Back when I was doing my undergrad at UCSD in 2011-2012, I helped found an organization in order to design a curriculum for, recruit support for, and advocate for the establishment of a Critical Asian American Studies minor, and I served as its first director. The founding of this organization didn’t just happen in a bubble though. It was the culmination of some 30 years of student organizing and a massive community-shaking event on campus.
In February 2010, the UCSD community went through a wave of racist attacks starting with a racist frat party that invited participants to “celebrate” Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by embrace “the various elements of life in the ghetto” while enjoying “40s, Kegs of Natty, dat Purple Drank-which contains sugar, water, and the color purple, chicken coolade, and of course Watermelon.” A few days later a noose was found inside the main library and a klan hood was found on the head of the statue outside the library. Put mildly, it was bananas.
At that time, Black students made up just 1.3% of the university. Meanwhile, budgets were being cut at the state level leaving the UC to aggressively raise tuition while simultaneously slashing budgets of programs that support Black and Brown student. It felt like an existential death by a thousand cuts at the university. We rallied under the Black Student Union’s leadership to protest the toxic campus climate and demand decisive action from the administration in order to address those issues including fully funding student-led diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives; the new Black Resource Center with full time staff; and investing in hiring more Black and Brown faculty hiring as well as funding the African American Studies minors. We celebrated Black History Month with nonstop direct action throughout the month up to the March 4th National Day of Action to Defend Public Education.
Guess what y’all? We won! Black students and their allies showed me something that I had already seen in throughout my Ethnic Studies classes: that when we come together and support Black people, we all win. There is no down side in fighting for justice. In fact the original demands were expanded to include Latinx and Indigenous students whose communities each got their own funding for diversity, inclusion, and equity programming, staff-supported resource centers, funding for their studies minors, in addition to the university’s commitment to hire more diverse staff.
This entire time while I was inspired by my Black and Brown peers. I was also surprised to see how many of my API community members had come out in support. Asian folks were reputed to be apolitical and apathetic when it came to issues of social justice on campus. This moment proved that otherwise. I began making the rounds through the unofficial undergraduate UC conference circuit. The first workshop I presented was “RECLAIM API!” in which we explored how the term “Asian American” never existed before the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s and how “Asian American” was a political identity which we used to build critical mass and power to support our Black, Brown, and Red siblings. The second was “Stirring Waters, Building Bridges” which focused on API cross-community coalition building. Through this effort, I helped revive the West Coast Asian Pacific Islander Student Union as a channel to further politicize API communities and spur us to action in defense of our siblings of color.
Back home at UCSD, I founded the Coalition for Critical Asian American Studies in the 2011-2012 academic year. In 2014, CCAAS demanded and won APIMEDA (Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern Desi American) Programs and Services. Shortly thereafter, CCAAS won the commitment of the administration to hire more APIMEDA faculty, two of whom would go on to submit a plan this year to institutionalize Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. That plan was approved June 30th in the Academic Senate and starting Fall 2020 students will be able to declare their minor in Asian American and Pacific Islander studies.
I share this for three reasons: 1) it is never wrong to stand up and demand justice for our Black and Brown siblings; and 2) because of the work of Black and Brown leaders, we were able to successfully advocate for APIMEDA and build a stronger, more whole coalition of support for underserved students at UCSD. During this time of Black Live Matter, it is critical that we listen to our Black and Brown community leaders in identifying the problems of society and, more importantly, to their vision and re-imagination of what a just society can look like. For us ANHPI folks in 2020, this is an opportunity to get involved like never before. This is our chance to protest, to engage with our elected officials by giving public comment, to demand accountability and transparency from our government. Every 10 years, the census is conducted in order to distribute billions of taxpayer dollars to fulfill community needs such as infrastructure, healthcare, education, safe and affordable housing, and so much more. I want you to imagine what it would look like if our neighborhoods were fully funded. Let’s build a broad multiracial coalition this year and make that happen.