Legitimately Occupying Peripheral “Asian” and “American” Spaces: A Dialogue Between Two Language-Teaching Professionals

• In Event: Understanding Lived Raciolinguistic Realities Through Autoethnographies of Education Scholars

Abstract

Scholars in Asian American Studies have articulated the benefits and challenges of a pan-Asian label. On one hand, it builds coalitions across minoritized communities; on the other, it fails to capture the diverse and nuanced experiences that many Asian/Asian Americans have. In this paper, we reflect on this pan-ethnic label and how our research and teaching are situated within hegemonic racial and linguistic discourses that create unique challenges for Asian/Asian American scholars. We drew on raciolinguistic research as the theoretical framework and critical co-constructed autoethnography (Cann & DeMeulenaere, 2012, 2020; Warren-Gordon & Jackson-Brown, 2022) as a methodology. In particular, we draw on others who view friendship as a method of inquiry with the potential to transform space and time via counter-storytelling in challenging dominant power structures ( Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Toyosaki & Pensoneau-Conway, 2013). Our data included our dialogues on the phone, by email, and on a shared Google document in the form of a narrative. These narratives were analyzed through a raciolinguistic lens with the goal of supporting each other, as the value of using co-constructed autoethnography lies in articulating voices of those who have traditionally been underrepresented in academia (Warren-Gordon & Jackson-Brown, 2022). Our co-constructed autoethnography showed key moments in our academic and personal lives that forefront the complex ways race and language have mediated our lived experiences. These include us spending (uncompensated) emotional labor unpacking microaggressions that we experienced in our workplaces, similar to what Curran (2021) calls as extralinguistic labor, where teachers of color have to constantly explain their racialized selves while concomitantly teaching English. Our narratives are our counter-stories of survival, resistance, and challenging of dominant U.S. discourses that view Asian Americans as forever foreigners. As two Asian/Asian American female associate professors, who currently only represent 6% of all associate professors in academe (NCES, 2020), we have had experiences of being rendered nameless, not American enough, or not speaking good enough English. However, since we also occupy a certain socioeconomic and professional status, we are sometimes viewed as almost“honorary Whites” (Shiao, 2017; Tuan, 1999), which puts us in a position of being both comfortable and afflicted, simultaneously experiencing both privilege and marginalization. Since marginalization is often situated within a larger context in which race, language, gender, ability, and class intersect with each other, it requires allyship and time to combat the structural and personal mechanisms that (re)produce the marginalization. Our co-constructed narratives show that while it’s important to not be satisfied with the status quo, it’s also necessary to be gentle with our well-being, especially when working in institutions where the voices of faculty of color are still underrepresented.

Authors

• Ming-Hsuan Wu, Adelphi University

• Genevieve Leung, University of San Francisco