Addressing the Need for Asian Critical Language Awareness for Asian American Female Faculty

Non-tenure track faculty is rapidly increasing in American higher education, but there is a dearth of research examining their work lives (Ott et al., 2015).Moreover, there is very little research on the lived experiences of female faculty, with little focus on female faculty of color, but not particularly on Asian Americans.Some researchers hypothesize that there is a synergistic destructive intersection for being a woman, being a minority, and being a junior faculty member (Boyd, 2010).This study draws upon the theory of Critical Language Awareness, which "interrogates the dominating discourse on language and literacy and foregrounds the examination and interconnectedness of identities, ideologies, histories/herstories and the hierarchical nature of power relations between groups" (Alim et al., 2010).The purpose of this research brief is to analyze the challenges and successes of two Asian American faculty women as they individually reimagine their language experiences throughout the trajectory of their K-12 teaching leading into their higher education professional career in literacy and language.By applying a collaborative autoethnographic approach, we position ourselves as participant researchers and provide critical reflections on our language practices in teaching and learning through the lens of Critical Language Awareness.The emerging themes from this study include:(1) Gender: Triple standards placed upon Asian American female faculty, (2) Language: Assumptions of language proficiency equate to lack of leadership skills, (3) Race: Racialized positionality leads to proving oneself to feel competent.With these outcomes, we hope to address the need for Asian Critical Language Awareness for Asian American Female Faculty.