Week 10

Josh Omoletski

Section 3

The reading for the last week was definitely a change of pace from the other weeks. Previously we’d been delving into different and fresh topics that related to each other. However, this week is actually bringing us back around to the first week of class when we first talked about Professor Valverde’s “Fight the Tower” piece. Before, we just talked about “Fight the Tower” with whatever schema we had coming into the class, but now we can talk about the article with the information we’ve gathered from all the other topics. Like the whole concept of the model minority with the expectation it burdens unto both Asian American men and women. This expectation that Asian Americans (or anyone with Asian blood in them, really) will always be stellar scholars kind of belittles all the effort that these people put into their careers. This tough especially for Asian American women because not only are they expected to be outstanding in any field of academics because of their ethnicity, but then they’re also expected to just stand aside for their male counterparts because their gender labels them as unstable or tending to act through emotional response. Not only that, but if those Asian American women get fed up with this back and forth of expectations and they voice their opposition, the university tries to retaliate by denying them positions, making their workplace experiences terrible by making them feel isolated from their peers, or just labeling them as unstable and recommend they “go seek help.”

Overall, this course has really opened my eyes to the Asian American community and has taught me a lot about not only myself, but others as well. I’ll definitely be considering another ASA class and I’ll be recommending this one to any friend who needs a GE or is just curious.

Question: Why is it that the full “Fight the Tower” book was not a reading for this quarter? This final reading was almost like a teaser for the book. Maybe assign sections of the book as weekly readings?

This image is from a UN article back in 2013 which focused on worldwide sexism by showing what Google autofill would recommend after typing in key words.

References:

news18.com. (2013, October 19). Powerful UN Women ads use Google search to highlight worldwide sexism. Retrieved from http://www.news18.com/news/buzz/harvard-university-to-offer-game-of-thrones-themed-course-1419935.html