Dear Reader,

April is cherry blossom season - each year when they come into spectacular bloom at my university, the quad is filled with families holding bewildered babies up for photos amid flowering branches, young folks recording TikTok videos and glam shots, and this year, we even stumbled on a delightful convening of shiba inu (who knew this was a thing?!). My extended family in Japan was surprised to learn that we have cherry blossom trees here as well, and my cousin imagined our ancestors who first came to the US longing for their homelands and distant families even as they appreciated the fleeting beauty of the blooms.

The contradictions of beauty and trauma in this moment in the world are real. How are you staying grounded these days? (Do let me know, I’d love to hear!)

Between trips and talks, I’ve been working on the proposal for my next book, which will focus on community – not just as an abstraction or a shiny word in a mission statement, but as place, process, and possibility. As connections and solutions we can turn back to even as we collectively work to design more just futures.

A few April highlights to share:

Consoling the Spirits of Our Ancestors

On a green tea break, I got to chat with Duncan Ryuken Williams, the co-director of the project (and author of American Sutra), who shared some of the immensely complex work of verifying all the names and dates of birth, as well as fascinating notes about the hundreds of multiracial families who were also impacted by incarceration (did you know the racist “anti-miscegenation” laws common in other states did not extend to Washington?). Stamping my father’s, grandparents’, and great-grandparents’ names in the book was a profound experience, especially when we did the math and realized my daughter is almost the exact same age my grandmother was when she was sent to the camps, and I’m almost the exact same age as my great-grandmother was. The word “healing” certainly came to mind as we welcomed in so many Japanese Americans from the area, heard their stories and remembrances as they waited to be ushered into the book, and got to take part in a deeply generational acknowledgment, especially in light of the histories being repeated today.

Unforgetting Histories, Imagining Futures of Education Research

If you aren’t an educational researcher, you may never have heard of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), so in a nutshell: AERA is a veritable small city of about 15,000 nerdy education scholars that descends on another larger city for 4-5 days. It’s massive. It’s packed. We have big-name celebrity scholars to fawn over. We stand at the front of rooms with slide decks and cram as much as we can about our research into 12 minutes. We attend panels and ask questions that are really comments (lol). As a student, you look for the receptions with free food and cram multiple friends into a single hotel room because it’s so outrageously expensive. Now that I’m a more seasoned scholar, it’s when I reconnect with some of my far-flung crew of academic besties, forever-mentors, and brilliant mentees at loud receptions or racing down the hall to a session that’s inexplicably a mile away (yeah…it’s LA).

[Full circle moment: Decoteau and I did a book signing of Doing the Work in LA this month in the same place we had been putting the chapters together in the fall of 2024!]

AERA can be overwhelming, but it’s also a place to meet the next generation of scholars, get new perspectives on your own work (#ELC, #MtM, #DoingtheWork), learn about new research and debates, compare institutional notes (AI! anti-DEI policy! Budgets cuts!), and importantly, see and celebrate each other.

You don’t need to see all my “family” photos (#AERA2026 looks more like a reunion than a conference), but I did want to highlight three things you can check out:

1. ​Stolen School is a powerful, heartfelt documentary about the Black school in Evanston, Illinois, that was taken away and is now being rebuilt in the community. The talented Dr. Shannon Paige Clark was instrumental in realizing that project, in partnership with Dr. kihana ross and many others. They are working on additional screenings & would love to host one near you ;).
2. When Dr. Daniel Liou received the Distinguished Researcher Award at the AAPI Research Special Interest Group, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. He spoke movingly of what it means to be seen and held in a field and society in which Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are so often invisibilized.
3. Shirin Vossoughi was part of a terrific panel with others about the possibilities and complexities of “scaling” educational change (a topic I think a lot about), but I especially appreciated her naming the everyday contradictions and challenges of being an Iranian American parent wondering what children are learning in school as the US wages war in Iran. This Rethinking Schools article she co-authored a few years ago still offers timely ways forward for educators (and I can’t resist shouting out her article on Race, Parenting & Identity in the Iranian Disapora from her work with the Family Leadership Design Collaborative).

“Multilingual Communities of Voice, Power & Purpose!”

A highlight of my month was keynoting the 2026 Washington Association of Bilingual Education conference! When Dr. Jamie Lee and Angela González from the WABE board told me the conference would be in Yakima this year, I heard Yakama elder Patsy Whitefoot in my head reminding me to learn from and be in relation to these territories, including traveling across the mountains. I spoke to a room full of dedicated educators about my own family’s story of reclaiming heritage language and identity and offered examples and guidance for moving from crisis to collaboration in building with multilingual families. What a lovely surprise to find Hiromi Sensei, my kids’ amazing dual language kindergarten teacher, among those in attendance (I’m forever in awe of her skill as an immersion teacher of the littlest ones!).

One of the true gifts of teaching is when your students become colleagues and collaborators. I also got to co-lead a pre-conference workshop with Yakima School District Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Dr. Maria Lucero, entitled “Designing Everyday Practices to Transform Learning with Multilingual Families.” Dr. Lucero shared behind-the-scenes insights about codesigning with students and families in updating Yakima School District’s strategic plan goal 4: Bilingual, Biliterate by Graduation, and participants jumped in to try their hand at rapid redesign scenarios. A special bonus: my wonderful new UW colega Dr. Ana Dueñas joined us to share her expertise at the intersection of Latinx families and disabilities.

Enjoy this newsletter? Let me know what you think, as I’d love to hear from you! And if you feel so inspired, feel free to share it with a friend or colleague.

Sending light to you and yours.

Ki o tsukete,

Ann