Forging a critical intercultural mentoring relationship within the margins of academe

We come to this chapter of Working in the Margins from complex, intersectional, and divergent positionalities. We occupy both cultural/social positions in the margins and the center. Yet, the extent to which we experience these positionalities is quite different from each other. I, Amy, am a White American, working class woman and I, Angela, am a Filipina, working class woman and international sojourner. We are also women of different generations. However, we are united in our mutual commitment to furthering social justice in our social worlds. We are critical inter/cultural communication and feminist scholars. We are mentor and mentee. Our chapter, then, is an articulation of how we forge a critical intercultural mentoring relationship within the margins of academe through attention to invitation, an ethic of speaking with, and navigation of complex positionalities to develop a transracial alliance in sisterhood. We draw from the work of feminist and critical cultural communication scholars to illustrate how we engage in intercultural bridge building aimed at lifting each other up within a masculinist, White-centered, and elitist academic institutional structure, while simultaneously striving for inclusion, belonging, equity, and social justice via our relationship as mentor and mentee. Throughout our chapter, we illuminate critical mentoring moments within our relationship that are best captured through autoethnographic and dialogic narratives. Our narratives work progressively to highlight the affect, emotionality, and vulnerability involved in the deepening of our relationship. However, we acknowledge that like...