Purdue University: We Got Our Asian Am Studies
Next semester, students will be able to minor in AA Studies for the first time in the university's history.
It took years of struggle, but this semester Purdue University students can finally learn about racist land laws, Vincent Chin's murder and perhaps most importantly, Asian American history in the Midwest.
The West Lafayette, Indiana university recently established its Asian American Studies program and undergraduate minor, joining a growing number of Big 10 schools that have historically struggled to get AA Studies into their curricula.
Two courses, including a historical overview of Asians in America and AA literature, were offered this semester in Purdue's College of Liberal Arts. Next semester, with the official launch of the program and minor, students can enroll for the first time in the university's history as AA Studies minors.
Before this, a few AA Studies related courses were offered only a few times a year. Students interested in AA Studies were forced to pick between Asian Studies or American Studies.
"I'm ecstatic," said Charles Park, who is currently teaching the introduction to AA Studies class.
Eighteen students are enrolled in his new class - a good number for a class that was added late, said Park, who began outreaching to students in October.
"These are students who have very limited knowledge about Asians in America, so everything right now is brand new information for them," he said.
For a long time, the fight for AA Studies was an uphill battle. When Park first arrived at Purdue six years ago, the longtime Irvine, Calif. resident realized how concentrated AA Studies was in California, New York and other larger urban areas while the Midwest was virtually unexplored. He started inquiring about AA Studies and received lukewarm responses at best.
"It was hard to find people who were interested in doing this," said Park. "People who were here five or six years had other interests they were pursuing and Asian American Studies wasn't high on their lists."
The impetus for AA Studies in the Midwest really began in 2000, when representatives from the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of Big 10 schools, met at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to talk about AA Studies. The meeting strengthened networks among Big 10 schools, but failed to stimulate a successful movement for AA Studies at Purdue.
When the CIC's AA Studies Group met again in 2005, Park was chosen as Purdue's representative to attend the meeting. He came back from the meeting fired up with the goal to bring AA Studies to Purdue. The Council on Asian American Studies (CAAS), a committee of faculty, students and staff members, was formed in 2006. They submitted a formal proposal justifying the need for an AA Studies program and minor to the college of liberal arts' senate and curriculum committee.
This time, their hard work paid off.
Park attributes the success to dedicated faculty, staff and students who believed in ethnic studies and dedicated themselves to getting the program on the books.
"I think there is an interest now in uncovering [AA Midwest] history from a scholarly perspective, especially for Asian Americans who were born and raised in the Midwest. They are interested in their own specific history," he added.
Since its beginnings in California in the 1960s, AA Studies has grown rapidly in larger urban areas with high concentrations of AA students including Los Angeles and Berkeley. Purdue's AA student population more than doubled between 1997-2006, according to its student profile summary - a fact that many say contributed to the successful campaign for AA Studies.
Yonsei Lisa Hanasono grew up in a predominantly white Indiana neighborhood often feeling isolated from her Japanese American heritage.
"We didn't have a JA basketball league or an Obon festival. The nearest Asian food market was approximately 30 minutes away," said Hanasono, a Purdue graduate student in the department of communications and a CAAS member. For a while, the only connection to her ethnic heritage was through her family and the JACL Hoosier chapter.
"Access to Asian American Studies programs is extremely important to me!" she said. "Asian American Studies programs allow individuals to explore how identities, histories, cultures and society intersect in meaningful ways."
Purdue University professor Bich Minh Nguyen, who is teaching the introduction to AA literature class, said she understands the feeling of cultural isolation - Nguyen grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan where "there was a clear 'white American' and Asian duality."
"The West and East Coasts have benefited enormously from having a rich history of Asian American literature and consciousness. My hope is that a program and minor in Asian American Studies at Purdue will help strengthen that same kind of community, diversity and awareness in the Midwest," said Nguyen.
Students in other regional schools with AA Studies often think it's a given that AA Studies classes will be offered, said Park. "Here they don't have that entitlement to these programs."
Proponents of Purdue's AA Studies program and minor hope to hire a director and more faculty members in the future. They are also hoping to expand it into a major.
In recent years, other Midwest schools like the University of Illinois at Chicago have launched unsuccessful campaigns for AA Studies. But AA Studies has always been a high priority for the community. A January survey of JACL chapters and youth representatives by the Program for Action Committee ranked education - which includes getting AA Studies into universities' curricula - as the highest program priority for the JACL.
"What is happening in the Midwest continues to be very exciting," said Kent Ono, AA Studies professor at UIUC, which established its AA Studies minor in 2002.
This year, the Association for Asian American Studies' annual conference will be held in Chicago.
"For years the conference crisscrossed the country, rarely landing in Midwestern sites. It has been too long, but it is great that it will be in Chicago this year," said Ono.
"The question now is, given hard budgetary times, will that support continue. And, will alumni and others who want to see Asian American Studies thrive provide the kind of financial and political support necessary to move things forward?" he added.
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