Today my guest is Estella Owoimaha-Church, Executive Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities–also known as EPIC.  Estella, a former educator of nearly two decades, is a strong voice and advocate for marginalized communities having spoken all over the world about pressing education matters.  This was a heavy conversation for me because I could feel the depth of critical urgency Estella leads with every day.  In our conversation, we talk about the lack of representation ineducation, data disaggregation, the lack of care for our Pacific Islander communities and so much more.   We encourage you to continue to conversation with us by sharing this episode and tagging us on twitter or Linked in.  

Today’s episode is sponsored by SoundMind, an immersive wellness platform students can use as a mind management tool for emotional and phsyical wellness using music therpay.  Used by over 250,000+ students across the nation SoundMind is the leading mental health app for youth, including recently named Top 6 Mental Health Apps for Kids by Parents Magazine.  You can learn more and access theur Mental Health Toolkit by visiting www.soundmind.app.  

Welcome back to another episode of More Than a Monolith.  I am really thrilled to introduce you to our guest today, Maria Medrano.  I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Maria for about 15 years when her daughter enrolled in the school I had the honor of leading.  Maria, her husband Mauricio and I quickly connected through our passionate belief in the access and opportunity for underrepresented youth.  Since meeting her, I’ve continued to be inspired by Maria’s leadership in top positions at Cisco, Visa and Google.  Recently, Maria shared with me the decision to leave it all behind so she can accomplish her mission: To help end generational poverty through educational attainment for everyone.  While the goal sounds big, she’s the one to make it happen.  In this episode, we talk about college completion and transfer  rates for AAPI youth, barriers to accessing higher ed and the financial challenges for our families.  

Today’s episode is sponsored by SoundMind, an immersive wellness platform students can use as a mind management tool for emotional and phsyical wellness using music therpay.  Used by over 250,000+ students across the nation SoundMind is the leading mental health app for youth, including recently named Top 6 Mental Health Apps for Kids by Parents Magazine.  You can learn more and access theur Mental Health Toolkit by visiting www.soundmind.app.  

Welcome back to a new episode of More Than a Monolith.  Today, I have the honor of being joined by Lee Herrick.  Lee Herrick is the California Poet Laureate and the first Asian American to hold the title. He is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This Many Miles from Desire. In addition, his writings appear in a number of anthologies. He served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017.  Born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted to the United States at ten months, he teaches at Fresno City College and the MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe.  In our conversation, we talk about his personal experiences growing up as a Korean adoptee, his journey to poetry and his love of California.  We are even treated to Lee reading some of his poetry for us.  Our chat turned out to be a personal one for me and I’m really fortunate for this time together.