Week 10

Gabriela Garcia-Mejia

Section A03

Week 10

            This week’s reading of “The Time to Fight is Now”: When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue discusses the different experiences and struggles of women of color in the academia, specifically Asian American women, through different literary forms. It discussed how Asian Americans in higher education are being tokenized. They are accepted to the university setting as a “model minority” so the university can promote their diversity among administrators but when Asian academics don’t conform to the system they are ejected. When academics do speak up on an issue the university retaliates against them instead of taking action to fix the issue. What really stood out to me was when they said that “the system is just designed to protect itself.” I felt like this not only brought everything full circle with the very first reading that we had of Professor Valverde’s experiences going against the university but it also tied back to the themes of corporatization and imperialism of the university system. It is a call to action to the newer generations like me, who are the future, to really open our eyes to be critical of the system and not be naïve to think that the university is looking after our interests as students. As they mentioned, there needs to be a shift in power and overall rebuilding of the system and this can be achieved through collective work. I think that the format in which they wrote this piece also showed the intended appeal to this new generation because they included relatable references like Star Wars, and even used terms like “woke”.

Question: How does an academic move past that fear of retaliation to speak up against the system? 

Resources:

(2015, February 4). Retrieved June 3, 2017, from http://www.dwlawtx.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/bigstock-Retaliation-Green-Road-Sign-on-18301532.jpg

Valverde, C., & Dariotis, W. (2017). "The Time to Fight is Now": When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue. Retrieved June 2, 2017.