Asian American women scholars experience shockingly low rates of tenure and promotion because of the particular ways they are marginalized by the intersectionalities of race and gender in academia. Although Asian American studies critics have long since debunked the model minority myth that constructs Asian Americans as the ideal academic subject, university administrators still treat Asian American women in academia as though they will simply show up and shut up. Consequently, because silent complicity is expected, power holders will punish and oppress Asian American women severely when they question or critique the system.
However, change is in the air. Fight the Tower is a continuation of the Fight the Tower movement, which supports women standing up for their rights to claim their earned place in academia and to work for positive change for all within academic institutions. The essays provide powerful portraits, reflections, and analyses of a population often rendered invisible by the lies that sustain intersectional injustices in order to operate an oppressive system.
Contents
Prologue: Taking Action: Asian American Faculty Against Injustices in the Academy
Shirley Hune
Section I: “Fear is the Path to the Dark Side”: Introducing The Fight
Waking
WP
Introduction: “The Time to Fight is Now”: Asian American Women, Academia’s Socially Engineered “Privileged Oppressed,” Go Rogue
Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde and Wei Ming Dariotis
Section 2: “That’s No Moon!”: Attack of the Institution
Who Killed Soek-Fang Sim?
WP
Chapter 1: Unpacking the Master’s Plan: Asian American Women Resisting the Language of Academic Imperialism
Eliza Noh
Chapter 2: Investigating Discrimination: Injustice Against Women of Color in the Academy
Jane Junn and Mai’a K. Davis Cross
Chapter 3: Killing Machine: Exposing the Health Threats to Asian American Women Scholars in Academia
Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde, Cara Maffini Pham, Melody Yee, and Jing Mai
Section 3: “You Are Unwise to Lower Your Defenses”: The Phantom Menace
The Cost of Speaking
WP
Chapter 4: Precariously Positioned: Asian American Women Students Negotiating Power in Academia
Shannon Deloso
Chapter 5: Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of and By Hmong Americans
Kaozong N. Mouavangsou
Chapter 6: An Offering: Healing the Wounds and Ruptures of Graduate School
Cindy Nhi Huynh
Chapter 7: Opening the Box: An International Asian Woman Scholar’s Fight
Akiko Takeyama
Chapter 8: How to Leave Academia
Rani Neutill
Section 4: “Do. Or Do Not. There is No Try”: Radical Love as Pedagogy and Practice
She Shall Not Be Moved
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Chapter 9: Attack on the Spirit by the “Rational World” (and Spiritual Recovery from It)
Brett J. Esaki
Chapter 10: Care Work: The Invisible Labor of Asian American Women in Academia
Wei Ming Dariotis and Grace J. Yoo
Chapter 11: Pain + Love = Growth: The Labor of Pinayist Pedagogical Praxis
Melissa-Ann Nievera-Lozano
Chapter 12: Mothering is Liberation: Giving Birth to Alagaan Pedagogy (Pedagogy of Care)
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales
Chapter 13: Resistance is Not Futile: From #adjuncthustle to Hell Yeah!
Genevieve Erin O’Brien
Chapter 14: Academic Symbiosis: A Manifesto on Tenure and Promotion in Asian American Studies
Wei Ming Dariotis
Section 5: The Academic Awakens: “We Are One with the Force and the Force is One with Us”
Conclusion: Academics Awaken: Power, Resistance, and Being Woke
Wei Ming Dariotis and Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde
My Kintsuki
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Epilogue: Upward and Onward: Asian American Women’s Legal Resistance
Robyn Rodriguez
Notes on Contributors
Index
