week 1

Anna De Villa

A03

Week 1

I was honestly shocked when I read Dr. Valverde’s account of her journey to gain tenure. I knew from the start that Asian Americans were discriminated in multiple fields, but all that she went through, from stress-induced health complications to discrimination from other Asian Americans, was unfortunate to hear about. Oddly enough, while it was quite disheartening to see people who I thought would be on her side, I did not find it completely out of the ordinary. Based on my experiences growing up in the Philippines, and then moving to a mixed community in the United States, it was not unexpected for different races to form biases against each other. Even in communities that promoted equality, the students divided themselves based on race or idolized other races. When she mentioned the inferiority she felt toward East Asians I understood that feeling of bias. Even in my own country, there is a bias against actual natives and that favors more foreign looking, or paler people. I have also often been told that Asians get the “good” stereotypes, and are less discriminated against than other races, but they just build up expectations that add more racism and opposition against Asians. Dr. Valverde’s experiences echo this sort of damaging mentality.  

Question: Do you think the concept of dominant races within the Asian community stem from different cultures or from past colonization?

References:

Akana, A. (2016, Jan 21). Am I White Washed?. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTPbrWsLUcg

Valverde, K. (2013). Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia. Seattle Journal of Social Justice. 12(2). 367-419.

I thought of this video and white washing in general when I read about the racial bias formed against Dr. Valverde.