In dear elia Mimi Khúc revolutionizes how we understand mental health. Khúc traces the contemporary Asian American mental health crisis from the university into the maw of the COVID-19 pandemic, reenvisioning mental health through a pedagogy of unwellness—the recognition that we are all differentially unwell. In an intimate series of letters, she bears witness to Asian American unwellness up close and invites readers to recognize in it the shapes and sources of their own unwellness. Khúc draws linkages between student experience, the Asian immigrant family, the adjunctification of the university, and teaching methods pre- and post-COVID-19 to illuminate hidden roots of our collective unwellness: shared investments in compulsory wellness and meritocracy. She reveals the university as a central node and engine of unwellness and argues that we can no longer do Asian American studies without Asian American mental health—and vice versa. Interspersed throughout the book are reflective activities, including original tarot cards, that enact the very pedagogy Khúc advances, offering readers alternative ways of being that divest from structures of unwellness and open new possibilities for collective care.

Mimi Khúc is a writer, scholar, and teacher of things unwell. She is the creator of Open in Emergency and the Asian American Tarot.

dear elia  1
1. a pedagogy of unwellness  3
interlude 1. the corner  25
2. touring the abyss  28
interlude 2. the suicide tarot  60
3. how to save your asian american life in an hour  63
interlude 3. the professor is _______  89
4. the professor is ill  91
interlude 4. surveying access  146
5. teaching in pandemic times  149
cura personalis  221
Acknowledgments  229
Notes  235
Bibliography  249
Index  257