Qian Zhang: Week Three Readings for ASA 002

In the article “Opening the Box: An International Asian Woman Scholar’s Fight,” Akiko Takeyama, who is the author of the piece, introduces the issues, which international employees face in academic institutions. She explains that it is hard to change inequity in terms of gender and racial prejudices because the worker may often perceive them as his or her failure to develop professional skills. For example, when students misbehaved by plagiarizing papers, skipping classes, and faking documents, Akiko was confused because she demanded scholar obedience at the beginning of her course. However, her confidence was shaken even more, when she asked if her male colleagues had to struggle with such student’s behavior, and professors claimed that during their teaching, they had never faced this problem. What is more, female teachers had to do emotional work by talking and caring about their students as some of them experienced violence or harassment. When the professor was called to the chair’s office, she felt that something bad was going to happen. Her chair said that he organized a meeting where the members of the department voted for her tenure application.
“Precariously Positioned: Asian American Women Students’ Negotiating Power in Academia” is the article written by Shannon Deloso where she presented her experience of activism work for defending students and professors. First of all, the author encouraged all Asian American women to awaken. She meant that international students and professors are often offended by the authorities, which use their power to gain control over the members of the academic institution. Sometimes, the government called the police on the territory of the campuses in order to stop activists. However, Shannon considered that if all students became activists, they would have the power to change the situation because collectively, they perform better. She described how they were struggling for the College of Ethnic Studies, which was under the threat of closure. Most of the professors could have lost their jobs due to the elimination of the graduate program.