Woke used to be an endearing term at some point. You're assuming that the quotes are there to poke fun of it, they could be there because it's a foreign or coloquial term that the author is a bit unsure about too. You have not to lose by assuming good intention until irrevocably proven wrong. The US, being influential, ends up exporting a lot of its internal politics, however other parts of the world don't necessarily interpret them in the same way. I've seen people in Brazil using the term woke in a positive way. To be honest, I only learned now that it's always pejorative.