Assistant or Associate Professor – Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) – Req.#12F01

Job Description:

St. Catherine University in St. Paul/Minneapolis is a comprehensive Catholic university with the nation’s largest college for women at its center. Founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1905, the University integrates liberal arts and professional education within the Catholic traditions of intellectual inquiry and social teaching. Committed to excellence and opportunity, St. Catherine enrolls over 5,200 students in associate, baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral programs in both traditional day and weekend formats. Associate and Graduate programs enroll both women and men.

The Master of Library and Information Science Program is seeking an experienced, dynamic, visionary candidate to join our learning community as Assistant or Associate Professor. We seek applicants who have research and teaching expertise in web information systems.

Responsibilities: Teaching required and elective courses; conducting research; meeting service and scholarship expectations for tenure and promotion; providing vision and advocacy for the program’s IT infrastructure needs; student advising/mentoring.

Qualifications:

Earned doctorate in library or information science, computer science, information technology, or other related fields; expertise in several of the following areas: information architecture, web development, database management, universal design and accessibility; effective teaching and scholarship in the broad area of information science; ability to design and deliver courses in a variety of formats, including online and hybrid modalities; strong commitment to interdisciplinary research and cultural diversity.

Preferred Qualifications: Experience with the information technology infrastructure used in libraries and information centers; demonstrated potential for multidisciplinary research funding; knowledge of mobile technology applications and internet multimedia technologies; new program development and progressively responsible administrative and leadership experience.

The MLIS Program’s primary goal is to empower students to become future leaders in the complex and ever-changing information environment. The Program has over 180 master’s students and over 750 alumnae. Learning takes place in modern classrooms using up-to-date technology. The MLIS degree provides diverse programs of study in librarianship, with increasing emphasis on digital and web services. The Program offers a school media specialist licensure in collaboration with the Education Department. It also offers a joint post-master’s certificate in organizational leadership with the University’s Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership (MAOL) Program and offers information technology courses that support the MAOL master’s program

St. Catherine University seeks creative, adaptable faculty who enjoy working in a university climate that promotes cultural diversity and multicultural understanding. Consistent with the university’s Catholic identity, its commitment to women, diversity and social justice, preference will be given to candidates who manifest these themes in their teaching, research and service.

Send résumé & cover letter to:

Application: Submit an application letter, CV, evidence of excellence in teaching, academic transcripts, and the names and contact information of three references to Human Resources Req. #12F01, St. Catherine University, 2004 Randolph Ave, F-17, St. Paul, MN 55105 or fax to 651-690-6871, or email to hr@stkate.edu Official transcripts will be required for hire. For more information, contact the MLIS Search Committee (Joyce Yukawa and Sarah Park, Co-Chairs), at

jyukawa@stkate.edu Position will remain open until filled. Review of applications begins March 1, 2012.

St. Catherine University
2004 Randolph Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105
EEO/Drug Free Workplace Employer
Tobacco-Free Campuses
Our university is a proud member of the Upper Midwest HERC and is committed to recruiting and retaining outstanding and diverse faculty and staff and assisting dual career couples. For more information and to find other higher education jobs in the Upper Midwest region, visit: www.uppermidwestherc.org

My dossier binder

During a recent chat with some friends, I realized that it may be helpful for junior faculty to have some guidance in the gargantuan project of preparing a dossier for an academic review. Putting together a dossier can be a stressful exercise, but it’s also very rewarding. My dossier preparation process was intellectually enlightening, and I really valued the opportunity for reflection. I also valued the opportunity to articulate my goals for future research, teaching, and service. And now, in writing this blog entry, I am enjoying reflecting on my own process. How very meta. Metaspark*.

Keep in mind that I am an assistant professor at a private, liberal arts, teaching university; you must consider your institution, department, etc., as you compose your own dossier. I also am in the middle of my review. I don’t yet know the outcome, but am humbled to have received positive feedback so far. I’m sure as I progress through this review, I will come up with more ways to improve the process for my next review, but I wanted to get this out while it was still fresh. In the spirit of collegiality, I hope my advice is useful and reduces your stress so that you can focus your energy on putting together a great dossier. Here we go:

In Preparation

• Study your Faculty Evaluation Manual (FEM). Takes notes.
• Study your university, college, school and departmental mission statements, norms and expectations documents, etc. Take notes.
• Attend academic review info sessions and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Take notes.
• Ask a senior colleague if you can read their narrative self-assessment. Take notes.
• Serve as someone’s peer reviewer during an earlier semester. Take notes.
• Make a calendar of deadlines: When is your dossier due to your peer reviewers? To your dean? To the Faculty Personnel Committee (FPC)? When will you receive the administration’s decision?
• Make a checklist. What do your peer reviewers need? What does your dean need? What does the FPC need? (My peer reviewers and dean get my full dossier; the FPC receives only some of the documents).

Your Narrative Self-Assessment

• If your review is conducted during the fall semester, start writing your narrative self-assessment during the summer. If you’re not teaching, or are teaching fewer courses in the summer, you will likely have more time to write.
• My FEM required me to write about my teaching, scholarship, and service. Within teaching, there were 4 areas I needed to address. I’ve observed that successful reviews are written in a variety of ways. Don’t get bogged down by formatting, headings, etc. just yet; just write it, and organize it however you think best.
• Cite your Faculty Evaluation Manual (FEM) and Departmental Norms document in your narrative. State specifically how your activities meet and/or exceed the expectations of your university and department.
• If your FEC sets a page limit, stick to it. You don’t want to annoy your reviewers.
• Have several different people proofread your narrative: a peer (not your peer reviewer), your colleague at a different institution, your boyfriend/best friend/father. Each person will be able to give you different kinds of feedback. For example, I asked my colleague from my doctoral program to proofread because she knows me as an academic, she knows my research, my teaching and writing style, etc. I asked my BF to read for clarity, grammar, punctuation, etc. Both gave great feedback.

Make a Tenure & Promotion Folder in Your Filing Cabinet

• Print out every document that is evidence of your effectiveness in the areas of teaching, scholarship and service. Make as many copies as you need (I had to make 3). This will save you time later because you won’t be scrambling to find these items and then trying to print and collate them all at the last minute. Evidence may include:
• job cover letter (to demonstrate that you’ve accomplished some of the goals you set forth in your cover letter)
• articles (published or in the review pipeline)
• book proposals (accepted or in the pipeline)
• grant applications
• all syllabi and representative assignment rubrics
• all course and instructor evaluations
• programs of conferences/workshops/events you organized
• letters of appointment to leadership positions in relevant associations
• requests to keynote a conference or guest lecture for a course
• thank you letters for participation or lecture
• thank you notes and other meaningful correspondence from students
• meaningful correspondence with practitioners
• letters of advocacy you’ve written to politicians
• articles/news segments in which you were featured as an expert
• Keep a table of contents of above evidence.
• Annotate above evidence. These annotations will comprise the first draft of your narrative self-assessment. It could be something as simple as putting a post-it on the document indicating why this is important.

On Teaching

• Keep a teaching journal. Reflect upon what works and what doesn’t work, and why. Do this after as many class sessions as necessary, and after you receive your teaching evaluations. Write about student conflicts and how you resolved them.
• Take your teaching evaluations seriously. Some students may be liberal in their criticism, but try not to get debilitated by those; rather, look for themes and recurring comments. Focus on addressing recurring criticisms and maintaining your strengths, and then write about these in your narrative.
• Get a calculator and some scratch paper. In your narrative, talk about how overall your averages improved each semester, and/or how you improved steadily on one particular area of weakness (for example, “clearer grading policies” or “creating a safe and comfortable classroom environment.”) If you know the departmental averages for these areas, see how you compare to them. You may not be able to address everything in your narrative. In mine, I wrote “In this section, I will discuss representative areas that demonstrate how I have worked to improve my teaching” or something to that effect.
• I have a printed agenda for each class; during class I take notes on what I can improve for the next time I teach this particular unit, or assign that particular assignment – and why I need to make that change. Related, when you make other changes to your syllabi from one semester to another, take notes on why (for example, “Students indicated on my teaching evaluations that I need to provide clearer assignment descriptions.”) These notes will help you when you explain, in your narrative, how you are responsive to students, and the steps you are taking to improve your teaching.
• Continually work on improving your pedagogical practices through workshops, reading scholarship, attending conferences, etc. In the teaching portion of your narrative, cite scholarship that supports your teaching philosophy.

Your Binder

• Earlier I mentioned that you should keep a table of contents of your materials. For each section of my binder, I have a table of contents that lists the items that follow that page. This will help guide your reviewers through your materials.
• I color-coded my dossier binder. In the photo above, you see that I have orange, pink, green, etc. binder tabs. Within each section, I have the same color sheets separating each document. For example, in the orange section (narrative self-assessment and CV), I have an orange sheet of paper between my narrative and CV. In my pink syllabi section, I have a pink sheet of paper between each syllabus. I know, I know: those poor trees. Sorry, but it truly makes it easier for your peer reviewers.

Your CV

• Update your CV every time you do something meaningful. Some people don’t update their CV until something like this comes along, and then they scramble to remember which conferences they attended, the titles of their papers, all the committees they chair, etc. Don’t be that person.

And the most important thing is this: be a good professor, colleague, and researcher. If you are a good professor, colleague, and researcher, it will clearly show through all of the above.

There’s a lot more to say about professional/university service, setting goals, doing and publishing research, etc., but that’s another entry for another time. Or, at least for publishing, you can read Phil Nel’s excellent “How to Publish Your Article.”

Good luck!

ON BEYOND STONEWALL: Young Adult Literature with LGBTQ Content

Throughout its history young adult literature has offered too little representation of diversity in terms of its characters, setting, plot, and other narrative elements. The U.S. population has become more diverse by the day, yet white, middle-class, suburban-dwelling heterosexuals have continued to dominate all genres of YA literature. In her germinal work Shadow and Substance (NCTE) Rudine Sims Bishop was among the first to document the changing representations of African American characters in literature for youth. Since then – thanks in large part to the appearance of the ‘new realism’ in young adult fiction in the late 1960’s — other non-mainstream groups have slowly begun to appear in YA fiction.

The first young adult novel with LGBT content was published in 1969, the same year that the Stonewall riots marked the birth of the gay liberation movement. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) people have come a long way since 1969, but depictions of LGBTQ people in literature for teen readers have moved at a glacial pace, going from invisibility to stereotypes to (finally) realistic characters portrayed with some degree of frequency, authenticity, and art.

Jenkins’ presentation will trace the roots of the literature, describe early work in the newly realistic world of 1960’s -‘70’s literature and examine the genre’s evolution through the 1980’s and ‘90’s. She will describe broad themes in this literature and highlight some milestone works and exemplars (both positive and negative) among individual titles published during this period.

During her presentation, Dr. Jenkins will

Q&A and reception to follow.

Highlights & Handouts

 Dr. Christine Jenkins is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research includes:

The event is free and open to the public.

• October 3, 2011 from 6.30-8.00 PM
• St. Catherine University Recital Hall, 2004 Randolph Ave., St. Paul, MN 55105
• Contact: Dr. Sarah Park | spark@stkate.edu | 651.690.8791

Course Overview

Selection, evaluation and use of media for children in elementary schools and public libraries. Materials in curricular areas are studied along with an examination of the relationships of materials to developmental characteristics and individual differences of the child, to curriculum and recreation, to the exceptional child and to a multicultural society. 3 credits.

We will engage in a variety of teaching/learning methods to cover the course material, including but not limited to: lecture, small/large group discussions, independent and group projects, written and oral presentations.

Student Learning Outcomes

• To understand of the history of children’s literature;
• To be familiar with a range of authors, works, genres and media;
• To discuss, evaluate and promote children’s literature/resources;
• To learn strategies for connecting young people with literature;
• To identify and discuss literary and societal trends and issues (war, refugee, migration, class, gender, etc) affecting materials and work with youth in libraries and schools.

Week 1 | Sept 10 | Introduction, Picture Books and Publishing

Readings 

• Bang, Molly. Picture This! How Pictures Work.
• Atkins, Laura.  “White Privilege and Children’s Publishing: A Web 2.0 Case Study” in Write4Children Vol 1 Issue 2. Winchester University Press, 2010. http://www.winchester.ac.uk/academicdepartments/EnglishCreativeWritingandAmericanStudies/publications/write4children/Documents/w4cissue2cApr.pdf
• Elliot, Zetta. “Something like an open letter to the children’s publishing industry” [http://zettaelliott.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/something-like-an-open-letter-to-the-children%E2%80%99s-publishing-industry/]
• Nodelman, Perry. 1992. The Other: Orientalism, Colonialism, and Children’s Literature. In Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 17: 29-35. (e-reserve)

Novels

• White, E.B. Charlotte’s Web
• Montgomery. L.M.  Anne of Green Gables

Picture Books

• Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are
• Burton, Virginia Lee. The Little House.
• Carle, Eric. Any picture book.

Assignments 

• Bring in one of your favorite picture books and children’s novels from your childhood.  Be prepared to talk about why the books meant something to you or why you still remember them years later.  Pick books that are not on the syllabus.

For the remainder of the semester, in alphabetical order:

Textbook

• Horning, Kathleen T. From Cover to Cover. Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s Books

Novels

• Barrie, J.M.  Peter Pan  (read, watch, or listen to any version of Peter Pan/ Peter and Wendy)
• Cleary, Beverly. Ramona and Her Father
• Creech, Sharon. Love That Dog
• Curtis, Christopher Paul. The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963
• Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Erdrich, Louise. The Birchbark House
• Freedman, Russell. Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Han, Jenny. Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream
• Harris, Robie. It’s Perfectly Normal: A Book About Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health
• Jimenez, Francisco. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child
• Kent, Rose. Kimchi & Calamari
• Kinney, Jeff. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1
• Kurtz, Jane. The Storyteller’s Beads
• Look, Lenore. Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things
• Lovelace, Maud Hart. Betsy-Tacy
• Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars
• Rowling, J.K.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
• Silverstein, Shel. Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Light in the Attic, OR Falling Up
• Sterling, Shirley. My Name is Seepeetza
• Uchida, Yoshiko. Journey to Topaz
• Vanderpool, Clare. Moon Over Manifest.
• Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie
• Wiles, Deborah. Countdown: A Novel.
• Williams-Garcia, Rita . One Crazy Summer.

Picture Books

• Alarcon, Francisco X. Poems to Dream Together/Poemas Para Sonar Juntos
• Cha, Dia. Dia’s Story Cloth
• Dr. Seuss. Green Eggs and Ham
• González, Lucia. The Storyteller’s Candle
• Herron, Carolivia. Nappy Hair
• Levine, Arthur. Monday is One Day
• Myers, Walter Dean. Jazz
• Newman, Leslea. Heather Has Two Mommies
• Pak, Soyung. Dear Juno
• Richardson, Justin. And Tango Makes Three
• Sáenz, Benjamin Alire. A Gift for Papá Diego
• Say, Allen. Grandfather’s Journey
• Scieszka, Jon and Lane Smith. The Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
• Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Jingle Dancer
• Stead, Philip. A Sick Day for Amos McGee
• Swanson, Susan Marie. The House In the Night
• Willems, Mo. Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! and Can I Play Too?
• Young, Ed. Lon Po Po

Here’s an excerpt from the article, “Faculty Becoming More Diverse,” on the MN Private Colleges Council (MPCC) website:

Looking at the data, in 2009 MPCC institutions employed 465 faculty of color; a decade earlier it was 278. This increase of 67% compares to an increase of 27% for white faculty. While MPCC institutions have been able to recruit a more diverse faculty, the 9% non-white faculty still lags behind the state’s diversity — 15% — and the ethnic diversity of our student body — 13%.

…

Once non-white or underrepresented faculty arrive, institutional support is key to their success. “A lot of us are first-generation graduate students and junior faculty and we don’t have an ‘old boys network’ to support us in the challenges we face,” Park said. She is one of four Asian Americans in a department of 13 faculty and staff. “The diversity and collegiality in my department is great,” she said. “That doesn’t mean there haven’t been challenges.”

During her first all-faculty meeting in 2009, Park was taken aback when another faculty member referred to a Chinese student as “Oriental.” “I was shocked that she didn’t know that that word was outdated and offensive,” Park said. When Park approached her afterward, her colleague apologized and the two had a great conversation, but Park knew “there’s still work to be done.”

Check out the full article:

http://www.mnprivatecolleges.org/newsletter/july-2011-newsletter/faculty-becoming-more-diverse

Earlier today my friend and colleague Debbie Reese posted a blog entry regarding a new book in the Alvin Ho series – I’ve read the first two, Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking and Other Natural Disasters and Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things. I adore the  Alvin Ho series because the protagonist is an endearing Chinese American boy whose OCD tendencies are dealt with in an empathetic, charming and humorous manner. Plus, there are few children’s books directed at this age group (grades 2-4) that depict Asian American boys, so hurrah for that!

However.

I was severely disappointed when I learned that the newest book in the series, Alvin Ho: Allergic to Birthday Parties, Science Projects, and Other Man-Made Catastrophes, devotes much of its plot to Alvin’s preparation for and participation in “playing Indian” at an upcoming birthday party. And we’re not just talking one illustration of Alvin wearing a feather headdress, we’re talking it’s a major part of the plot.  Check out Debbie’s blog post here:

http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2011/06/alvin-ho-allergic-to-birthday-parties.html

I’m trying to process this as an Asian American scholar of Asian American children’s literature. How are Asian Americans complicit in perpetuating stereotypes of cultures not our own? Why? And from where (or from whom) do we learn these stereotypes? What makes us think it’s okay?It grieves me that we participate in the denigration of already oppressed cultures, whether intentionally or not (intentionality doesn’t matter – impact matters).

I wrote this in the comments section of Debbie’s blog:

I find really interesting (and disturbing) when one non-white group performs the stereotypes of other non-white groups and cannot make the connections or commonalities of mockery, bias, oppression, etc. My fellow graduate students and I at Illinois worked hard to show the undergrads that the Chief mascot was not entirely unlike the Pekin Chinks mascot at a high school only a couple hours from town in an effort to form some pan-ethnic solidarity around the Chief issue, and I guess I should not have been surprised at how resistant some of them were to seeing the connections. How would Asian Americans feel if we saw non Asian American people playing “Japanese Interment” or “Blacks v Koreans in the 1992 LA Riots” or “Chinese miners v white miners”? This speaks first to a major failing on our education system in not educating our young people on, well, let’s just call it appropriate behavior, and second on the failure of our books in perpetuating these stereotypes in children’s literature. This is a pretty egregiously (I’ve been using this word a lot lately) horrific and inappropriate depiction. I think that it exists at all means that we haven’t been taught to think about other people, only about ourselves (if at all), and that is frightening.

I think there are many reasons why this book was approved for publication:

• Apparently no one – NO ONE – at Random House stood up and said, “Hey, isn’t this stereotyping? Maybe we should think twice…” or if they did, no one listened, and the book went to press. This reminds me of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” song – did NO ONE on her production team have an issue with her using the word “Orient”?! Seriously??!
• Another reason is because kids really are still playing “Cowboys and Indians” or “Settlers and Indians” or “Take-Your-Pick and Indians” – parents continue to condone this behavior, however racist and misinformed and inaccurate.
• And finally, specifically regarding the fact that both Lenore Look and LeUyen Pham are Asian American – well, I wonder about their racial experiences, perspectives, sensibilities. And then I wonder about other Asian Americans in the publishing industry and we Asian American scholars, all of whom are working hard to create and promote the best and most realistic and accurate (give or take artistic and creative license) books for young people. But this is not the best of books for young people. This is one of the worst, most blatant and egregious instances of Native American stereotyping. It grieves me that we are guilty of creating images that are hurtful and harmful, and I think it’s largely systematic because we have not been taught that they are so. Or perhaps we have, and we didn’t or refuse to listen, because it’s not MY group, not MY issue. Which in some ways is worse.

I am angry – really, really angry – that we have not all learned how to be sympathetic and empathetic. I am angry – really, really angry – that in 2011 this kind of book can still be published. I am angry – really, really angry – that we clearly have MUCH more work to do.

As an educator, I extremely conflicted. I love the Alvin Ho books so much that I assign them in my Library Materials for Children course (and have already ordered them for 2011 Fall), but the publication of this new book casts a very dark shadow on how I now perceive the series, and whether or not I will continue to promote it. One thing I know for sure: this is NOT okay.

Not Me! by Nicola KIllen

Yesterday my friend Debbie Reese (the scholar behind American Indians in Children’s Literature) blogged about a new picture book, Not Me! written and illustrated by first-time picture book author Nicola Killen. The book was published by Egmont in the UK and is available through both the UK and US Amazon market. Especially as a professor teaching a course on Social Justice and Children’s/YA Literature, I had to see what this was about. Seeing the cover image on the left, I hope it’s clear why Debbie blogged about this, and why I also felt the need to comment. Unfortunately, for some reason Blogger keeps returning an error message when I try to comment on both Ms. Killen’s and Debbie’s blogs, so I’m posting my comments here instead.

In order to understand the context of my comments below, you’ll want to read Nicola Killen’s original post and subsequent commentators responding to that post, and also read Debbie’s post on the same topic. Only after will the following make sense:

I have been following this thread with great interest and am very much enjoying the conversations here.

As a graduate student at Illinois, I took a children’s literature course with Debbie Reese that strongly influenced the way I think about representations of Native Americans in popular culture. Now as a professor of Library Science, I invite Debbie every year to guest lecture in my classes and assign her blog as required reading, and my students are always tremendously influenced by her conversations with them. It is not just Native American mothers that might not pick up a book where a non-Native child “plays Indian” (however unintentional by the author and/or illustrator); as an educator, I might not purchase, assign or promote such a text. In fact, I’d use it as a teachable moment – I’ve already posted a link to this conversation on my course website for *Social Justice and Children’s/YA Literature.*

I think the fact that Debbie is Nambe Pueblo and an educator with a background in American Indian Studies lends great credibility to her cause. I would hope that me being Korean American and having an academic background (both a BA and MA) in Asian American Studies would lead others to trust my judgment when I comment on similar issues. This is pan-ethnic alliance and strategic essentialism and should not be dismissed as “[presuming] to represent.” Therefore I take offense to the implication that dressing up in a kimono is harmless “play” when that same child might think that likewise dressing up in a grotesquely bucktoothed, squinty-eyed karate costume on Halloween might also be “play.” It’s a slippery slope, and one where I would exercise caution over liberty. Taking liberties in the name of freedom of expression seems culturally arrogant.

The suggestion that a Native child wearing a cowboy hat has the same effect of a white child wearing a Native headdress is egregious – this dismisses the centuries of genocide and discrimination suffered by Native Americans at the hands of mostly white people, and elides the power and privilege that white people hold in this country and others. While white people doing blackface is not exactly the same, I don’t think the connection is without merit. It stems from not understanding and respecting different cultures, and reducing them to entertainment and even mockery. And at the end of the day, as Debbie notes, if Native students are not doing as well as they could in school, partly because of the ways in which they are misrepresented and their culture is so liberally used as “play,” well then, does that not give one pause? I would hope that we would extend to those groups the same respect for human dignity that we want and expect for ourselves.

And finally, suggesting that Debbie has other places where she could channel her energy is absurd; Debbie is one of the most productive, hard working, and responsive people I know. Her work is incredibly important and has been cited by countless students and professors, organizations, libraries, museums, and who knows exactly how many blogs. She is well respected in the field of children’s literature, and her work has tremendous implications for the publishing industry, libraries, schools, and of course the universities and programs that prepare students to work in those institutions. Her ongoing engagement with Ms. Killen is one example of this tireless work.

I also very much respect Ms. Killen for being willing to engage with Debbie and others on this topic. If only others would likewise listen.

I think your reply to Karen Lucas and its critique of the xenophobia of certain University of Minnesota students was heartfelt and very much on the mark. As a result, I do believe you had the best of intentions with the satiric article. However, clearly to some Asian Americans, it didn’t come off the way I think you wanted it to.

There is of course a long history of satire being misread. Still I think the problems here involve more than just the usual problems with the genre. To my mind, in your satire, you perhaps failed to take into account the particular ways many Asian Americans experience how they are portrayed in this culture. In other words to write a satire concerning say white male fraternities takes place within a history of portrayals of white male college students that is quite different from a satire concerning Asian American students. But that difference in portrayal simply points to an even vaster difference in the experience of those two groups, both in the present and in terms of historical context.

For the white male college students, the portrayals of such students contain many positive forms where they are depicted favorably and heroically. But that’s not the case for Asian American students. As a result, it becomes very difficult for Asian American students to presume that a given satiric portrait may be ironic rather than simply another portrayal which relies on stereotypes to make fun and denigrate Asian Americans. This is because such satire presumes the existence of and knowledge of a positive portrait of such students, whereas, other than a few exceptions, such a portrait simply doesn’t exist in this culture.

In other words, yes, of course there’s a norm in our culture that everyone should be treated fairly and equally and satire in part works from this premise. But when it comes to the actual depiction of Asian Americans, this general norm is not practiced. The particular portrayals of Asian Americans are always either rife with stereotypes and sniggling putdowns (think of any comedy where an Asian American figure appears) or as secondary minor characters (Hawaii Five-0). There doesn’t exist a norm where Asian Americans can appear in comedy and not have their ethnicity and race be the object of ridicule on some level. Nor does any positive portrayal exist where there isn’t some nod towards a hierarchy where the white person will always be in charge. If people misread your intentions with your satire, well, it’s no surprise that they would presume it came from the same place as almost every other portrayal of Asian Americans that exists in the culture (except in those rare instances where Asian Americans are the controlling agent of that product).

All this is very complicated. But in another way my point is simple: You can’t expect Asian Americans to read a satire involving Asian Americans in the same way you might. You shouldn’t necessarily presume that you as a white person have a complete understanding of the ways we experience and interpret the world or your words, even though you might be writing with the best of the intentions. When I speak on the issues of diversity and race, I always tell white middle class audiences, “I am more like you than you think I am and I am more different from you than you think I am.” It’s generally easier for them to understand what I mean by the first half of that sentence than the second half.

In the end I do want to applaud you in your fight against the small minded ethnocentricism and the racial fears of U of MN students. The fact is we’re moving towards more and more diversity and greater global connections; if students want to prepare themselves for the world they will be living and working in xenophobia is not what will be required. I want to encourage your intentions. But I do think you wrote your satire mostly thinking of how a white audience would respond. I don’t think you really thought out how an Asian American audience might respond. And in a way, that presumption simply reduplicates the hierarchy you’re intending to dismantle since it assigns a secondary status to us as an audience.
all best –

David Mura, writer, author of Turning Japanese

[Updated Monday June 6, 2011 @ 12:08 PM] Also with permission – Karen Lucas’ letter re: The Wake:

News short from The Wake Magazine: not funny?
The piece has clearly hit a raw nerve, an effective tool of satire. Whose funny bone it hits is another matter. If Alexander Wallace (the uber bimbo from UCLA library U tube video) and friends are your target audience, they are rolling on their trailer home floors wetting their thongs. Your article painfully reminds us of the glass ceiling that allows Schwarzenegger to have governed California and Nils Hasselmo to preside over a major university but points to the reality that anyone with an Asian accent is speaking something as career enhancing as Ebonics. This piece is the most effective advertising endorsement you could give Chilly Billy’s and if I were them I’d frame it and hang it on my store wall next to that first dollar bill. For something so funny, why does it feel like water boarding?

Karen Lucas

Article in The Wake

An Open Letter to The Wake student magazine and Campus Progress

*Do not copy or repost without my explicit permission.

Dear Student Writers at the Wake Student Magazine and Campus Progress,

My name is Sarah Park and I am an assistant professor at St. Catherine University. I have a BA in Asian American Studies and earned my MA in Asian American Studies from UCLA, where you might know that recently a white student made a racist YouTube video about Asians in the library. I spoke up against that situation and now I am compelled to speak up against this situation: a couple days ago I saw your article titled, “White Students ‘Just More Comfortable’ at Chilly Billy’s” in The Wake.

I am very offended by the implicit privilege and explicit racism depicted by this article, and The Wake’s publication of such an article, for the following reasons:

• Student Sarah Johnson is reported to have said, “Well, at FruLaLa I don’t even know if they speak English. How am I supposed to get normal frozen yogurt if I don’t know Chinese, right?” Ms. Johnson’s statement regarding her lack of fluency in Chinese betrays her ignorance of Asian cultures by conflating Chineseness with Koreanness – FruLaLa is owned and operated by Korean Americans. Regardless of who owns or works at FruLaLA, FruLaLa employees speak English and are perfectly capable of communicating effectively with all patrons.
• Ms. Johnson’s use of the word “normal” shows her white privilege in being able to define what is “normal” and implicitly then what is not “normal.”
• The article posits whiteness against non-whiteness, and particularly against Asianness.This kind of binary thinking is harmful, unproductive, and does not lead to social progress, social understanding, or social healing. Rather, whether spoken in jest or in truth, articles such as this perpetuate racism, xenophobia, and misunderstandings among society.
• Patronage at frozen yogurt shops is diverse. The Pinkberry crave, begun in Los Angeles several years ago, testifies to this. Your article suggests that prior to Chilly Billy’s, frozen yogurt was not socially accessible for whites in the midwest. Perhaps that has more to do with campus climate perpetuated by attitudes and articles such as this than it does with the ethnic and cultural background of frozen yogurt shop owners. Minnesota is still in the top 15 whitest states in the nation, and white enrollment at UMN is at 72% while Asian enrollment is 9%.
• Given the recent uproar over KDWB’s racist song about Hmong people, the xenophobic tendencies in our national politics and immigration policies, and ongoing hate crimes against non-whites both locally and nationally, it is socially irresponsible for The Wake to publish such racist views. I would add that, further, it is financially irresponsible as small businesses continue to struggle in this economy. Publishing an article criticizing a small business with racist views can do irreparable financial damage.

The publication of this article does not align with Campus Progress’ goal “to promote progressive solutions to key political and social challenges”; in fact, it does exactly the opposite. Freedom of speech and editorial freedom are one thing, but articles should still be guided by Campus Progress’ mission is to promote progressive solutions.” I completely disagree that this is merely a “controversial or offensive opinion,” as a CP representative wrote in response to a colleague’s letter (on this same issue). In fact, this article is outright racist and has no place in a progressive media outlet.

I recommend that The Wake issue a public apology and develop a process to review articles prior to publication. I honestly don’t believe that a media outlet would not review articles for grammar, quality, and style, much less for content. If these actions are not taken, I urge Campus Progress to pull funding from The Wake since it clearly does not align with CP’s mission.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Sarah Park, Ph.D., M.S., M.A.
Assistant Professor at St. Catherine University

UPDATE 4:42PM Campus Progress’ (Unsatisfying) Response

Prof. Park,

Thanks for your feedback. Our program supports progressive media outlets, which may occasionally present controversial or dissenting opinions. We believe in the editorial freedom of our grantees and do not review any work before it is published. Feel free to email us back if you have further questions or concerns.

David

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David Spett

Journalism Network Associate

Center for American Progress

1333 H St. NW, 1st Floor

Washington, DC 20005

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dspett@americanprogress.org

Campus Progress’ Journalism Network: Supporting and training the next generation of progressive journalists.