This is an interesting video viral on the social media regarding teaching self-value, self-worth, and self-respect. After having watched the video, I shared the following casual writing (non-academic style).
This video reminded me of two years ago, one of my colleagues, who was born and raised in Africa, educated in Europe. He (Dr. E) earned a business and leadership Ph.D. degree, having taught at a couple of universities. Due to family relocation, he was the first male African ever hired by this almost pure while college. He is a knowledgeable and confident scholar.
I am from Taipei, Taiwan and earned a first master's degree in Taipei (NTU) with 12 years' working experience in education, military/Congress, and news media, the first Asian hired as a full-time faculty through a National search, instead of internal selection/promotion (regarding through the national search or internal hiring/promotion, depending on conditions with different strength and weakness. Another article will direct to this issue), by this College 16 years ago. It happened after I had completed two other masters' and worked on a Ph.D. program. Through a failed interview and a successful one (an interesting story attached to these two interviews within half of a year can be shared. Stay tuned for the next articles :)!) I got this job which was intended to be a career with a specific "calling," based on my own life experience.
I have to take it as a "great privilege" for being hired, and work it out with all my heart, soul, and enthusiasm, because, I know there were many reasons that I might have been easily dismissed this opportunity. Through those two "interesting" interviews, you started re-thinking this hard-earned concept of "luck" that could ever happen to you. I cannot help but reaffirm Max Weber's idea of "Life Chances".
A colleague kindly told me one day after I was hired, " Crystal, it was nice of this school to hire you, because you are such an 'asset' to the institution." I thanked her and took it as a friendly and encouraging compliment, instead of questioning, "What asset?" Wasn't everyone hired with qualification and quality through a National search or by specific assets? It reminded me of a similar situation at the previous university (97% homogeneity in terms of race in students and faculty bodies) when I was an adjunct instructor. A faculty sitting in next conference table chatted with other two colleagues, jokingly talking about me that I accidentally overheard, " Crystal was such a 'great card' to be played with." "What card?" I mulled again. My skin color, my gender, age, religion, physicality, nationality...and the rest of my bio-genetic attributes, plus 12 years' working achievements at the government, education/ military, journalism in Taiwan, and 5 years teaching at universities in the US. with an outstanding teaching award and 3 master degrees and an on-going Ph.D. of 4 majors and 5 minors, surely, I interpreted these events in a positive way, whether related to opinions, or an acknowledgement of the fast-changing America.
Isn't it a silly question to ask, "Is there any White type of 'affirmative action' for the Yellow race," except some Asian groups involving with the US wars in the past? Quite the contrary, more "reverse" affirmative (I shall not use this term as a diversity studies educator) actions are imposed on people with this type of dubious and intriguing skin color. The trendy stereotypes (thinking of the under tone of this all-Asian-cast movie: Crazy Rich Asians, released recently) deem the Asians, getting richer and more menacing (plus the rising China). They are ascending to the privileged group in the US. class strata. The anxiety of some elite universities in fear of the overachieving Asian students, meticulously changed the admissions policy to reduce the highly competitive and qualified applicants to enter into their college. Acronyms were created to laugh such tension off as "MIT" - Made in Taiwan, not Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and UCLA stands for "United Caucasians Lost among Asians." Education being one important subject matter, and occupation, the other, both are important factors impacting on social mobility. In the hiring practice, strands of research also mirror the elite colleges' admission policy on Asian prospective students, except the entrance door being narrower, and the gate-keeper is more vigilantly watching over the job-seekers of this kind.
Furthermore, the Yellow, are not like African Americans and Native Americans who entangled with a a good chunk of tragedies in the US. history, but own their share of most sad, "insignificant" stories in each ethnic group since the early time (such as the recruited Chinese coolies to cheapen prices of the labor market, to be the strange, obedient, quiet, dispensable, yet intrepid labor force for the cross continental railways, and the rest of other Asian groups' stories buried in the US. history.) Some reparation policies through the most oppressed groups' long-term fighting, are still provoking many controversies. Like the elephant in the room, isn't the bottom line about what people's contributions are in enhancing unity and functions of society, and how to define who is "worthy, more worthy, less worthy, or unworthy," not merely, based on coming to America in the right time and with right color, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, as well as the rest "right" diverse conditions in the US. under the "ideal equal protection" of Constitution, particularly, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments?
Browsing through the US. history (depending on who wrote it under what political ideologies), most of the immigration processes, from the very first wave of settler-immigrants landing on Jamestown on May 13, 1607 to the most recent one, undeniably, all encounter, endure, overcome various types of physical, mental, and socio-economic-psychological challenges. There are vast terrains of wilderness to be cleared up in EACH Wave of immigration with different types of prices to pay, and materials to gain, based on time, place, race, ethnicity, gender and later, class and so on. Is there any way to measure, who contributes more, who, less, who lives off others, and who "harvests" on others' contributions "legitimately" in order for "Building A More Perfect Union, Together..."?
Talking about working, particularly, related to teaching, in different countries and cultures tends to be more challenging than that of in one's own. One of the major premises is to depend on the national hierarchy - which type of country one lands on. In the current case, unless one takes such challenges as privileges, and works untiringly with the tremendous labor of love, otherwise, success is minimal. One obvious "equality" (everyone is treated equally) in terms of assessments and the protocols of selection outstanding faculty members is the "meritocracy" which works in its unique way! For example, when two candidates with equal merits to "compete" the award, the non-Caucasian one teaches via his/her third language will be the very first one, to congratulate the other Native-English speaking instructor's excellency. And this type of events, happened three times. To be nominated as the candidate is supposed to be not so bad as the recipient, for there is only one trophy. Further information will be shared in the following sections.
Among those challenges, who will deny that language, is the trickiest one among the rest of major culture essences: symbols, values, beliefs, norms, folkways, and millions of tangible cultural ingredients? Aren't all these tangible and intangible cultural components converged into this one: Language? Because this nature of language, makes teaching, which highly demands in verbal expressions, an intense task, particularly involving Arts and Social Sciences. It triples the challenges when one is a non-native-English speaker, or English is a 2nd or 3rd language. In my case, I started learning the first lesson of A.B.C., spelling, grammar, sentence structures and so on in the Junior High school, taught by the local Taiwanese teachers. This learning condition may be similar to that of the US. students who take Foreign languages in the High School. A major difference is that the US. is a "strong" country that might make the inclination in learning a 2nd language with much a relaxing perspective.
To what extent does the intensity in taking on this linguistic learning and intellectual interests depend on the "hidden force" of global stratification? What a terrible jargon it is - the power structure or, the hierarchy of languages, in the international community. Here is an episode to make it less abstract. A female English-speaking Caucasian instructor enjoys traveling, who takes opportunities to teach in Asian countries. She teaches at a University in Taiwan several summers. I am always so happy that people are interested in my native country for cultural or business engagements, since I am aware of more and more foreigners choosing China, instead of Taiwan with the same type of interactions for a common reason: "China is a rising sun".
It is well-known that teaching in Taiwan has to go through tightly organized gate-keeping protocols to be qualified for a teaching post. One of my classmates of National Taiwan University (NTU) is teaching there with a Ph.D. degree - a general requirement to teach at the university level. In this story, the Caucasian instructor owns a master's in social science, and teaches such courses in "English" when in Asian Countries. In Taiwan, people, indeed, are interested in learning English, similar to most of the Far Eastern countries, buy it is not like in India, or Hong Kong, as part of a de facto national language. In this case, teaching in Taiwan via own native English language seems so "effortlessly" performed to the local non-English speaking students with their "admiration and respect". Make an analogy here. It is like my teaching Art Appreciation, Sociology, or Diversity Studies in the US. using my native language of Taiwanese, or in Mandarin! Is it possible in this scenario? If possible, you have great reasons to stay in your country for enjoying that comfort. This tremendous linguistic privilege would not have been taken for granted if the UK had not been the "sun-never-sets" imperial-colonial" global power over three centuries?
It is interesting to know the regional differences regarding spoken languages. People say that the Midwest people speak the standard English with aesthetically sharp ears. Having taught at the 2-year and 4-year colleges, you are aware that, seemingly, the standard is higher at the Tech-college setting. Several students of my Diversity Studies classes reported that they seemed in the foreign land when traveling to the South, not only feeling scared, but also confused for the "several versions" of accent and expression in English spoken by the local residents. This type of strangers traversing in one's own foreign land is quite different from one of scholar Russell Hochschild's best sellers. Here, you'd better "conform" the standard way of speaking English. So, here you are! You try the best you can to "replicate" the native English-speaker's "approach" when you came to the US. at the age of mid-30, while your mother tongue Taiwanese, and the 2nd language of Mandarin jealously guard against your effort to migrate into the intonation of the 3rd language.
Due to this self-awareness, I appreciate most students' patience (approximate 80 to 90% of them) to take classes (usually, high enrollments) from the only non-native English speaking faculty of Social Science Department. For, on the day one, I generously discuss with students, having an educator like me to be their "diversity guinea pig" to test out what an important value-laden learning experience that they might not get from the typical teacher in this Mid-west region. Then, on day two, challenging students' learning comfort zone becomes one of my teaching "missions". (For this dynamics, a good book can be written. Stay tuned).
However, you still need to be cautious that the reality of this most visible (audio-ably) bio-attribute intersecting with my skin color, inevitably defines your master status in performing your professionalism as a social science/art educator. Remember, even prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, born to a family connected to many of Europe's ruling monarchs, had to learn to enjoy the British people's biting humor on his Germanic accent and expression in English, while his Queen wife Victoria could not do anything about it.
Here are a couple of photos that I discussed with friends on facebook, which may have some interesting points:
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Now coming back the main point: I understand what a "typical Model minority" looks like, because most of my Asian friends studying in the US, fall into this category with a great amount of financial and emotional support through their family. including sacrifice, most of time, ideologically (e.g., Confucianism). I wish if I could have been one of them, if my mother and father could have been able to read and write (she never got any opportunities for schooling during her time in an economic-politically repressive Taiwan), if my father had known how to find and hold a job to raise a family of 10 children (a cynical friend jokingly said that it was what boring parents did to enjoy the PIE - Pre Internet Era. What a kind and wise observation!) If my parents both had had not been orphans, I might have learned to see family and the rest of social institutions in different light! Maybe, it could be a mixed blessing to see phenomena from a marginalized perspective, while struggling to maintain less biased. (Regarding, various type of capitals, in particular, cultural capital in running an "inter-generational", "meritocratic" race, will be posted soon.)
Fortunately, or unfortunately, a nationwide competition of scholarship earned in Taiwan, sent me to an English-speaking country to study sociology (specified in Social Movements).
Here I am.
Learning and teaching Sociology/Social Psychology, does equip me with the understanding of complexities between nature and nurture, bio-psychological foundation of human conditions and the socially constructed reality. I know the "power of amygdala" and "the strength of the frontal lobe" coordinating with other sensation and perceptions. I am quite aware of the stubbornness of unconscious biases embedded in the implicit association with experiences and memories in most of individuals and societies, including myself. For example, growing up, I realize several biases that I unconsciously absorbed from my mother's daily chatting took me long time to unlearn or resist them. These experiences help me not to be easily affected by some taken-for-granted or unintentional disturbing behaviors or utterance of others. They also trigger me wanting to research more to enhance human understanding through my teaching and serving humanity. This enthusiasm constantly energizes me to wade through many physical and mental challenges in the US as a cross-cultural sojourner.
I could understand what my colleague Dr. E might have been through for the first year. He was the first one sharing with me the above $20-dollar bill story when some students complained about something. He told me that he reaffirmed the concept of self-worth and value to his students for several purposes which I did not have the detailed information.
I did not know exactly what the students' grudges or concerns were about. It could be anything: the way you dress, look, talk, body languages, style of syllabi, accents, handwriting, and the way you teach...etc. It can also happen to the white, typical faculty members, or any other setting, other cultures and societies. But being "foreign", "weird", and "rare" instructors (around 1% of the faculty body), the subtle and micro aspects of atmosphere can be salient yet invisible - a subtle genre of Ellison's Invisible Man, in the 21st century. It just reminded me of my very first semester here... an unknown "intruder", outsider, stranger, bringing forth lots of uncertainties, "disturbing" students' habitual way of perceiving things-n-events, as well as "challenging" some higher rank administrators' conventional ways of dealing with the white business. (Some interesting stories were saved for the future writing).
Nevertheless, things were not always like your subjective thoughts. My skin color was categorized as yellow (or "Mongoloid"), not other "colors". There are certain types of "positive" stereotypes/biases (both explicit and more implicit) associated with the yellow race, such as the aforementioned racial cliche of model minority. A member of the model minority (in terms of race), is stereotyped being from nurturing and supporting (emotional, financial), if not, elite families, hard-working, self-sufficient, highly self-disciplined, least contentious, with "high-achievements" in terms of "personality traits" manifesting in education, and income. Do I fit into these frames of images both to staff and students?
Why does the US. exalt the "Model and the Supermodel" minorities? What about those with model's color but not with the color's contents? What about the impact of labeling the model on the rest of "non-model" minorities?
So, even with such a model image, the equilibrium was alarmed by hiring an "alien" professor, which had not happened for 91 years of this school (for this part, I may write an interesting book about it). Wasn't it a risky or beneficial business both to the hiring and the hired in this region, in particular, at the Tech college setting, under the big words of multiculturalism and diversity concerns/rhetoric?
I was still curious about under what circumstances, Dr. E used the above episode of story to his students. As a faculty member having been teaching Race, Ethnicity and Diversity Studies for 12 years at this technical college setting, there is no need to rush into those big, unpleasant ambient stress overloaded-with-emotion-jargon of biases, stereotypes (both "positive" and negative), implicit association of unconscious prejudices, micro-aggression, discrimination and the very dislike-able word of racism/aversive racism. These terms are too heavy, yet too visible to be aware and acknowledged. They could happen in the encouraged report of students to the school deans, vice president and president, in the student course evaluation on the instructors (surely, both on the normal and "not-normal"), or in the hallway of students' chatting. In particular, the course evaluation, even though there are 8 or 9 out of 10 of positive and appreciative comments and feedback from students, but just that particular 1 or 2, tend to make you anxious about the uncertainties: whether he/she "evaluates " your pedagogy, contents, efforts, professionalism, or your foreign appearance, accents, the way of unconventional expression, or anything is related to something that you are just not like the typical white teachers.
As aforementioned, you think about prince Albert the consort, his foreignness, even as the first cousin of Queen Victoria, was like a Germanic square peg in the English round hole during his early stage of marriage, while the English empire was the fast expanding power in the world.
Anyway, as a yellow skin "outsider", or more accurately speaking, a more different kind of " Other" than black, brown and mixed, one learns to manage (suck up?) anything which is deemed as normal while one doesn't feel like. You work out every bit of your energy out to make your job perfect with a tremendous sacrifice to the family life, even health, silently. Otherwise, no one asks you to stay in a teaching environment that challenges every step you take to assure yourself, unless you own a badge of "Nobel Laureate" (believe it or not, once upon a time, I was inspired to get one, but failed :)!) , or carrying certain weights or gravitas like that. Take it - with triple or quadrille efforts to do a normal job as a "privilege", or leave it, to avoid the friendly hostility toward - a job stealer. You, talk and talk, walk and walk. You don't have much the "capacity" and "capital" to tint with any bit of "trouble-maker" pigments. Everything will be fine, if you just quietly do as told to fit in and get your paychecks happily. You don't associate with history of the white settlers/ the very first Wave of Immigrants, African-Americans, Native-Americans, and the rest of oppressed or less fortunate ethnic groups' stories in America. You, are on your own. Doesn't it fit into the US. motto: Be a member of the land of Free, and home of the Brave? Thus, isn't the Yellow race (particularly, the first generation), seemingly being so quiet, so "obedient", even so "content?" expected as positive stereotypes?
But don't get me wrong. I do know many faculty and administrators who are working hard to create a pleasant and friendly learning-teaching environment for everybody. There are research, theories, policies and mandates to convince the public and private sectors that promoting "diversity" is a good deal to accord with the demographic trend, moral-humanitarian concerns, social responsibility and the expanding local and global competition for quality of labor force, as well as productivity. In the nutshell, the traditional way of doing business is facing tremendous challenges, whether you want to deny it or not.
I appreciate and applaud most people's endeavors at the Tech college, due to consciousness, conscientiousness, or genuinely complying to the policy requirements - for the best future of America. Furthermore, a group of whistle-blowing social scientists and policy makers pay more attention to the "suddenly disenfranchised" white-males and isolated working class, who historically were disadvantaged due to socio-political turmoil and ingrained ideologies.
Yet, I am aware of some type of thinking and behaving pattern happening here, including small groups of faculty members and administrators (both explicit and implicit, but no fault of their own, I am sure), if I did not commit my own stereotyping. For example, several years ago, in one of my Race and Ethnicity classes, a couple of students reported to the College dean that I should not have covered contents that made them feel "uncomfortable" when I just tapped a tip of iceberg of slavery history. Then, in my office, a faculty member openly claimed that s/he did not want to cover the chapters of Gender and Sexuality which were against his/her religious belief. Another officemate explained to his inquisitive student that the US did not have racial problems, only ethnic issues... Though I was not used to sharing office with colleagues when I was a TA and an Adjunct professor in the previous colleges, I found one merit at this college when 12 faculty members were tightly knitted into a tiny cozy office (the old room 250, and current Room 11 with 8 instructors, residing in a room with the same size of office as I had when I was a TA and an instructor at the previous 4-year colleges). Regarding the frugal budget, whether crunched or not, on faculty and instructional facilities, I could write another article, or a small book about it. In the tiny office, everything was transparent and communicable, even your coughing or grouching sound from your stomach. You consciously or unconsciously absorb information floating in the air of our office.
I know it is hard to share what I learned through my teaching and understanding in this field with Dr. E. Like the crumbled and downtrodden $20 dollar bill, a normal human being may not lose his/her own value and dignity. But if a race had been enslaved for more than two centuries to deprive the basic rights of being human through systematic lynching, brutality, institutionalized discrimination, and dehumanization, how long does it take to recuperate, or reclaim the lost self-worth and value, like that of the deformed yet value-intact $20-dollar bill ?
I have had some students from Africa and students who are African Americans, though not many. Indeed, Africa endured centuries of European Imperialism and Colonialism, and the aftermess is till haunting this vast continent. But those conditions were quite different from America's institutionalized slavery. In real life situations, I found some differences in expression and behaving between African and African-American students. Most of the former tend to be self-asserted and expressive (without further understanding, most of them are likely to be treated as African-Americans in the US., including "hiring" protocols - for better and worse...). In fact, I seldom have racial minority in my classes and my perceptions about them might be biased by my limited observations. But one semester, I got an African American student from Georgia. What he impressed me most was that he always addressed me: "ma'am", yes Ma'am... that made me feel so unusually respected. His genuine and polite mannerism reminded me how much I was spoiled as a teacher in Taiwan. I "corrected" him several time to call me Crystal, but he never did. Furthermore, African students would come to my office for a chat, but not African American students, even though given the same encouragements.
Now, alluding to the video, as an educator of Sociology, inevitably I found this short film being too obvious to be oblivious of some social facts, even though it was just a metaphor. One can figuratively question: Where do the forces come from to tread and crumble the "innocent $20-dollar bill"? If you were the $20-dollar bill, how do you feel? Now, see, you sociologists, just cannot help asking these weird questions...??
The value attached to the bill can endure severe treading and crumbling without losing its value. It is a good way to teach students of self-worth, no matter how hard the conditions are imposed on them. But how to stand tall and assure themselves with confidence and dignity when people have been systematically downtrodden for centuries with no fault of their own, due to race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, nationality, faith, and language...etc.?
That's why we call it "Legal Tender", an official medium of payment recognized by law that can be used to extinguish a public or private debt, or meet a financial obligation. It is recognized by legitimate protocols. Thus, there is an "external legal force" determining a value of a bill whether 1, 10, 20, 50, 100, or 1000 dollars and more. It needs not to be crumbled by hands or feet, but by law, made, passed, interpreted and executed by the powerful and the privileged. Like in the classic case of Dred Scott of 1857, and the subsequent court cases in Amendments and other statutory laws, continuously happen in changing values both in finance and human conditions.
Could it be a minor difference of perceptions and sensitivity in applying a metaphor or a simile between these two academic disciplines of Business Management and Sociology?
My final words of this writing: hope this genuine expression would enhance understanding and reduce unintentional obstacles to both hiring committees and the "prospective racial minority" pursuing a teaching-research career in the academic field.
