Brief Summary Of Tiffany Martinez's Article Academia, Love Me Back

In the article “Academia, Love me Back”, by Tiffany Martinez, the author writes about the stereotyping by her college professor and society in general. She contends that her college professor is biased based on the comments her professor wrote on her assignment. She establishes her academic credentials, describes a biased society against Latinos, describes the racism she has encountered personally, describes her feelings of inadequacy, and makes a challenge to academia at the end. Martinez effectively communicates her arguments to academia based on her logic, organization, and style.
Martinez’s logic is established throughout the article. She appeals to the reader’s sense of self and indignation. Most of us do not like to be talked down to. She persuades the reader to think about what it would feel like to

be her. Her purpose seems to stay the same from beginning to the end-portray what stereotyping is like. She goes from general biases in society so that readers who have ever felt the sting of judgmental ideas will sympathize with her plight, to specific individual grievances with others who treat her differently because of her race. She gives examples of the professor’s words “this is not your word” and “indicate where you cut and paste” as proof that her professor was biased. She then moves to advocating for herself to prove that she is capable of intelligent language. Next, she closes with empathetic statements about being tired and exhausted from facing biased people. She concludes with the “entire field of academia being broken” and that we must work to fix “the lack of diversity” that is the norm on most college campuses.
Martinez organizes her article by focusing on the broad perspective of racism at the beginning and then narrows it down to specific grievances that she’s faced. She gives her credentials in the first paragraph so that the audience will understand her background and what she has achieved. This shows that she is a capable writer and communicator. She then speaks of a society that will not allow minorities to be as successful as white people. Next, she brings the audience into the moment by speaking about what happened to her today. After describing in detail what she faced from her professor’s comments, she transitions into what should happen in the future. Her purpose seems to focus on making the audience aware of the problem and by the end she wants the audience to make a difference and try to change the stereotyping that she is experiencing.
Her style is simple, but effective.

She uses adequate vocabulary to establish her ability to write and communicate effectively. She even mentions that she is careful about each word she expresses because she doesn’t want to support the professor’s claims of her inadequacy in word choice. She uses strong, emotional words like “debilitating and painful”, and “bitter”, “doubt”, and “criticized” to allow the audience to feel empathy. She transitions between her ideas with short simple sentences to keep the audience focused on the important items. “Today is different”, begins the specific account of her professor’s words on her paper. “In reality, I am tired and exhausted” is a simple sentence with powerful, honest words. This sentence transitions into her ideas of what should be done to stop stereotyping. Lastly, she uses the pronoun “I” throughout the paper, but shifts to the pronoun “we” in the final sentences of the article. This shift targets the audience and challenges the reader to be responsible for making changes in academia and stereotyping. The simple statements, “We all have work to do. Academia needs work” are strong and

decisive.
Martinez offers strong support for her belief that she has experienced stereotyping based on her Latino background. She communicates effectively and clearly with simple sentences, use of strong, emotional words, and organization from general stereotyping to specific stereotyping. Her argument is significant in a culture that has experienced racial and gender biased behaviors for many years. She makes valid statements about how she will have to work even harder to prove herself in a culture with no respect for diversity.