RAW: "Raunchy Asian Women" and resistance to queer studies in the Asian Pacific American Studies classroom.

What to tell your students in your Asian American literature/studies/ topics courses:

Racial, sexual and class formation are not discrete categories for analysis but come into existence only through one another.

We are never purely or merely racialized subjects. We are, as Norma Alarcon puts it, multiply interpellated.

Asian American scholars have not adequately considered the ways in which sexuality and, in particular, queerness has underpinned the formation of (multiply interpellated) present and past Asian American subjectivities.

--David Eng (1)

Currently I teach Asian Pacific American (APA) literature and culture at Arizona State University (ASU), a public, metropolitan university of over 50,000 students located in the Southwest. My students are largely from the Midwest; most are white and many are Mormon. Having taught Asian American Studies previously to mostly Asian immigrant students at San Francisco State, I had to completely revamp my pedagogy to meet this new student population. Thus ASU offers unique challenges related to the teaching of Asian Pacific American Studies--particularly my understanding of this discipline which emphasizes the inter-related, competing and complex intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality in Asian Pacific America. (2)

In "Pedagogical Considerations in Asian American Studies," Keith Osajima writes, "The successful development of Asian American studies 'east of California' and the institution of 'multicultural' or 'ethnic studies'. requirements in colleges further diversifies the student composition in our classes, giving rise to new teaching challenges." (271) In short, APAS teachers struggle with maintaining the political/intellectual/activist ideals of APAS while making programs viable in locales across the country where student enrollment will most likely not be APA. For example, in California, where I taught for over nine years, APA classes were filled with Asian American students who were invested in learning more about their history and heritage; they had a significant personal interest in the topic. At ASU, however, I teach Asian Pacific American studies to mostly white, middle-class, conservative students who were not expecting an APA curriculum, who have problems differentiating between "Asians" and "Asian Americans," and who are very reluctant to discuss race in general. When pressed on this issue, they respond, "I never see race or color," or chide me: "Focusing on racial differences only reinforces them." If it were only that simple.

As an ethnic studies professor teaching on a white majority campus, I've become familiar with the vocal and defensive white male student who feels picked on when I lecture about institutional racism and white privilege. He usually complains loudly about "having to deal with race all the time." "I mean we get it: racism is bad, it's stupid--can't we just move on? Is that all there is to Asian America? Isn't there anything more? I thought this was a class about art and culture." Over all I find that my white students alternately personalize any discussion of institutional racism as "white bashing" or invoke the personal to dismiss it. "White guilt" often shuts down students, too, as some fed alternately implicated in or blamed for racist acts perpetrated before they were born. Furthermore, because APAS seeks to center the voices and experiences of APA students, some Euroamerican students, accustomed to their world view being privileged, are overly aware of their sense of discomfort and decenteredness: in an anonymous course check-in, a number of students wrote, "It isn't fair that the Asian students have 'insider information.'" Or, they completely miss the point of APAS altogether; for example, a white female student recently suggested to me that the best way to improve my class would be to "focus more on how whites have not been racist and have helped Asian Americans." As an Asian American pedagogue I am really torn; I need to deal with this student angst because ! want all students to be in a learning space and I need to worry about my teaching evaluations (I know that many studies show how women and ethnic minorities get the worst teaching evaluations--but do my department chair and dean?). At the same time, though, I am saddened that my Asian American students have to listen to these comments, and resent the fact that I have to spend so much of my time in the classroom managing white guilt and resistance. The Asian American students at ASU are very aware of their minority status and while a few are vocal about claiming the class as their own, just as many are silent or resigned and seethe silently; most come to me individually to discuss their dismay and anger that their white classmates are resistant to talking about white privilege and racism, and can't understand that APAS is a space for Asian Americans to learn about their own history and to voice their concerns and experiences. (3)

Clearly, race is a difficult issue for many of my students. However, I find it very interesting that when I ask my classes to analyze race and gender/sexuality simultaneously, across the board I find that my students, both APA and non-APA, are most comfortable dealing with race in isolation. Students feel that racial oppression is the most important issue societally, and that attention to gender/sexuality "competes" too much with race issues. Furthermore, students seem to grasp the concept of race as social construct, but cannot do the same for gender/sexuality. It's the oppression derby: students contend that homophobia isn't a real issue because it's understood to be a "lifestyle choice," whereas "race cannot be hidden" (this is a particularly worrisome stance adopted by heterosexual students of color). Osajima aptly describes their resistance in this way:

   ... teachers encounter resistance to
   learning when they want to develop
   an understanding of oppression
   and a commitment to social justice
   among students whose class, gender,
   ethnic or sexual orientation
   places them in positions of privilege.... Similar
   dynamics arise
   when ... straights are presented
   with material on homosexuality
   and must confront their homophobia.
   (Osajima 273)

To encourage my students to push through their discomfort and initial resistances, I emphasize the themes of coalition and compassion in the study of APA cultures, and work hard to help all of my students see themselves as allies for the APA community because these are integral goals of APAS itself. As Osajima writes, Asian American studies classes help students "become critically conscious of the multidimensional dynamics of oppression" (279).

However, teaching "diversity" and advocating coalition in a homogeneous, conservative location such as ASU has translated into my own race/gender/sexuality becoming an issue. I literally embody "diversity" itself, and often students' anxiety with these issues is projected on to me as a person. Moreover, my very race and gender, combined with my position in an ethnic studies program, can sometimes compromise my own authority in the classroom: as a woman of color, I'm not a "real professor" because I don't teach a "real" discipline. Also, I'm perceived to be overly "biased"; clearly I'm a feminist, and my inclusion of queer art/culture thus marks me as queer by association (because students assume that only queer APA people are interested in queer APA arts). AS such, my very presence in the classroom and my courses themselves might be construed as attacking, challenging the mainstream status quo. Indeed, because the Phoenix area has a large Mormon population whom ASU serves, the issue of conservative Christian values regarding homosexuality became much more of an issue than I could ever have expected or anticipated in my classroom.

Below I present a case study of my grappling with student resistance to studying queer Asian Pacific America. I analyze how one white male student, who felt his white heterosexual privilege challenged and decentered in my classroom, attempted to discipline me personally rather than question the course assignments/topics themselves, and I reflect upon how this experience impacted my pedagogy and my commitment to APAS.

MY CASE STUDY

   Ethnic pain is a powerful thing. To
   hold in mind past afflictions creates
   affinity amongst those who identify
   with the minority but encounters
   resistance amongst those who
   identify with the party wielding
   power.... any successful pedagogy
   in relation to the presentation of
   ethnic pain east of California must
   take into consideration not only
   the veracity of the subject matter
   but the feeling of the constituency;
   not only how to sustain this pursuit
   for historical fact and justice
   but how not to alienate middleclass
   Caucasian students who
   might feel that they are the prey.
   (246-7) [my emphasis]

--Sheng Mei Ma

I've taught "Aspects of Asian American Culture" over 20 times at three different universities. This one semester course focuses on defining and exploring the parameters of the Asian Pacific American aesthetic as expressed in a diverse selection of cultural forms: theater, fine art, literature, music, dance, and film. We read theoretical texts on the construction of Asian American culture and aesthetics by Fred Ho, David Mura, Lisa Lowe, and Augie Tam; act out scenes from David Hwang's M. Butterfly, Jeannie Barroga's Walls, and Wakako Yamauchi's And the Soul Shall Dance; critique poetry by Marilyn Chin, Albert Saijo, and the Bay Area Pilipino American Writers (BAYPAW) and short stories by R. Zamora Linmark, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Chitra Divakaruni, Lisa Park, Peter Bacho, and Nora Okja Keller; analyze films like Arthur Dong's documentary about the first all-Asian American nightclub, The Forbidden City; Asian Women United's Slaying the Dragon, a documentary exploring the representation of Asian/American women in Hollywood film; Kelly Loves Tony and A.k.a Don Bonus, gritty video diaries by Southeast Asian American youth; Michael Cho's Another America, a documentary about Black/Korean collaboration and conflict; Nathan Adolfson's moving film about Korean adoptees and identity issues, Passing Through; and Helen Lees experimental film about female body image, Sally's Beauty Spot. Guest lecturers/performers included representatives from The Taiko Project, Asian American Dance Performances, and The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors (a skit comedy troupe) as well as an Asian fusion guitarist-composer, Matthew Grasso, who presented an in-class concert. Every class has explored aspects of APA queer art and culture in various forms. One required text is Diana Son's RAW: Raunchy Asian Women. This short, very explicit play describes the depths of the heartfelt desires of four Asian American women (three are straight; one is a lesbian) for love, sex, and acceptance. Son employs a powerful, confrontational tone throughout to undo/challenge the stereotypes of Asian/American women as either submissive, silent, docile lotus blossoms or erotic sex kittens, and to center the voices and experiences of real APA women. I've taught this play for two years at ASU, and while my students initially express surprise and discomfort with the explicit language (as they are required to present scenes from the play as readers' theater in class), they us, ally designate this play as the most memorable and challenging example of A.PA art in the course. However in Fall 2001, prior to my class's first session of readers' theater, I received a copy of the following e-mail sent to my dean, associate dean, and dean's assistant:

Original Message

From: [e-mail]

Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 4:32 PM

To: [The Dean, Associate Dean and Assistant to the Dean]

Subject: URGENT: class monitoring required

Hello Professor,

   I am student taking a class on
   Asian Pacific American Arts and
   Culture. I am requesting an immediate
   monitoring of APA 310
   taught by Dr. Melinda De Jesus.
   [sic] The class in question has
   some subject matter that I feel is
   quite inappropriate for our university.
   The types [of] "arts and culture"
   that are being taught to us
   have a very decidedly pro-feminist
   and pro-gay/pro-lesbian content,
   with very obscene language. Now I
   am not some bigot who is looking
   to have material I disapprove of
   removed from the university, however
   the material our instructor is
   providing has a very political agenda,
   which I feel is inappropriate. I
   am requesting that someone from
   your department (preferably a
   higher up) comes to observe our
   class on Monday 09/10/01 at
   1:40PM in [my classroom]. It is
   very important to me and I feel
   others in the class as well that
   some person from the hierarchy
   from the College of Public
   Programs comes and observes the
   class. The problem is that the class
   is being forced to act out Asian
   Pacific American plays with some
   very "Raunchy" material. She
   could have easily picked some
   plays that are not nearly as offensive
   as she did, but this was not the
   case, I believe based on her personal
   politics. She is forcing us to act
   out these plays, and to many in
   our community, they would be
   considered obscene. I believe she
   would either give a degradation
   [sic] of grade to a student who disagrees
   with her views, or would be
   almost "forced to resign" from her
   course. [sic] I feel it is your duty to
   respond to this e-mail with a presence
   in our class on Monday. I
   really want to keep my anonymity.
   It will damage my reputation in
   class as well as in my personal life
   if it comes out that I wrote this letter.
   Please respect my privacy but
   just come view our class Monday
   at 1:40. Thank you for your time.

--Anonymous

I was stunned. As this was my web-based class, "Anonymous" wasn't anonymous to me at all: I knew all my students' e-mail addresses and URL's and now I would have to pretend that I didn't know the identity of the letter writing student. I received the e-mail from my dean about an hour before my next class meeting, and even though I was angry and upset, I decided to begin class by telling my students about the e-mail I had just been forwarded, and I read them part of my dean's response. I shared with my class that it upset and saddened me that students did not feel they could approach me about issues with the required readings as I had worked with them in small groups and no one said anything, and I invited them again to meet with me during my office hours. I reiterated to them that I had chosen plays by Diana Son, Jeannie Barroga, David Hwang, and Wakako Yamauchi because they were well received critically, were performed on college campuses, and were regarded as innovative examples of Asian American theatre. Most of the class looked perplexed and concerned, and a few spoke up saying that they were not upset about the choice and content of the plays we'd be performing. So class continued, but Chymicalburn never once approached me to discuss his concerns, and his presence in the classroom that semester made me feel very serf-conscious. A few weeks later that same semester, I was given a copy of a letter mitten by Chymicalburn's mother about the same issues. Dissatisfied with my Dean's response (my program and I are in the College of Public Programs), Mrs. Chymicalburn wrote a letter to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and sent copies to the Chair of the Arizona Board of Regents, Arizona Governor Jane Hull, ASU President Lattie Coor, and The Arizona Republic (the local newspaper), in which she railed about my "inappropriate" course content and also threatened to withhold donations to ASU:

   There is not a chance I will ever
   donate to the school. I am disgusted
   and revolted by this situation.
   My son told me that he is enrolled
   in a course called "Asian Studies"
   [sic] taught by a person [!] named
   Melinda de Jesus, who openly
   advocates to her students about
   her sexual preference (lesbian) and
   is having the class act out "plays"
   advocating lesbianism. She refers
   to her class as a class on "Queer
   Studies." She is open about her
   dislike of males, and has not the
   focus in her class about learning
   Asian works in general, but Asian
   sexuality/lesbian issues. He asked
   someone from the department to
   visit the class, but was told that no
   one would visit because he would
   not disclose his name, fearing, of
   course reprisal in terms of grades.
   Do you not monitor class content
   and teaching at the school? Does
   anything go? Can anyone be hired
   to teach anything they want with
   no restrictions? If so, I am lodging
   a formal complaint to you about
   this method of education. Schools
   need to adhere to moral standards,
   community values, and the ethics
   of education ... This is not education
   but exploitation and sensationalism.
   I want it to stop.

Clearly, for Chymicalburn and his mother, my incorporating feminist and queer-friendly aspects in my course automatically branded me a man-hating lesbian who foists her sexual preference upon hapless, powerless students. They put much effort into trying to discipline my presumably immoral sexual preferences, and my questionable course rationale. Because I had "normalized" what would/should never be "normal," they needed to reassert their world view and comfort level in my teaching space. Moreover, Chymicalburn had no problem in demanding the imposition of his white male heterosexist vision of "appropriate" APA arts and cultures onto my class, which told me a lot about his expectations of his own authority and privilege. But would Chymicalburn have tried the same tactics with a white male professor? Was there something about my being an Asian American feminist, possibly a lesbian, that emboldened this student and his mother to so vigorously resist my class and to try to discipline me? Chymicalburn could have dropped my class, but obviously wanted to stay for the fight, for he needed to reestablish his world view in my classroom--a non-threatening, palatable APAS for a straight, non-feminist, non APA audience. I found this student's (and his mother's) actions to be very disrespectful; moreover, as an untenured junior faculty member, I was angry and more than a little worried about how the entire incident would play out for me professionally. (4)

One "out" was available to me, as a senior colleague noted: I could "come out" as a straight woman and thus deflect some of the accusations of queer bias in the classroom--"something real queers can't do," he said pointedly. But to me that was beside the point: did Mrs. Chymicalburn and her son intend to intimidate, shame, and "out" me to my superiors and thus rid the university of my "biased" queer pedagogy? My own sexuality had nothing to do with the inclusion of queer APA cultures in my classes--and I was very careful never to make any comments pertaining to my sexual orientation for this same reason. Moreover, I rejected the simplistic idea that only queer faculty would use queer texts in their curriculum.

Another colleague, after hearing about this teaching dilemma, asked me how I would "make a safe space for that resistant Mormon student." I body and immediately responded that I would never want any student in my classroom to feel entitled and safe in his racist, homophobic, disrespectful bubble. Later, I wondered if my stance was wrong: as a teacher shouldn't I "meet the students where they are?" Or was I wasting my time--was it even possible to reach students so close-minded and self-righteous? After much soul-searching, I decided that because doing Asian Pacific American Studies meant so very much to me, I had to refuse to compromise my personal and intellectual, political investment in this discipline by watering it down to make it more palatable for naive, threatened white students, and/or homophobic students of any race. Every course I teach I begin by telling my students about the genesis of Asian American Studies in the Third World Student Strikes of 1968, and how Asian American college students put their lives and educations on the line to demand a curriculum that included their history and perspectives. I also tell my students that I teach to honor the memory of the brave undergraduates at the University of Vermont (where I did my postdoc) who went on a hunger strike for ethnic studies in 1996. (5) In sum, the activist basis of my discipline empowers me to maintain a strong stand for social justice in my own classroom, and to demand a respect for the same from all of my students.

I believe the Buddhist adage that "when the student is ready the teacher appears." Chymicalburn and his mother needed me to rock their worlds, and I needed their fear and anger to refuel my dedication to a truly liberatory Asian Pacific American Studies. That semester I struggled to ignore Chymicalburn's passive-aggressive protests to focus on the rest of my students, who were over all much more open-minded. In post-class interviews and anonymous evaluations they noted that the queer content of my class was appropriate to college level work: "It's real life--and college is where we should be talking about this stuff." And APA students reported they were not shocked but surprised by its inclusion in the course, for it offered new ways of thinking about the variety of issues APA communities face today, issues that we often are unable to address.

CONCLUSIONS

   The academy is not paradise. But
   learning is a place where paradise
   can be created. The classroom,
   with all its limitations, remains a
   location of possibility. In that field
   of possibility we have the opportunity
   to labor for freedom, to
   demand of ourselves and our comrades,
   an openness of mind and
   heart that allows us to face reality
   even as we collectively imagine
   ways to move beyond boundaries,
   to transgress. This is education as
   the practice of freedom. (207)

--bell hooks

I have argued elsewhere that the investment by Asian Pacific American Studies in heteronormative, homophobic discourse only hurts us as a community, and that we need to employ more sophisticated analyses about the interconnections of race, gender, class, and sexuality in our research and teaching. (6) However, I'm learning that it's one thing to research and write about these issues; it's another to teach them at a school like ASU. The intense resistance I experienced in doing queer studies at ASU (albeit from one student) would make anyone wary of the consequences of including "controversial" texts in her teaching. Jettisoning all feminist/queer texts or films from my class would have been very easy--but it would have severely compromised my political and intellectual investments in this discipline. Luckily I had strong support from my college administration and colleagues and was not asked to do so--and this level of support is crucial to the integrity of all APAS programs. However, had I been employed at a different institution which embraces the more corporate-based model of university management much more prevalent today, my dean could have easily regarded Chymicalburn and his mother as "customers" dissatisfied with my "product" and forced me to acquiesce to their demands to remove the "offensive" content from my class. This reality has serious repercussions for all educators at all levels.

Still, all APAS teachers face these same issues on some level; it's the nature of our discipline's very fraught relationship to the academy. Some days it's exhilarating, exhausting, scary, funny, humbling, and gratifying all at the same time. I do know that I'm fortunate to be paid to read, teach, and write about the issues I care about most, and am very grateful for the opportunity to integrate my political/spiritual commitments fully into my lifework; moreover, I'm thankful for the opportunity to reach one student--who can then go on to reach her family, friends, and coworkers. That is my vision of the transformative nature of education: each student I teach leaves my classroom more knowledgeable about APA history and struggles, and has made connections to classmates and to communities she might not have known to exist. In short, my students become part of a struggle and a liberation movement that they cannot turn away from now--and that gives me hope.... Which leads me to one final anecdote about this entire experience.

Interestingly, I did have the opportunity to record an interview with Chymicalburn after the course ended, ostensibly to find out about student learning through web authoring. On tape he noted that initially the queer studies course content was "so out there ... so open ..." it seemed "almost attacking" to straight, Christian people like himself. However, he then related that my comments prefacing the final independent video we viewed for the class, Jennifer Phang's Love, Ltd. (a farcical "dramedy" about the silencing of queerness in Asian American families), really resonated with him. He recalled that I suggested that students who were uncomfortable about homosexual topics might think about the film this way: "Twenty-seven minutes of uncomfortability for you versus a lifetime of uncomfortability" for Asian Americans who can't come out to their own families. While he never apologized nor identified himself to me, nor did he rescind his or his mother's complaints to my dean and upper administration, by the course's end Chymicalburn understood why I needed to emphasize the cultural and sexual diversity of Asian Pacific America. And if he could grasp this, I believe most students can.

WORKS CITED

Ashley, Judy. "History of Racism at the University of Vermont" May 2001. http://www.uvm.edu/%7Eculture/uv m/uvmoverview.html 7 December 2002.

de Jesus, Melinda L. "'A walkin' 'fo de (Rice) Kake: A Filipina American Feminist's Adventures in Academia or, A Pinay's Progress." Sisters Uprising: Sisters of Color International (SOCI) On-line Journal. 1:1 (November, 2000) http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~women-std/SOCI/cakewalk.html

de Jesus, Melinda L. "Rereading History; Rewriting Desire: Tracing Queerness in Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart and Bienvenido Santos' Scent of Apples." The Journal of Asian American Studies 5:2 (June, 2002), 91-111.

de Jesus, Melinda L. "Transforming Pedagogy: Integrating New Media Technologies and Asian American Studies, " Works and Days: Special Issue on Teaching and Technology, 16:1-2 (1998-1999), 291-308.

Eng, David. "Queer/Asian American/Canons." In Teaching Asian American Studies: Diversity and the Problem of Community. Ed. Lane Hirabayashi. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998. 13-33

hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Ma, Sheng Mei. "The Politics of Teaching Asian American Literature amidst Middle-class, Caucasian Students 'East of California.'" In Teaching Asian American Studies: Diversity and the Problem of Community. Ed. Lane Hirabayashi. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998. 243-247.

Nakashima, S. Kimi. "Rantage---APA Style." 10 October 2002. http://ryochan.diaryland.com/02101 0_2.html 5 December 2002.

Osajima, Keith. "Pedagogical Considerations in Asian American Studies." The Journal of Asian American Studies 1:3 (October 1998), 269-292.

NOTES

(1) Eng 18.

(2) Since its inception during the Third World Student Strike at San Francisco State College (now University) in 1968, the discipline of Asian American Studies has continued to struggle to reconcile the issues of diversity and community as well its sometimes dueling activist and intellectual impulses. Moreover, we strive to move beyond our androcentric and homophobic beginnings, and our historical privileging of East Asian and West-coast perspectives to include the voices of Asian American women, Southeast Asian Americans, South Asian Americans, Filipino Americans, Pacific Islanders, mixed-race people, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. See the following for more information: Sharon Lim-Hing's The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women (Sister Vision Press, 1994), David Eng and Alice Horn's Q&A: Queer in Asian America (Temple UP, 1998), Jennifer Ting's "The Power of Sexuality," The Journal of Asian American Studies, 1:1 (1998), 65-82, and Fred Ho et al's Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America (Big Red Media, 2000).

(3) Kimi Nakashima, a student in a recent APA 310 class, posted the following message to her on-line diary in response to a class period where two white male students dominated the class discussion by expressing their irritation with having to talk about racism. While Kimi did speak up in class about this issue, I appreciated that she responded more fully in her diary and then linked her diary entry to her course website so her classmates could read her thoughts and respond to them:

   You'd think that people who register
   for a class like APA310 would
   be open minded and ready for
   anything ... Evidently though, I
   was wrong. Most of them are not
   ready for it at all. In a somewhat
   narrow minded way they expected
   things to be a certain way and
   when they weren't they whined
   and bitched about it.

   Now don't get me wrong. I don't
   think that the people in my class
   are racist and I don't think that
   they are not nice people. And I can
   understand that they're tired of
   hearing about racism. Hell, I'm
   tired of talking about it. But if we
   stop talking about it, then when
   are things going to change? Things
   don't change when people begin to
   ignore them. Problems don't solve
   themselves. So until racism is gone
   forever (like that'll EVER happen)
   you're just going to have to deal
   with having to hear about it. You
   have to realize that not everyone is
   enlightened and we can't stop until
   they are.

   And in response to those who
   asked if there is anything positive
   about being Asian Pacific
   American, I have this to say to
   you. I am proud of my heritage
   and where I came from. I am
   happy to be Asian Pacific
   American and I wouldn't change it
   if I could. But I didn't always feel
   like this. It wasn't always so easy to
   feel pride in myself and in my ethnicity.
   All the pride I feel is
   wrapped up with the negative
   things that have happened to me.
   If nothing negative had ever happened
   to me, then how would I
   know what happiness is? You can't
   have the positive without the negative
   and the same is true in reverse.
   The positive is there, you just have
   to open your eyes to see it.

(4) To their credit, my program director and dean backed me all the way, never once questioning my pedagogy and politics. Their written response to Mrs. Chymicalburn affirmed my intellectual and pedagogical expertise; furthermore, the dean reassured me that this incident would have no affect on evaluations of my performance as an instructor.

(5) Judy Ashley's website details the history of the University of Vermont ALANA (Asian, Latino, African and Native American) students' struggle; my article, "'A walkin' 'fo de (Rice) Kake: A Filipina American Feminist's Adventures in Academia or, A Pinay's Progress," describes my experience as a postdoc at UVM.

(6) See "Rereading History/Rewriting Desire: Tracing Queerness in Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart and Bienvenido Santos' Scent of Apples" and "'A walkin' 'fo de (Rice) Kake: A Filipina American Feminist's Adventures in Academia or, A Pinay's Progress."