Betty Lee Sung : Most of them had jobs after school and they work, sometimes twenty to thirty hours a week. So this was a big problem… nobody knows what was happening with them. Some of the other problems with the students are, that they don’t take part in any activities outside of school.
The other thing is getting the various groups to interact. I used to go down to the lunch room and I saw a Chinese table, a black table, a Hispanic table, and whatever. And you would never see them co-mingle together. We do need to see them mix. One thing we don’t have is dances or functions on campus any more. There is nowhere, no way for young people to interact with one another. Take the stereotype, but it is true. They tend to be very reticent to socialize or talk about their problems. We need to get them to talk, to get them to come out from their cocoons. But I don’t know how exactly you can do it because they work so many hours. Right after school they would run to their jobs.
Loretta Chin: We held a dialogue. We have a black person in the group, we have a Puerto Rican, Latino, and it was a good model, you know, for whether you’re in social injustice, sometimes you need to take it on your own civic participation and the institution to say, how can we address this. In getting the faculty together and discussing this, we talked about the needs for informal networks, for students because of the lack of counseling, the lack of participation in various structures of the administration across the board. And in forming that discussion with faculty and students, we saw the need for Asian studies at the college. Because not only would Asian studies educate the Asian students but also the whole population about what the issues are. Not specifically about Asian studies but Asian/Asian American studies and there is a difference. Right now, there is a task force that just began, and they had a first meeting to formulate a formal proposal for faculty council to establish Asian and Asian American studies program at Brooklyn College .
Now, because of the fiscal challenges that we face, especially budgetary, you all know how bad it is getting, the department is out of reach, but we can work at least at making that first step at creating awareness.
Also, in addressing how we can get students out of their little cocoons. In our community building dialogues, we have three themes for the semester. Our community building goals, democracy, because we’re taking an arts in democracy initiative at the college, and our sub-theme this semester is faith, spirituality and the human bond. Now, I asked all of my group of trainees, I trained about 30 students starting two weeks ago, and I asked them, “Looking at these goals, tell me your comments about the community, whether it’s Brooklyn College or Brooklyn, the state, the world.” A lot of students said, “Yes, why is it that we are so diverse, and yet we see everybody speaking to their own little groups?” And I talked to them about why we’re doing this, how they’re contributing by being here, because we do recruit from a wide diversity of students. I said, what we are doing is providing an answer to this, how we bring students to talk together, so I think the dialogue is very important.
What we do is we take a model from study circles, there’s a study circle resource center. But it’s unrealistic to follow that model because of our limited time and resources. We have to be innovative and have to look at it and adjust it so that it’s relevant for our students. We have to keep it interesting, to find out what the problems are, because a lot of people say that students won’t say what they want to at these circles, no matter what you say as far as ground rules. But telling them to write it down on a 3×5 card, what their questions were, they wrote it down anonymously. These are all students, but we have Asian students. Now that’s why we do individual but we also do community, but it does affect, because you have to involve the whole community, you can’t operate everything in your little cocoon.
Irene Chung : Can I involve the other two or three people who didn’t get a chance to talk about their experience, and I guess I wanted to get a better sense of whether these issues are still issues today for Asian American students. First of all language, in terms of whether they need remedial support classes, do you still think that’s still an issue for Asian American students, or are there enough remedial classes for Asian American students who need those classes?
Male Speaker : I spent ten years at Kingsborough Community College , in a counseling capacity and also working with student retention issues. The Asian Americans definitely always have an issue with language, am I going to be able to speak the language enough to be understood and to have that sense of confidence that I can participate and engage in personal communication. It’s very important to them.
Irene Chung : I guess we need to figure out what is a more significant factor in terms of this lack of participation in social activities. Is it because of language, is it because they don’t have the time, and also not using available counseling services, is it because they don’t feel they can express themselves. I think it’s an interesting aspect to look at.
Male Speaker : Dr. Tam mentioned the idea of emphasis on group and family that Asian Americans demonstrated, that is often not seen among non-Asian American students, and the importance of not individual identity, but family and group identity, I think that’s important and that’s a cultural thing that needs to be explored. I’m thinking of what kinds of things can we continue to build upon as administrators to help to bring students from different groups, Asian American clubs on campus, or a mixing or some kind of mixer, or some kind of mixing to make people comfortable just to be with each other. I know Dr. Keith, who is on campus, would do a number of social events, and invite people from everywhere. We have to think of specific things perhaps we can do to bring groups of students together. Either as a mixture for social reasons, or to build confidence, or formal discussions like we are having, and to sponsor this kind of thing every semester, or a variety of things to bring people together to talk.
Irene Chung : Do you think a lack of participation is still an issue for Asian American students, even though you’ve done so much to draw them out?
Male Speaker : I believe it is on the campuses. I see a great model of Asian and non-Asian students participating, and perhaps we can talk with that body about how we can promote this on the campuses. After all, they go back to their campus. These are Asian students who are active, who are in leadership positions, and I think we just elected a new chair of that group, and there are a number of Asian students who will hold championships on the university Student Center . I attend each of their meetings, and I’ll go back to them and put this on the table, and will probably be reaching out to places like Brooklyn College and other schools to see if perhaps we can come up from their perspective a university-wide approach to this. I’m not suggesting that it be a conference, but it can be some sort of a university-wide bringing together of Asian and non-Asian students, formal, informal, whatever.
Irene Chung : Do you hear Asian students talking about family issues, or dating issues?
Betty Lee Sung : I get a lot, because it’s a cultural thing, more so than the language or anything, because it’s a conflict. What are you going to do, listen to your father and mother, or go out and do what you want to do?
Irene Chung : But I thought it was interesting that they came to you as an Asian mentor, so my question also is, with the fact that there are more Asian counselors, be more of an enticement for them to come.
Betty Lee Sung : That’s what I thought all the time, but I think that if you bring a group of students… There is no use in telling them what to do, like you should stand on your own and search for yourself, do what you like, because this is the American way… it’ll go directly against the family. So, if you got the students together, talk about how did you handle the problem, and do you have similar problems. When they feel that other people are having similar problems, they will come out and say how the students have some way of dealing with it themselves and they can compromise.
Irene Chung : Dialogue, right, support group or dialogue.
Loretta Chin : One of my classmen, a freshman in particular, said that he is much more used to the English language than his parents, so he ended up taking care of a lot of the bills and stuff at home, which was a lot of work. He had his own work to do but has a family commitment and maybe if he had other people to talk to who have similar family situations, he could figure out how to manage all of the different things he has to do.
Male Speaker : That’s an interesting point, because there are some issues that are associated with Asian Americans, not only Asians. One of my counselees, a first generation college student, was so conflicted about the fact that she had to take care of her elderly parents, on top of having to work, having to do all these things you mentioned, all the double language, taking care of all the business, and also going to school. But she would come to me saying, I wish I could be like them, talking to who they were referring to. I wish I did not have this burden of having to do all these things because I can’t be a college student like the rest are. This is an issue that counselors see on a regular basis, so what do we do with this? How can we help those students to deal with it, and to feel like they are, like the rest, part of this educational community?
Loretta Chin : I call that a cultural handicap, it’s a term that I coined. I feel that way even in my own upbringing, my family has been here for four or five generations. Because I have command of the language, and this is something my mother taught me. She said that the most important thing was to learn the English language, and that will help me to be successful and I found that to be very true. My own brothers and sisters, and everyone had done very well because of it. People feel uncomfortable about interracial dating, although they don’t talk about it. That’s how you are just raised, your family business is your family business, culturally, a lot of that is not approved of, because you are taught to stay with your culture and your background, and to continue the traditions, and whatever your customs are, that is very much valued and you don’t want to lose that.
Irene Chung : I think you are talking also about the immigrant lifestyle, or a very important issue of immigrant families. I mean the older generation is counting on the younger generation for fulfilling a lot of the chores and responsibilities, and there’s no way to get around it because they speak the language, and even though they don’t have to work as hard, they still have this commitment to be with the family and to help out and support the family, so that in a way they’re being shortchanged in terms of social life activities.
Betty Lee Sung : That’s the predominant pattern. In fact, most of the second generation is in that situation where they have to act as a bridge for the parents and the larger society. But yeah, that’s so true. It’s predominant. So their burden is much heavier, and I presume this is true for all immigrants, not just Asians. And you know, Irene, you deal with students, give us your idea, I want to hear from you.
Irene Chung : Well, I deal more with the graduate students, but I hear similar stories from some of the younger students, and yes, they tend to not get as involved in social activities because of all the responsibilities. I also did a study on Asian students who attempted suicide, and I thought that was very interesting, because they came from immigrant families, where there were no role models for them in terms of dating in this society. And in a way, they don’t have the social skills to deal with disappointments and setbacks in relationships. So when that happens, Asians, they are taught to succeed in everything, and for the first time in their lives, a relationship that was important to them, failed. There’s this sense that they did something wrong, and it’s also something they cannot go back to their families to talk about, because dating was not something that was sanctioned, you’re supposed to wait until you finish school and are ready to get married. It was very different, once they got to college, because there was a lot of freedom. In a way it was almost too much freedom, because they were so used to having structure, and being so disciplined, and now all of a sudden they can date and can do all these things. A lot of them did that, but didn’t know how to handle the dating rules, so to speak, and so then that was a tremendous setback for them. I mean, of course there was a lot of dysfunctional family dynamics too. They didn’t feel loved to begin with, but that was the dominant factor, not feeling that they could pursue a relationship, that they felt betrayed in relationships, because they felt they were very serious about personal relationships.
Betty Lee Sung : I’m sorry I’m projecting myself so much. I just want to make two points. One is the language, and that is a very difficult problem, and while I’m addressing that, I’ll bring up the second point too, about why it’s important to have Asian American studies in your colleges. I initiated Asian American studies at City College back in 1970 and did research on Asian Americans, on language specifically. We didn’t know what happened to students after they graduated, and how many do graduate? We didn’t have the institutional research data to show. So we did a class assignment one time, about how many students graduated from City College . We went to the alumni office and got the graduation list and I said there were so many Asian students enrolled, but how come they’re not graduating? Then, I sent the students out to interview some of them, and found out that they had good jobs, were working as engineers, and at that time engineering was the main thing. So they had all gotten jobs and were doing well. But I said to them, did you graduate? They said no, because they didn’t pass the English proficiency, but in engineering they could handle this stuff. So, they would go on, and if anybody ever questioned if they graduated, they would say no, but are competent and finished the five years of college to do engineering. I found that language was really a big problem and that they really needed more classes in language and so forth. One thing I always said to my students was that they could be the best engineer, the best architect, the best doctor, but if they wanted to move up, they’ve got to write memos, and have got to have the language, so I would encourage them to write language reports. I gave them reports, and they would complain of course, but I said I’m giving you more for your money.
The other thing I want to talk about is Asian American studies, and this is where we bring up all the issues. It’s very important to let the Asian American students know that this is a common problem, to all of them because they don’t know that. They thought it was their own problem and they were trying to solve it individually and were very conflicted about what was going on. If you could have courses in Asian American studies, bring up these issues. These are problems that are culturally based, and that are immigrant status based, ethnically based, and therefore have the students talk about how you could resolve it.
Dave Bryan : Like Prof. Sung mentioned, I think creating a sense of community on campus is very important, and there are a number of ways to do that. One, I think that it’s good for students to interact with each other and along with the departments. Clubs to me, for example, is where someone can come to and feel a sense of belonging on campus, especially when they’re new on campus. There’s a sense of belonging in that group where they feel comfortable. Another piece is students on campus have relationships with faculty and staff, and it tends to be more so with student affairs people, where we as professionals pursue this closely, and should a relationship develop, we find it easier or more likely for students to talk or want to share.
Irene Chung : The issue about raising the consciousness of faculty, I guess I’d like to hear a little bit more about it because that seems to be an important key also. What kinds of issues would you be educating or sensitizing the faculty people about? You’ve done some of that, it seems like.
Irene Chung : Like in the classroom, to relate to students differently?
Loretta Chin : Even to give that informal counseling that needs to be done that’s not there in colleges, to take a student and be an advisor to the club, or just look at individual circumstances that are going on and talk to students. A lot of times we just need to ask students what is going on, why is this happening, just get right down and ask them, and then see what it is that the college wants to do as far as answering is concerned.
Irene Chung : Do you feel that there’s more stereotyping on the part of the faculty people toward Asian students? Because Asian students are perceived as very quiet, and are not assertive.
Loretta Chin : If you’re talking about immigrant communities, because like I said there’s a lot of diversity within Asian American students in general, we have the generational differences, the differences within the cultures, the different cultures within the Asian diaspora.
Dave Bryan : CUNY always go about the desire to have a more diverse faculty at the university, which is something that is continually looked at. I guess at some point in time when we do hire these people, we should intentionally look for faculty from the Asian communities, because then more students would have someone in the front of the classroom that they could relate to, and therefore would want to communicate with. I hope that one day there will be more Asian faculty and faculty of color, because it’s really important that we have faculty that can more so relate to the students.
Irene Chung : That would be on the administrative level.
Loretta Chin: Again, it’s about the comfort zone, too, about students with the comfort zone. If you have more of the Asian American faculty there that would help them a lot.
Male Speaker : Loretta says, perhaps faculty members can be advisors or mentors. But what other kinds of things can we suggest faculty do, or what other kinds of activities can Asian students in campus organizations do to make Asian students feel more accepted and more a part of the community. I’m concerned about that. Is it to have Asian American clubs sponsor more events, and invite the majority of the students? Is it more social activities? Should student activity directors get more involved with trying to get people together in the cafeteria or the club area?
Irene Chung : If we’re going to do more research, more in-depth research, would you say that that’s a key issue, and that’s the most important issue we should pursue? How do we involve Asian students more in the campus community life?
Male Speaker : I don’t know if it’s the most important, but it’s a very important one. I think each group should be made to feel that they are a part of the community. How do you do that?
Loretta Chin : There’s language and culture and tradition. Especially with immigrant families, because it’s very strong when they carry their traditions over and culture values.
Male Speaker : And how much is intimidation a factor; where it’s like, if I can’t speak the language, I feel frightened in this environment, so I’ll just simply stay withdrawn to myself, do my studies, and just do the best that I can. The other thing, the acceptance factor; how much I’m accepted in the campus community.
Loretta Chin : How much support you receive also, because if you look at how the structures are set up, politics do get involved, the lines get defined, what’s established on these historical times, it affects what’s happening today, peoples’ self determination, the different groups affect other groups also, the dynamics of college.
Male Speaker : That’s a good point, and how vocal are Asians as leaders on campus in fighting for their share of the pie? How do we encourage them to fight for their club, fight for their budget, fight for more programs, fight for Asian American degree programs, etc. How do we get Asian students to feel more comfortable in their communities?
Irene Chung : And their role as students, because it seems like what I’m hearing is that they tend to go to class and read. They don’t spend as much time as other students doing other activities, aren’t taking full advantage of the campus life, because they have other commitments, or it could be other psychological reasons.
Male Speaker : Well, see, I’m one to offer that perhaps we should not accept that it is only because of family commitment that they are not involved, because there are other groups on campus who have huge family commitments too.
Irene Chung : And there are other groups that have language problems.
Male speaker : And language problems, absolutely.
Irene Chung : So this seems like you’re helping us shape a very important research question because it involves a holistic view of who is the Asian American student on our campus. For some reason they have a specific profile, and we’re not totally understanding why is it that they’re not participating actively on campus.
Male Speaker : One other thing. The Chancellor has asked that we do a study and get some numbers on why international students from the Spring to the Fall did not return. What were some of the reasons that the international students who were here on F1 visas did not return. Was it tuition?
Irene Chung : CUNY tuition is not that high.
Male Speaker : But compared to what they were charging before, it’s a lot more money. So, there are a lot of issues. We have numerous groups in the CUNY community, so how do we get to the point where we get to look at a group and say, what are your needs? We sort of look in general, Asians, Latinos, African Americans, Italians, but what are the unique and special needs of Asian American students and first generation Asian students? Are there needs there that administrators and faculty can target and find ways to at least acknowledge, and help address, if not resolve? If we say that we’re going to resolve the problems of Asian students, that’s presumptuous. But if we could at least acknowledge that here are some factors that may be obstacles to achievement for our Asian students involvement, and what kinds of administrative things can my office, Vice Chancellor Hill, and faculty do to help to at least ameliorate? That’s what I am concerned about.
Irene Chung : So that would be a sub-question of this question about how we can integrate them more into the campus community life. But I was curious, do you think academically, Asian students are doing alright, or about average, or not satisfactory? Do you have any idea?
Male Speaker : Maybe if it’s mathematical courses or science courses, they’re okay with, but when it comes to English, especially for the international students, it becomes a problem. They may score A’s and B’s in the science classes, science, math, but when it comes to literature or English they start getting into the C’s and D’s bracket.
Irene Chung : What would be the reason? Just language, or is it also differences in worldviews?
Male Speaker : I hear from students that they can grasp mathematics and science very well because their home country that they came from had already emphasized that a lot. Comparisons of education from, say, Hong Kong to the United States , they are at higher level calculus already compared to students here. They’re doing calculus at the junior high school level, while we’re still doing it in high school. English is probably their biggest problem.
David Bryan : What are some factors at CUNY that made you feel a good sense of belonging?
Male Speaker : That fact that I felt like I belonged was probably because I was the first generation Asian student in my family. It’s also the diversity, that’s a factor, and sometimes I want to check with my Asian self, so I see what’s going on with that group. For me it’s not really, I don’t stay within a specific group as a comfort zone, I try to utilize everything.
Irene Chung : Do you know if your Asian peers are doing the same thing, or no?
Male Speaker : I see that they’re probably not doing the same thing, and when you talk about in terms of Asian, there’s also Asian American, it’s like a mini-culture within the Asian culture, and it’s really difficult.
Loretta Chin : Before you went to school and when you got here, what kind of outreach have you done? How did you learn about the resources?
Male Speaker : If I was a high school student about to go to college, I would really listen to the guidance counselor and really look at what the academics of each type of college, what specialty it was.
Loretta Chin : I’m thinking about people who are already, you’re talking about organizations at various colleges, and doing outreach to those people who know they’re entering in, can you catch them from the start?
Phillip Li : It’s word of mouth, too. I say there is a big difference from the CUNY system, because before I went to Brooklyn College , I went to Buffalo , which is SUNY system. In comparison, they have a smaller international student percentage than an Asian Americanization over there. It’s a real big difference, because in the CUNY system it seems to me like there are more international students than Asian students who are born here, and I’m still trying to figure out why that is.
Irene Chung : But would you have any suggestions about orientation activities that we can institute? You obviously seem to be very resourceful, but a lot of Asian students, especially those who have problems with language, are very isolated.
Phillip Li : It’s like Loretta said, if you want to get someone to open their mind, they have to be in their comfort zone, and probably for orientation-wise if you want to try and get students involved in various activities, you have to find a way to get into their comfort zone. In other words, try to find a way to relate to them.
Irene Chung : So maybe have other Asian students there.
Male Speaker : Maybe Asian faculty.
Irene Chung : Initially, they can relate to them. Anything else?
Loretta Chin : I still think it’s also the fact of raising awareness to Asian American students in general. That promotes the value of co-curricular activities, because I agree, a lot of students work and they’re busy. If they thought it was valuable to them, they would make the time to go.
Irene Chung : So you’re talking about raising the awareness of the students, like educating the Asian students who never get involved with extracurricular activities.
Loretta Chin : They need to understand why the co-curricular activities are important, and I don’t think that happens at all. And not just Asian American studies, it needs to be in the general education. For instance, we have a core at Brooklyn College , and these things need to be taught in the core. Some of these issues are what the different needs are, the need for civic participation in the community, it needs to be understood by all groups, not just Asians. In general, to look at immigrant needs in general. What are the individual differences, what are the specific needs of these groups, why are we different, we do come from different multicultural backgrounds and belief systems. The belief system is very important, understanding why people believe the way they do, because no matter what you do, the belief system will always come back, it will dictate your behavior.
Male Speaker : That’s why for us to say, we are going to resolve issues or to change someone’s belief system is not going to happen.
Loretta Chin : But we can set up something institutionally where services are offered. Even in orientation, for instance, when students come in, they can know that they are being provided these services through an education agenda, it will be in this multicultural course, this global studies course, and it will be addressed.
Irene Chung : In social work school the very first part of orientation is diversity training, because social workers are supposed to be able to accept differences. That’s part of the professional training. So, like the first day of orientation, they all have to go through this cultural sensitivity exercises, to realize that we’re all very different, and that we have to embrace differences. I guess maybe it’s something to think about in undergraduate studies too, so people feel accepted, and they can also appreciate differences. Because when you can’t, then you’re really blocked in the way you see yourself, that I’m different and I may not be accepted, and other people may not accept you, so it goes both ways.
Loretta Chin : You have to look also at the power dynamics, because when you look at faculty, even faculty needs to be supported. Many faculties have language problems, and students complain that they don’t understand what their faculty instructors are saying. It creates a culture of intolerance, to say that this person should not be teaching because their language is not up to par with what we need and what our needs are in the general student population. I’ve noticed a lot of this awareness-raising is individually asking people. Part of my outreach was to individually interview many of the faculty, just to see what their perspective was of their experience at the college. It’s not for this discussion, but I see where there’s a definite need among faculty for support as well.
Irene Chung : Well, I want to thank you all, I think we have some things very essential to report to at the end of the meeting here. In a way, we kind of concluded that this issue of helping Asian students integrate and get more involved with campus life is a very important issue. We speculated some of the reasons. It could be language, it could be the whole immigrant family background and they have to help with the family financially, the commitment to work, the cultural values of being more loyal to family, not being accepted, so there’s all these reasons but we don’t know which is the more predominant reason, so I guess we’re taking a multi-faceted approach to see what all these suggestions are, to deal with all these possible reasons. But if we’re all gonna embark on a research study, it would be interesting to find out from the students, what were the reasons that kind of deterred them from participating more fully on campus.
Loretta Chin : Maybe they don’t know, because it’s not there, and when they wrote on that survey “no opinion”, it was because they couldn’t give an opinion on something they don’t know about.
Male Speaker : It would be good if we have some sort of focus group of Asian students university-wide because then they could come up with some issues that we haven’t even touched here.
Irene Chung : So, we should suggest that. I would like to hear from the horse’s mouth. We are speculating here.
Male Speaker : I know the Vice Chancellor is looking for a group of students university-wide to come together, like a little focus group, to talk about what the university should reflect on.
Phillip Li : Just like old times. It’s a really big decision. I actually had to put a lot of thought into it too.
Male Speaker : What they’re going to do is as a result of the students’ input, is shape the master plan for the next 4 or 5 years for the university.
