November 24, 2009

Word count: 1,385

The Post-Standard

Twelve Years and Still Waiting

By: Elyssa Yuen

On April 11, 1997, a group of Asian American students and their friends were

denied service and beaten by white patrons yelling racial slurs outside a local Syracuse

Denny’s. This hate crime is now referred to by Asian American students at Syracuse

University as the ‘Denny’s Incident.’ Students were furious, especially because the

District Attorney at the time, William Fitzpatrick, dismissed this case on the basis of

negligible evidence to prove any discrimination or assault based on the victims’ ethnicity.

The ‘Denny’s Incident’ caused Asian American students to become more vocal

about their identity at Syracuse University, and started a movement to push the

University to create an Asian American studies program. Ten years later, in the year

2006, three seniors decided it was time for the University to grant the needs of Asian

American students, so they went to the people they believed to have the most power at

the University. They presented their case to the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,

Cathryn Newton, and Chancellor Nancy Cantor. Both individuals supported the idea of

having an Asian American Studies program. A group of students mobilized, creating the

student run organization, Transnational Asian Studies Program (TASP) Committee. The

name TASP was created because the program would focus on Asian and Asian American

Studies.

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In the fall of 2008, the proposal of a TASP minor had been submitted by the

TASP student committee and approved by the university Senate. In the spring of 2008 the

TASP committee held an e-mail campaign called ‘4:11,’ which represents the date that

the ‘Denny’s Incident’ took place. The e-mail campaign asked students to email the

chancellor and school provost, telling them why it was important to have an Asian

American Studies Program. The committee has also taken it upon themselves to promote

the progress of the minor by writing letters to the editor of the Daily Orange, updating the

TASP facebook page, and making posters to make sure students could follow the

progress of the minor.

The TASP minor has been renamed Asian Asian American (AAA), and the TASP

committee has become an unofficial student lead group, but is still vital to the

progression of the Asian American Studies program, because they reach the student body

directly. Vice President of Asian Students in America, Jonathan Chan, is still involved in

this unofficial committee, and believes that it’s important for students to be proactive

about the AAA minor rather than wait for the program to progress; students have waited

long enough.

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An official committee regarding the AAA program was created after the minor

was approved. The administration and faculty asked students to take a step back down so

that they could run a more organized and systematic committee. Chan believes that since

students have been pushing for the program for over a decade, this was an act to make

sure that when the program is eventually created, credit will go to the official faculty

committee rather than students. It was only after talking to the chancellor, that students

started receiving support to create the AAA minor. Faculty members who were originally

sought after for support were opposed to the program, but with the chancellor backing the

minor, those people are now directly working to create the minor. The current dean of the

College of Arts and Sciences, George Langford asked Ran Li, Andrea Wangsanata and

Daniel Longo to join the AAA committee of seven faculty members. This selection of

students did however act as a problem for the program because Li was gone from campus

last semester, Wangsanata is studying abroad in Madrid this semester, and Daniel Longo

informed the dean that he did not want to be part of the committee.

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Wangsanata acts as the co-chair for the student part of the AAA committee. Her

job is to ensure that students are represented in building this minor, since they are the

ones who have fought for it. Until entering college, Wangsanata never identified with

being Asian American, and never learnt about the plight or history of Asian Americans.

She believes that it is important to know your own history, to understand where you’re

coming from, and that these classes will help students strengthen their identity in

America rather than fall into the stereotypes that society has portrayed of Asian

Americans. The minor will help educate all people on the differences between being

Asian and Asian American. Wangsanata says, “you wouldn’t tell an African American to

study Swahili if he wanted to learn about his culture, so why would you recommend a

Chinese American to learn Chinese history as his culture.” This minor will help people

understand that Asian Americans are as American as anyone else born in the United

States.

Presently, Prema Kurien is the interim Director of the AAA Program, and she has

a background in transnational Asian sociology. In order for this minor to become a

reality, the new class SOC 300, must fill up. Along with SOC 300, ETS 182 is the other

class that was created for the proposed AAA minor. The class title for SOC 300 is

‘Contemporary Asian Americans,’ and ETS 182 is titled ‘Race and Literacy Texts’ that

regards Asian Americans by studying award-winning Asian American authors.

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The minor is slowly but surely being created, and students are the ones to thank

for it. Dr. Derek Chang oversees the Asian American Studies minor program at Cornell,

and came to Syracuse to discuss Asian American history. Chang mentioned that it was

important to notice a major difference between the creation of the Asian American

Studies minor at Cornell and Syracuse. At Cornell, the minor was created by

administration and faculty, so from the start, the program was being supported and

funded. At Syracuse, the program has been fought for by students, which is relevant to

the history of how Asian American Studies Programs across the country came about,

which was through protest.

The unofficial TASP committee has taken it in their own hands to make sure that

people know about the AAA minor. When ETS 182 was first offered for the minor in Fall

2008, the class did not fill up. Faculty members on the AAA committee did not do

anything to advertise the class. Since then, the TASP committee has created fliers for the

classes being offered, making them available to all Residences Halls and schools on

campus. In the spring, university senate will be voting on the proposed minor, and the

TASP committee is hoping to send a personal letter from a student who is fighting for the

AAA minor, to each member that will be present during the voting. Another one of the

TASP committee’s goals for the semester is to link the AAA minor to Asian Pacific

American heritage month.

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Creating an AAA program is not just important because Asian American students

deserve representation at this school. Kimberly Ndombe, a junior International Relations

and Television Radio Film student, believes that it’s the university’s job to encourage

students to become globally minded people. Ndombe mentioned to a friend that she

thought it was ridiculous that the university does not have an Asian American Studies

Program considering the amount of Asian American Students that go to this school. The

response she received was that she was dumb to think that Chinese people would want to

learn more about China because they would already know everything about it. This

interaction shocked Ndombe, and since then she has been a supporter and ally to students

fighting for the AAA minor.

Asian American students and their allies are losing patience. The TASP

committee is no longer waiting for the minor to be made, but demanding it, and after 12

years, they are making sure that the AAA committee is being held accountable to the

student body. Asian Americans students have been fighting for fair representation at

Syracuse University for over a decade, and denying them an ethnic studies program is

denying their identity, and the university has finally realized that.

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 Sources

Jonathan Chan
Jonathan.szuwen.chan@gmail.com
415-350-2306

Kimberly Ndombe
kkndombe@syr.edu
603-264-2486

Andrea Wangsanata
agwangsa@syr.edu
917-294-2534