Meet Trailblazer Erica Caasi

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erica Caasi.

Erica, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Stories have been an integral part of who I am since my childhood, but my own story has changed and evolved over the years. While there are many stories I can share, I’ll focus on the story of how I arrived at the intersection of my research in literacy, sport, and culture.

As a child, I was naturally invested in athletic endeavors, whether it was running around outdoors or playing organized sports at school. It all felt very natural. What I didn’t expect was the backlash I’d receive from society, peers, and even my own family about the ways in which my body “needed” to look and what contributed to constructing this type of body. I commonly tell this story of my grandmother and the narrative she imbued on my body at the early age of nine. By this age, I had been running around the playground, enrolled in summer swimming lessons, and generally tried to play sports in physical education, as well as during recess and lunch periods. Naturally from the exercise, I began to develop muscle, and it became more prominent both from exercise, but also I’d later learn from my genetics. My grandmother had come to visit one year and I was excited to see her. However, while we spent time together, I began to notice that she was staring at me in a particular way. As it was summer I would wear shorts and tank tops to avoid the summer heat which left parts of my body exposed. My grandmother would stare at my legs and squint at my arms in disdain. At first, I didn’t take notice, but it was continuous.

Toward the end of her visit, she finally confronted me and shared that she thought I was “too muscular” and lacked “femininity” and “lady-like” features. I felt a sense of helplessness, this was after all my body, and as a young girl, it was developing in ways that aligned with my activities. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do to change that when I truly enjoyed playing outside and participating in sports like hockey and soccer at school. However, her words had a lasting impact and became deeply embedded in how I viewed my body. The effect wouldn’t become evident until I reflected much later in life, but my grandmother’s words became a thread throughout the narrative of how I viewed my body, specifically as an Asian American woman sitting at the intersections of several identities. While this story has shaped my identity as an athlete over the years, it has not continued to define me.

My interests in athletics only grew as I got older and continued well into adulthood as I began my career in teaching. Ellicott City, Maryland is central to this story, as part of my teaching experiences, but also the start of my interests in the sport of powerlifting. In the midst of searching for a new gym, I found a location that focused primarily on strength sports: Powerlifting, Bodybuilding, Olympic Weightlifting, and Strong Man. There I met a coach who had been training in powerlifting for several decades and a group of women training and developing their expertise in these sports. This group took me in and taught me the foundations, as well as what the sport of powerlifting meant and what I could do with it. Powerlifting is still predominantly viewed as a male sport, so having an entry point where I was introduced to women from eclectic professions, ethnicities, ages, socioeconomic status, and more, showed me that I could very much participate in this sport as well. In short, these women helped me break the barrier between myself and the sport. What I discovered was that I enjoyed getting stronger and pushing the limits of my body. I started participating in local competitions in Maryland and when I moved to Denver, I began competing here, where I took gold in the 2018 Colorado State Championships. Last year, I qualified and competed in my first national powerlifting competition in Spokane, Washington.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Living at the intersections of gender and race have led to some challenges along the way. The childhood story I shared at the beginning sat at the intersection of these two identities. My grandmother had expectations for me as a woman, but culture also played a role in impacting my grandmother’s perspective. As a Filipino woman, I was expected to achieve contrasting goals, fit into the dominant narrative of whiteness, but maintain my cultural roots to the Philippines, all while fitting into traditional gender roles. While I’ve navigated my identities as a woman of color personally, they’ve also occurred professionally. Teaching maintains a predominantly white female-led workforce that I have not always fit neatly into, academia has felt similar, but regardless I’ve always found ways to find and make community. While this doesn’t completely alleviate the impacts of gender and race on myself as an individual, it does give me a sense of belonging to do the work I care to do. What keeps me working toward that is not only the mentors, teachers, and people who are part of my life, but also finding something to spark my fire has always been key to maintaining the central aspects of myself at the forefront. For me, that means engaging myself in lifting weights and finding ways to make that work for myself no matter what my schedule looked like in the past and now.

Please tell us about the University of Colorado Boulder – what should we know?
Intersections are at the heart of my work. While I’m no longer an elementary school teacher, my identity, experiences and connections to elementary education remain with me. I continue to work with teachers and students, but in a different capacity. I am now working on my Ph.D. in education, specializing in literacy, at the University of Colorado Boulder. There I explore topics surrounding literacy, teacher education, critical pedagogy, equity, diversity, and so much more.

One strand I’ve been working to foster has been sports and literacy. As an elementary school teacher, I enjoyed playing games and athletic activities with my students on the playground, but it wasn’t until later that I made the connection to my students and their developing identities around athletics and fitness. I care deeply about fostering children’s individual interests and helping them build the knowledge bases they need to do so, specifically through literacy, both reading and writing.

As I entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Colorado Boulder, I realized that I did not have to separate my interests in literacy education and my passions as an athlete. These two very much worked in sync as I began to think about children’s identities, their engagement with literature, and the ways in which books could spark imagination in the possibilities of athleticism. While I broadly care about engaging students in literacy across many topics, what I found was that children, especially those at the elementary age, lacked accessibility to fiction that centered around the meaning and purpose of weightlifting. Even more so, there is a gap in the availability of fiction that represents students from diverse backgrounds.

Which women have inspired you in your life?
While it might seem like a common answer, my mother has always inspired me. We have not always aligned in our values or had the same visions for what my life and career might look like, but her grit has been at the heart of my inspiration for what I do. Growing up I watched my mother take on many identities and career paths, embracing each and every one head-on. She eventually found her way to teaching and currently continues to work in early education. In short, my mother does not give up, has always held her ground, and that is a characteristic I’ve tried to embrace wholeheartedly.

In addition to my mother, there are a number of women who have inspired me throughout my life. Each with their own story, journey, and impact on how they’ve influenced my own narrative. Most recently, I’ve been reflecting on the role of strong female protagonists from some of my favorite childhood novels and their role in my life both personally and professionally.

Several years ago, I was asked in a job interview who my favorite fictional character was and why. To the surprise of my interviewers, I responded with Jane Eyre. I explained that as a child I’d recognized early on Jane’s persistence and resilience, immediately identifying with her character as I followed her difficult journey. Even at a young age I’d recognized the underlying themes of feminism in this classic and appreciated the bittersweet ending of the novel. Jane Eyre has continued to inspire me in my later years for similar reasons, but also reflectively as an adult as I’ve come to question how the books I read as a child impacted my identity as a woman of color today. It is a huge part of why I work to question what literature for children looks like today and how we can continue to diversify whose story is being told, who is in power, and who are we representing in books? Of course, these interests overlap with my interests in literacy, sport, and culture.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.colorado.edu/education/erica-caasi
• Email: ericalyn.caasi@colorado.edu
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/p/BiI9F4GApsI/?igshid=48vgrqt3j3n5

Image Credit:
Headshot Photo: Taken by Ichigo Takikawa (https://www.colorado.edu/education/ichigo-takikawa)

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