OP ED: Failed Asian American Literature Hire Exemplifies Racism in the English Department [REDACTED VERSION]

OP-ED By Christina Huang and UNC Students for Asian American Studies (SAAS):

Some sections of this piece are redacted due to privacy concerns, as requested by the author.

After 30+ years of advocacy and growing Asian American presence at UNC, the administration under Kevin Guskiewicz and Jim White finally recognized the need for institutional support by approving a cluster hire of three Asian Americanists. Members of Students for Asian American Studies (SAAS) and I who spearheaded this hire in 2023 were invited to participate in the process. In the spring of 2024, the History and American Studies departments successfully hired faculty in Asian American Studies, while the English Department failed to extend its distinguished professorship offer to either finalists.

This failed hire calls into question whom the English Department deems qualified as prestigious enough to be a distinguished professor. In its entire history, the English Department has only ever listed distinguished professorships to two women of color: Trudier Harris, the first ever Black woman hired in 1979, and Maria DeGuzman. Despite numerous brilliant Asian American scholars moving through the department, none were awarded a distinguished professorship. This failed senior hire in Asian American literature exemplifies the discriminatory and hostile workplace conditions for Asian American scholars at UNC.

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SAAS has committed countless hours into advocating, organizing and attending meetings and candidates lectures. This failed search is a slap in the face. Firstly, for disrespecting and humiliating these two internationally revered Asian American scholars by dismissing their qualifications. Secondly, for robbing me and future students of the opportunity to learn from these scholars.

Student organizers like myself are exhausted from being told in South Building meetings that it's "complicated" and to wait patiently. It’s not complicated at all.

For at least three decades, Asian American students, demanded for Asian Americanist faculty and more resources. We are currently the fastest growing ethnic group in North Carolina. We now make up roughly one fifth of the UNC student body. Yet since 2019, UNC has lost five Asian Americanists. This exodus of these scholars is an extension of the hostility towards the Asian American community and related scholarship. These professors were poached by universities that offered significantly higher wages and better leadership opportunities and some scholars left academia entirely due to the hostility they experienced. █████████████████████████████████

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In my opinion, this hire was botched. UNC has a responsibility to rectify its structural issues and immediately hire a distinguished Asian Americanist during the 2025-2026 academic year. SAAS rejects any Asian American literature hires in English until the department fully recognizes its racism. That also goes for Black, Indigenous and Latino scholars. Several departments, including American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Geography have expressed interest in hiring Asian American studies scholars. We encourage them to do so.

By, Christina Huang and friends at Students for Asian American Studies

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Author’s Note:

“This opinion piece below has been sitting on my computer for the past 3 months. And every time I would come across it, I would be left extremely frustrated. For the last three months, I tried to get this published on numerous Chapel Hill/Carrboro platforms and despite providing numerous versions of this op ed to adjust for critiques, all of them were rejected. From being told we don’t cover “minute University issues” and that there wasn’t enough “consistently discriminatory practices to be comfortable accusing a department of racism”, trying to get it published has been demoralizing. I was left feeling crazy from being told numerous times by non-Asian people that these stories of racism were not deemed important or racist enough. To be clear, there is nothing exceptional about racism. Racism manifests in our everyday lives and in the mundane. It is traumatizing, stressful and violent.

For this reason, I wanted to include an excerpt from an email on 2/15/2025 to an opinion desk to contextualize why I am writing this piece and clarify what it aims not to do.

I do not believe we should downplay or obfuscate the ongoing racism and merely hope that the readers are picking up what we infer, especially during a time when we are witnessing federal and state attacks on DEI and witnessed the ban on affirmative action. Now is not the time to regulate minority voices.

Nor do I want to sensationalize the struggles that Asian American people and scholars go through so that it fits the narrative of what non-Asian American people believe the racism we experience looks like. Because we deserve to have our realities explained and understood in the way that we experience it. And also sensationalizing our experiences lacks journalistic integrity.

To conclude, I do not wish to edit my piece. I have had three professors with doctorates, two DTH journalists, one professional writer, and multiple student activists review, edit and approve of this piece. If it cannot run in its most truthful form, I'd rather it not run.”

I share this opinion piece because of the utmost importance of bringing attention and transparency on the racism that Asian American scholars face at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In these last three months, scholars have pulled out from this piece in the last three months and I have redacted their words out of respect for their privacy, mental health, and myriad of valid reasons to not publicize their traumatic experiences. I left in the redacted boxes to visualize the silences and censorship in our community to emphasize the current precariousness of our community.

This opinion piece is important not only because it has reflected tens of hours of my labor but this piece begins to articulate my frustration and pain that I have been experiencing at UNC, and I’ve been advised to remain silent on.

So, I publish this piece to break my silence within our community. To those in my community who have the privilege, I encourage you to speak out as well. Far too often we minimize and internalize our racist experiences and it has resulted in non-Asian American communities re-narratizing our experiences for us. In speaking with numerous undergraduates, graduate workers and former UNC scholars for this piece, there has been a plea for these stories to be told as we experience it.

To my Asian and Asian American comrades, I see you.”