University of Maryland School of Nursing

       Asian American and Pacific Islander           Heritage Month Event 

 with Guest Speaker Assistant Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, 

 Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis

UMSON's Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month event. 

The Model Minority Myth: Effects on Caregivers & Patient Well-being Presented by Assistant Vice President of Diversity Equity and Inclusion       Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis 

 The Model Minority Myth (MMM) can have real effects on Asians and Asian Americans was laid bare during the most overt and public time of the COVID-19 and white supremacy pandemics, as Asians and Asian Americans, especially women, were targeted for increasing and intense physical and emotional violence. At the same time, caregivers, especially nurses, many of whom are Asian American, often took the brunt of front-line work, while being under-protected in terms of PPEs as well as from racial abuse. Asians and Asian Americans also challenged the Model Minority Myth’s provision that they will stay passive and silent through movements like Stop AAPI Hate and the Auntie Sewing Squad. This talk will address Asian and Asian American agency and community empowerment despite the negative impacts of the MMM.

Speaker Bio

Wei Ming Dariotis is the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) assistant vice president of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Reporting directly to UMB’s vice president and chief diversity officer, Diane Forbes Berthoud, Dariotis works collaboratively to lead and support high-level university wide initiatives and direct key aspects of institutional EDI accountability, strategic planning, leadership development and capacity building, and faculty development and diversity.  

Before joining UMB, Dariotis was the faculty director for the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning at San Francisco State University, where she supported campus faculty through the shift to online learning and developed and led the innovative Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Pedagogies of Inclusive Excellence (JEDI PIE) Institute. She also served as professor of Asian American Studies (in the College of Ethnic Studies), and affiliate faculty with the educational leadership doctoral program, at SFSU, where her leadership experience included serving as vice chair of the Academic Senate and chapter president of the California Faculty Association (CFA).  

Her co-edited volume, Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars’ Resistance and Renewal in the Academy (Rutgers 2020), addresses the intersectional challenges faced by Asian American women in academia from undergraduate to top-level leadership roles. She is the co-founder of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference and co-definer of the field of CMRS (with Camilla Fojas and Laura Kina), and co-edited a related anthology, War Baby Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art (with Laura Kina, University of Washington Press 2013).  She also co-founded the Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies, and is a founding member of the editorial board of Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies. 

We look forward to you joining us. 

UMSON Diversity and Inclusion Department