Week 10 - Kaitlin Zheng

Kaitlin Zheng

ASA 2 A03

Week 10

This week I read, “The Time to Fight is Now: When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue,” by Professor Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde and Wei Ming Dariotis. It is a article that discusses how Asian American women are usually seated in the lowest seat of the hierarchy of power in academia. They bring up the fact that Asian American women are given a unique position in which they are either to act within the mold that corrupted academia built for Asian American women or they can speak out against those injustices subjected to them. While the “ivory tower” promises ways to succeed and reach higher positions based on credentials and achievements, it bars people of color and Asian American women from receiving the due right to progress forward in their positions and become more accredited. This article brings together the themes of this course by reflecting on the injustices created through the system aimed towards people of color. The article calls for Asian Americans, women, and more importantly those of both categories to break through stereotypes of being expected to stay silent and follow the standards of the model minority myth. In essence, women need to come together in solidarity to fight for this common cause and make a difference. From what I have learned from this course is that staying silent is never an option if one wishes for a change in something they believe is wrong. The Fight the Tower movement started by Professor Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde and others is the beginning of a stand for women of color in academia and with this, a push for even more momentum will make the biggest change of all for social justice against the system.

Question: Why is there no room for pushing this issue forward? Why hasn’t the discrepancy of Asian-American women and other women of color being treated unequally been truly solved in this modern day and age?

References:

1.  Valverde, C. & Dariotis, W. M. (2017). “The Time to Fight Is Now”:When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue. Retrieved November 26, 2017.

2. The Gender Pay Gap for Women of Color. [Digital Image] Retrieved November 26, 2017 from https://images.newrepublic.com/cc9d7f51c315358b6e24baa849f9ffe7d689ea0b.png?w=800&q=65&dpi=1&h=400x