FighttheTower Format: TradePaperback

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.

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.