\u201cI strive to teach in ways that center students, their experiences and their identities, and also empower them to co-lead and co-facilitate so that decisions, whenever possible, are made collectively and with consent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recognition of her teaching skills and her dedication to students, DeSmet has been named the 2024 recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award<\/a>, one of the University\u2019s highest honors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSmet\u2019s vision of teaching is embodied in the program she founded, titled Southeast Asian Pasts & Futures, and in her course, Memory Work and Cultural Production in Diaspora. In both spaces, students reflect on their own lives, conduct archival and community-centered forms of research, and produce final projects that tell stories and support wellbeing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea for SEAPF originated in 2015 when DeSmet was on her first professional visit to the Burke Museum. \u201cI was invited by Dr. Holly Barker, a curator, to visit the collections,\u201d DeSmet recalled. \u201cAs we were winding through the aisles of cultural belongings \u2013\u2013 a spirit house, a row of finely carved paddles \u2014 Dr. Barker explained that some of the museum\u2019s most important work happens not in the galleries but behind the scenes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSmet explained that, as colonial institutions, museums are haunted spaces. \u201cPieces like those at the Burke were severed from their lived contexts by the forces of imperialism, militarism and migration, making them not only powerful presences and forms of knowledge but also traumatic remainders,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Burke is part of a movement among museums to engage these violent histories and work toward redress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne way it does this is by inviting people whose ancestors made, used and lived with these pieces to view the museum\u2019s collections; recognizing their authority; and opening access to cultural belongings as bridges to the past and resources in the present.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A key inspiration for this work was the Knowledge Family, previously known as Research Family<\/a>, a group of Pacific Islander undergraduates from the University of Washington organized to activate Oceanic collections in support of their communities. \u201cHearing about this work made my hair stand on end,\u201d DeSmet said. \u201c\u2018Could something like this exist for Southeast Asian students?\u2019 I asked myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFive years later, and with support<\/a> from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Center for Southeast Asia and Its Diasporas, Southeast Asian Pasts & Futures<\/a> became my answer.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since its beginning, SEAPF\u2019s network of community partners has expanded to include not only the Burke Museum but also the Wing Luke Museum and anti-violence organization API Chaya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SEAPF is co-taught and co-directed by DeSmet and Nhi P. Tran, assistant director for student success and initiatives, who is also being honored this year as the recipient of UW Bothell\u2019s Distinguished Accomplishments Award. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As 2022 SEAPF member Justin Totaan recalled, \u201cGrowing up in the United States I always felt like I was two halves of a person who didn\u2019t quite make a whole. When I was at school or with friends, I always felt too foreign \u2014 but whenever I was at home, I felt too American. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had never felt as though I truly belonged anywhere,\u201d he said, \u201cuntil I became a part of Southeast Asian Past & Futures.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Each SEAPF cohort meets every week across three quarters and engages with cultural artifacts, partner organizations and each other. \u201cSometimes we work directly with the Burke or Wing Luke Museum collections, but we also turn toward our own cultural belongings and practices with new eyes,\u201d DeSmet said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For one assignment, students produced a \u201cbiography\u201d for an object from their own lives. \u201cWriting through their senses and memories and their conversations with loved ones, they told tales of mothers, grandmothers and aunties; bedtimes and mealtimes; longing and connection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen we shared these stories in our circle,\u201d DeSmet said, \u201cwe cried.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In her letter of support endorsing DeSmet for the teaching award, Barker wrote, \u201cSEAPF opens opportunities for Southeast Asian students to see their families\u2019 and their communities\u2019 stories and knowledge reflected in their coursework, and these approaches benefit every student who participates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRaissa is humble and focuses on her students\u2019 experiences rather than herself, and I do not think she is even aware of the degree to which her teaching serves as a template for other professors who have developed similar courses and teaching opportunities at the Burke Museum.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Raissa is humble and focuses on her students\u2019 experiences rather than herself, and I do not think she is even aware of the degree to which her teaching serves as a template for other professors.<\/p>\nDr. Holly Barker, Burke Museum curator for Oceanic and Asian Culture<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n DeSmet\u2019s course, Memory Work and Cultural Production in Diaspora, places student experiences and identities at the heart of intellectual work. Memory work is a key component that focuses on weaving historical narratives \u201cfrom below.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This memory work engages the past through the subjective position of the researcher. \u201cIt\u2019s a feminist methodology that challenges dominant modes of history,\u201d DeSmet explained. \u201cIt attends to community stories, minoritized stories, stories that have been forgotten or silenced.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this vein, the students produce a memory work text that asks them to \u201cwalk\u201d through their own locations to trace their and\/or their family or community histories across time and space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This project is developed across the quarter, with scaffolding in the form of weekly journal prompts, and through a series of conceptual maps \u2014 including an Inheritance Tree, a non-heraldic tool for showing lineage without reference to \u201cblood\u201d or patriarchal structures of descent. \u201cThe tree helps students disrupt received narratives and assert what, for them, constitutes inheritance,\u201d DeSmet said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The results of these critical enquiries and ensuing projects have been stunning, she said. \u201cTristan Sorenson (Global Studies \u201920), whose project would become a bridge to graduate school, produced a tribute to his grandfather that examined white settler masculinities and relationships to land,\u201d she recalled, \u201cand Grace Mandakh (Culture, Literature & the Arts \u201923), whose parents migrated from Mongolia, created a three-dimensional ger, the once-forbidden Mongolian script scrolled on the outside.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nHonoring the past<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2024\/05\/Ethnology-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nRecognizing the present<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Writing through memory<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Learning about oneself<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Legacy lives on<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n