Section A01
Emily Trang
Iris Wu
Elizabeth Chang
Regenia Un
The Future of Higher Education
In “‘The Time to Fight is Now’: When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue” by Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde and Wei Ming Dariotis, the piece focuses on women, mainly Asian American women, in academia who have fought and spoken out against the higher education system. Each section is opened with a poem written by WP, who writes poetry to provide the emotion of the analytical essays. Gathering perspectives and experiences from students to senior faculty in higher education, they uncover the issues ingrained in academia. Asian American women are deemed as the model minority but are automatically shunned when they choose not to conform to that and speak up about an issue.
Section 1 of the reading is titled “Fear is the Path to the Dark Side”: Introducing The Fight, stemming from the quote of the Star Wars character Yoda. The quote relates to the title in the sense of achieving justice through education. In this section, WP’s poem “Waking” is analyzed, where a European American female professor is aware of the male sexism issues, but cannot see the struggles that her Asian female co-worker faces every day. The poem is a call to realization, to be “woke”, to help raise awareness, and to tell people they will need to learn how to protect themselves and to protect others. I (Elizabeth) thought that this was a very powerful message since it is often easy to see injustice when we are the ones experiencing it, but when it is something that does not affect us directly, no one will raise their voices about the issue. I believe that the most effective, if not the only way to make people aware of the existing issues is through education. Most people who do not experience injustice will not be aware of the injustice that surrounds them, and it is through education that they will come to understand it.
In “Section 2: “That’s No Moon!”: Attack of Institution”, Soek-Fang Sim’s story of being hounded and humiliated by her university’s administration was introduced in WP’s poem “Who Killed Soek-Fang Sim?” The poem reveals the long existed imperial domination of institutions and confesses how the domination leads to the general misconception of seeing Asian women as dumb and incompetent. On the other hand, Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde, Cara Maffini Pham, and Melody Yee’s study, “ Killing Machine: Exposing the Threats to Asian American Scholars’ Health in Academia” showed the negative impact academia stress has on Asian American women’s health. This reminds me (Iris) of professor Valverde’s tenure battle. Miscarrying pregnancy while suffering under the massive academia stress, she went through cardiac arrest and a coma, barely able to come out alive nor even a full recovery. It was painful, and definitely a difficult fight. Therefore, I can’t agree more with her saying how we should “work tirelessly to make sure others would not have to experience such a harrowing situation.” The call has been made in this section on model minorities, especially Asian American women to rise against the ailing domination, and it should be taken seriously. The shameful situation is never going to change if no one voices out.
In “Section 3: “You Are Unwise to Lower Your Defenses”: The Phantom Menace”, I (Regenia) was very impressed by WP’s two poems: “The Cost of Speaking” and “Cost of Not Speaking”. Most people think that speaking out will inevitably cause troubles, so they are always afraid to do so uneven if something harms them. Simultaneously, people tend to neglect the cost of not speaking which is the deprivation of rights and the rise of psychological problems. I personally think that the habit of staying quiet is due to the Asian culture since Asians, especially women, are taught to be tolerant. However, this is not a wise act and this section suggests that speaking out is to save and protect ourselves, thus Asian American women in academia should not lower their defense just as how Darth Vader warned Luke Skywalker. Moreover, Kaozong Mouavangsou’s analysis “Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of and By Hmong Americans” is included to suggest that getting an academic job is the start of pain to international Asian women scholars because of the unfair tenure and promotion process. In addition, Wei Ming Dariotis and Grace J. Yoo’s "Care Work: The Invisible Labor of Asian American Women in Academia" also introduces us the effort of Asian American female scholars providing essential care work to students and the failure of universities to value this kind of care work. As a result, facing both physical consequences and spiritual consequences by unjust treatment, Asian American women should definitely be wise and defend ourselves by speaking out.
In “Section 3: “You Are Unwise to Lower Your Defenses”: The Phantom Menace”, I (Regenia) was very impressed by WP’s two poems: “The Cost of Speaking” and “Cost of Not Speaking”. Most people think that speaking out will inevitably cause troubles, so they are always afraid to do so uneven if something harms them. Simultaneously, people tend to neglect the cost of not speaking which is the deprivation of rights and the rise of psychological problems. I personally think that the habit of staying quiet is due to the Asian culture since Asians, especially women, are taught to be tolerant. However, this is not a wise act and this section suggests that speaking out is to save and protect ourselves, thus Asian American women in academia should not lower their defense just as how Darth Vader warned Luke Skywalker. Moreover, Kaozong Mouavangsou’s analysis “Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of and By Hmong Americans” is included to suggest that getting an academic job is the start of pain to international Asian women scholars because of the unfair tenure and promotion process. In addition, Wei Ming Dariotis and Grace J. Yoo’s "Care Work: The Invisible Labor of Asian American Women in Academia" also introduces us the effort of Asian American female scholars providing essential care work to students and the failure of universities to value this kind of care work. As a result, facing both physical consequences and spiritual consequences by unjust treatment, Asian American women should definitely be wise and defend ourselves by speaking out.
In “Section 4: “Do. Or Do Not. There is No Try”: Radical Love as Pedagogy and Practice”, I (Emily) was surprised to read the name Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales. This woman is the wife of my high school P.E. teacher. It was interesting to realize that someone so near was fighting this structured system. It is easy to think that it is only extremely radical people who are far away from me who choose to fight this system. Reading about someone I know of that fights this, it is motivational and inspiring to know that I can also have the chance to fight for something I believe in too. I don’t have to be someone famous or someone who has endless amount of knowledge to do that.
In conclusion of the previous examples, Section 5: The Academic Awakens: “We Are One with the Force and the Force is One with Us” emphasized on how to re-envision and improve these current situations. Valverde and Dariotis pointed out the essentiality of empowering ourselves, the Asian Americans, and consistently fighting towards the injustice in academia and higher education. This roughly sums up most of the topics we talked about in class, and particularly, student activisms and solidarity movements that needed to be put into practice in order to rebuild the academy system. Anyone is vulnerable to this structural academic system, not just Asian American women. The system was not made to protect those individuals who have accomplishments or merit. It was made to protect itself in order to maintain power at all cost.
References:
1. Valverde, C., & Dariotis, W. (2017). "The Time to Fight is Now": When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue. Retrieved June 2, 2017.
2. Re-Examined: Is Diversity Still Missing Among Higher Education Leadership? | NBC Asian America. (2016, August 30). Retrieved June 04, 2017, from https://youtu.be/XR1pjNLH6tc
2. Re-Examined: Is Diversity Still Missing Among Higher Education Leadership? | NBC Asian America. (2016, August 30). Retrieved June 04, 2017, from https://youtu.be/XR1pjNLH6tc
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