Difficult Dialogue: What emotional impact does politics have on our lives?
Difficult Dialogue: What emotional impact does politics have on our lives?
January 30, 2025
6pm - 7:30pm
Colorado Chautauqua's Community House
Part of the CHA's Difficult Dialogues: Community Conversations series and Colorado Chautauqua's Ìýseries.
The US 2024 election was tumultuous and contentious, and regardless of what side of the political aisle you find yourself allied with, political polarization has been increasing with the rise of social media and other communication technologies over the last few decades, especially during the era of the Internet.Ìý
This political polarization comes with an emotional cost, and this Difficult Dialogue Conversation (co-facilitated by Jennifer Ho, Ethnic Studies professor and Center for Humanities & the Arts director, and Angie Chuang, Journalism professor and author of an upcoming book, American Otherness, that engages with political polarization) will guide participants in conversation about the emotional reactions we have to the political issues that are taking up our head and heart space, particularly after the presidential inauguration on January 21.
Event Guidelines
Our objective is NOT to necessarily agree, fix anything, prove anyone right or wrong, or alter anyone’s position.
We are committed to fostering productive dialogues in the hopes that minds and hearts might expand. We ask that you:
1. Keep an open mind
2. Be respectful of others
3. Listen with the intent to understand
4. Speak your own truth
We expect to experience discomfort when talking about hard things. Remain engaged and recognize that the discomfort can lead to problem-solving and authentic understanding.
Jennifer Ho, CHA Director, Ethnic Studies Professor, CU Boulder
The daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica, whose own parents were immigrants from Hong Kong,ÌýJennifer Ho is the director of the Center for the Humanities & the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also holds an appointment as Professor in the Ethnic Studies department.
She is the past president of the Association forÌýAsian AmericanÌýStudies (2020-2022) and sits on the board of directors for the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI), the National Committee on US-China Relations, and Kundiman (an Asian American literature non-profit). Ho has co-edited two collection of essays,ÌýNarrative, Race, and Ethnicity in the United StatesÌý(Ohio State University Press 2017) andÌýTeaching Approaches to Asian North American LiteratureÌý(Modern Language Association 2022), and she is the author of three scholarly monographs,ÌýConsumption and IdentityÌýinÌýAsian American Coming-of-Age NovelsÌý(Routledge 2005),ÌýRacial Ambiguity in Asian American CultureÌý(Rutgers University Press 2015), which won the South Atlantic Modern Language Association award for best monograph, andÌýUnderstanding Gish JenÌý(University of South Carolina Press 2015).
She has published in journals such asÌýModern Fiction Studies,ÌýJournal for Asian American Studies,ÌýAmerasia Journal, The Global South, Southern Cultures,ÌýJapan Forum,ÌýandÌýOxford American. Her next two academic projects are a breast cancer memoir and a monograph that will consider Asian Americans in the global south through the narrative of her maternal family’s immigration from Hong Kong to Jamaica to North America. In addition to her academic work, Ho is active in community engagement around issues of race and intersectionality, leading workshops on anti-racism and how to talk about race in our current political climate.
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Angie Chuang, Associate Professor of Journalism, CU Boulder
Angie Chuang is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in race, identity, and media. With over 13 years as a national award-winning reporter at The Oregonian, The Hartford Courant, and Los Angeles Times, Chuang was the first journalist at The Oregonian to cover race and ethnicity, pioneering a beat focused on how race shapes both news coverage and public perception. Her forthcoming book, American Otherness in Journalism: News Media Constructions of Identity and Belonging, examines how mainstream media constructs American identity, especially for people of color and those perceived as "other."
Chuang’s work engages with the emotional and societal impacts of political discourse, particularly in the context of the Trump era, where racially charged speech and media coverage have dramatically shaped public conversation. Her scholarship explores how the media's handling of controversial figures, especially their focus on racially coded language and divisive rhetoric, can crowd out more substantive political issues and heighten societal polarization. As a journalist and scholar, Chuang reflects on the emotional toll that political divisions and media narratives take on individuals and communities, especially those already marginalized.
