Christopher Batalon

Introduction:

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Meet Christopher Batalon, Chris for short. He is my uncle. He is one of four first-generation Filipino Americans, along with my mom, another uncle, and aunt. Currently, he is a mental health therapist, his services more specifically for people of color. Some of the few things that he will be highlighting in this interview will be his role in facilitating racial justice and how he and his work personally impacted those in his community. He will discuss a little more in detail of both pre-grad years, to post-grad, to now.  As we progress through each segment of his life, his role as a social worker in his community will become apparent.

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Facilitation of Racial Justice:

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During his pre-grad years, he participated in different events and volunteer work as well as organized some that not only allowed a safe place for those of color, specifically Filipinos and Black African Americans, but also a way for their culture to be recognized and to take pride in their culture. As for post-grad, he worked with an organization called Neighborhood House Studio. This organization, partnered with the University of Washington, created a curriculum in STEM teaching which was made available to those who were people of color and that were not exactly financially stable. Their curriculum had also included the education of race meaning so that they can have the knowledge of the world they live in. This is so that they can take that knowledge and skills to follow their dreams and not be afraid because of what they are told based on stereotypes. Nowadays, he is a mental health therapist, extending his services specifically for people of color. It may not be the most active in facilitating racial justice through education as before, but it extends to the medical field where originally, statistics showed how people of color (especially Black folks), were either barred or had unequal access to such medical attention.

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Challenges Faced:

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There were a few challenges that my uncle had encountered. For starters, as my uncle says, “... having different ideas of what racial justice is… (Chris Batalon).” Because of where he worked which was providing extracurricular activities, specifically in STEM, some of the challenges revolved around the curriculum. For example, one of the challenges that my uncle has encountered was going about creating the actual curriculum. How could he, his coworkers, and their partners go about implementing racial justice topics into STEM curriculums? How do they “deliver the content (Chris Batalon),” or even teach the content? They are very different topics, to say the least. Along those same lines, how do they get their point across? What of the parent's consent of having their children learning something that is just a hard and controversial topic that no one wants to address? There were parents, especially those that were Black Americans, that they came across that didn’t want their children to learn about such topics. How would they go about explaining the importance of teaching this topic to them? As my uncle states, there were “push backs” that were blockades in being able to educate their kids about the importance of racial justice and other connecting factors.

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Impacts:

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One highlight of what I believe is a major impact in contributing towards racial justice and racial equity was during his five to six years working at Neighborhood House Studio. My uncle worked with a lot of kids from middle school to high school as well as those in college. He and his partners taught them to have a social perspective mindset on race and what that means in our society. They also instilled skills and knowledge of STEM curriculars in hopes of changing the market in STEM fields, allowing people of color to have a chance to be in a field that statistically, are dominated by Caucasian people (Chris Batalon). This impacted both youths and college students in order to be a well rounded person. Personally, he saw almost seventy to eighty students during his five to six years and helped them get into college, using his contacts and resources in order to help them meet their goals and succeed. They in turn ended up graduating, started working in places where few people of color work, or have gone to do some sort of social equitable work whether it be by coming back to volunteer at Studio or joining other organizations (Chris Batalon).

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