Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars’ Resistance and Renewal in the Academy

Product Description

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.

Review

”
Fight the Tower is engaging. Readers will immerse themselves in the lives of these authors, will readily find their own lives in these courageous narratives, and will find nurturing and applicable guidance.”
— Yolanda Flores Niemann ―
co-editor of Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia

“A searing indictment of the oppressive working conditions encountered by Asian American women faculty and graduate students, and an inspiring chronicle of the struggles for liberation. This insightful volume should be read by everyone—including aspiring academics, junior and senior faculty, and university leaders.”
— Carmen Gonzalez ―
co-editor of Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia

 
 
―
Chronicle of Higher Education

“Recommended.”
―
Choice

”
Fight the Tower explicitly challenges readers to action from the opening Women of Color in Academia Manifesto to the conclusion: turn research into action and join the movement to build a new academy of liberatory education that models and “fosters the kind of respect and empathy upon which social justice is built.”
―
International Examiner

About the Author

Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde is an associate professor of Asian American studies and the founding director of the New Viet Nam Studies Initiative at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of
Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community, Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora and co-founder of the social justice movement, Fight the Tower.

Wei Ming Dariotis is a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University. She is co-editor of
War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art and co-author of the definition of critical mixed race studies.