This is probably my most personal podcast of this series. I'm chatting with my good friends, Dr. Jessica Soedirgo, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam and Dr. Hae Yeon Choo, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, about our assorted encounters with anti-Asian racism.
From seemingly benign encounters that show how the academy doesn't actually see us as belonging—like mixing up Asian colleagues, or mistaking us for students, or the constant compliments about our English—to actual harmful moments that we still need to heal from, one of the challenges of giving voice to anti-Asian racism is that it oftentimes feels like it barely registers. Yet, Asians in the academy experience racism everyday, while struggling with the acute rise of anti-Asian sentiments, which has been amplified since the start of the pandemic. My hometown of Vancouver was even named by Bloomberg as the 'Asian hate crime capital' of North America. And it has also only been two months since the Atlanta shootings, where a man with a self-proclaimed Asian fetish murdered eight people including six Asian women.
On this episode, we talk about dealing with anti-Asian racism when institutions barely acknowledge its reality and fighting against insidious, everyday forms of microaggression.
If you want to get involved in combatting anti-Asian racism, check out Anti-Asian Racism Undone, presented by Scholar's Strike Canada on May 29 and 30, 2021. Visit www.scholarstrikecanada.ca for more information.
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