Dr. Tricia Lin:
I’m Tricia Lin, teaching at the Borough of Manhattan Community College for the last eight years, full time. This is been a very special day for all of us who have been working, struggling in Asian American studies. Particularly it’s a great topic because for the last fifteen years, I’ve made Manhattan my home, and Asian American Studies, one of my home disciplines. So this is like having my multiple homes tied together.
I’m really glad to present in front of you our distinguished panel. We’re going to start with Dr. Betty Lee Sung. I must begin by saying that without her unflagging effort and vision, we wouldn’t be here today. And the many others, of course, who supported her vision. She’s done so much. I’ll just read to you what’s in front of me. Betty Lee Sung is Professor Emeritus and Chairperson of Asian American/Asian Research Institute, the organization that is hosting today’s conference. She is the former Chairperson of Asian American Studies Department at City College of New York (CCNY), CUNY. Is that department still existing?
Betty Lee Sung:
No, I’m afraid I’m going to talk about that.
Dr. Tricia Lin:
Professor Sung has published innumerable articles and seven books on Chinese Americans including Mountain of Gold (1967). She is really a pioneer of Asian American studies, one of our role models. And she wrote Chinese American Manpower and Employment, which won an Outstanding Book of the Year award for 1976. And I’m going to just introduce all of our speakers, and then I will ask each to keep to his or her 5-7 minutes and then we’ll have time for discussion if you don’t mind.
Our second speaker is—I never had so much joy to alter what is written here—Dr. Melanie Bush who works in Student Affairs at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She holds a Master of Public Health degree and has a Doctorate in Anthropology at CUNY. In 1998, Ms. Bush initiated a Community Building Initiative at Brooklyn College. I understand that she just published her dissertation at the end of last month, two weeks ago. Congratulations.
And the third speaker is Ms. Loretta Chin, who is the Special Projects Coordinator in the Office of the Dean for Student Life at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She is also the advisor to the Asian Student Union and Asian Outreach Committee.
And our final speaker (surely is not the least) is the Department Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Baruch College, CUNY. He chairs the Asian and Asian American Studies Committee at Baruch College, and is a member of the CUNY Graduate Faculty in Sociology. Dr. Saran’s books include: Direct Administration in India; Asian Indian Experience in the US; New Ethics: Asian Indians in the US; and Rural Leadership in the Context of India’s Modernization. And I really would love to have a little bit of time for discussion because I feel this has been a really rich day of “heavy cuisine”, and everyone should talk. Dr. Sung.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Oh, I’ll be brief. Asian American Studies were born of activism and struggle. It was a hard fought battle and continues to be so. In fact, the whole concept of minority rights and issues did not surface until the mid 1960s after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, desegregation of the public schools, and black movement lead by Martin Luther King. Inspired by what the blacks were striving for, Asian Americans began to demand their own place in the American society. This period during the 1960s was a time of protest, demonstrations, marches, sit-ins, takeovers and sometimes open confrontation and violence.
The first Asian American Studies courses were born of protests and demonstration on the campus of San Francisco State College in 1968. A handful of other colleges instituted courses but the numbers were few and far in between and the courses were scanty. In the east, City College of New York was a hotbed of student activism for ethnic studies. Black Studies and Puerto Rican Studies had been introduced there, and I believe in 1969, Asian American students at City College wanted courses relevant to their lives as well.
Two years before I had come out with my book, Mountain of Gold, which chronicled the history of the Chinese in the United States. So for the first time, Chinese Americans learned about their history and asked, did this happen to us? They too wanted Asian American Studies. So in the 1970, students petitioned for me to offer the first courses on Asian American heritage at City College. Two years later, they felt that Asian Studies merited a separate department, like Black Studies, Puerto Rican Studies, and Jewish Studies. When their demands were ignored, the Asian students literally took over a college building in the president’s office and shut down the college until their demands were met.
The Department of Asian Studies, which included Asian Studies, Asian Languages, and Asian American Studies came into being in 1972. I taught the Asian American courses there from 1970 until 1992 when I retired. For the next 10 years, these were the only Asian American studies courses offered in the whole country east of California. Students at other universities agitated for, sat-in, demonstrated and even went on hunger strikes, but most were unsuccessful in their efforts. College administrators and traditional faculty did not think of Asian American Studies as a legitimate course of study in academia.
Even as late as 1990 there were only 19 colleges offering Asian American Studies. By 1995, there were 37; today there are about 50. In comparison, there are about 400 colleges offering Black Studies. And remember there are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States. Sometimes the colleges would throw the students a bone and let them have a course or two, without giving them a teacher or any resources. For example, at Yale and a number of other universities as well, the students were allowed to have a course, but the course was student run. The students themselves made up the syllabus, determined the reading list, and took turns heading the discussions in class. I knew, because sometimes I went to some of these classes to talk. The students would run the course, and there would be a faculty advisor who sat in on the side with almost no role as an active professor.
At Princeton University, the students’ demand brought only a minor concession. They could have an experimental course every three years. In the fall of 1989, I was invited to teach that course, but it was not for another three years until the course could be offered again. The demand for Asian American Studies was even more protracted at Columbia. Time and again, Asian American students at the College demonstrated and protested. One year the students even went on a fast. I think some of you might remember that. Almost 20 years after City College offered Asian American Studies, Columbia finally gave in. Two years ago, they brought Gary Okhiro, who you heard this morning. He had started a course up at Cornell, and he was finally brought to Columbia to start the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.
When a college agreed to offer Asian American, administrators would be acquiescing to student demands, but they were not really supportive. Often times they would identify someone who was Asian and appoint them to teach the course, even though that person may not have any background or knowledge of what Asian American Studies was about. I know that happened at City College when I left. There was no one else to teach and they weren’t ready to hire a new faculty member, so they said this gentleman teaches Anthropology, he had just gotten his degree from Yale University in Anthropology. Since he was only from Beijing, and only knew about Anthropology in China, he knew absolutely nothing about Asian American Studies. Well they said, oh he’s Asian, he can teach the course. So that’s some of the things.
Other things – a library, clerical, financial aid and support for these courses was almost totally lacking. I can testify for that because in the 20 years that I was at City College, or even when I first went to the library in the beginning to find reading materials for my courses, I found two outdated derogatory books about the Chinese in the United States that were totally unsuitable. I realized nothing had been written. I was given no resources for developing materials and most of the materials that I had developed to teach my courses were developed by my own research and by my own efforts.
Now listen to this. Our department shared a secretary with three other departments. The secretary would run from one department to the other, so in essence, we had 12 or13 hours of secretary a week. All of our faculty members had to do their own typing, their own correspondence, their own copying, everything. Every obstacle was put in our way to discourage us from moving on.
I did persevere until my retirement in early 1992. Two years after my retirement the Department of Asian Studies at City College was downgraded to a program. No full-time faculty was hired to teach Asian American Studies, and courses were offered haphazardly or not at all. At the other CUNY colleges – Queens started offering Asian American Studies courses in the 80s, and this was followed by Hunter and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Repeated efforts to get Asian Studies at Baruch, which Professor Saran will address, was finally instituted, but when the first course was offered, it was offered in the English Department, so very few people knew about it. He’ll tell you about that later.
We hope that with the establishment of Asian American Research Institute, we an take a look at the Asian American Studies Courses and the curriculum at the various colleges at CUNY, and help them institute and strengthened Asian American Studies as well as Asian Studies. Thank you.
Dr. Tricia Lin:
Dr. Bush’s title is (sorry I didn’t do my job really) is “Recent Research Regarding Concerns of Asian Students at Brooklyn College.”
Dr. Melanie Bush:
I wanted to say first that it’s a tremendous honor to be here at today’s conference and also to be in any way associated with AAARI. Given that, can everybody who’s either faculty or students at Brooklyn College raise your hands, because I wanted to know which campus is showing true interest in this. I want to make sure that we’re first on the list. I also want to acknowledge [Yan Cheng], who did a lot of the efforts and outreach for the students. If we had time, I would recognize everyone. She’s also collecting everyone’s thoughts this weekend in terms of the conference and what it means for our future at Brooklyn College.
The other two things I just want to say very quickly: I’m very sorry, I’m going to have to leave at 4:30 – I have a workshop at 6:00 in Brooklyn that I’m running on immigration with a group of teenagers. I apologize for that. The other thing is, I’m going to run through some of the findings of some of the research I have done. If you are interested in the details of the statistics for any of the other multilayered, both in terms of statistical as well as qualitative from focus groups, just contact me. I’d be delighted to share with you.
Over the past three years, I’ve been involved with a research project framed in the context of the past three decades of economic and political transformations in the U.S. and globally, which in my mind have shifted public opinion from a position of collective responsibility for all to a place today which is much more social survival of the fittest – looking out for one’s own. This project analyzed the role that race, racialization and racism played within this shifting framework and certainly the emergence of some of the ethnic studies at that moment and what’s happening now, placed right within that. This research was done within this framework, analyzing how race plays to either unite or divide ordinary people. The project was conducted at Brooklyn College, and particularly explored students’ perceptions and beliefs about issues of identity, privilege, democracy and inter-group relations.
In particular, I was looking to identify two things: one was the mechanisms of everyday racialization that reinforced adherence to dominant narratives, and functioned to hold in tact racialized structures of inequality. (And here’s another Brooklyn College representative.) In my mind, the systemic inequality and injustice would not be held in tact were not for the everyday thinking of ordinary people who go to the polls or don’t go to the polls, who hire or don’t hire and so forth. The other thing that I was looking for was what I called evidence of cracks in the wall of whiteness. In other words, circumstances where the opportunity to foster understanding about systemic patterns was apparent.
While the focus of this study was particularly on white students’ perceptions, a significant amount of data emerged that related to the experience of Asian and Asian American students. I will next briefly summarize survey results and then some themes that emerged from the focus groups.
Of the survey, I’ll have you know, that it was a representative survey compared to the student population as a whole. This was 497 students, which was a significant number of students. Similarly the focus groups were representative. That said, I am not presenting this and drawing conclusions. I am presenting this as food for thought. Again, this was not the main focus of the research that I did and the analogy, but I think there was a number of very interesting statistics.
Number one, Asian students more often than any other groups reported witnessing racial tension on a daily or weekly basis. In particular, they significantly reported witnessing racial tension more than foreign born white students. Only 31% of Asian students said they had never witnessed racial tension, whereas foreign born whites, 61% had said that.
Secondly, that the Asian students reported believing significantly less than black students believed that if people don’t have equal access to resources that measures should be taken to equalize opportunity. In other words, they believed less in active taking of measures.
Third, they more often believed and more significantly often believed than white students that it is important to increase multicultural programming and hire staff and faculty of color. That should be useful in our campaign for the next period of time. Lastly they significantly less often believed than black students that the New York City Police Department uses excessive force. To me these were very interesting. The survey had about 50 questions.
Asian students are clearly impacted passive about their racialized experience but the results and the findings are very complex. Therefore in the context of discussing the formation of the Asian Studies and interests – university wide and the Research Institute, I very wholeheartedly support this effort. The other striking findings were from the focus groups and I’ll say the particular theme that I think was most striking was students’ concern about Asians being perceived in a monolithic or just all as one group kind of way.
There was an article that I recently read by [Professor Mary Som]. It’s from the Psychology Department at the University of Kent. It’s an excellent article, which compared the experience of Asian Americans and African Americans. She strongly advocated the need to re-conceptualize and rethink categories and really examine the assumptions under grouping very diverse populations under one heading. I’ll give you a couple examples, (and this is my final point) that came from the focus groups, which I think very clearly articulated that point.
This is from Sandy, a Korean female. “My first recollection of a thing called race (which is what the question was) was in high school when kids tried to set me up with this kid who was Chinese. They said you guy should get along really well because you look alike. That was the first time I distinctly remember I felt racism in that way, saying I should be with my own kind. I wasn’t able to be with someone else, because I didn’t like him or her. That was the first time I felt really bad.”
A second quote came from an Asian faculty member actually, a female named Susan. “As an Asian, I got a racial identity as soon as I got here. And now people see me as successful, yet I feel in my heart I could be so much better. Why do I feel this way?”
Third, the next and final quotes have to do with the same point in terms of understanding that diversity, even intergenerationally, not just between groups, students were very clear that they experienced their position in the world differently than their parents. This is Lea, an Asian female. “Sometimes it just has to do with your parents. If a Chinese ever brought a black person home, the parents would say something about that. I’ll tell you that much, my parents would. I mean, they’re not racist, they’re not trying to teach me to be racist, it’s just the way they feel. The same thing is with their parents, so sometimes it’s genetic.”
And finally, another Asian female student said, “People who are born here like children of immigrants become very Americanized. They associate with and socialize with different cultures, because at school and work, you’re always seeing a different mixture of different races and different nationalities communicating with each other. The parents, the immigrants themselves were raised under the different conditions of their own countries and they’re not used to seeing other races. They grew up with their kind of people, they come here, they may be a little hostile, maybe a little hesitant to accept other people. I don’t think it’s an intentional racism, it’s because of lack of understanding and lack of communication.”
Finally, Asian female staff, Liz, says, “The data is so conflicting. It says if you work hard you can make it, but discrimination is the main reason you can’t make it.” I have many other statistics, including some from the Higher Education Research Institute in LA, which the findings are very, very interesting in particular to Asian students.
My main point in sharing this with you is to wholeheartedly pledge whatever I can do in our work together and to really acknowledge the work that Loretta Chin has done at Brooklyn College and that we’ve been able to do collaboratively. And in terms of AAARI, I think this is very critical in terms of all of our futures and that it’s very, very urgent. And there are so many different issues. I really applaud all the efforts.
Thank you so much. Ms. Chin’s title is “Interest in Asian Studies at Brooklyn College”.
Loretta Chin:
Thank you and thank you to AAARI for inviting us here today. I want to make one correction to Dr. Bush’s speech. It’s all the work that we have done, and it’s very important that we acknowledge all her work in our even being here today. Dr. Bush started the community building initiative in student life back in 1998 and that is just really how all this began. I just want to acknowledge that and thank her here today.
Recently there has been renewed interest in Asian American/Asian Studies at Brooklyn College. Asian American students from Brooklyn College comprise approximately 11-13% or more of the student population. This number is rising as demographics show a steady increase in the Asian American population in the neighboring areas. Brooklyn College is a racially, ethnically and religiously diverse campus. It is fortunate to have an Africana Studies Department, Puerto Rican/Latino Studies Department, Judaic Studies Department, American Studies Department, Caribbean Studies Program, Center for Italian Americans, and Institute for the American Indian. Yet it has no department, program or center for Asian American/Asian Studies. Yet.
The inclusion of Asian American/Asian Studies would help to round out the rich offerings and support diversity initiatives that are the gemstones of BC, and help to promote intercultural exchange. Although interest is high, progress has been slow. In the past, there has been a low level of activity and leadership by Asian American students in clubs, student government, newspapers and other college related activities. Recently this has changed. Although this is not just attributed to the Asian American community, omission of this community in various structures appears to be more pronounced. There are currently close to ten Asian American clubs and organizations which share their own rich diversity, but there is little interaction and cohesiveness between them and the larger community due to cultural differences and the lack of strong unifying leadership. Although some are active and viable, many have experienced difficulty sustaining themselves.
Some Asian American students, staff and faculty are perceived to be passive about Asian American issues and concerns, but that is not the reality. There are many not so apparent reasons for why this happens. Students have no difficulty appreciating the need for Asian American Studies and often start out strong in their convictions. But often they cannot sustain the momentum needed to carry out long range goals. Once the semester gets going, they are too busy working and studying to have the time or energy that is needed to organize a network effectively. Increasing pressures lead to frustration and early burn out, which in turns leaves the feelings of failure and disempowerment.
Continuity is difficult to sustain since students tend to come and go constantly and it is frustrating for those who are left to start all over again. Many of the Asian American students at Brooklyn College are from immigrant populations and are often needed to work to support their families while they attend school. They have little time for student activities. Many of these students are pressured by family and guided to take courses in medicine, computer and business because they believe that these courses would have access to better job markets and that is where the money is. There is nothing wrong with this, but Asian American students need to understand the larger picture – socially, politically, and economically – so they are afforded the opportunity to make choices in their career paths.
Asian American/Asian Studies would help to provide a conduit for students who need direction, by providing support through mentors, role models, formal and informal networks that can help to enlighten and inform and bring awareness to issues such as this. Faculty has also shown an interest, but they are often hindered by time constraints, excessive work loads and pressures generated from the college culture and climate. It is difficult to even schedule a meeting due to conflicting schedules and this is prohibited to communication about important issues and concerns.
Tenure issues are also a factor that contribute to the amount of interest that faculty would take in Asian American/Asian Studies. Most courses taught in Asian American/Asian Studies might be perceived to be of less value than for others, for someone who is on a tenure track. Professors who have not yet achieved tenure are fearful of rocking the boat and tend to shy away from potentially political issues in a culture and climate that does not take a strong stance for Asian American/Asian Studies.
There are many good reasons for a department such as this. Global interdependency, increased trade with Asia, recent events such as 9/11 are just some things that shed light on the urgency of students to be prepared in a fast changing, globally interconnected world. Evidently there is indeed an interest in Asian American/Asian Studies, but there are many challenges involved. In these economically trying times, there will be an argument of no funds for this endeavor. Most funding would most often come from outside sources of interested individuals. Other ethnic departments are always tethering vicariously on their own funding or support. An Asian American/Asian Department would cause unbalance or it might strengthen the position of the other departments. This is an unknown factor at this time. Although difficult at times, there has been progress.
Like I said, back in 1998, we started these observations and we started the Community Building Initiative and club activity has picked up. This has resulted in the awareness of the need for Asian American/Asian Studies at Brooklyn College. Not just by Asian American students, but by all students, as so stated by the student government resolution that was passed in support of Asian American/Asian Studies. Asian American faculty and staff are starting to mobilize to form an official Brooklyn College Asian American faculty and staff group. A few tenured professors have already agreed to lead the way by investigating the possibility of the establishment of a center or a program for Asian American/Asian Studies.
Finally outreach to AAARI has resulted in our attendance here today. This is a big step to gathering the data and information we need to proceed further. To sum up, the struggle for Asian American Studies at Brooklyn College is just that. I’d like to ask those here a few questions, perhaps Dr. Sung can help us out with this, and to ask for suggestions so that this does not have to be so hard. Back in the 60s, and you started to talk about the Civil Rights Movement, many ethnic studies departments were established due to the demand for academic, moral and social responsibility from their institutions. Asian American/Asian Studies has lagged behind or are nonexistent in many colleges. Why is that? I think you answered the question.
Today it’s even harder because although times have changed, our pressures are harder. We won’t have time to protest. It’s a different culture, a different situation. How can we address this issue? That’s one question. What is the process that each institution uses to determine valid reasoning for the establishment of a program, center or department? How does the process become institutionalized so that it is not necessary to seek outside funding? And third, the last thing, how do we bring awareness of these issues to students if it is not taught anywhere. And if students cannot lead this struggle, then where does the responsibility lie? These are very tough questions, but I’m hoping that we can work together to solve them.
Tricia Lin:
I’m already looking forward to this discussion, but let’s hear our forth speaker, Dr. Saran who is “Politics of Ethnic Studies: Case of Asian Americans.”
Dr. Parmatma Saran:
Thank you. May I kindly inquire, what is the status of Asian Studies at Brooklyn College? Is there a center, or program?
Loretta Chin:
We don’t have anything right now. We’re just starting.
Dr. Parmatma Saran:
Ok, let me just say that unlike my good friend Betty Sung, I cannot claim to be a pioneer in Asian American/Asian Studies. Why? It goes back to 1966, 1967, and 1968. When I came here I was a graduate student, a senior colleague of mine sort of mentored me. He said that I should stay away from Indian Studies or Ethnic Studies. Don’t get involved with India or any of those things. And I said, why? He was really frank about it. He said, you will not receive the same treatment as if you were a mainstream sociologist. I was really disturbed because then I said to myself, I’m not going to pursue any interest in India. At that time I was not interested in Indian immigrants to this country, but he said this is really practical advice, please follow that. I did. As a result, as Dr. Lin said in her introduction, I am Chairman of the Sociology and Anthropology Department. For a few years I have also been chairing.
It is not a department; it is not really even a program, but there is some program of Asian American/Asian Studies at Baruch College. And what I’m really suggesting is that it’s a fact of life that these programs, whether they’re Asian Studies or Ethnic Studies, are really not treated equal to other scholarship or academic programs. Betty has already given us some insight as to the history as far as these programs are concerned – the politics and history and so on, so I’m not going to go into those issues. What I’ll try to do, really briefly, is to focus on our own experience within CUNY.
The reason I asked you about that was because I didn’t know if there was anything at Brooklyn College. To the best of my knowledge, City College of course had a department under her leadership, but after Betty retired, that department also was…
Betty Lee Sung:
Downgraded to a program.
Dr. Parmatma Saran:
And then Tom is back again as Chairman, but several years back, when he was a Chairman and I was Vice Chairman, we were talking about these issues and basically trying to do something at CUNY. As a result of our effort, I would like to believe we got the program at Hunter College. And as a result of our effort, we got a program (sort of, I would say), at Baruch College. That happened some six or seven years ago.
As Betty knows, and as many of us know, at that time there was also a promise that they would establish the Asian American Institute which has taken shape now at Queens College. Queens College has a center for Asian American Studies, but it was really headed by somebody…and then he left and went to NYU and the center has been there but it doesn’t really have much of the stature in terms of scholarship and research. It’s mostly an outreach program.
I remember about the same time when we were talking about the establishment of this Research Institute at Baruch, the President at Queens College called me up and said he would like me to come to Queens College and head that program. I didn’t share that with you. I said, look, I’m already committed to this institute at Baruch. And plus, this center doesn’t have…I don’t think I can do very much. It is not really a center in that sense. And he said, I know you are a good professor and you have been here for so long, and if you do come I will give more funds and this and that. He wanted me to go to Queens College at that time, but I didn’t think it was in my best interest, so I did not go.
I already expressed my frustration at what happened with the institute several years back. But then we got a program at Baruch College. Now for those of you who don’t know, maybe some of you know about how it works. But those of you who don’t, I’d like to give you an insight into it to prove my point about how we only give lip services to these kinds of programs. We are really not serious about it.
When the program was started, we got three lines for this program – one in English, one in Modern Language, and one in History. I was told that you were going to have three lines for this program, so that’s not bad. But actually, even though it was half and half for us, for practical purposes, you know what happens, is you have it in the English Department and there’s a whole department, a chairperson and all that. Then why should you feel it’s possible to report to me as head of a program? That’s understandable. And all three people who we had were excellent scholars, and they did a very good job. They did teach in their respective departments, courses on Asian and Asian American Studies.
All of them, luckily, got tenured this year, and I was on the tenure committee, and a lot of people were saying, oh she’s just interested in Chinese Program, Chinese Studies. And he’s a specialist in Indian and Japanese Studies, like that. Are we going to give tenure to these three people? What they’re implying is that they don’t deserve tenure because they’re willing to present Ethnic Studies or Asian Studies or things like that. I have to take a very strong stance and luckily all the three chairpersons from the departments were also very strong supporters and they said, you cannot rule them out because of their interest in these areas or these programs. Look at the scholarship, publications and all that. It was a difficult battle, but all of them got tenure.
How the system works, again, we have asked time and again, if we really want to start this program then we need more people, we need more lines. The response is that obviously there is no money, but what you do is you go to different departments and see who’s doing what. If there’s a political scientist who can teach a course in China, use him. If there is somebody in another department who can teach a course on Japan, use him. I’ve tried to do my best. We are giving some 25 or 26 courses in this program, but to see the list, it is very unsatisfactory and it is really not done in a professional way.
Why we are in this state of affairs as far as ethnic affairs, Asian Americans, I’m thinking that we should not be parochial about it. It is not confined to Asian American or Asian Studies. Generally it is true with all of these programs, even though some groups may be luckier than others. That is the general situation. I think we have to go back to, I was very impressed to one of the speakers earlier in the session who talked about involvement in politics. Unless there is a demand…what happened at Columbia, as Betty was saying, there was a sit-in and the students would not leave without the commitment on the part of the administration. That’s how Gary Okhiro, who is a great scholar and he has been there for a number of years.
So what I’m saying, since most of you are students here, that unless you organize, you ask, you demand, you put pressure, you are not going to get anything like this, you are not going to see extension of these programs and it will have very limited values. As faculty, you must also do all we can, but our hands are often tied because we are also employees for the institutions and there are forces above us and we can only go that far. But you have some freedom, so I would say that I’m not going to ask you to go to the president tomorrow. Do that if you wish. But without politics, without demand, without asking, the future of the programs are rather bleak.
Tricia Lin:
Thank you. I feel that we need another hour.
Betty Lee Sung:
But I would like to answer some of the questions that Loretta Chin posed and that Professor Saran posed as well. I know that you’re a bunch of students from Brooklyn, and I’m so glad to see you here. I noticed that you have an interest in Asian American Studies. I’ve had 30 some years in fighting for Asian American Studies and I’ve gone through the whole process and I’ve learned along the way. Today you heard former Lieutenant Governor, S.B. Woo, and he said, in order for us to have clout, to have power, we must unite; we must vote as a block. Today, I think the same thing applies to us and what we want. I think with the Asian American/Asian Research Institute now, we encompass all 20 colleges. We represent your interests.
Before AAARI, we had AAHEC, which was an Asian American staff organization, of which Professor Saran was at one time the President. We demanded Asian American Studies. We pushed very hard for it at Hunter and it was established. We also pushed very hard for it at Baruch and it was put into effect, but not as strongly in the way we would have liked. I want to say this, that if you want a good program, number one, to deal with your question and to deal with some of the other courses that I have seen is that it’s student run, it’s student operated and student initiated. I think this is what you are doing now…student initiated. Then when you graduate, everything has to start all over again. That’s no good.
You have to have a very strong senior person in Asian American Studies to come in with the resources, and this is what you should demand – that we have at least one strong leader that maybe comes in with tenure, because if they don’t come in with tenure, they might say, oh you’re making too much noise. You can go out the door the next day. So what you need to do is have a very strong faculty member with the prestige and they are graduating these people now, with doctorates in Asian American Studies at UCLA, UC Berkeley. We don’t have that. Maybe at Columbia when Gary gets started a little bit more. We haven’t had that opportunity, but the West Coast has been ahead of us, and they have enough Asian Americans there to keep the demand up. That helps.
We are getting the personnel to teach now. You just cannot, as Professor Saran said, just pull somebody from Political Science or pull somebody from Anthropology and say, go teach Asian American Studies because you’re Asian. We should not do that. That’s one of the things that I think would be a very strong thing to do. Number one is to utilize group power. Utilize AAARI as an institution to help you push. Come join us, come work with us and we will work with you to help Brooklyn get Asian American Studies. So those are two recommendations that I would give.
Audience Member:
You were saying about the Asian American Center, but the location is so bad. At Brooklyn College, there’s a science building right in front of it and you have to go downstairs. It’s in a temporary place so we don’t have that support. I’ve been there before and I think they have a library of books so you can take them out, and I don’t think many students even know about it. It is not out there. I only heard about it because I was at the library and I was trying to get a book out. They said you can get this book from there. That was the only reason I heard about it. And what you were saying about the faculty, they change the faculty…
Betty Lee Sung:
So frequently.
Audience Member:
…at one point there was a very strong staff, but now there are only one or two people – a secretary and a student who work for them.
Tricia Lin:
In spite of that, I just want to say that is one of the 25 projects. She’s going to graduate with a degree in English and a minor in Comparative Literature from Queens College. Her project is actually a comparison of three Asian American women’s works. So in spite of that, just to show that there is a tremendous amount of student interest. I’d like to second Betty’s suggestions, but I also would like to add that I remember a couple years that Hunter had struggled so much to get its Asian American Studies Program to start. It utilized very much the outside forces east of California. It brought the East of California Conference to New York City. Something can be done, with AAARI or with East of California, with various organizations. We definitely can help Brooklyn College very much. You have very distinguished faculty there, like [Mustafa Biulene], and you have [Alicia Summer], fabulous ethno-musicologist. You have a really distinguished faculty. It’s just finding ways to bring people together.
Any other questions? I know this is a very long day. I feel that I just want to sit and talk and strategize and help out. I also feel that we have moved along, since this is what has happened to Asian American Studies, in the wake of September 11th, we have to reexamine also our disciplines, so we have to look at boundaries with Asian American Studies, but at the same time still facing the very basic issues of getting started.
Audience Member:
I was going to say, that I am graduating now and I wish you guys had started earlier, because I felt that there was not enough support. In the English Department, the department that I’m in, there’s only [Kahan], and there’s no other person. I had trouble finding a mentor for my projects because I didn’t feel that…I know there’s the Graduate Center and I’m applying to graduate school. But I think there’s more opportunities at Berkerly and California, so in some ways you’re forcing students who would be interested in continuing.
Betty Lee Sung:
Let me say that…oh there’s a student that wants to talk first? Go ahead.
Audience Member:
I’m a Graduate student in Asian American History. And in order for me to enroll, when Gary was at Cornell, there were five of us and I feel all of the things that you’re saying are similar to the struggle we had at Cornell, and undergrad in Asian American Studies at Dartmouth College. But it’s just an interesting environment to go from AAAS to here. Because there’s so much really valuable research that’s happening right now, and I think a lot of it being able to discuss and talk to each other about what we’re working on.
Which isn’t to say the future is bleak, but that the academic research itself that there are so many people around the country – both east of California and in California. I think it’s really taking off in the Midwest now. A lot of places, places that you wouldn’t necessarily identify with Asian American studies, like University of Indiana, University of Michigan, are really making a push to Asian American Studies Programs. So I wouldn’t say just go to California.
Audience Member:
It seems that there are much more of a concentration there, but I know that it’s expanding out. I think it takes time. I guess they have more advancement because they started earlier. So we are all trying to play catch up to the West Coast.
Betty Lee Sung:
Can I say one more thing? For the students, you said, why do we need Asian American Studies? Well believe me, you all look Asian, right? And when you go out and get a job, if you’re an engineer, they’re not going to start a conversation with you about Engineering Principles, if you’re an architect, they’re not going to talk about architecture; if you’re a doctor, they’re not going to talk about…the first thing they’re going to ask you – are you Chinese or Japanese.
The second thing they’ll say is, my you speak good English, or something like that. And then they’ll talk about your ethnicity and these are questions that you’ll have to deal with and will have to be dealt with first, because your facial and your physical features mark you as an Asian, and that’s how they’re going to deal with you. There are a lot of issues that are unique to our experience that you learn from Asian American Studies. That’s why you need it.
In today’s market, you need this kind of background, because I don’t think you get it from home. You need a little bit of history about your own background, some issues that you might be dealing with, issues of discrimination like Professor Bush talked about, issues of your own identity, issues of your own culture that you need to deal with. All of these things are dealt with in Asian American Studies. It’s a very valuable part of your upbringing and your education.
Keep demanding it and with student support and with AAARI pushing and helping and trying to mobilize groups to say, look, we’re 13% of the student population and we’re 10% of the New York City population, it’s time we got Asian American Studies.
Tricia Lin:
I guess maybe one more question.
Audience Member:
Ok, she brought up the thing that I was thinking about in my head. Because you need that knowledge, the lack of knowledge of those issues I think is a major setback to getting Asian Studies because the Asian students don’t know the issues; they don’t understand the issues; they don’t know about research on stereotypes and all those other issues. Because that lack of knowledge, they say ok, what am I fighting for? What am I defending? What am I standing up for? How do you teach them without Asian Studies already established? How do you teach them those issues to let them think about it and contemplating what can I do to counteract that? How do you do that, because of that lack of knowledge about it? And there’s no Asian Studies, so…
Loretta Chin:
Exactly. Catch-22.
Parmatma Saran:
Very quickly one or two comments, in the past when we advocated Asian American Studies, it was essentially because we had a sense of pride in our ethnicity and our culture and that sort. Now times have changed and the global economy has very practical implementations, but Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans, they’ll need you if they have positions in China or Japan. But you have to be equipped to be able to go there and start a business and things like that, and you’d be better equipped if you had exposed yourself to these Asian Studies or Ethnic studies.
My last point is that, again going back to the speaker that was talking about politics and uniting and all that. Obviously in our small web we have articulated some of these issues and tried to impress on you, and some of you are already impressed, about why it is important to us. But let’s not stop at this. I’m glad to see so many people from Brooklyn College, so maybe go back and form a committee. Talk to Betty and Tom and start working on this. This is how it works. Make a case, write a proposal, go to your provost and talk with him or her and say this is the situation and these are our needs. Because if you keep talking and stop at that, nothing is going to happen. You have to put tremendous pressure.
Loretta Chin:
I want to ask the students, what is your reaction to these suggestions? Because we have tried talking and saying, this is the scenario. Students, what was the response? And then tell us what you think about this. Do you think it’s possible for students to be motivated into action at Brooklyn College?
Audience Member:
Personally I totally agree with you – the pride of being who I am and who I identify as and all of that. I just keep pushing myself, being Asian and stuff like that, I understand and I know there’s a need to be out there. That’s why I’m out there. The thing out there is that pride for many people can only take you so far. I don’t know how many times I’ve burned out and come back and I’m like ok, I need a rest. Because there’s nothing else backing up that pride, because of my lack of knowledge about those issues. Every time I learn something new, I use that in my artillery.
Pride can only take you so far. It goes back to technicalities. Teach people the issues that are affecting them and let them understand those issues. That hasn’t really been answered, because there’s no Asian studies so what can students do to perpetuate those? I know I’m going to be there for a little while, a couple years but I want to have a self-sustaining structure that will keep perpetuating the cause on and on and on, even years after when I come back. But how do you get to that point?
Tricia Lin:
I think you just spoke for the urgent need for the program to start. Why don’t we talk after the session. Thank you very much. This has been a very fruitful day. And now that a lot of questions are answered, though we are exploring. I think what is also wonderful is that there is a network going.
Betty Lee Sung:
There’s communication and exchange of ideas. Today that has been very fruitful, especially in some of the other sessions where they talked about how we can help rebuild Chinatown. In my last session we came up with some very good ideas and suggestions and we had the Department of Labor and the Governor’s Office and everybody there – funding agencies, so we have the funding agencies, we have the solutions now. Today we integrated them. So it was very fruitful. And today I think we have communicated with the students and mentioned some of the ways that you can learn from our experience and our experience was very painful over many years.
Tricia Lin:
One point I’d like to just echo what you were saying. It is time to make Asian American Studies East, instead of a rushing West. It is true, it’s going to be a different kind of Asian American Studies. There are different interests. I guess final words and then we’re going to close up.
Audience Member:
You were talking about Asian Studies, and I think really what you need to do is have linkages. You were talking a lot about AAARI, but you have to bring it to Flushing because I don’t see enough interesting programs at Flushing. Is there some way that you could work with Flushing Library because there’s an International Research Center there. I go to Flushing a lot and I think that you need enough funding because I know now the Mayor’s cutting funding from the libraries and this is very easily…I think it’s very fragile at this point because the Mayor starts cutting funding for these programs.
Betty Lee Sung:
Well that’s why we need all of your support, because AAARI’s going to have to go for funding. In fact we were very seriously affected by it. The City University at first promised us $300,000 for three years, $100,000 per year. Now, they just said, well we can only give you $50,000, but that isn’t even enough to do anything. But as you can see, with what monies we’ve had, we’ve been able to have this conference, we had a lecture series. It’s because of people’s dedication and participation. The most important thing is your commitment to the cause. If you keep true to that cause, you will accomplish your goal.
Tricia Lin:
Thank you very much.
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