PD Soros Fellow at Vanderbilt PhD Neuroscience

Can a person feel stunned+super excited AND nervous+disoriented all at the same time. 

It's a veritable sea of emotions swirling inside me. 

The news is rather surreal as I am in the final weeks of undergrad at Berkeley.

Two pieces of news actually.

I’m heading to a PhD Neuroscience at Vanderbilt in fall 2022.

# neuroscience #vanderbilt  #PhD  #Berkeley #Psychology

&

I join the prestigious ranks of the PD Soros Fellows, 2022.

@PDSoros

https://www.pdsoros.org/meet-the-fellows/hari-srinivasan

Who would have imagined this back in 7th grade middle school - special ed classroom where they still were teaching how to spell basic words like c-a-t. The school district had no intention of allowing me anywhere close to any sort of mainstream curriculum or a mainstream classroom. Their nod to mainstreaming was my being allowed to exist in the same school playground with non disabled kids at recess and lunch. Somehow we were expected to pick up skills, perhaps by osmosis, in that crazy noisy environment of screaming running kids

I lost count of the number of special ed classrooms I’ve been moved around during my elementary and middle school years - tossed from one unwilling special ed teacher to another. Imagine the psychological trauma inflicted on a very young child when educators, the ones who are supposed to support and nurture you, themselves don’t want you. Children don't get to attend their IEP meetings, but sometimes these meetings are held in the classroom after school with a classroom aide babysitting me at one end. I remember one such meeting with the special ed teacher loudly insisting I be moved out of her classroom. In kindergarten alone, I was moved 4 classrooms. 

I also remember being in this classroom for sometime in between which was simply called Room 20 at Dilworth Elementary, which was a placeholder for all the special ed kids the district didn’t know what to do with. So the day was mostly walks, story time, circle time - like kindergarten on Groundhog Day repeat day after day, even at age 10.  Anyway, by middle school I had been moved to a segregated special ed only school where I never got even that glimpse of any non disabled peers.

For much of my schooling years, education was like the candy in the candy store with me staring longingly at it through the store window.

It’s surreal, It’s like I’m now making up for all those years and years and years of sheer longing for education, years and years and years of missed education with compounded interest thrown in. It’s the sheer contrast of Room 20 to Berkeley. 

I am incredibly amazed at what quality education can look like at UC Berkeley. The experience gels perfectly with my inherent curiosity and thirst for knowledge; I am continually reflecting on what is taught in my classes and on its multidisciplinary applications. Berkeley is giving me an amazing experience academically with 4.0 GPA, Phi Beta Kappa, Psi Chi, my own research, research labs and also other opportunities like writing for the Daily Cal and teaching an Autism Class. (And yes, it ok to brag some, at times like this)

My 7th grade special ed did not lead to a high school diploma let alone college. Today I stand on the cusp of a PhD program. Just imagine me in a doctoral program! 

More than anything, it was really really really really really really really (can I add a few more "really's") a balm to the soul to hear PhD programs say they “wanted me” and that I was an unanimous selection by the departments.

(I think back on all the special education teachers who did not want me in their classrooms).

The PD Soros fellowship is this extra unexpected icing, a validation - that my life too has worth and I too can be a contributing member of society. That I am thought to be amongst those, “poised to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture, or their academic field.”  That I too can rank amongst the best of the best.

Getting my picture in the New York Times, is kinda cool too.

The road ahead is still fraught with uncertainties and transitions and there will be many things to navigate and trouble shoot in the next few years of grad school. It is going to be a harder journey given all challenges around my motor apraxia, communication/ behavioral /sensory challenges & anxiety. Fingers crossed for continued patience and understanding from others around me. 

Today is a day to celebrate, to stop, admire and smell the roses of today. I don't think I am that flexible to actually reach my back so I will  give myself that imaginary pat on the back and say,

PD Soros Fellow @ Vanderbilt PhD Neuroscience from fall. Way to Go Hari!!

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News Coverage of Award (link)

Social Media

So nice of Dr Josh Gordon (NIMH Director) to announce news of Vanderbilt and PD Soros at the beginning of the IACC meeting. 

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I should frame this tweet as inspiration and aspiration. 

Words of praise from the legendary Judy Heumann. 

Thank you Judy for your words of praise. We all learn from you and strive to add those additional tiny pebbles that contribute to widening the ripples in the pond of change. 

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Tweet from Prof Allison Harvey, who taught my Treatment of Mental Illness class 

I was a research assistant in her Golden Bear Mood and Sleep clinic for 2 semesters.

Thank you Prof Harvey for your invaluable advice, support and encouragement during the grad school application process. 

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I made it the cover of Berkeley News

Made it to page 5 of the New York Times

Forbes Article by Ann Kirschner

I was spotlighted in a Forbes Article.  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/annkirschner/2022/04/13/hows-that-american-dream-working-out-a-tale-of-passports-and-heroes/?sh=755ec06bd7f7

Making the cover of Berkeley News

#redefine_the_table

I made it to the cover of Berkeley News

https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/04/14/minimally-speaking-autistic-student-wins-soros-fellowship-for-ph-d/

“Hari is a transcendent human being, beyond words in his talents, intellect, kindness, understanding and what he will do, and is doing, for our world,” said Keltner, a leading scholar in the science of emotions.


“Hari has embraced his Berkeley experience to the very fullest in the classroom, research laboratory, on campus and more broadly,” said UC Berkeley psychology chair Serena Chen. “Along the way, he has touched so many people — fellow students, staff and faculty alike — and has achieved so much against formidable odds, to boot.”

 

Nothing to say, an afterthought puzzling oddity.

Nothing to say, an afterthought puzzling oddity.

Last week I won a prestigious fellowship for grad school with an alum that boasts students from elite schools across the US. It is a honor indeed to be recognized and selected and I am so over the top. 

In the cohort of 30 fellows, four Indian-American students won the fellowship which was mentioned in a few Indian newspapers as well. 

What I want to highlight is one specific Indian newspaper (not mentioning names here). There was plenty to say on the accomplishments of the other 3 non-disabled Indian-American students who are indeed quite accomplished. I am in deep admiration of their accomplishments. 

However, when it came down to talking about me,  it was like they were puzzled as to what to say around what my accomplishments were (if any). Other than Berkeley, graduating, disabled. I don't fit into their standard stereotype of the newsworthy nondisabled Indian-American student that makes it into a top school and probably has a dozen inventions or patents along the way. If I had been a nondisabled student helping the "usual objects of pity" disabled community with some invention, well that would have been newsworthy. It was like they were were struggling to write about this puzzling oddity of a disabled Indian student, who did not quite belong in their column, but would look bad for them if they left out altogether. 

The sad sad irony in all this is that this is a Bay Area paper. I was born and have lived in the Bay Area all my life. 

The point here is not my wanting more lines of mention around any accomplishment in an Indian newspaper. It's the feeling of being placed in the "other" group, of feeling that I don't "belong" in my own ethnic community. I felt quite sad.  

Should I be surprised? After all, growing up, I've pretty much been ignored and not included by the nondisabled Indian kids who lived on my street in a South Bay neighborhood dominated by Indian and Chinese kids. We lived on the same street but in different Marvel multiverses. I simply did not exist in their world. They did grace my doorstep exactly once a year, at Halloween, arms outstretched for their share of candy. Understandably, Halloween is my least favorite holiday as it is a painful reminder of non-inclusion. 

And lets not forget, in the not so distant past of 2015, the Gopal family in Sunnyvale had been sued by their neighbors and forced to move - one of the reasons being an autistic kid on the street reduced property values in the high priced Silicon Valley neighborhood. 

Of course I cannot generalize my entire community - There are exceptions and I am so appreciative of those "gems" who crossed paths with me.  

The point again of this whole piece- media representation matters. Else the stigma around disability will just continue from one generation to the next. 

Think about it. Given that autism is the fastest growing neuro-developmental disability of today, it is highly likely that a near and dear one of yours will have autism sometime in the near future. Is stigma and exclusion really what you want for that person you care about? 

Inclusion and reduction of stigma does not have to be an unattainable illusion. 

It can be a reality. Let's start on that today. 

Neurotypical Syndrome

Flipping the script. LOL 

========

From the satirical Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical:

Autism is a natural neurological variance, not a disorder. So when those who follow the medical model refer to Autism as a disorder they are spreading scientific errors, cultural value judgments that teach Autists that there is something wrong with them, which is why so many of us hate ourselves.

Neurotypicals are "different"—from us—but we don't try to make them behave Autistically.

~

 

Disability Rights through time

Presentation on Disability Rights Timeline by students in my 1:54 Autism Class. 

Image Credit Oliver Maynard & Sridha Hordagoda

This is about my mother

Written by one of students in my 1:54 Autism Decal class as her final reflection assignment for the class. 

"It's based both on the sources and a little bit on my own family. You can share it on your blog! Thank you for teaching this wonderful class" Myr-An Le

=========

THIS IS ABOUT MY MOTHER 

Sometimes, I wonder what I must look like to my mom.
I've outgrown the cradle of her arms,
but am I still small in her hands?

By the time you are given breath to exist,
I want to have learned the secret to being brave.
- Excerpt from To The Child I May Never Have

My mom is 50 years old. Hair dyed dark with box dye for the last two decades. Eyes sharp and discerning, but I never know what she’s looking at. When she stands, she looks like she was stitched to stand right where she is. You don’t wonder why she is there, in your doorway with a plate of plum slices or in the grocery store eyeing unit prices or on the tarmac loading the airplane.

She has been a lot of things: daughter, eldest of seven, Catholic, 1.5 generation Vietnamese American, atheist, 1st generation college graduate, CFO of a hair salon, wife, substitute teacher, airline worker, accountant, family matriarch, mom.

Growing up, she used to tell me, “I always thought nurture beat nature until I had kids. Now, I forgive your father because I love you.”

Lately, I find myself asking, “Why?”

Why did you do this, why do you think this, why are you like this. I want to be able to unravel my mom’s hidden past and piece it back together.

There is very little discussion on autistic parents. Autism is something described most frequently in young children and rarely in adults. How could an autistic person grow to be an adult, let alone have children? And yet, autism is also understood to be hereditary.

Being an autistic parent has its own unique challenges.

In “Motherhood: Autistic Parenting,” Cynthia Kim writes that “Being a mom is an inherently social activity.” She describes a problem many autistic mothers have while raising their children. How do you teach a child to socialize when you struggle with it yourself?

Motherhood involves setting up playdates, chatting with other parents as your children play, and playing with your children too. And, unlike most social interactions, it’s a full-time job.

Growing up, my mom carefully taught me rules. This is how you talk to people about their family. This is how you talk about achievements. This is how you walk and this is how you smile. When people say this, you can ask that, and when you get a gift, you do this.

She has rules for everything in life. Not for me and my sister, but for everyone. From my mom’s point of view, there is a way things should be and a way things shouldn’t be, and she does not enjoy accepting the disparity between the ideal and our reality even if she understands the wisdom of this acceptance.

As many rules as there are in my mom, there is also a great capacity for change. “I had to force myself to hug you when you were growing up,” my mom tells me one evening.

This sentence does not register as cruel to me, although it does stay with me for the rest of my life. I see it for its truth: evidence of a love in spite of. And I am grateful for a mom incapable of change somehow, against all odds, changing.

This is for you, my mom says. But really,
she must mean
she thinks of me.
- Excerpt from Watercolor Plum

In my experience, autism does not exist in Vietnamese communities. Early traits of autism like sorting toys and being quiet are signs of a good child who might be mathematically inclined, the family’s next engineer. When those traits develop into selective mutism or antisocial behavior, they aren’t recognized as a group of interconnected behaviors stemming from a neurodivergency. They are seen as individual characteristics, some problematic and others valuable.

20 percent of all students in classrooms are served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). When these numbers are broken down by ethnicity, 7 percent of all Asian students are served by this act. Autism is already extremely underdiagnosed in general. This issue is further exacerbated in some Asian communities where learning disabilities are personality traits.

There are foils. My sister is mute until kindergarten. My mother, knowingly, sees herself in my sister, and she does what she thinks would have helped her. She sometimes says, jokingly, “Your sister is a little on the spectrum,” but she does not take on the label for herself until I am 19 and she is 49. She never worries about my sister because she knows that problems come and go for “people like us.”

I have an aunt on my dad’s side. Like my mom, she’s an eldest daughter who immigrated to America with her parents at a young age because of the Vietnam War.

Nobody talks about my aunt who never learned how to hold a conversation, patiently completes jigsaw puzzle after jigsaw puzzle, and excitedly tries to convince anyone nearby to watch YouTube videos of people caring for dolls.

Here is something almost any Vietnamese American person can confirm: the older Vietnamese generations do not talk about trauma. I did not learn my father was a boat refugee until I was in college. Until I asked, I was not told that my mother’s dad likely has a passport for a nation that no longer exists. Until I asked, I was not told that my father’s mom came here first, alone without her husband or a word of English and with three kids in tow, the eldest of which is likely intellectually disabled.

I often wonder what parts of my mom have gone unspoken. Nobody talks about the ways they fail. But I’m here now, and I feel like I am failing.

I want to ask her, “Was it hard for you like this? Is it in my nature to be this way and I will find my way out? Or did I grow up too different from you to be as happy as you are now?”

World blue, Mother Earth, treat me well, please.
Please, hold my hand and tell me I will be okay, and
life is not so bad
- Excerpt from Father Sky

In the same way my sister breaks a Rubik’s cube, I am taking my mom apart and piecing her back together in the hopes that I can discover what we are composed of today. There is nothing so interesting as discovering that what appears to be a collection of moving parts is, at its core, one thing alone.

SOURCES

“Motherhood: Autistic Parenting” by Cynthia Kim:
https://awnnetwork.org/motherhood-autistic-parenting/

“The unexpected plus of parenting with autism” by Sarah Deweerdt:
https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/unexpected-plus-parenting-autism/

“In Asian communities, raising a child with autism can be a lonely, difficult road” by Melody
Cao:
https://centerforhealthjournalism.org/2015/07/16/asian-communities-raising-child-autism-can-be
-lonely-difficult-road

“Why Asian American kids are under-diagnosed when it comes to learning disabilities” by
Victoria Namkung:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-american-kids-are-diagnosed-comes-learning-disabilities-rcna2425

“Why Can’t We Talk About Autism in the Asian-American Community?” by Sunny Jang:
https://www.autismparentingmagazine.com/autism-asian-american-community/

I deserve to have connection

Image Credit: Jay Maytorena

1:54 Autism Spectrum Class, Spring 2021

 

World Autism Awareness Day

 

#autism