Jason Indarto - Week 4 - SS1

This week’s reading offers solutions for Asian American women to reinforce themselves against discrimination in the workplace. In Wang Pang’s poem “She will not be moved” she further elaborates her situation after she returned back to her college where she is teaching after the pre-settlement. She talks about how everything was much worse and she noticed that she was getting picked on and discriminated daily. She mentioned how she wanted to “end it all” (W.P. 2019) and talked about how she discussed it with her chair and was threatened to be put on psychiatric ward. However, the reason she continues in teaching is because she finds relief and recovers from the discrimination by “teaching and watching my students grow as warriors… poetry was the medicine soothing wounds from invisible knives” (W.P. 2019). Additionally, In Brett J. Esaki’s reading, “Attack on the Spirit by the “Rational World” (and Spiritual Recovery from it),” he argues about how “rationality was seen as oppressive… whereas spirit and spirituality freed one from the binds of rationality” (Esaki 2019). He suggests that finding other means that provide self-care, more specifically finding one’s spirituality, can lead to recovery. Sustaining the damage done emotionally and physically can be a heavy toll on a person. As mentioned by W.P, she overweighs the emotional and physical abuse in her workplace by her fellow colleagues by teaching her students and writing poetry. However, sometimes the abuse can be destructive to an individual that she “tried to sneak in and out of my office in the early mornings and late evenings, when no one was around, to avoid daily insults” (W.P. 2019). Because of this, Esaki offers a solution to find spirituality which is outside the rational world for relief, healing, and solidarity.

In my opinion, finding methods to distract oneself from abuse in the rational world is the first step into recovery. Sometimes, the real world can get tough and a little intimidating but once you find something that can separate you from the negatives of the world, you will become a stronger person. Which brings me to my question: What is the next step after you heal? Do you simply live with the discrimination or do something else?

Esaki, B. (2019) Attack on the Spirit by the "Rational World" (and Spiritual Recovery from It)

W.P. (2019) She Shall Not Be Moved: A "Golden Shovel" Sonnet after Gwendolyn Brooks's "You did not know you were Afrika"

Wang, P. (n.d.). She Shall Not Be Moved. Retrieved July 12, 2019, from https://canvas.ucdavis.edu/courses/392140/files/folder/Weekly Readings/Week4?preview=6353500

Ocean Breeze Recovery. Spirituality and recovery. March 2016. Retrieved July 14th 2019. Accessed from https://oceanbreezerecovery.org/blog/spirituality-and-recovery/