Translating the academy: Learning the racialized languages of academia.

Abstract

This article presents narratives of 2 women faculty of color, 1 early career Latina and the other tenured Asian American woman, regarding their ontological and epistemological struggles in academia, as well as the hope, impetus, and strategies for change that they constructed together. Drawing on a critical pedagogy perspective, mentoring is discussed as a praxis of allyship that develops organically within relationships that recognize each person’s strengths, provides instrumental knowledge about the academy, provides intellectual stimulation and reciprocal reflection, and is a collaborative endeavor that helps them to resist erasure and insert visibly diverse knowledge systems into people’s academic pursuits and responsibilities.