Today, at 4pm, I received notice that I have been promoted to Full Professor at California State University, Long Beach.

This is not my first rodeo as full professor (I was full professor for a year at another institution when I was on leave from CSULB) and it’s not the last institution I’ll be full professor at (since I transition at the end of this calendar year to be the Boeing Endowed Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Washington), but this hits differently because I have been through the entire tenure and promotion process at, and given my heart and much labor to CSULB, an institution which, despite all that institutions represent, contains a community where I have been seen, loved, nourished, and affirmed, in spite of it all.

It’s a big day and it comes at a time of much transition indeed, as I prepare mentally and spiritually for things ahead, as I am on Day 11 of prioritizing the things I love about this work, giving myself grace, and resisting temptations to overwork.

I am grateful that on this day, I am fully present to the culmination of my years of teaching, research, and service to this community. Today, I got to eat lunch and have a mentoring conversation with a former credential student, spend time with research collaborators, and meet with my own femtor and friend. I got to spend an hour and a half on research and got to have my work acknowledged.

Soon, I’ll go to pick up my 17-year old from his last dance practice before the summer break at his studio. To him and my little one, I am not any different than I was this morning. This letter doesn’t mean anything in particular. But, I am most grateful to them and for a partner who has supported me in this journey, even when none of them quite understands why it means so much to me.

I am also grateful to my community who has sourced me and believed in me even when I didn’t know how to believe in myself. I am fully aware that I am because we are, and that no one gets to this place alone.

Finally, I am grateful to my mother who sacrificed a doctoral trajectory to be mother to my brother, whose absence is felt most acutely at these milestones she only gets to witness in spirit. And to my grandmother before her who sent her youngest to study in the US not knowing that someday the baby of the family would be among the few Asian American women who are full professors.

My heart is full of gratitude and love, of community and ancestral strength, of joy and peace.

Onward in community and always in love.