for youth, including recently named Top 6 Mental Health Apps for Kids by Parents Magazine.  You can learn more and access theur Mental Health Toolkit by visiting www.soundmind.app.  

Welcome back to another episode of More Than a Monolith.  I am really thrilled to introduce you to our guest today, Maria Medrano.  I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Maria for about 15 years when her daughter enrolled in the school I had the honor of leading.  Maria, her husband Mauricio and I quickly connected through our passionate belief in the access and opportunity for underrepresented youth.  Since meeting her, I’ve continued to be inspired by Maria’s leadership in top positions at Cisco, Visa and Google.  Recently, Maria shared with me the decision to leave it all behind so she can accomplish her mission: To help end generational poverty through educational attainment for everyone.  While the goal sounds big, she’s the one to make it happen.  In this episode, we talk about college completion and transfer  rates for AAPI youth, barriers to accessing higher ed and the financial challenges for our families.  Today’s episode is sponsored by SoundMind, an immersive wellness platform students can use as a mind management tool for emotional and phsyical wellness using music therpay.  Used by over 250,000+ students across the nation SoundMind is the leading mental health app for youth, including recently named Top 6 Mental Health Apps for Kids by Parents Magazine.  You can learn more and access theur Mental Health Toolkit by visiting www.soundmind.app.  

Welcome back to a new episode of More Than a Monolith.  Today, I have the honor of being joined by Lee Herrick.  Lee Herrick is the California Poet Laureate and the first Asian American to hold the title. He is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This Many Miles from Desire. In addition, his writings appear in a number of anthologies. He served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017.  Born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted to the United States at ten months, he teaches at Fresno City College and the MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe.  In our conversation, we talk about his personal experiences growing up as a Korean adoptee, his journey to poetry and his love of California.  We are even treated to Lee reading some of his poetry for us.  Our chat turned out to be a personal one for me and I’m really fortunate for this time together. 

Today I am thrilled to welcome our guest, Misty Her.  Misty is the Deputy Superintendent of Fresno Unified School District and the highest ranking Hmong K-12 professional in the nation.  Yes, in the nation.  Her story is exceptional beginning with her years when she immigrated to Fresno as a young girl.  After college, she returned to Fresno unified as a bilingual aide and worked her way up to now Deputy Superintendent.  Please take a moment now or after you listen to share this episode.  What Misty has to share is too good to not get to others. Thank you to our sponsors, Parsec Education! 

For today’s episode, I am joined by Dr, Karen Umemoto who is a a professor in the departments of Urban Planning and Asian American Studies at UCLA and is the inaugural Helen and Morgan Chu Endowed Director’s Chair of the Asian American Studies Center.  You can read more about her extensive background in our show notes.  One of her many accomplishments is co-authoring the book, Jacked Up and Unjust: Pacific Islander Teens Confront Violent Legacies where she explores the harsh realities our PI youth face every day.  Today, we talk about the findings from the book and if there has been progress made.  

We are back with another episode and I am so excited about today’s guests.  Yes, guests, plural.  On this episode, I am joined by five exceptional youth voices behind AAPI Youth Rising.  I’ve been a follower of their work for a while now and was thrilled when they accepted the invitation to be on the show.  Today we’re chatting about the genesis of their organization, youth mental health, their one day of AAPI history campaign and so much more.  Please make sure to share this episode so we can help spread the word about the important work they are doing. 

Our guest today is Dr. Diann Kitamura.  Diann is the former superintendent of Santa Rosa City Schools and has worked in public education for the past 40 years.  She continues this work in her retirement as a lecturer in the Leaders for Equity and Democracy program at U.C. Berkeley, the 21CLSA AAPI Affinity Group Lead for the Bay Area, and a mentor/coach for Next Level Client Services with F3 Law.  Diann is also a board member for CAAPLE, the California Association of Asian and Pacific Leaders in Education.   In our conversation, we discuss advocacy, affinity spaces and advancement for AAPI educators. This episode is sponsored by the amazing team at Parsec Education.  Parsec combines cloud based data warehouses with outstanding visualization to make data meaningful and interactive.  Check them out at parseceducation.com.  

Today’s guest is Tracie Noriega and we’re talking about the history of ethnic studies and what are the critical considerations we need to pay attention to as it is delivered in our schools.  Tracie Noriega serves the students of San Lorenzo Unified as the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services. Tracie also serves in various roles with FAEAC (Filipino-American Educators Association of CA), ACSA (Association of CA School Administrators), and the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium and is a doctoral student at CSU Sacramento. As an Educator of almost 30 years, it is the tenets of Ethnic Studies that continue to center her as an Educator. Our Youth inspires her as she works to create lasting change in our educational system.    This season of More Than A Monolith is sponsored by Parsec Education,  an educational technology company that creates cloud-based data warehouses and combines them with outstanding visualization to put the data you need right at your fingertips. Their goal is to transform education by empowering educators to spend less time gathering and interpreting the data and more time implementing it. 

 I am here with our final episode of season 1.  Not to worry, season 2 will be here before you know it so stay connected to us on Twitter @caaple1 and on LinkedIn so you’ll know when we are back in spring.  But, before we sign off, we have our final guest of the season, Dr. Ratmony Yee.  Dr. Yee currently serves as the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services in the Victor Valley Union High School District. She has been in education for 26 years and her passion for education lies in her belief that it is our moral imperative to provide equitable outcomes for all.As an immigrant and survivor of the Cambodian Holocaust, she believes that there is lack of representation for Asian American and Pacific Islander students. Her hope is that she can be a voice and advocate for those who have been marginalized or underrepresented.  Today we have the gift of hearing more about Dr. Yee’s personal story.  She’s not only a transformational leader, but one who encourages, inspires and motivates.  Today’s conversation will be evident of that.  This season of More Than A Monolith is sponsored by Parsec Education,  an educational technology company that combines cloud-based data warehouses with outstanding visualization to put the data you need right at your fingertips. Check them out in the link in the show notes. Thank you for joining us on season 1 of More Than a Monolith.  We will see you for season 2.  

I am so excited to introduce our guest today, Dr. Russell Jeung.  Dr. Jeung is currently a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and he is also one of the co-founders of the Stop AAPI Hate coalition which tracks and responds to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.In addition to authoring a number of studies and books, he also co-produced the documentary The Oak Park Story about a landmark housing lawsuit involving his fellow Cambodian and Latino tenants.  Dr. Jeung is also our scheduled keynote speaker for our CAAPLE symposium on March 4, 2023 in Castro Valley California.  Please note in our conversation it was referenced as a different date.  You can head to our caaple.org to to learn more about the symposium and register for the event.  This season of More Than A Monolith is sponsored by Parsec Education,  an educational technology company that creates cloud-based data warehouses and combines them with outstanding visualization to put the data you need right at your fingertips. Their goal is to transform education by empowering educators to spend less time gathering and interpreting the data and more time implementing it. Check them out in the link in the show notes. 

Today’s guest is Sujie Shin, Deputy Executive Director for the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence.  In her role, she spearheads specific statewide initiatives and helps to lead Direct Technical Assistance efforts to districts.  Additionally, her oversight of research and evaluation initiatives help districts and schools improve equity, access, opportunity and outcomes for students.  Today we’re connecting about data exploration and the actions some districts are taking.  This season of More Than A Monolith is sponsored by Parsec Education,  an educational technology company that creates cloud-based data warehouses and combines them with outstanding visualization to put the data you need right at your fingertips. Their goal is to transform education by empowering educators to spend less time gathering and interpreting the data and more time implementing it. 

If you’ve been following our CAAPLE journey from the very beginning, today’s guest is familiar to you.  Michele Tsutagawa Ward is a founding board member of CAAPLE and an elementary school principal in Poway School District.  Today she’s sharing part of her personal story and the impact it’s had on her present life.  This season of More Than A Monolith is sponsored by Parsec Education,  an educational technology company that creates cloud-based data warehouses and combines them with outstanding visualization to put the data you need right at your fingertips. Their goal is to transform education by empowering educators to spend less time gathering and interpreting the data and more time implementing it. Check them out in the link in the show notes.  

Today I am chatting with Roby Chatterji.  He’s the associate director for K-12 Education at American Progress and  Today we are discussing his report titled Education Policies Need to Address the Unique Needs of Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities.  I was fascinated with this report when I read it and feel it’s brought light to important issues. Education Policies Need to Address the Unique Needs of Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities Roby Chatterji is the associate director for K-12 Education at American Progress, where he focuses on modernizing and diversifying the educator workforce and applying a race equity lens towards K12 policymaking. Prior to joining American Progress as a senior policy analyst, he worked at the education consulting firm Whiteboard Advisors, where he focused on a number of issues related to education technology and state policy research and advocacy. Prior to that, he worked as an education policy fellow for the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor under Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA) and handled a portfolio that included legislation related to school infrastructure and teacher preparation.Before he was on Capitol Hill, Chatterji worked as an advocate for STEM, early childhood, and special education policies at Washington Partners. He interned at the Alliance for Excellent Education as well as the Federal Communications Commission, where he worked on initiatives to expand broadband equity in schools. Chatterji’s passion for education began in the classroom during his time as a fifth grade teacher in Phoenix and as an English teacher in Cusco, Peru.Chatterji received his bachelor’s degree in political science and history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain scholar. He also holds a master’s in elementary education from Arizona State University and earned his J.D. from the University of North Carolina.

My guest today is someone I call a dear friend, Victor Tam.  Victor is a principal in San Francisco, California and if you don’t follow him on Twitter make sure to go find @principaltam.  He is one of the most genuine people I’ve had the pleasure to know and today he joins us to reinforce the value of sharing our personal stories.  I am thankful I got to share this space with him and I know you will be too.  

Welcome to this first official episode of the More Than a Monolith podcast.  We have a special guest to kick off episode 1 of this first season and that is Dr. Isaac Huang.  Isaac is currently the President of CAAPLE, the California Association of Asian and Pacific Leaders in Education where I have the fortune of serving as his present elect and CAAPLE also serves as the producer of this show.  In this episode, we get to know more about Isaac, why the time is right for this podcast and why an organization like CAAPLE is more important now than ever before. 

Welcome to the More Than A Monolith podcast.  Asian American and Pacific Islanders, or as we are commonly labeled, AAPIs, are about 6% of the U.S. population and are the country’s fastest-growing racial group. A population of more than 20 million, we are expected to grow to 35 million by 2060.  The AAPI label is an umbrella term for over 50 ethnic groups and when considered as a standalone identity, a monolithic group, the richness of our community is diminished and our different experiences and truths become void.  On this podcast, we invite you on a journey to dismantle the stereotypes as we set out to show we are more than a monolith by addressing misperceptions, sharing our truths and exploring personal stories. Each episode is a conversation where we dive into a variety of topics.  We explore topics like policy, leadership, culture, racism and share space for hearing personal stories to celebrate the diverse narratives behind the AAPI name.   We are one community standing strong together in honoring our multiple perspectives and unique histories. Season 1 consists of 7 incredible episodes that will be released every Tuesday starting on November 8th.  Make sure to subscribe now so you don't miss out on these powerful conversations. We also invite you to join us on LinkedIn and Twitter for updated information, opportunities to connect and to continue the dialogue.  Our show is produced by CAAPLE, the California Association of Asian Pacific Leaders in Education and season 1 is proudly sponsored by Parcsec Education an ed tech company committed to transforming education by empowering educators to spend less time gathering and interpreting the data and more time implementing it.  My name is Shana Henry and along with serving as a founding board member of CAAPLE and a public school administrator, I am your host for our show.  Welcome to More Than A Monolith.