Matthew Ko ASA 2 A01 week 3

Both the poem, “Waking,” written by W.P and the book, “The time to fight is now,” written by Professor Valverde stood out to me because it revealed to me the struggles Asian American women faces every day as teachers or professors. Prior to reading these texts, I was clueless that Asian American educators are capable of being discriminated against because I thought they were always respected by colleagues since they have a high degree of education. Not only that, the level in which Asian American educators are discriminated horrified me as the poem compared how they are treated to a lab mouse being “flung against a wall” where the “spine, brain and heart splashes like asteroids” (2020 W.P.). Although none of the Asian American educators are physically harmed in any way, their emotional pain from daily racism is perhaps just as bad as the physical pain of a lab mouse. Professor Valverde goes on to elaborate in her book on ways in how Asian American educators are mistreated by stating how universities treat Asian American women in academia as one that “will simply show up and shut up” (2020 Valverde). She goes on to conclude and states, “Consequently, because silent complicity is expected, power holders will punish and oppress Asian American women severely when they question or critique the system” (2020 Valverde). This greatly surprised me because I have always had teachers and professors throughout high school and first year of college who were Asian American, and they seemed stress free and always joyful. In fact, they were one of the nicest teachers who constantly jokes around with students and were students’ favorites. It saddens me how I never took the time to have a deep conversation with them to see how they are doing each and every day. Just simple questions like, “How is your day?” or “How is school treating you?” would have allowed me to see what was really going on behind the scenes.

One question that I have is how are educators of other race, such as African American or Latino, treated in comparison with Asian American educators? Are they treated a lot worse, or slightly better?

References:

Cox, E. (2017). Lefayete College Professor Seo-Hyun Park discussed the current security challenges in East Asia [photograph] Retrieved from https://www.lafayettestudentnews.com/blog/2017/11/10/jones-lecture-discusses-value-of-history-in-modern-east-asia/

Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde and Wei Ming Dariotis. “Introduction. “The Time to Fight Is Now”: Asian American Women, Academia’s Socially Engineered “Privileged Oppressed,” Go Rogue.”

W.P. b (2017) "Waking."