On the Struggles and Experiences of Southeast Asian American Academics

Abstract

This article examines Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA) academics in the U.S. academy, relating their complex positionalities within higher education to their communities and societies. While many educational studies have been done on SEAA students, almost none focus on professional scholars and college faculty. Combining cultural-structural critique with close analysis of public writings and personal interviews, the article finds that that SEAA are ignored, and/or tokenized in the Ivory Tower due to structural as well as epistemological issues. It indicates that the public discourse and policies about Southeast Asians in academia not only neglects racial and class hierarchies, but obscures issues of gender equity, mentoring, discrimination, hiring, tenure, and retention. To explain how and why Southeast Asian professors are “missing,” this article seeks to: 1) built a more critical framework and interdisciplinary methodology for studying SEAA in academia in ways that are intersectional, anti-racist, and comparative 2) challenge dominant narratives of Asians and Asian Americans as they pertain to SEAAs and 3) reveal participants’ own stories of agency and belonging in their communities and institutions.