“You Are Not There Yet to Think Creatively”

Abstract

This critical autoethnographic research explores the lived educational experiences of an Asian woman in a mid-South urban university in the U.S. The stories of the self-empowerment for women of color connect personal encounters to larger sociocultural and political phenomena. The study employs creative analytic practice as a way of representing autoethnographic data through narratives and poetry, an innovative approach to critiquing and deconstructing academic realities, while illuminating the power relations between faculty and students. The study suggests that race- and gender-based inequities in academia may be negotiated through promoting minoritized discourses, thereby opening pathways toward education equity and social justice.