Panelists

Jung Kim, Ph.D.

Jung Kim, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of literacy, mother of two children at Lincoln Elementary in OP, and D97 school board president. Her research areas revolve around graphic novels and youth literature, Asian American teachers, and equity, She has lived with her family in Oak Park since 2004.

Madhurima Chakraborty

Madhurima Chakraborty is Associate Professor in the English and Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago, and was recently elected to the Oak Park Library Board. She became a citizen in 2017 but has lived in the United States for almost twenty four years, and in Oak Park for almost eleven. She lives in south Oak Park with her husband, Kris, and a son who is in 2nd grade at Irving.

Olivia Spratt

Olivia (BinBin彬彬) Spratt was born in China, abandoned as an infant, and adopted by U.S. parents when she was about one year old. She grew up in Oak Park and graduated from OPRF in 2018. Today she attends UIC where she majors in communications and minors in Global Asian Studies.

Michael Jin

Michael Jin moved to Oak Park from South Texas in 2016 with his wife and son, a kindergartener at Irving Elementary School. Michael is a historian who teaches courses on the American West, critical race and ethnic studies, and Asian American history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Emma Roskopf

Emma Roskopf is a 2020 OPRFHS graduate and currently attends Carleton College. She is adopted and has had interesting experiences with the intersections of race, culture, and being Asian in America.