It is very eye opening to see how expendable Asian American professors are. In W.P.’s
Waking, she recalls how after the college she taught at filed a lawsuit against her, her
colleagues suddenly ignored her despite years of friendship. She compares herself to a
lab mouse, expendable and not valuable. In the prologue of Fight the Tower, many
Asian professors working in Asian American studies are not valued as much as
professors working in more Eurocentric studies, as seen in their tenure reviews. It is
infuriating that UCLA pretended that the lawsuit from Don Nakanishi never
happened and they never tried to exclude him. Although many professors of color
are still treated unequally, Asian Americans have contributed much to making academia
more equal, which should not be ignored. Rosalie Tung’s lawsuit required all universities
to create a more transparent and equal tenure review process. With Nakanishi’s tenure, he
created one of the largest Asian American studies programs, which he may not have been
able to do if he had not sued UCLA. In my opinion, at the time, these universities only
included ethnic studies just to make themselves look better, not in an actual effort to
include minorities. I think this is similar to corporations selling pride merchandise or
changing their twitter icon to incorporate pride during pride month when their actions the
rest of the year hurt the LGBT community.
Question: Do other professors of color face similar experiences and how do Asian American
professors' experiences change if they also belong to other minorities?
Waking, she recalls how after the college she taught at filed a lawsuit against her, her
colleagues suddenly ignored her despite years of friendship. She compares herself to a
lab mouse, expendable and not valuable. In the prologue of Fight the Tower, many
Asian professors working in Asian American studies are not valued as much as
professors working in more Eurocentric studies, as seen in their tenure reviews. It is
infuriating that UCLA pretended that the lawsuit from Don Nakanishi never
happened and they never tried to exclude him. Although many professors of color
are still treated unequally, Asian Americans have contributed much to making academia
more equal, which should not be ignored. Rosalie Tung’s lawsuit required all universities
to create a more transparent and equal tenure review process. With Nakanishi’s tenure, he
created one of the largest Asian American studies programs, which he may not have been
able to do if he had not sued UCLA. In my opinion, at the time, these universities only
included ethnic studies just to make themselves look better, not in an actual effort to
include minorities. I think this is similar to corporations selling pride merchandise or
changing their twitter icon to incorporate pride during pride month when their actions the
rest of the year hurt the LGBT community.
Question: Do other professors of color face similar experiences and how do Asian American
professors' experiences change if they also belong to other minorities?
References
Hune, S. (2019). Taking Action: Asian American Faculty Against Injustices in the Academy. Unpublished manuscript.
W.P. (2019). Waking. Unpublished manuscript.
(n.d.) Corporations at Pride. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://pics.me.me/what-inspired-you-to-change-your-logo-to-the-rainbow-57493414.png
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