As a new immigrant mother in the United States, I often heard that if my career did not bring immediate financial value, I should focus on being a mother instead. At the same time, I had long dreamed of becoming an academic, a path that required years of investment before any clear return. Pursuing that dream sometimes felt like being an irresponsible mother, yet giving it up felt like losing an important part of who I was.
For a time, I felt that being a devoted mother and pursuing my academic ambitions were difficult to reconcile. I still remember doing my best to finish my readings on the train to Berkeley, sometimes fighting back tears as I thought about my young son and felt guilty about being away from him.
Over time, I began to interpret these identities differently. I realized that my academic training had deepened my cultural and linguistic understanding, helping me support my son with greater confidence while also allowing me to model perseverance and the pursuit of meaningful goals. I also began to see motherhood not as a barrier to my academic identity, but as a source of questions, perspective, and purpose in my research. I also started to reinterpret other parts of myself that I had once seen as weaknesses, including my immigrant background, noticeable accent, and cultural differences, as experiences that could become sources of insight and strength.
That shift made me feel less conflicted, and gradually changed how I approached both motherhood and my academic career. I became happier with the kind of mother I was becoming and more secure in the kind of scholar I wanted to be. The experiences made me wonder:
How do social environments make it harder for some people than others to see their identities as compatible? What are the consequences of these unequal challenges in identity negotiation? Can helping people reinterpret their identities reduce the consequences of these inequalities?
I pursue these questions using a broad range of methods, including longitudinal studies, randomized controlled trials, field audit studies, behavioral observation, and qualitative research.