Happy

Today hasn't been particularly special. I got up after a decent night's sleep, went to a dermatologist appointment (turns out, my face suffers from a variant of rosacea), got groceries, picked up some books at the library, returned some emails. There was nothing extraordinary about today except the weather: 75 degrees, sunny, cool breeze. (Oh, spring in northern California, how I will miss you.) Maybe the general pleasantness of the day put me in the mood to recognize just how good my life is. I love my job. I get to have my Fridays off, to shop for wine and cheeses and take leisurely walks. I have two working legs so that I can take those walks. I have friends who believe in me and a family that always has my back. I may be poor, but I love my life.

If I am this happy now, I can only imagine how happy I will be once I start making a real salary, see my work get published, and meet a man who truly loves me. So much to look forward to!

How to Become a Professor (When You Don't Know What You Are Doing)-- Lesson 3: Don't Give People a Reason to Talk Shit About You

This quarter, because I am now officially PhD-ed, I'm able to become hired as a lecturer at the university in which I have been attending for the last 7+ years as a graduate student. The class I'm teaching is on Asian Diasporas, and it's offered through the Asian American Studies department, which does not have a graduate program. It's a class of 60 students, which means that I get to hire a reader to help me grade assignments. I figured this was a nice opportunity for me to help out a fellow graduate student who may be struggling to find funding. It's absolutely imperative that graduate students here get at least a 25% appointment, because that's the amount needed to have your fees waived and receive health insurance coverage without having to pay extra for it. After checking to make sure that all of my friends had some form of employment for the spring, I asked the graduate counselor at my home department, English, to let me know if there are any graduate students who are still unemployed. She gave me a couple of names, and told me to come into her office to look at their files.

So I did, but it was really weird to be put in that position. Luckily, both of the candidates were M.A. students whom I had never met, so I wasn't being granted access to my friends' files. (I would have declined to look at them, if that were the case.) Still, it felt wrong to be able to read a grad student's statement of purpose, to glance at her letters of rec, to see what her GRE scores were. I became all too aware of the fact that anyone who has ever hired me has also looked through MY file, which I haven't seen.

I'm assuming I'm not allowed to see what's in my file, but I actually don't know because I've never asked. Aside from what I submitted when I applied to the program 8 years ago, I don't know what's actually IN my file. It wasn't until I had TAs that I realized that every instructor I ever worked for had to do a little write-up on my performance and stick it in my file. It wasn't until I wrote to the department chair mentioning that the two professors running our job placement workshop were doing an excellent job and got a reply from him saying that he was going to print out my email and put it in their files that I realized that even not-so-official documents can go into my file as well. So it kind of weirds me out to know that there is an 8-year-old file that contains all sorts of documents that I don't even know about.

I wonder if bad evaluations ever get put into someone's file. I'd like to think not, but I guess one could never know. I can think of a couple of professors I've worked for who would probably have no qualms about writing a graduate student a scathing review But even if an employer were more diplomatic and would never write up a negative evaluation, it's always easy to distinguish between generic evaluations and glowing ones. I imagine a file full of boring and half-hearted reviews would be just as damaging to one's career.

For my entire life, I've taken the philosophy of just getting my shit done and doing it with excellence, but I've never been interested in, or that good at, self-promotion. But now, the most important file I may ever have is my tenure file, which I have to start building. I'm going to have to be aggressive and strategic in making sure that things going into it present me as an indispensable employee. I wonder if I could get someone to write up a document that says, "AsianGirlProf is the awesomest person in the world and wears really cute shoes."

My Friends' Husbands

In all of my circles of friends, I am now the single girl amongst a bunch of married (or practically married) folks. I don't much mind that. Because I'm not attached to a ball and chain, I have the freedom to take a trip at a moment's notice, move across the country for a job, and hook up with as many men as my self-respect would allow. I also get to learn a lot about relationships by observing how my friends interact with their husbands.

I like all of my friends' husbands. They all have genuinely redeeming qualities-- Some are smart and talented. Some are reliable and responsible. Some are funny. Some are sensitive. Some are fantastic cooks. Some are attentive fathers. I'm really grateful for having friends who have avoided marrying assholes.

Still, as much as I like all of my friends' husbands, I've only been truly impressed with very few. And I think it's due to one quality that most of them seem to be missing: The ability or willingness to make friends with their wives' friends.

For example, I have a good friend who's been with her husband for nearly a decade. He's a very good man. He's loyal and loving to her, is very intelligent and accomplished, has good conversation skills, and has the maturity to treat her as a partner in building their life together. I've known him for almost as long as they've been together, and he's even stayed at my place and eaten meals that I cooked when they've come to visit. But in all the years that I've known him to be an important part of her life, I've never felt that he's regarded me in the same way. When I've stayed with them, I never felt that he bothered to welcome me into their home. He's never offered to, say, take us all out for drinks when I've bought a plane ticket on my grad student budget to fly out to see them. I don't feel that he dislikes me, but I don't feel that he's ever bothered to get to know me, either. He's not necessarily a shy person, so I can only assume that he just doesn't care to know his wife's friends. Granted, all of these things could be the fault of my friend, too. She's not the best hostess herself. And she perhaps doesn't feel the need to get her friends to like her husband, or maybe even prefers to compartmentalize different people in her life.

But I guess that's the lesson I've learned in observing their marriage: It's exceedingly important to me that my significant other gets along with my friends and family. As such, a quality I look for in a man is the ability and willingness to be socially generous. Maybe it has something to do with how my family works. Whenever I've brought home a boyfriend to meet the family, my family immediately tries to welcome him. My dad will joke around with him. My mom will cook him things that he likes to eat. My aunts, uncles, and cousins will include him in their conversations. My family is like this with anyone I bring home, actually. I have an uncle, who currently is also my landlord, who frequently takes me out to dinner. If I happen to be with my friends when he walks over with his invitation, he'll invite all of them out as well. My family does this not because they necessarily like the people I bring home. (In fact, it's safe to say that they've disliked most of my boyfriends.) They welcome these friends and boyfriends because they know that these people are important to me. So it's only natural that I expect these friends and boyfriends to treat my family with the same warmth and generosity.

I've come to realize that out of all of my friends' husbands, one of them in particular has this quality. This friend, who is also a colleague from graduate school, married a man who really acts on the saying, "Mi casa es su casa." I haven't spent a whole lot of time with them, but when I've had, I've always felt that I was being welcomed as their guest, and not just as a guest of my friend. He'll behave as the consummate host, preparing a delicious meal, and even sending me home with the leftovers. He'll open up about his own life and show equal interest in mine. He's perhaps the only husband whom I refer to as "my friend," rather than "my friend's husband."

Perhaps here's the catch: This friend of mine is not a woman, but a man. And his husband is perhaps my favorite of all of my friends' husbands.

I don't know if this says something about gay marriages versus straight ones. Maybe I can't really be friends with my girlfriends' husbands because, as a single girl, I pose as a potential threat. Or maybe this says something about the particular friends that I have. Maybe my girlfriends simply prefer to be with shy and socially awkward men. Maybe their preference is guided by some gender dynamic or social norm that doesn't govern gay men.

Or maybe it says something about me that my ideal husband is a gay man.

My Love

A friend of mine said that she fell in love with her husband all over again when they had their first child. She saw how attentive he was to her and their baby, how patient, how supportive. Seeing him in a whole new light, as a father, affirmed why she chose to build a life with him.

That is exactly how I feel...

... about my iPhone.

I knew from the start that my iPhone would be an added joy in my life. But it was taking my trip to Texas last week, with all the airport layovers and boring downtime, that I truly appreciated the extent to which I can depend on my iPhone. My iPhone is a far more consistent companion than my computer. Fancy hotels always charge for internet access, which then render my computer useless when I'm trying to pinch pennies. But with my iPhone and its 3G network, I was able to do, at any moment, super important and urgent business like check my friends' Facebook updates and listen to Pandora Radio. And while I was schmoozing with colleagues, I was able to easily exchange contact information with fellow iPhone users by "bumping" them. My iPhone is so faithful, he even facilitates my promiscuity.

I love my iPhone.

Asians Descend Upon Texas!

I spent the last few days in Austin, TX, for the annual conference of the Association for Asian American Studies. This was the first conference I attended after being officially PhD-ed and getting a job. This was was also the first conference in which I actually understood what the point of going to academic conferences is.

I typically hate going to conferences. I always have a hard time preparing the paper and figuring out how to represent my work within a 20-minute time slot. I'm not all that keen on watching other people give their papers, either. The format, which basically entails people reading off of a page, is excruciatingly boring. And I rarely get anything out of other people's papers that ends up helping my own work. Most of the conferences I went to as a graduate student ended up being expensive CV fillers.

Of course, the main purpose of going to a conference is to network and make connections with important people who work in your field of study. In previous conferences, I knew I was supposed to locate my academic role models and strike up conversation with them, but I was always a bit too intimidated to do so. At the first AAAS conference I went to, I attended a panel in which both Lisa Lowe and Michael Omi gave papers. As a lowly 2nd year graduate student with no reputation or publications to claim, I wasn't going to just butt into their conversation with nothing to say but, "I'm a big fan." So maybe this year's AAAS was a little different for me because I felt more equipped to enter as a colleague rather than an adoring student. I'm still an unknown, given that the publications I've sent through the pipeline have yet to be published. But at least I'm able to assert myself as someone who has made it into the profession.

First I should explain that I got my place in the conference through some networking I had done at the American Literature Association Conference two years ago. At the ALA, there's the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies. I attended their business meeting, which then put me in connection with some folks that I had long admired for their work. It was also from that CAALS meeting that I volunteered to chair a panel for the next ALA conference. It was one of the presenters from my panel who put together the panel proposal for the AAAS conference this year. Long story short: The community of scholars working in Asian American literature is very small. We find each other at the same conferences, read the same journals, and apply for the same jobs.

It is because the Asian Am lit community is so small that we also become heavily invested in each other's careers. So when the chair of my panel announced the fact of my getting a job on this particularly bad year while he was introducing me, the audience gave me a round of applause. The group of folks I had met through CAALS, and who were also presenting at AAAS this year, consists of professors who have either just gotten tenure or are about to. I think they've known each other for a while now, which explains why I never really socialized with them at previous conferences. This time, though, as a new member of the profession, I got invited to go out for lunch and dinner with them. It was from these gatherings that I learned about what their careers have been like. It was also from these gatherings that I may have been able to secure myself another publishing opportunity. That's something that I wish I had figured out earlier: Important developments in your career often happen when you're chitchatting over drinks.

As much as I took delight in being initiated into this "club," I don't like the social hierarchy that it clearly reflects. The social hierarchy of the academia seems to dictate that graduate students and professors reside in different castes, which is something that I never really recognized until my first conference as a soon-t0-be professor. I don't think the division between graduate students and professors is a conscious one. It's not as if these new colleagues of mine declared amongst themselves, "NOW she is worthy of socializing with us." But there is something about the atmosphere of academia that makes you very aware of where you sit on the totem pole. Only the most generous of higher-ups will make a point to lend a hand to lowly graduate students. And only the most aggressive of graduate students will successfully grab the attention of professors.

I think I'm currently in this in-between stage, where I still identify myself as a graduate student, and where most of my friends are still graduate students, but where I've also become aware of the additional capital and access I've recently attained. This became very obvious to me during the nights while I was in Austin-- After the conference events were over, a lot of the graduate students went out to 6th Street and partied it up. On a couple of the nights, I joined in on the drinking, dancing and flirting. I had a lot of fun, and made some new friends. But a part of me also felt that I didn't belong there, much in the way that I got over fraternity parties after my first year of college.

Not to say that professors don't get drunk and stupid sometimes. Maybe they just do it in separate circles. I guess I'll find out at next year's AAAS conference, which will take place in New Orleans!

On Teaching Race

Unless I get recruited to head-start a new Ethnic Studies program at the university for which I'll be working as a new assistant professor, this quarter may be my last teaching an Asian American Studies class. I am currently teaching two classes: one upper-division English course at a women's liberal arts college, and one upper-division Asian American Studies course at my home university. One is a seminar of 8 students, all women, mostly white, all English majors. The other is a class of 60 students, co-ed, vast majority of whom are API, and whose majors run the gamut of Asian American Studies, political science, and economics.

My English course at the women's college, being on the semester system, started in January. I was immediately struck by how refreshing and satisfying teaching English majors can be, especially since I had never had the opportunity to teach English majors at my home campus. The students are immediately engaged and invested, and are coming in at the same level of preparedness. On the first day, I brought in some pieces of poetry, and right away the students started explicating it together, breaking down the literary devices. The atmosphere is also striking when the class is all-female. Whenever I teach co-ed classes, even when there are only one or two men in the class (which has been the case in some of the writing classes I've taught), and even when these men aren't even close to being the smartest students in the class, they tend to dominate (and often derail) the class discussion. It's really nice not having to monitor that as a female instructor. It's also nice not having to justify why gender is a relevant topic of discussion when we're discussing literature, history, or whatever. I also tend to like smaller classes, because I like being able to give each student individual attention. So in many respects, this English class has been my ideal teaching experience.

But something happened these last couple of weeks that has made me appreciate my big Asian American Studies classes. My English class is on Vietnam War literature, which, given the war that it concerns, is always about race. But in these last couple of weeks, I've chosen to put race front and center as the topic for discussion. We talked about the musical Miss Saigon. We read Le Ly Hayslip's When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. We talked about Kim Phuc, the young girl running from a napalm bombing, who became a humanitarian and figure of reconciliation. I talked about how Asian women are figured as a sort of romantic fantasy, through which the white male American soldier can at once exert his colonial power (in other words, Orientalism) but can also "save" her and assuage his guilt. I asked the students to think about where the Orientalist fantasy comes from and how it's continually perpetuated.

As students in a women's college, these students have been more than ready to discuss how war is premised on notions of masculinity, how women are excluded from the notions of citizenship that serving in war is supposed to grant, etc. But to get them to talk about race has been like pulling teeth. Only the two women of color-- one Asian, one Latina-- have been at all willing to engage with me. What the white women tend to say in response to any question I pose is, "But isn't that the case for all women?" So when I asked, "Why does Kim have to kill herself at the end of Miss Saigon?" one white student said, "Like in Victorian literature, the woman always gets punished in the end." Well, yes. The self-annihilating woman is a common trope in many cultural traditions. But does the fact of her being Asian, especially given all the various incarnations of the Madame Butterfly character, mean anything? Silence. Until the Asian American student speaks up.

This road block became even more apparent this week, when we were discussing John A. Williams's novel, Captain Blackman, which is one of the very few texts by an African American written during the time of the Vietnam War. It's also clearly concerned about black historical authority, not only during Vietnam (a war in which a disproportionate number of black soldiers served, and a war that became known as a "race war"), but all of American history. The protagonist, Blackman, is a Vietnam War soldier who blacks out and then find himself transported to the Revolutionary War. So, I ask the students what Williams may be saying about the meaning of the presence of black soldiers in American wars. On the one hand, the novel seems to be calling for their recognition, reminding us that African Americans have served in every war in the nation's history. On the other, it's also critical of that history as one that the "community" should claim, given that all these wars were in the service of a nation that systematically oppressed, betrayed, and violated black people. So I ask the students to ponder whether the Vietnam War, or any war for that matter, could be read as a "race war." No response. I ask if citizenship can indeed be gained through submitting yourself to military service. "Yes, but isn't that the case for everybody?"

That's the go-to answer, it seems. Isn't that the case for everybody? We're all the same. I guess race doesn't matter anymore.

I know I'll have to expect many more exchanges like this in my teaching career. And that's not only fine, but a welcome challenge. The fact that these students can't see beyond their own privilege and have been trained to believe that "multiculturalism" erases racial difference means that my job is even more important than I had thought.

But still, I can't help but wish that I could just teach Ethnic Studies courses for the rest of my life. There's something amazing about gazing out into a class filled with 60 students of color. Or 200 students of color, as was the case with my Intro to Asian American History class last quarter. In the lower-div courses, I do have to make an effort in explaining to the students how structural racism still exists. Some of the Asian American students are conservative. Some can't see beyond their own class privilege to recognize how they're subject to racism. But even in those classes, the students are at least willing to talk about race. And, at the very least, I don't have to convince them of the fact that white privilege exists. They already know that it does, because they've experienced being denied opportunities because of the fact that they're not white. I've encountered some messed up comments in those classes (last quarter, one Chinese American student even tried to justify the interment of Japanese Americans during WWII), but I've never been shut down by a, "Well, doesn't everybody experience that?"

I suppose I could always apply for Ethnic Studies positions again after I've settled into my new job for a while. But the thing is, too, Ethnic Studies positions are few and far in between. And they're oftentimes the first to get cut when universities lose funding. I'm glad I'll be working as an English professor. Really, I am. And the university that hired me is letting me teach anything I want, and they're receptive to my idea of teaching a literature course that's based on critical race theory. They've also mentioned wanting me to develop Ethnic Studies curriculum with other faculty on campus. So I'm sure I'll find plenty of ways to direct my political energies and intellectual investments. Still, I am facing the fact that I may never get another teaching opportunity like the one I have now, where I don't even have to ask the question, "Does race matter?"

Asian Catholic Guilt

My mother has a very soft and sensitive soul, but like all little Asian ladies, she knows how to be a Hardass Asian Mama. She'll be the first to tell me when I'm being silly, inappropriate, or just plain stupid. She also knows how to use her own gentle ways to remind me and my brother of the fact that, compared to her own upbringing, we're a couple of entitled brats.

My Hardass Asian Mama also happens to be a devout Catholic. (Asian + Catholic + Mama= Mega-Guilt-Inducing Parenting Strategies.) I called her on the phone this afternoon and she reminded me that it was Good Friday, a fact that I had completely forgotten. Not that it would have mattered had I remembered. This time of year every year, I joke about giving up abstinence for Lent.

Me: What are you doing tonight?

Mama: I'm going to church. It's Good Friday. Are you?

Me: No. Do I ever for Good Friday?

Mama: No, you don't. Are you going to church on Sunday?

Me: Yeah, maybe I will. I did last year.

Mama: You should go to church. You should go to church regularly. God has been very good to you this year. You should be thankful.

Me: (thinking: "Goddammit.") Yeah, you're right.

END.

You would think that in my 29 years of being a generally obstinate daughter that I would learn to just say, "Yes, mom" and go off and do whatever the hell I want. But sometimes I can't help but heed the words of my Hardass Asian Mama. Before I was blessed with my job offers and whatnot, my mom pulled the same line: "You should go to church. If you want that job, you should go to church and pray to God." And in spite of my years of trying to weasel out of going to church with my mom, of making fun of religious people, of openly declaring that the Catholic church is royally fucked up, I actually did obey my mom and went to church the weekend before I flew out for my first job interview.

Yup. Now you know where I'll be Easter Sunday.