Writing

Living While Staying Alive as an Act of Resistance

The future seems bleak. 

Our history is actively being erased. Our existence criminalized. Our arts and healing co-opted. (And that’s just Tuesday.)

“Where do we go from here?” may be running through your mind on repeat.

This bleakness is real, and so this is my love letter to our despair and grief. But it’s also an invitation: an invitation for you and me to hope and heal together so we can stay in the struggle for liberation together a while longer. 

Parenting for Social Justice Q&A with Nat Vikitsreth

(Please scroll to the bottom of the page to see my Q&A section)

Parents wonder how to raise children who will stand up against racism and injustice. We begin that conversation here.

When should we start the conversation about racism?

In a nutshell, the conversation about racism begins when you’re ready and rooted in your values. Because babies and toddlers are already learning about implicit biases and prejudices just by observing the world around them. They’re ready for you to help them learn.

The real question is: are you ready?

PERSPECTIVES: Advancing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Queering “Ways of Being”

Replacing Politeness With Honesty to Create Belonging

Nat Vikitsreth

When practitioners move beyond professional niceness to embody honest human connection in our field’s relationship- based work, true belonging and equity emerge. With such radical honesty, foundational concepts, such as therapeutic alliance and attunement, will be explored through the lens of social justice. In other words, we are “queering” ways of being by explicitly exploring intersecting identities, power, and privilege with the caregivers we serve. Using a blend of personal narrative, clinical insight, and social justice practice, I share what therapeutic alliance can be like without “powerblindness” and what attunement can feel like with boundaries and accountability

The Safety, Privilege, and Invisibility I Found Living Stealth

While keeping my transness a secret kept me safe, sharing my truth helped me see I was so much more than just a woman.

When I was in college, I started every day with two Marys. The first was a Hail Mary, a round of prayer I offered up like the proper Catholic-Buddhist young woman my parents had taught me to be. The second was the 2007 Mary J. Blige track “Just Fine,” which I’d blast while carefully applying my lip tint and that third coat of Maybelline’s Great Lash mascara. There was something about her voice that soothed me as I begrudgingly plucked away my chin stubbles. Before the track ended, anything manly was gone, tweaked and tucked away. Welcome to my stealth life…

Knowing your value. Speaking your truth. Practicing humility. Being confident yet compassionate in your work. These are just a few key pieces of advice our power list of experienced and inspirational early childhood professionals have for others in the field.  

Learn more about their perspectives and how their Asian American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander heritage influences their approach to diversity-informed practice and the services they provide to young children and their families. 

“Humility helps us remember that the families’ stories and children’s emerging skills carry as much weight as our professional training.”

EMERGING LEADERSHIP AWARD: , Nadha (Nat) Vikitsreth

An interview with winner of the Practice Award, Nadha (Nat) Vikitsreth.