Visible Together: An AANHPI Conversation with NASA

NASA's Jonny Kim and Anita Dey sit down with historian Brian Odom to discuss how NASA is making the Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander community visible to the world, Kim’s experience with the space program growing up, and the impact of cultural stereotypes. In addition to being an astronaut, Jonny Kim is also a Harvard-trained physician and U.S. Navy SEAL. Anita Dey serves as a strategic partnerships manager in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Learn more about our diverse workforce: http://nasa.gov/faces-of-nasa

What is said in the film

Hello, I'm Brian Odom, NASA's Chief Historian, and I would like to welcome you to today's conversation. In honor of Asian-American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander AANHPI Heritage Month. I have the pleasure to be joined by U. S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and NASA astronaut Mr.

Jonny Kim and NASA headquarters AANHPI Employee Resource Group co-chair Ms. Anita Day. Thank you both for joining for today's conversation about the contributions of the in HPR community to the history, culture and fabric of the United States. This year's AANHPI observant month theme is Visible Together. It is set by the White House initiative on Asian-Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

This year's theme invites us to all reflect on the power of community and allyship. Jonny When you hear visible together, what resonates with you the most? How important is that message? I think you said it really well. When I hear visible together, I think of community.

I think of allyship. I think of working together to accomplish a goal. And those are the words that I feel when I hear this. When I hear that phrase. Anita as NASA Headquarters Employee Resource Group Chairperson, can you tell us about how NASA makes the AANHPI community experience visible to the world and how the community experiences NASA?

Yeah, sure. So the NASA staff is 8. 7% AANHPI. So that's in contrast to the civilian workforce being almost half of that Asian Asian-American. So that tells me NASA is a good, safe place for us to be generally.

We are proud of our work. We are proud of being at NASA. But we're also proud of our cultures and our different identities. So it would be really amazing for society. But also the agency to be able to see us as more than just Asian American, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander is to be able to see all the different countries we come from.

And once people are able to see us in that way as these individuals, I think it'll be easier to have us in roles of leadership as well. I said that the AANHPI population at NASA is 8. 7% of the population, but we are only 4. 6% of the SES and other executive positions. So, you know, you could say there was a bamboo ceiling at NASA, but I'm very, very pleased that the agency has been working on this and we have been working with various offices on some policy solutions.

You know, that's a great point. It is. This is a really tough topic. My own research goes back to, you know, looking at the Apollo program and the kind of its relationship to the civil rights movement and looking at how that decade of the 1960s really unfolded and into, you know, the a more central approach to equal employment opportunity. And really NASA in the 1970s, the early 1970s, began to think about diversity and inclusion in really meaningful ways.

And I think you really see that in this, you know, and eventually the space shuttle program opens up new opportunities for, you know, for visibility of all minorities and especially in the 1978 astronaut class for that first shuttle class that I think was was critically important. So you look at you look at that class in particular, Ellison Onizuka was the first Asian-American to fly in space. He was a member of NASA's astronaut, that astronaut, class of 78 first. And this was the first astronaut class to include women, Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans. So really, I guess, Jonny, you know, who were some of the astronauts during, you know, during this period and maybe later that you really looked up to?

And were there any AANHPI astronauts that influenced your path to becoming an astronaut? I would say, when I think about my childhood, having heroes is important. We all know this having role models and people to look up to having dreams as a child is really, really important. And growing up, I had a poster of the Apollo 11 crew, Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, that classic photo with the moon as their backdrop. I had that over my bed and I thought it was an amazing thing.

But if you had asked me and people often do ask me, have you thought about being an astronaut, have you always wanted to be an astronaut? The answer is no. I didn't think about being an astronaut all six months before I applied. And being an astronaut is oftentimes a childhood dream for so many people. And when I think about that, well, I had that Apollo 11 poster above my bed, and I thought being an astronaut was one of the coolest things you could ever do to be a hero and positively impact the world.

But I never once saw myself doing that. And it's not ... it's just as simply because I never could relate to that. I never saw any Asian Navy SEALs. I didn't see any I didn't know of any Asian-American astronauts.

And so that's just not something that I grew up thinking I could do. And it's important to have those role models, to have those heroes that we can relate to. So to answer your question, I admired all sorts of astronauts, but was there a particular Asian-American astronaut that I knew about or aspired to be like? The answer is no. I wish I did.

And that's what I am very proud to be part of today's NASA's workforce today that represents a much more modern America with a diversity of backgrounds from all walks of life, all races, creeds and colors. And we're all working towards the same mission of exploring space for the betterment of humanity. Good answer. You know, so kind of continue that a little further so we know that minority groups can face all sorts of stereotypes. This term model minority myth is a persistent stereotype that really paints Asian Americans as inherently more successful than the general population, or in contrast to other minority groups.

So Jonny, how did the myth help or hinder you? How did it help define the person you are today? This could be a really long and layered response. I'm going to try. I'll try and do my best to articulate my thoughts around it.

It's a particularly really sensitive question and topic. And I don't know if I'm particularly qualified to answer that or even articulate that. So ... no one should ever be put in a box. No one should ever be put, have labels attached to them.

And I've certainly felt growing up like I lived in a box. I had a square that I had to color inside and I had to stay within that. And people will always have expectations based on the way you look, where you're from, your gender, your race, your creed. Glass ceilings are everywhere, and it's up to the pioneers to break through those glass ceilings. And that's what we do.

And we do that well at NASA. But glass ceilings exist everywhere. And the model minority myth is just another version of that glass ceiling. You simplify someone's experience base, their capabilities, who they are as a person, their identity inside a very small box. And if you go outside of the box, you're not part of that identity or you're doing something abnormal.

I've never been one to follow that kind of thinking and when I wanted to join the Navy to become a Navy SEAL and enlist at the age of 18, I strayed far from that path from what certainly the Korean-American community and a lot of people who knew me felt that I should stick on. It’s like, no you should maybe go to school be a doctor or an engineer. It’s no I want to I want to serve my country in a way that I feel I'm called to do, and that's to be a warrior at that phase of my life. And whether the model minority myth. One thing I often hear is, oh, that's a good stereotype.

Well, there's no such thing as a good stereotype. Stereotypes, paint labels and boxes. And America is about becoming the very best you can be, smashing through barriers and accomplishing the the best that you can. And when we do that, Americans accomplish great things. And for so many reasons is why the model minority myth is what it is.

It’s a myth. And it is also not very conducive or productive for Americans accomplishing great things. Excdellent, excellent point. Anita, so, you know, coming from your perspective, would you say that that model minority myth presents challenges for the AANHPI community in the workplace? And if so, can you elaborate and share how the community has to, you know, overcome those challenges?

Sure. But I first, I have to say that, Jonny, that was an amazing laying forth of what the myth is and how detrimental it can be. So like I said, it's a tiresome myth, and I think it's so incredibly damaging to those of us who are just trying to be ourselves for better or for worse. You know, for a myth, to say that you're always perfect is really stressful. In the workforce, though, at the workplace, it's damaging because people can use it to sweep away the idea that there is discrimination against a certain group, in this case, us.

You guys are fine. You've got it covered. No, I have heard stories of people who should have been promoted and they weren't people whose reviews should have been higher than they were. You know, overcoming the myth is very difficult. It is persistent.

And what's interesting is a lot of people haven't heard of it. Even people working in this space talking about diversity. So that's why I'm incredibly grateful that you were willing to talk about it today. And we can just raise awareness of what this is. I will say when I'm feeling stronger, I do try to think of it as an advantage almost, because I think it gives me privilege.

It gives me ... the ability to see things that maybe other minority groups may not feel comfortable saying. If I'm seen as one of the good ones, maybe I can speak some truth where other people feel like they can't. That reminds me of something. We talk about allyship.

Being a good friend, being a good buddy, a teammate, a comrade, whatever you want to call it. Avocation will always be stronger and more meaningful when it's coming from someone that's not you, that's not benefiting from such advocacy. So I completely understand what you're saying when you say that. And the other employee resource groups at headquarters and across the agency have been wonderful. And we all try to to to lift each other up in this process.

So I'm happy to use some of my voice in that. I think those you know, you both excellent points on that. And I think it's something that, you know, from someone who seeks to be an ally, really something that you, you know, you would take as, oh, that like you said, Anita, that that's a positive, right? That this can't be a negative issue. So to hear people talk about this openly and just have that conversation and really inform people of perspectives, they may not have thought, you know, that somehow that this positive stereotype can be a negative, just like what you said, Jonny, that stereotypes, all stereotypes, are problematic in lots of different ways.

So consciousness, you know, having a conscious, you know, of this issue I think is important. So thank you both for that. So again, Jonny, you know, you've got this other thing, too, right? So U. S.

Navy SEAL, you know, astronaut. But we can't overlook this background that you have as a medical doctor, right? And the thing that we've all experienced together collectively over the last year is, is that you know, the pandemic has laid bare these inequalities in health care, you know, in this country and definitely around the world. In addition, there is the other piece that is the growing awareness of the intersection between climate action, racial equity, racial injustice that, you know, that is around the world and definitely in this country. And it has a long history in this country.

So what is your take on the impact of these public health issues and the stress of racism on the AANHPI community as well as, you know, minorities in general? So I think ... I could answer that question. But I think, again, I'd do a disservice to not recognize and just communicate. There are communities everywhere of all sorts of sizes and creeds and races that suffer from inequity.

It's endemic right? And there's not a single group that's more important than the other. And what's the impact? I mean, you can have a pretty long discussion about what the impact. You could just talk surely from the numbers.

When I was serving as a physician in health care, the statistics just didn't lie. And for example, African-American population had a significantly increased risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease, and that not having the proper primary care physician follow up. And you can see examples of the results of those inequities that exist everywhere. So the impacts are real. They have long and lasting negative impacts, but we're doing the right thing.

That's where we're having a discussion about it. We recognize it, and those are always going to be the beginning steps to addressing that. Brian: Definitely. I couldn't agree more there. So, you know, after hearing this conversation from you both and hearing your personal, you know, really heartfelt experiences, you know, I'm sure people in our audience will will want to help, you know, advance equity for for everyone, not just as we say, one group, but really thinking of it as a as a community, as a nation and trying to be better.

So, Anita, any advice on ways that the audience can support AANHPI community and combat the invisibility caused by the generalization, such a diverse community into one really homogenous generic stereotype? Yeah, of course. Thank you. So I would advise people to try to see us for who we are and not who they think we are. I think the first piece of that is what Jonny was talking about earlier.

You know, education, you know. You know, talk to us, learn about us as individuals. But also now that there's the Internet, there's nothing you can't know. Nothing. So do some research.

Read about all the different countries we come from and then ask us questions to fill in the gaps. You know, I would also encourage some introspection. You know, think about how you interact with people from our community. Are your thoughts colored by a stereotype, whether it's the model minority myth or something else? If there is a stereotype in your head, it's okay.

We all have stereotypes about all sorts of things. You know, don't feel bad, but don't let it sit there either. Think about why it's there, what it does, and then and then fill in that gap, because the stereotype is always filling in a gap of knowledge. Fill it in with the education. You know, knowing somebody or doing some reading.

And finally, I would say, speak up. When you see discrimination, say something. You know, when you see something, say something is not just a, it doesn't just have to be a homeland security motto. You know, when when other people speak up, when allies speak up, they're striking a powerful blow against a systemic problem. Definitely, couldn’t agree more.

That's such an excellent point. And I hate to close this out. I really want to keep this conversation going. I think we could we could really talk about all these issues and really come to, you know, really expand on it. But I'll stop there and thank you both, you know, for sharing these insights and, you know, on history, for gathering with us today in honor of AAHPI month, you know, as being a NASA Chief Historian, you know, I've got an incredibly cool job.

But one of the things that I really have focused on is looking at that issue of, you know, just these issues in general. And because I think that the agency definitely if we're going to just zero in on the importance of this history to the agency and the work that we do, you know, human space exploration, scientific discovery, you know, these are critical pieces of it. You know, if we can't if we don't learn from this past and learn that the issues we're dealing with today, people have dealt with these issues, right? What solutions have they come to, what steps have they taken and what has it led to? And just understanding this this shared past.

And that, you know, all good solutions. You know, will come from this ability to move past these stereotypes and to really do something great. So again, I appreciate it from a history side, but definitely appreciate it from just thinking about this as a bigger picture. So we ask our viewers to join us in reflecting on what it means to be visible together and take part in an upcoming AANHPI event and engagement to discover the history, their contributions and diversity of culture. Also, be sure to visit the faces of NASA website on the screen to learn more.

Thank you both. Jonny: You're welcome. Thank you. Anita: Thank you.

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