Week 1: Raylph Evangelista - A01

Raylph Evangelista

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Today marks the end of the first week being a part of an Asian American studies class. I'm not going to lie, when Professor Valverde presented the pepper spray incident to us I was confused as to why and what it meant. When the class transitioned into problems that we face as students of UC Davis, I began to understand a bit more. However this left me questioning what kind of problems our Professor faces being a professor and a woman of color of a fairly large university. Needless to say, my question was answered after reading Professor Valverde's article Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia which tells us a problem not only she had to go through, but probably most people of color have to go through. It still boggles my mind that there are people in the workplace that are willing to treat their peers and staff so poorly. Reading through the article made me realize that there really are people that judge others based on their race and ethnicity and these same people are the ones who are willing to attack others verbally solely because they may feel above them, which I personally think is nonsensical. I come from a Filipino background and it makes me wonder if my mom, who is an accountant, faces these same problems at her workplace. I admire that Professor Valverde was able to overcome this problem and solve it with the help of her fellow peers and her fellow students. I think that it is important for people who face any of these problems in the workplace to voice their concerns not only with their friends but with everyone around them. I can't help but think about how many other women of color there are that face the problem of workplace aggression and how many of them just keep to themselves and live day to day as if everything is fine when it really isn't.

What can we(the Asian American Community) do to counter/get rid of these aggressions towards our fellow people of color?

References

Valverde, Caroline. 2013. Fight The Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia. Seattle Journal.
Turner, Tana. 2017. Racial Microaggressions. Turner Consulting Group.