Annie Wang Week 4 SS1

"Do or Do Not, There is No Try": Radical Love as Pedagogy and Practice

In his chapter titled, "Attack on the Spirit by the "Rational World" (and Spiritual Recovery from it)." Brett Esaki examines how the "rational world" intensifies social and scholarly pressure, devaluation of both the work and identity of Asian American women in academia, and deprives them of comprehensive and holistic health care. Esaki characterizes this "rational world" as a culture in academia that is dictated by values of positivism and critical analysis. This, he argues, is prevalent in both hard sciences and humanities, in which the goal is to acquire true knowledge in the form of objective facts, are that can be drawn without subjective context and varied perspective.

This is not an effective method of study in either case. In the case of ethnic studies, understanding context and building long term relationships with communities by listening to their human experiences is vital to gaining authentic insight. In STEM, diversity does indeed bring better understanding to scientific issues. One example is Dr. Esteban Gonzalez Buchard, who was able to crack the reasoning behind varied prevalence of asthma being experienced by latino communities in different regions of the U.S. based on his childhood experiences and communities -- a full article about this case and the particular need for diversity in the environmental science fields is linked in the Works Cited.

Dr. Burchard at his lab at UCSF

However, by upholding rationality as the standard for scholarship and academic culture, institutions cultivate an environment where subjective experiences are inherently devalued. This framework can make Asian American women, or other groups, who experience unique struggles (e.g. micro-aggressions) to feel crazy when they express them. This is a viewpoint that was shared by the women who host the Asian Boss Girl podcast who noted when they experienced micro-aggressions, each case often felt too small to really raise a complaint. However, over the course of time, these frequent, seemingly minor interactions grate on a person's ability to work, collaborate, and value their own time, identity, and career potential.  In the long run, Helen Wu, one of the podcast hosts who works in finance, notes that while 20% of entry level employees at her firm are Asian American, that percentage is down to around 5% at the higher partner level.

Ultimately, Esaki draws an analogy between the struggle faced by Asian American women in academia with the pluralism and secularization that gave rise to countercultural spirituality in the 1960s. Asian American women in academia who face the conflict of constantly being pulled between worlds of rationality and well-rounded knowledge (including community building) find relief, identity, and grounding in contemporary spiritual practices with roots in Asian traditions.

Works Cited

Cheng, Melody, Wu, Helen, and Wang, Janet. "Episode 42: The Grey Zone." Asian Boss Girl, 11 July, 2019.

Esaki, Brett J. "Attack on the Spirit by the "Rational World" (and Spiritual Recovery from it)."

Funes, Yessenia. "Green science's white people problem." Grist, 15 Feb, 2018.