About

Narrative Beyond the Monolith:

Bi-Co Intersectional Lived Experiences
Through Artifacts

This online archive will showcase the lived experiences of different people within the Bi-Co community through artifacts that amplify and document their stories.  When we engage in conversations about diversity and inclusion, we often focus on monolithic categories of identity.  In doing so, we not only lose sight of the different experiences within categories such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, but also how these various identity markers intersect and create unique perspectives and struggles.  Through artifacts such as written or video testimonials, poems, and photographs, we aim to capture and amplify intersectional narratives that resist static monolithic labels of those within the Bi-Co community. 

“Hyōtan”
Hank Glassman, HC Faculty
“Untitled”
Anonymous
“Bittersweet”
Ian D’Elia, HC ’22
“Red Ink and Blue Ink”
Ashley Yang, BMC ’22
“島／Island”
Felix Qin, HC ’22
“Rain”
Rebecca Lin, HC ’24
“Growing Together”
Jillian Lunoe, BMC ’22
“A Plague Unmasked”
Ian D’Elia, HC ’22
“Me and My Names”
Tianai Wang, HC ’24
“I (You) Could Have Had Wings”
Jiaweng Wang, HC ’23
“Lifeblood”
Ian D’Elia, HC ’22
“Experience”
Jenny Jingyi Xu, BMC ’24
“Snowflakes”
Joel Torres, HC ’24

Acknowledgement

Narrative Beyond the Monolith is a project started in Fall 2021 which is sponsored by the Bi-Co Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC). The project has been supported by many people in the Bi-Co communities. I would like to thank the department co-chairs (when the project was proposed), Hank Glassman and Shiamin Kwa, for their consistent support and encouragement. The project couldn’t move forward without Makoto Manheim (HC ’21) and Olivia Yoshida (HC ’23)’s assistance. Thank you very much for sharing your ideas and promoting the project on campus. The on-campus exhibition at Lutnick Library in Spring 2022 has been made possible with generous support by Terry Snyder, Sarah Horowitz, and Bruce Bumbarger. Charles Woodard at IITS patiently helped me create this online archive. Thank you, Changchun Zhang (EALC), for taking the photos for the online archive. Last but not least, thanks to all the participants who shared artifacts. I hope that the stories memorialized in these artifacts will expand our collective awareness, empathy, and appreciation for the breadth of hidden experiences lived by many in our community. 

Kimiko Suzuki (Lecturer in Japanese, EALC)

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