Emory Diverge: On Multicultural Voices

We’re only different leaves, drifting…

Category: VOICES

  • #UndertheSkin: Series 1 Episode 1

    #UndertheSkin: Series 1 Episode 1

    Mental health is known to be out of attention, discussion, and care in Asian culture due to its conflicts with cultural values, like emotional control and humility, and the corresponding stigma around help-seeking for mental health issues.

    This first series “Under Asian Mental Health Culture” aims to reveal and amplify the existing values and perspectives from the Asian international communities that might challenge the cultural image of Asian mental health, constructing a culture of understanding, empathy, and care. 

    In this first episode, Yolanda Li interviewed Fay Sukparangsee from Thailand, whose mental health journey began with the overwhelming disorientation she felt upon arriving at Emory as an international student. Through these challenges, she has come to recognize the foundational role mental health plays in her life. After taking a gap year to reset and prioritize her well-being, she has learned to approach mental health with greater intention.

    For Fay, good mental health isn’t about always being perfect or feeling well—it’s about maintaining a balanced regulation of the full spectrum of emotions. She believes that no emotion is inherently good or bad, and that true well-being comes from experiencing, acknowledging, and regulating them rather than suppressing them.

    As part of her emotional regulation, Fay finds comfort in openly discussing unwellness with friends and family. Whether to release emotions or gain new perspectives, these conversations provide her with meaningful support. The care and insights she receives from her connections have become a cornerstone of her well-being.

    Now a junior, Fay continues to navigate the complexities of her identity as an Asian international student—seeking community, integrating into the broader city, and embracing diverse perspectives.

    To fellow Asian international students facing similar struggles, Fay hopes you “trust yourself and be in tune with your body”, and know that “here are people who love and care for you. You’re always surrounded by people. You’re not alone.” 

    Diverge shares this mission of amplifying diverse and caring voices especially under the intensifying political pressures.

    Click on image below to view.

    Interviewer: Yolanda Li

    Interviewee: Fay Sukparangsee

    Editor: Alicia Xia

  • #UndertheSkin: What are the Hidden Expectations of Mental Health

    #UndertheSkin: What are the Hidden Expectations of Mental Health

    Introducing Diverge collaboration with Under the Skin — Healing through revealing: where shades of life emerge, diverge, and surge to healing, a project led by Yolanda Li on the mental health of Asian international students.

    For too long, we forget to listen to ourselves. For too long, the “system” helps without asking what we need. This project hopes to help people heal in different ways by inviting and listening to community members to reveal what really matters to them. 

    Through a series of interviews, spotlight stories, collective toolkits, and outspoken artworks, we will see the diversity and strength of the community and form a collective understanding, respect, and striving for what the community values and needs in mental health.

    This revealing and healing process is empathetic, where we see our interconnections and interdependence through our wellness and unwellness, where we come to joint actions towards our shared aspiration of living a good mental health. This revealing and healing process is justice, where we provide a channel for them to speak, to be listened, and to be understood as they should, where we support them to fulfill their mental health needs as they expect, where we empower them to become the active agents of changes in their life, community, and culture as they can.  

  • Interview with Victoria Umutoni

    Interview with Victoria Umutoni

    by Emory College Director Christine Ristaino
    Christine Ristaino is the Director of the Emory College Language Center and Professor of Practice at Emory University.  She is also an Atlanta author whose memoir, All the Silent Spaces, published in July 2019 by She Writes Press, confronts the topics of violence, identity, and discrimination. She participates in social justice work, education reform, and violence prevention.  She is an award-winning advisor and teacher and has experience organizing powerful symposiums, seminars, conferences and events. She leads workshops on the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion, privilege, coming to terms with violence through memoir, writing and talking about difficult topics, and creating a public voice. She is also a trained life coach.

    Victoria Umutoni, originally from Rwanda, graduated from Emory College in 2018. She is currently a PhD Student in Epidemiology at the University of Chicago. In this interview with ECLC, she shares her experiences as an international student and emphasizes the value of learning multiple languages in fostering cultural understanding and opening doors to new opportunities.

    Watch Here.

  • Interview with Junyuan Ke

    By Emory College Director Christine Ristaino

    Christine Ristaino is the Director of the Emory College Language Center and Professor of Practice at Emory University. She teaches courses on Italian diaspora, Baroque Italy, social justice in Italy utilizing memoir, comparative food studies, and language and culture.

    Junyuan Ke, an Emory 2018 alumnus. He is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Information Technology, Analytics, & Operations (ITAO) at Notre Dame’s Mendoza School of Business. In this interview, he shared three anecdotes about his cross-cultural journey. The indeterminate sense of identity has helped him grow over the years.

    Watch Here

  • Interview with English Professor Sarah Higinbotham

    Interview with English Professor Sarah Higinbotham

    By Alicia Xia
    Alicia will graduate from Emory College of Arts and Science in 2027. Outside of academics, she is interested in restorative justice and human rights.

    Sarah Higinbotham studies and teaches Shakespeare and early modern literature, focusing on the intersections of literature and law. She writes about the violence of the law in early modern England, critical prison theory, and human rights in literature. She works at Common Good Atlanta, teaching across prisons in Georgia.

    Watch here.

  • Writer Antonia Arslan on Growing up in Armenia, Italy

    Writer Antonia Arslan on Growing up in Armenia, Italy

    By Christine Ristaino

    Christine Ristaino is the Director of the Emory College Language Center and Professor of Practice at Emory University. She teaches courses on Italian diaspora, Baroque Italy, social justice in Italy utilizing memoir, comparative food studies, and language and culture. She has co-authored an academic publication entitled Lucrezia Marinella and the “Querelle des Femmes” in Seventeenth-Century Italy through Farleigh Dickinson Press as well as the first edition of a book series called The Italian Virtual Class, which teaches language through cultural acquisition. She currently teaches a creative writing-focused class on Italian memoir, as well as co-teaches a class comparing Italy and China through the medium of food (noodles in particular).

    The first piece in the VOICES section is an interview episode by Dr. Christine Ristaino from the Emory College Language Center with the Italian writer from an Armenian origin, Antonia Arslan. The episode was recorded during Arslan‘s visit to Emory in 2017.
    In this edited episode, Arslan talked about switching her homes between Armenia and Italy, with the complex history of slaughter and colonization. As a writer, she also talked about her language use and her identity.