Although there has been a significant increase in the number of minority faculty members in higher education, little is known about potential barriers and challenges we face during their early career development. In this counter-story article, I share my own professional experiences regarding the choices I made and obstacles I faced in developing my own career including both teaching and research. Compared with mainstream early career scholars, I realized that there are certain areas or methods that I was expected to teach or research. I hope that my counter-story presented in this article can contribute to understanding the conflicts and labels that international faculty may face and reframing them as potential assets that we can develop and bring into meaningful literacy practice.