Asian/American Women Scholars, Gendered Orientalism, and Racialized Violence: Before, During, and After the 2021 Atlanta Massacre

Abstract

This article describes how an Asian/American woman leader-scholar (and others un/like her) haves processed the Atlanta Massacre of 2021 and other types of racialized violence in and out of the academy by drawing on the analytic frameworks of Orientalism and racialized sexualization. This critical autoethnography involved synthesizing traumatic reflections into concept maps by drawing from the content of author-generated poems, e-mails, institutional statements, and journal entries based on a series of critical incidents that occurred between March 15, 2021 to March 22, 2021, as well as over the past several decades. She describes how many leaders at White-dominated institutions of higher education have perpetually dishonored Asian/Americans and other BIPOC faculty, staff, and students through their in/actions, mis/behaviors, and mis/deeds before, during, and after the Atlanta Massacre March 16, 2021.

Hyper-Sexualization of Asian American Women

“…Six of the victims were Asian American women. The 21-year-old perpetrator claimed to have a "sex addiction" and saw these Asian American women as a source of sexual temptation [11]. During 2021, before the Atlanta massacre, Asians were already being accused for the spread of COVID-19, leading to another wave of anti-Asian sentiments.…”

“We Have to Survive, First”: Speculative Ethnographies of Chinese Student Experience During COVID-19

“…Our initial narratives included Chinese students who felt "trapped" in America and "targeted" by America (Endo, 2021;Lin, 2020). These narratives explore the racialized violence that targeted Asian/Americans during this period, which reached an apex with the Atlanta Spa Shootings of 2021.…”

“…We initially assumed that international students wanted to "fit in"; however, the narratives we captured indicated that some students may be repelled by American collegiate culture and preferred to build social networks within the international student community(ies) with which they most identified. Wendy's narrative adds to the body of literature that illuminates how Asian women are assumed by Americans to be sexually available and submissive (see Endo, 2021;Kang, 2010). An American undergraduate visited her apartment intending to have sex, although they barely knew each other.…”

Solidarity and strife after the Atlanta spa shootings: A mixed methods study characterizing Twitter discussions by qualitative analysis and machine learning

“…Set against the increased hate crimes committed against Asian Americans and Asians living in America during the COVID-19 pandemic ( 3 , 4 ), this tragic massacre brought more attention to the racism experienced by Asian Americans and sexualization of Asian American women in particular ( 5 ). Asian American women working in spa salons or massage parlors are often assumed to be sex workers, which incites fetishization, objectification and racial sexualization ( 6 – 8 ).…”