APA Studies Graduate Update

Kristen Lee

As for the HAPA Kristen Lee of 2009, I'm planning my escape from Michigan's unemployment rates and waiting out the hiring freezes by earning a Masters degree this fall. I've been accepted into UCLA's Asian American Studies MA program, and awarded their Graduate Opportunity Fellowship Award. In other words, I will be attending the nation's historic APA studies program for free, and working alongside some of the most distinguished professors in the APA studies field. I hope to study the racializing tendencies of the mainstream media, and the emergence of the HAPA identity.

However, I will deeply miss my incredible mentors and friends at MSU. I'm currently employed with MSU Family Ecology Professor Desiree Qin, on her "high achieving Asian American high school student" research project. We are in the final stages of collecting qualitative data and hoping to finish a paper by the end of this summer.

In my free time, I'm grinding out some radio freelance stories. Those can be heard on www.prx.org/users/hapaklee. I thoroughly enjoyed this past MSU-APA conference; Helen Zia's presence and speeches are always inspiring for a fellow woman Asian American journalist. If you ever find yourself in LA, please give me a call!