Alums push for program in Asian-American studies

After the 36-hour sit-in, the University pledged to create four to seven new professorships and to increase its library holdings and course offerings in the two areas of study. Thirteen years later, the student demonstrators have grown up and moved away, but they have not forgotten the University’s pledge.

Unsatisfied with the University’s progress on making good on its promise, 24 representatives of the Asian-American Alumni Association of Princeton (A4P) launched a petition last week to get the ball rolling.

The statement, which at press time had 467 electronic signatures from the University community, proposes the addition of permanent Asian-American Studies courses to the curriculum, as well as the creation of an Asian-American studies certificate “to be overseen and administered by the existing Program in American Studies.”

Supporters include such notable alumni as Franklin Odo ’61, director of the Asian Pacific American Program at the Smithsonian, Gordon Chang ’70, a Stanford University history professor and director of Stanford’s Asian-American studies program, University trustee YoungSuk Chi ’83 and six former trustees.

“We felt that [the petition] was a really effective way to mobilize a lot of people who are interested in this and give voice to their interests,” said petition co-author April Chou ’96, one of the leaders of the 1995 student sit-in. She is a member of the board of governors and former chair of the A4P.

“What’s important to us is to be able to demonstrate that there’s a broad base of support from Princetonians across different generations,” which Chou said includes “undergraduates, alumni, graduate alumni, and not only Asian-Americans but also Princetonians from every community.”

Chou said that the current petition is meant to extend the objectives of the 1995 sit-in, primarily the “diversification of the curriculum in general.” She noted that having Asian-American studies within the American Studies Program instead of as a standalone program will allow for “the foundation of comparative race and ethnicity studies.”

Chou said she looks forward to engaging in conversation with the administration on this issue.

“I think [President] Tilghman and her team have been very supportive of very similar-type efforts, and they’ve been very supportive of our community in general,” she said.

Tilghman could not be reached for comment.

“It’s time for America; it’s time for Princeton. It’s way past time,” petition co-author Helen Zia ’73 added.

Asian-American studies may not be the only ethnic studies program on Princeton’s horizon. Alumni, faculty and students are also currently lobbying for a program in Latino studies, also in the works since the 1995 sit-in.

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Last spring, the University administration began reviewing a proposal for a Latino studies program, which would explore the experience of Hispanics in the United States. The ad hoc committee on the Latino studies proposal, chaired by sociology and Wilson School professor Marta Tienda, is currently working with administrators to eventually establish an interdisciplinary certificate program. Additional courses in Latino studies have been created in the interim.

Ethnic studies breaking through

Chang, who joined Stanford’s faculty in 1995, a time when Stanford’s Asian-American Studies program was just beginning, said that in the past, opponents of ethnic studies have tended to question the discipline’s “so-called intellectual integrity.”

This argument is no longer valid, Chang explained, “since in the past 30 years, these programs have become a vital part of the curriculum at almost all major research institutions.”

The field of Asian-American Studies has developed to the point where it can no longer be ignored, said Zia, whose book, “Asian-American Dreams: The Emergence of An American People,” won critical acclaim.

“Maybe 30 years ago somebody would say, ‘well is there anything to teach?’ Today they can’t say that,” Zia explained. “There are thousands of books, hundreds of professors, other schools have dozens of courses that they offer every year ... the body of knowledge is there.”

Zia, who was named one of the most influential Asian-Americans of the decade by A. Magazine, described Asian-American studies as “a multidisciplinary field that’s highly intellectually rigorous and it’s an area that most people ... know very little about.”

By eschewing Asian-American Studies, Princeton is missing out on “the opportunity to teach and to educate Princetonians and the next generation of leaders of America about this field,” she said, noting that there has been little or no progress in the last 37 years in bringing the field to Princeton.

“We pride ourselves at Princeton on being absolutely world-class and cutting edge in so many fields of study, so it seems sort of glaringly missing,” Chou said. “I care a lot about the University and I want to see us continue to make strides and play a leadership role.”

The petition’s writers have noted that Asian-American Studies programs are well-established at peer institutions. In addition to Stanford, where Chang teaches, programs exist at the University of California schools, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Michigan, Cornell, Brown, Penn, Dartmouth and Columbia.

Likewise, Tienda noted last spring that Princeton is “one of the few universities of high stature that doesn’t have a [Latino studies] program.”

In the Ivy League, Princeton, Harvard and Yale are “at the bottom of the heap” as the last holdouts, Zia noted.

Those three institutions “are quite founded in traditional approaches to scholarship and education and have often been resistant to change,” Chang explained.

Similar efforts among Harvard and Yale alumni, however, are currently underway, Zia said. “We may be having a competition here to see which school will not be the last,” she added, noting that if Princeton were to indeed be last, “that would be a very sad statement about our alma mater.”

Chou said she believes that Harvard alumni are already raising money for their program.

Student and faculty support

Though the petition has come from alumni, students and faculty have also been leading efforts to garner support for an Asian-American Studies program.

Asian-American Students Association (AASA) political chair Ben Kung ’10 is part of a student task force on Asian-American Studies at Princeton.

The courses offered by an Asian-American studies program “should appeal to people in general who are interested in better understanding American society and minority studies,” Kung said.

Princeton does currently have a course that could fall under an Asian-American studies program, but at the moment the class is “being awkwardly bunched with African-American Studies,” AASA special projects director Joseph Jung ’11 said. He noted that he is also in favor of the program, but he is not sure he would actually pursue a certificate.

This semester, English and African-American studies professor Anne Cheng and African-American studies lecturer Matilde Moros are teaching AAS 329/ENG 415: Chinatown USA.

Jung said he thinks that the African-American studies program is “definitely a step towards having the comparative comprehensive study of culture … race and ethnicity,” he added that he worries that generalizing the experiences of racial minorities is an oversimplification of their experiences. “We really should be looking at them in a complex way and not just compartmentalizing everything into one area,” he said.

Though Chou said student involvement in the cause is important, she noted that alumni are crucial because “a student lifespan is very short.” Since “the pace of change at a university is very slow,” she said, the momentum generated by groups of undergraduates in the past has never had lasting effects.

This will not deter Kung, however, even if he will never get to take a class in an Asian-American studies department. “I know that realistically speaking I am not going to see much of a development,” he said. “I can only do so much to set the foundation of such a program.”

Creative writing professor Chang-rae Lee, who has been a part of faculty-led discussions about the potential Asian-American studies program, said he would be “very pleased to teach a course in Asian-American literature in either fiction or memoir or some other form of non-fiction,” adding that he believes his colleagues would be enthusiastic as well.

Dirk Hartog, history professor and chair of the Program in American Studies, has been similarly involved in advocating for the program alongside Cheng.

Hartog said he would like to see “a general rethinking of American Studies within the humanities and social sciences [at Princeton].” A part of that, he said, is thinking about its connections with Asian-American studies, Latino studies and Native-American studies.

Moving forward

At the end of the day, though, the petition’s success will depend heavily on the University administration, as it will “help influence the whole environment for the creation of such a steady program,” Chang said.

The petition’s supporters are not looking to wait another 13 years to see progress. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t have something concrete in place by next year,” Zia said.

The alumni would “really like to see … a formal taskforce,” Chou said, noting that she believes this would be an appropriate next step within the University’s framework for creating new academic programs.

Zia emphasized, though, that rather than make demands, supporters of the petition “want to work with the University” in order to “start looking at how we can make this happen.”

“If it’s going to take raising money to help support a professorship, we’ll go out there and get the support we need,” Zia said, noting that some Asian-American alumni have expressed interest in financially supporting such an endeavor. First, however, “we want to make sure that this is consistent with overall faculty needs, and we need to work with the University on this,” Zia explained.

Chou noted, however, that the recent economic downturn will probably complicate efforts. “In such an [economic] environment, the University is often wary about starting new things,” she said.

While “the financial issue is a practical and legitimate concern,” Chang said, it “can’t be used as a rationale to dismiss the intellectual argument.”

Zia said, however, that she believes the greatest obstacle will be intellectual and not financial. She noted that there is a “lack of awareness about who Asian-Americans are and the extent to which Asian-Americans have been a part of American history and society since the 1500s.”

This lack of awareness, Zia said, is not unique to Princeton.

“Asian-Americans are pretty much invisible in mainstream recognition,” she noted, citing the role that Asian-American voters played in the presidential election this year. Many media outlets did not find this issue “newsworthy,” she said.

Zia said that the general ignorance of Asian-American studies may beget prejudice because “when people ... lack basic information ... what generally fills the void are their own preconceptions or stereotypes,” though these attitudes are not necessarily “deliberate or consciously mean-spirited.”

Despite the potential barriers, Chou said she is “very optimistic” about the future of Asian-American studies at Princeton.

“I’m doing this so that future generations of Princetonians will have these opportunities available to them and really have a chance to explore this academic discipline amongst the many rich offerings that they have at the University,” she said.

— Staff writers Corinne Stephenson and Cornelia Hall contributed reporting.