TODOS Podcast · TODOS Mathematics for ALL

S4E3: Navigating and Supporting Asian and Latinx Mathematics Identities with Cindy Jong

·58 min·3 clips

Project NORM stands for “Noticing and Operationalizing and Rehumanizing Mathematics.”

Theodore Chao opens the show with a bright introduction and then hands the conversation to Sherry Kaku. Sherry greets Dr. Cindy Zhang with aloha and grounds the welcome in her own family roots through Hawaii from Japan. The hosts present Cindy as a professor of mathematics education at the University of Kentucky. They also note her earlier teaching in Las Vegas, where she earned her bachelor's and master's, and her later work in Boston at Boston College. Her research centers on teacher noticing and rehumanizing mathematics education. The conversation soon settles into identity as something carried through classrooms, institutions, and family stories. Cindy reflects on the feeling of being used as a token before she understood what was happening. That realization comes later, after the moment itself has already passed. She and the hosts talk through the way Asian-ness is often tiered rather than simple or singular. The discussion names how East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian communities can be separated from one another in the United States even while Asian American remains a useful political term. Cindy describes finding camaraderie with a Hmong friend and how that experience sharpened her sense of those divisions. The episode also points to the ethnic tensions and class lines that shaped the worlds their parents grew up in. Colorism comes up as a lived experience rather than a distant concept. Cindy connects that pattern to multiple cultures and countries. The conversation then turns toward her adult visits to her mother's and father's homelands. A story from Guatemala gives the episode one of its clearest moments. A family member refers to indigenous people as inditos. Cindy corrects the term to indígenas and insists on the respect the community deserves. That exchange opens into a wider reflection on pride, history, and the Mayans as a rich part of Guatemala's story. It also shows the tension between American directness and local family habits. Cindy remembers being extra tan in the summer and her mother trying to manage relatives' reactions. The ending softens into food, vacation talk, and the way a simple question can keep a conversation alive. The hosts close by promising a link to the MTLT article Cindy mentioned and by thanking listeners warmly.

As heard by us

A patient math conversation about identity, tokenization, and the social life of schooling.

This episode treats mathematics education as a question of identity as much as method. Theodore Chao and Sherry Kaku speak with Dr. Cindy Zhang about teacher noticing, rehumanizing math instruction, and how Asian-American identity gets read inside schools and institutions.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a conversation about mathematics education that moves through teacher noticing, rehumanizing practice, and lived identity.

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