Week 10 - Joanne Agus

The Time to Fight is Now: When Asian American Women Go Rogue ties together the major issues that we discuss in class during the past 9 weeks. I think that the article is very empowering - even the title itself makes me want to snap for the authors - and very eye opening at the same time, as it focuses on a fundamental issue of equality that is often overlooked.

One of my favourite section of the paper is when the authors discuss the poem "Waking" by WP, and how it emphasizes the realization of a white female professor of the problem that lies, not only the inequality of men vs women, but also the unfair treatment and struggles of asian american women in her own department. I believe that starting the book with this poem really shows the authors' aim to make their readers stay "woken" to the common misconceptions of asian americans. In addition, the book itself is really based on uncovering, layer by layer, the injustice of ideas that we often have normalized in our own world, such as the model minority myth - the idea that we will be given the honorary white status with the false hope of their white privilege if we conform to the dominant society's expectations- and student activisms on campus. With those ideas the authors really explain on how the expectations of asian americans to stay quiet was also prevalent amongst student activisms on campus. I think that by understanding the different issues discussed in the book, anger and the need for change can be sparked within the asian american community, especially in universities and academia which has become the root of most social justice movements.

Q: What can internationals students, like me and even others from around the world, do to help fight the tower in academia? I think that this is an important issue because, a lot of universities and countries around the world look up to the activism movements in the States.



This is a picture from an article called College Freshmen Are More Politically Engaged Than They Have Been In Decades, which really highlights the fact that college students are great target audience for social justice activism.

Zinshteyn, M. (2016). College Freshmen Are More Politically Engaged Than They Have Been In Decades. Five Thirty Eight. Retrieved from: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/college-freshmen-are-more-politically-engaged-than-they-have-been-in-decades/

Valverde, C., & Dariotis, W. (2017). "The Time to Fight is Now": When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue. Retireved June 4, 2017