About Jenn
I am a Chinese-Canadian born in Toronto, who has lived and worked in the United States for the last eleven years. I attended undergraduate school at Cornell University, where I received my B.A. in Physiology with a minor in Asian American Studies (and where learned that I suffer from a chronic aversion to cloudy skies and cold weather). While an undergraduate student, I discovered my passion for feminism and Asian American race activism. I served as a member (and later as president) of several on-campus organizations, including Asian Pacific Americans for Progress (Cornell’s first politicized Asian American group). I also participated in an anti-oppression drama troupe, Ordinary People, where I wrote, directed and performed in skits aimed at raising discussion about identity politics.
Upon graduation, I worked for nearly two years as a laboratory technician on the Cornell University campus, before applying for and accepting a position as a graduate student at The University of Arizona. After receiving my doctorate in Physiological Sciences, I accepted a post-doctoral position at Yale University.
My primary interests are in the fields of cardiovascular and cancer research, and I hope to one day oversee a research laboratory where I can encourage other students to aspire to a career in the sciences. In my spare time, I enjoy sparking online discussion on progressivism, current events, and identity politics. In 2008, I was actively involved in helping to elect President Barack Obama by writing for Asian Americans for Obama and Asian Pacific Americans for Progress.
In whatever spare time I have beyond all that, I enjoy comic books, video games, and all things pop culture; I am a self-professed fangirl and geek. I have also recently discovered my inner gym rat, and have developed a growing interest in topics related to health, fitness and body image.
Currently, I maintain my personal blog, Reappropriate.co.
About This Blog
Reappropriate was originally conceived when I noticed that the Asian American blogosphere lacked any blogs written from a female perspective; in response, this blog went online on December 2001 and became (as far as I can tell) the first site to blend topics on Asian American feminism and race activism.
Today, Reappropriate’s focus spans a wide range of topics, including: Asian American activism, feminism, political participation, health and fitness, and pop culture. Basically, anything I find interesting.
Reappropriate is a free-link site; if something I’ve written strikes your fancy, you are welcome to share links and excerpts through your blog(s) or social media sites. However, please contact me if you wish to reproduce and/or cross-post any articles or posts in their entirety on another site.
Comment Policy
The purpose of this blog is to spark debate and discussion. Thus, I consider the comments section a critical part of this mission, and no comment will be deleted based on its argument alone. In fact, all comments are welcome on this blog provided they adhere to the following guidelines:
- No use of slurs or ad hominem attacks. Discuss posts, not people.
- No comment spam. Try not to post multiple comments on the same post in succession. Stick to the topic of the post, if possible.
- When responding to others, please do your best to quote or cite who you are responding to. If posting outside information and/or statistics, I encourage you to include your sources.
- Be respectful, not rude. Treat others as you would like to be treated. I want people to feel free to disagree, while maintaining this blog as a safe space for reasoned discussion.
This blog has a stringent anti-spam filter. Your comment may need to be approved before it appears on this blog. Any comment that violates the above policy will be deleted, and the commenter will be banned. And since I pay the bills on this site, I get the final say on how this policy is enforced.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are you the only person who writes for this blog? Can I blog for Reappropriate?
Currently, Reappropriate remains a personal blog. I am willing to invite guest bloggers to write for the site, but am not (yet) actively seeking other bloggers to join the blog on a full-time basis. However, if you are interested in blogging for Reappropriate (either full-time or as a guest), please contact me with a writing sample and an idea of what you’d like to write about, and we can work something out.
Are you available for speaking engagements, seminars or guest lectures?
As narcisstic as it seems to include this question, I do (very occasionally) get asked this question. And yes, I am available for speaking engagements. I do not charge an honorarium (because, really, I’m just honoured you would want to listen to me talk…), but since I’m an impoverished graduate student, I do request that your organization cover my travel and lodging. If you are interested, please contact me with an idea for the seminar topic and we can work something out.
Are you on Facebook or Twitter? Can I follow you / add you as a friend?
You can follow me on Twitter at @reappropriate or friend me at facebook.com/reappropriate. The purpose of these accounts is to notify folks of new blog posts, and for me to post things that I don’t have time to write extensively about.
I posted a comment and I can’t see it. What gives?
If you haven’t commented on this blog before, your comment is automatically held for moderation. Same goes if your comment contains more than two links in it (even if you are a regular commenter). Don’t worry — I’m really good about approving comments within 24 hours of its submission.
If after 24 hours, you don’t see your comment, it may be because either I or my spam filter thought you were a spammer. Your comment may be lost to the anti-spamverse, and you may need to re-post it. If that’s the case, drop me an email letting me know that you are a real person and that your comment got lost.
Alternatively, if you still don’t see your comment appear, you are a troll and either your comment was deleted and/or you have been banned from the site. Sorry.
You claim your blog has been around since December 2001, yet your archives only go back to September 2009. Are you a liar?
In September 2009, the blog went through a massive crossover event, termed Crisis on Infinite Sites. The details are a little fuzzy, but what I can remember involves time-traveling, a pantheon of universe-spanning deities, two-page full-spread fight scenes, Superboy Prime, and lots of cussing. After the Crisis, the blog’s database was wiped and Reappropriate experienced a total reboot. Sadly, eight years of posts were lost to the rift between the multiverses, but I did get a snazzy new blog layout out of the whole fiasco.
