What is polyculturalism and why is it important?
Do you feel constricted by the dominant Asian American stereotype?
Growing up with two or more cultural influences can create expectations (both internal and external) about how we should show up in the world; liberating ourselves from those expectations creates the space for us to become who we really are.
In episode 10 of the Asian Detox Podcast, TJ Wey and guest Julia Huang explore the invitation of polyculturalism, the richness of culture that results from embracing diversity rather than homogeneity and encountering the conversation around race as Asian Americans, highlighting in particular:
The difficulties of living internationally, integrating, and feeling “at home” somewhere as a multicultural person
The importance of “narrative plenitude” and the many stories that represent aspects of every culture, rather than a single stereotype
Encountering racism and the conversation around race in America as Asian Americans (even when we don’t really know what that means)
What is polyculturalism, how it differs from multiculturalism and how young Americans are becoming hypercultural
How culture, art and media influence our identities and the positive and negative outcomes of that