Unsettling the Academy: Asian Immigrant Women Scholars as Disruptive Presence

The 21st century continues to witness the persistent threats of racism and sexism in higher education, shaping the experiences of instructors and students alike. These forces are not merely remnants of the past but immediate, lived realities that demand critical engagement and resistance. The Trump era, in particular, exacerbated these challenges, normalizing xenophobic and misogynistic rhetoric that emboldened discrimination at individual, institutional, and systemic levels. His administration’s policies—including the Muslim travel ban, the rollback of Title IX protections, and heightened immigration restrictions, the suspension of DEI-related classes and government funding, implementation of policies adverse to transgender rights—disproportionately impacted minoritized scholars, particularly women of color and immigrant faculty, further deepening structural inequalities in academia.

These challenges are compounded by the transnational realities we navigate as Asian immigrant women scholars. When we visit our home country—one that predominantly adheres to Confucian patriarchal norms—we encounter heightened vulnerability as junior women scholars whose professional identities conflict with traditional Korean expectations of feminine duty. This clash reinforces the precarity of our positionality, both within and beyond academic spaces, forcing us into a continuous negotiation of identity, legitimacy, and belonging.

Our existence, we contend, is inherently transitional. Within the contemporary American political landscape, particularly in the Trump 2.0 era, the constraints placed on our pedagogical and research domains increasingly impede diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Yet even before these recent political shifts, our intersectional identities—marked by race, gender, age, and linguistic background—often placed us at odds with conventional representations of American higher education scholars. These factors frequently undermine the authority ostensibly granted by our doctoral credentials and faculty positions. When we research or teach religious traditions or religious education, which are often framed as having universal applicability, our expertise is too often reduced to our identities as young Korean women. This reductionist framing constitutes a form of ontological negation—one that denies us full intellectual legitimacy. In such an environment, the possibility of belonging or flourishing as scholars remains nearly impossible.

Yet, rather than adopting a defensive or apologetic stance regarding our presence in academia, we propose that our very existence—our "unnatural" embodiment in teaching and research spaces—becomes a performative force. This presence productively unsettles the comfort of non-marginalized groups, disrupts elite privileges, and transforms every classroom and scholarly contribution into a site of resistance. At this critical historical juncture, we recognize that our understanding of these experiences remains in flux, continually shaped and reshaped by unfolding events.

Here are our key research questions:

1. How do the intersecting forces of race, gender, and immigration status shape the academic experiences of Asian immigrant women scholars in the U.S.?
2. How do contemporary political shifts in both the U.S. and South Korea influence the professional and personal identities of Korean women in academia?
3. How can the marginalization of Asian immigrant women in higher education be critically examined and reframed as a site of resistance and transformative pedagogy?
4. What strategies can be employed to challenge and dismantle the ontological negation of Asian women scholars in academic spaces?

Through this research and presentation, we seek to embody and articulate our lived experiences as Asian immigrant women scholars, recognizing that this act of embodiment itself constitutes a form of resistance. In doing so, we expose the false security of academic spaces—classrooms, institutions, academic guilds, and journals—that are often perceived as neutral or safe. These spaces, which grant privilege to some, remain precarious and even dangerous for those of us who exist on the margins. Acknowledging this reality compels us to recognize others who navigate even greater uncertainty, danger, and discrimination. It is in this recognition that our experiences connect and extend—to the unsponsored student, the undocumented individual, the feminist, the oppressed. Our unintentional in-betweenness—between power and vulnerability—creates a bridge across different struggles.

Thus, in this research, we reintroduce and reframe our non-majority positionality—not male, not a native English speaker, not a U.S. citizen—as a critical tool to remind teachers and learners that our not-so-safe academic spaces can be transformed to embrace vulnerability and foster solidarity. We argue for the urgent need to share our lived experiences and construct our own narratives at the intersection of race, gender, and transnational identity as Asian immigrant women scholars of religion.

To that end, we examine the existing voices and analyses of Asian immigrant women’s experiences, while also interrogating the intersectional stereotypes that produce systemic prejudice and oppression. By weaving together prior scholarship and our own lived realities, we aim to illuminate the challenges of navigating so-called "safe" spaces in academia. Ultimately, this paper aspires to inspire reflection—encouraging others to construct their own vulnerable yet resilient narratives and apply these insights within their respective fields.

Selected Bibliography

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