Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Week 1 - Jowi Deguzman - Section A03

Jowi Deguzman
Section A03



In this week’s reading, Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia, Dr. Valverde writes about her many struggles for tenure in academia solely due to her gender, ethnicity and disability. Despite being a well-qualified candidate, these factors caused her to be discriminated against by her colleagues and people in higher positions than her. While reading the piece, I was appalled that such things happened within the University of California education system so recently.  I’ve always thought of California to be one of the most progressive states toward equal rights for all, but this has certainly made me realize that regardless of how diverse a place may be, discrimination against characteristics like ethnicity and even gender still exist. With my experience of being a Muslim Asian American in a U.S. military family, I have grown up with most of the struggles she wrote about, though not as severe. The story ties into this week’s theme (your education at UC Davis and the Asian American experience) because if you are a student of color at UC Davis, you will encounter similar struggles, whether it be while applying for a scholarship, running of a board position, or while even being graded. If you don’t experience this at UC Davis, then you might experience it in a professional field. Realizing these issues now and working to fix them will ultimately be one step further in equality between Asian Americans, other people of color and everyone else.



Media:
I chose to include this image because it shows that though people judge others for their gender, ethnicity, or disability, there is always much more to the person than what is on the outside. The top part of the ice berg is how people viewed Dr. Valverde in the work place at one point. The bottom part is all of the qualifications they did not consider.

Question:
(To Dr. Valverde) If you were given a chance to do this over again, what would you have done differently?

References:
E. (2016, February 1). Lafayette Real Estate News. Retrieved April 05, 2017, from https://www.lafayetterealestatenews.com/tags/success/

1 comment:

  1. I answered this question in class. I would never never have risked my health and that of my child's had I known...But, other than that, I would have changed nothing.

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