Saturday, November 25, 2017

Week 10: Samantha Nguyen

Samantha Nguyen
ASA 2 A03
Week 10

I find it interesting and inspiring to end the weekly readings with this week’s theme of the future of higher education. It provides the opportunity to re-think about what we learned over the last 10 weeks and apply it to fighting for the future of higher education. Introduction to Fight the Tower ties back to the first weekly readings about the struggles Asian American women face in academia. When first being exposed to the truths of injustices, I was a bit skeptical and shocked. However, after diving deeper into the topics of discrimination, corporatization of universities, imperial universities, and student activism, I have come to care deeply about higher education. It’s difficult to believe that professors such as Valverde, Rosalie Tung, Wei Ming Dariotis, and others have faced so many issues regarding tenure even though they each are equally qualified. One quote that stood out to me was, “… fear teaches us inaction, and anger, directed appropriately, leads us to act” (p. 18). It’s okay to be angry and to use that anger to invoke a change. Even though the stereotype of associating Asians with meekness, weakness, and silence still exists today, we can prove it wrong. In the end of it all, uniting together in action is the most powerful. We must empower one another to recreate and re-envision education as liberation, and it’s important that we do this together.

Question: How do we keep consistently challenging the system and not grow complacent?



References:
1.     Valverde, C., & Dariotis, W. (2017). "The Time to Fight is Now": When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue. Retrieved November 24, 2017.


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