Week 10: Kyrene Giezl Gutierrez - A01

We’re now entering Week 10. It’s crazy how fast everything went.

For this week, there was only one reading, which was Wei Ming Dariortis and Professor Valverde’s academic journal, “Academics Awaken: Power, Resistance, and Being Woke.” Just like the theme of the week, the reading focus on the idea of “wokeness” and the future of higher education and activism with Asian Americans. Throughout the journal, there were constant references to the Star Wars animated “Clone Wars” series. Right at the beginning, one of the quotes from the animated series stood out, which was, “To die for one’s people is a great sacrifice. To live for one’s people, an even greater sacrifice. I choose to live for my people” (Dariotis & Valverde, n.d.). Dying for your people is a noble action, however, everyone can die for something they believe in. To live amongst your people is to go through the struggles and be in solidarity with them. In this context, choosing to live for your people is almost synonymous to fighting for your people. In relation to fighting the unjust academia, especially for Asian American women, it means speaking out on the injustices when you were forced to stay silent and constantly challenging the institution through creating controversial journals, articles, books, which expose the truth about academia and how it was never truly meant for us. This realization goes hand in hand with being “woke” on the academia. Valverde and Dariotis state, “For academics, to ‘stay woke’ might mean to be alert to the fact that the academy is not designed to protect us, but is designed to protect itself and will thus act in ways that might seem deeply illogical and indeed self-damaging” (pg. 13). Today, people think that being woke and just bringing awareness to injustice is enough activism to create change, but it’s a lot more than that. If everyone were to just speak on the injustices, but not actually take action to it, complex issues will not be solved. Spreading awareness is just the start of creating more change, but actually thinking critically, and translating one’s “wokeness” to action is what’ll actually make more of an impact and progress. There is a noticeable difference in power within the academia, and as Asian American students achieving higher education, we must always think critically of what’s being taught explicitly and implicitly. Who holds the power? Is what we are learning liberating or silencing us? Are we just going to blindly follow suit to get an A or actually critique what’s being taught in our classrooms? If all students, not just Asian American students, were to think in this fashion, we would slowly, but surely, take down the tower/hierarchy in the academy.

Source: Amandine Le Bellec

Question: As of this moment, what does the future of higher education look like? What are some of the steps student activists can take to reach this “future”?

References:

Dariotis, W. M & Valverde, K. L. (n.d.). "Academics Awaken: Power, Resistance, and Being Woke"