A Look At Today's Asian Pacific Student Movement

from East Wind Magazine Vol. 2 No. 2 (1983)

Subheadings were added to the original publication to make this more readable on the web.

The contemporary Asian Pacific student movement has been growing and developing in step with the changes that have occurred on the campus and in society since the late 60's. Today, the economic crisis, Reagan and the conservative tide of the 80's have brought the Asian Pacific student movement face to face with many urgent challenges.

What is the Asian Pacific student movement today? Alongside the Asian Student Unions and Asian Pacific Student Alliances born in the early 70's are growing numbers of nationality organizations -Chinese Student Associations (CSA), Korean Student Associations (KSA), Pilipino student organizations, etc. Many of these groups reflect the particular social and cultural needs of the rising immigrant populations which, on many campuses, comprise over 50% of the Asian student populations. The growing immigrant sector includes Vietnamese, Cambodian, and other Asian nationalities.

There are also countless career related organizations and service groups including pre-med, engineering, and pre-law Asian student clubs.

The level of inter-campus organization has grown as well. Broad networks of Asian student organizations like the East Coast Asian Student Union, a network in the Midwest, and the Asian Pacific Student Union on the West Coast help to amplify and unify the voice of Asian students. Also growing are networks and ties among the CSA's, the KSA's and Pilipino student organizations.

The diversity and the myriad of activities give the Asian Pacific student movement its vitality and strength.

The situation on the campuses mirrors many of the contradictions in society overall. The economic crisis and tightening job crunch are felt by everyone. The pressure to make the grades is ever-present; the uncertainty of the future is in the back of everyone's mind.

This high pressure climate is ultimately rooted in the fundamental changes taking place in education today. The concept of a "liberal education" - learning about and critically examining the society and the world - has been all but thrown out of the window. In education today, anything that doesn't specifically meet corporate high-tech skill, research and managerial needs, or that doesn't help to crank up the U.S. military machine is seen as a "luxury." Emphasis is on the sciences, engineering and "computer literacy" with the social sciences generally taking more and more of a back seat.

This has meant tightening the screws and closing the doors to education Third World students had fought so hard to open during the early 70's. Skyrocketing fees, cuts in special admissions and other Third World programs, and an increasingly intense academic "weeding out" process are leading towards a virtual exclusion of all but a handful of Black and Latino students from higher education. For Asians, these attacks have made it harder for working class families to send their children to college.

The conservative political climate throughout society has not left the campuses untouched either. Some university administrators and faculty don't even bother to come off as Iiberals. An elitist, often cutthroat academic atmosphere is encouraged. The word is: some will make it, and some won't, so you had better make sure "number one" comes first.

Right wing forces have been growing in strength on the campuses as well as often organizing through the rejuvenated fraternity system, student governments, campus newspapers, and through publications like the Dartmouth Review, a conservative journal.

Finally, we find on the campuses the rise of more blatant racism. Indeed, this too starts with the changes in the educational system itself - with the racist nature of the attacks on Third World programs like Ethnic Studies, with the exclusion of Third World students from education.

Racism towards Asians is often a double-edged sword. On one hand, we find "success story" and "model minority" mythology rampant in the classrooms and the campuses, glossing over the actual oppression and worsening conditions of the masses of Asian people.

Straight up Racism
But alongside the "model minority" stereotyping is the rise of more straight-up anti-Asian racism. Out of university think tanks and intellectual circles have come much of the anti-immigrant, anti-Japanese import furor being whipped up in society today. Countless examples of racist incidents directed at Asian and Third World people can be found on campuses today - whether in the form of racist "humor" of the Dartmouth Review variety in campus newspapers, harassment of Asian activities, or physical harassment like the beating of four Chicanos by racist fraternity members at Berkeley last year. All of this adds up to increasing tension and alienation on the campuses today.

This is the setting within which Asian student activism takes place today. It is what makes the multitude of activities of Asian student organizations so critical.

At a very basic level, Asian student organizations bring students together to address common concerns. They provide a vehicle, away from the intense cutthroat atmosphere of the classroom to meet other Asians and develop friendships.

Affirming an essential sense of identity and taking pride in being Asian - this is what al I the social activities, cultural programs held during Asian Pacific Heritage Week, and educational programs on Asian American history and community are all about. It's the fuel keeping the movement running. Today's generation of Asian students is unfamiliar with the struggles of the 60's and 70's. They have been denied any formal education about their history, and are often from non-Asian neighborhoods and are shut off from struggles within the communities. Students are bombarded daily with pressures to assimilate and are alienated by rising racism. Understanding history and building identity and pride are prerequisites for collective action and struggle.

Community Involvement
Community involvement is a major component of the Asian Pacific student movement. Students are a part of the overall struggle of Asian people for full equality and political power, and have historically played a key role in community struggles dating back to the anti-Viet Nam War movement, in fighting for decent housing and needed social services, and in supporting labor struggles among many other things. By joining community organizations and coalitions, students can truly integrate themselves, and draw inspiration from the lives, struggles and aspirations of the masses of Asian people. We realize that not everyone has the opportunity to go to college, that the majority of Asians are working people, and we can reject the elitism we are fed in college - that somehow, a degree and professional career make us "better" than the "ordinary worker." We get an education you can't find in any classroom. Ultimately, community involvement calls upon students to make a long-term commitment to the struggle.

In recent years, students have helped provide needed social services. They participated in the now victorious struggle to free Chol Soo Lee, the movement for redress and reparations for Japanese Americans, San Francisco State University, 1983 unionization and other labor struggles, the fight against the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill and for immigrant rights, and in the nuclear disarmament movement and support for the hibakusha (Japanese American A-Bomb survivors), just to name a few.

Rising to the Challenge
Today, students are in the midst of a movement, galvanizing various Asian nationalities together to challenge rising anti-Asian racism in its ugliest form: racist violence. The cases of Vincent Chin in Detroit, Thong Hy Huynh in Davis and other similar violent incidents bring home a clear message to Asian students: no matter what educational or economic gains individuals can achieve, Asian people still don't have equality and still don't have true political power.

On the campuses themselves, Asian student organizations face the critical challenge of confronting the attacks upon the educational rights of Third World and working class students. Fifteen years ago, Asian students fought alongside other Third World and progressive students during the Third World Strikes to open the doors to education. Today, Asian students play an active role in the student movement's struggle to defend those early gains.

The Asian Pacific student movement today is all these things. it is ultimately part of a broader picture -part of the student movement on the campuses; part of the new generation of the Asian national movements - confronting the challenges of the move to the right in society overall, Reaganomics, and deepening class and national stratifications.

The movement provides a vehicle to act - to take a stand, to work to-gether to fight racist violence or at-tacks on educational rights. Through this process of learning and acting, commitment is built and solidified - a commitment that will carry Asian students today beyond their college years as it has for past generations of Asian students in the struggle for a more just society.

Erich Nakano is a senior majoring in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a member of the ASU.