Christina Huang 00:16
Hello everyone, my name is Christina Huang. Today's date is July 13. I'm located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the US. I'm here today with Divya, who's my partner in crime and also my friend. Could you please introduce yourself and give us a little background?

Divya Aikat 00:34
Yes. Hi, my name is Divya Aikat. I am a rising junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And I am double majoring in Biostatistics and Sociology with a minor in Education. And I, along with Christina, am part of a student group at UNC called Students for Asian American Studies, where we are advocating for an Asian American Studies major or minor at UNC.

Christina Huang 01:00
Thank you so much for an extensive background. To start off Divya, you grew up in Chapel Hill? Could you tell me a little bit about your experience of being an Asian American in the South? And how that influences your experience now attending UNC Chapel Hill?

Divya Aikat 01:16
Yeah, that's a good question. I think in general, being an Asian American in the South is a complicated experience. To circle back to Asian American Studies before I go more in depth… the Asian American Studies movements and ethnic studies movements originated in the West, in California, and you see these really large pushes – people joke that California is a totally different world than what we're doing in terms of ethnic studies. And I think generally in the South, there's not as much language to process an Asian American identity and look at different locations and places. I think that growing up in Chapel Hill, I did have a certain benefit as there was a significant Asian American community that I could connect with. And even if I wasn't having those larger conversations, or had an academic analytic to go along with my experiences, there were those interpersonal talks and gatherings where we talked about being Asian just growing up, which I think a lot of Asian Americans might have had.

Expanding on the topic of schooling, so much of my perception as an Asian American is centered around schooling and the different systems that I've gone through and been a part of. To give a little bit of background, kindergarten through 10th grades, I attended schools in the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools district – shortened to CHCCS. CHCCS has the second largest achievement gap between Black and White students in the nation. There was an equity report put out in 2019, by the Youth Social Justice Project, where they found that white students were almost three times more likely to be considered college and career ready than Black students. So there's this really stark educational divide that I was growing up, it's very.... you can perceive it very easily I think, the educational inequity between Black and White students. And then, as already operating in this inequitable space, we talk a lot about how there's a black and white binary. And I think in education, that's true, too. And so it was also complicated to exist as an Asian American outside of this binary, where you have things like the model minority myth, and the hyper education of Asian Americans. And there's still this incredible inequity at the school. And adding to that, or maybe participating as someone at a point of privilege, was also very interesting. Also growing up, I was put in different gifted programs. And then eventually, for my 11th and 12th grades, I attended the North Carolina School of Science and Math. And a lot of these places were dominated by whites and Asian Americans.

And so I think that… especially in the South with the very complicated marginalization of Black Americans, and then also the lack of representation of Asian Americans. I think that it was just a very unique racial experience growing up in Chapel Hill. And also you asked about how, now that I'm attending UNC Chapel Hill, that kind of transition. So, growing up, to give a little bit more background, I have two parents who are in academia and have been employed at UNC which I eventually went to. And I didn't expect to go to UNC, but that's where I ended up. And so I think that there's also... I don't think I would have been able to get as involved as I am, or been as courageous about joining our Asian American Studies Group, if I hadn't kind of had this insider view at an institution, right. Both of my parents have worked here. I would grow up and I would hear conversations around the house about, "oh, this happened with the dean" and the different things. That language often isn't accessible, especially with Asian Americans in general – portrayed as perpetual foreigners – and not necessarily allowed access to these institutions and not allowed to have this kind of insider status. I think that was a very unique point. And I think that I couldn't have gotten involved with SAAS, without that background and that knowledge, and so I was very lucky to have that. And also my parents definitely had struggles being South Asian American immigrants in the South, Asian immigrants in America, in these spaces. And so, it was definitely a very intimate look at racial inequity and dynamics at UNC.

And, yeah, one last point that I'll give that I've been thinking of recently is just generally… Christina, we talked about this with Dr. Dhingra when he was able to visit the Asian American Center, and Annette Lareau has this theory of concerted cultivation, where she basically talks about different socioeconomic statuses that families have and how that can... change access to resources that their children will have, which can eventually lead to them thinking differently about an institution. So for example, students who have a higher class are put in more activities, and they're given this “concerted cultivation” that will eventually lead to them being able to, for example, advocate for themselves at the doctors and ask the doctor a question. They're taught that people in positions of power can be questioned. And you can go into these spaces and say, “Hey, this isn't right, what can we do about it?” Whereas children who are in a lower socioeconomic status are taught more to follow the person in power, listen to them, do what you're told, things like that. The idea of going to someone that's higher up in an institution and saying, "Hey, this is wrong and the institution is here to serve me,” as a student… the theory says that it's often taught to students who are have a higher socioeconomic class. And growing up, I didn't have any paid activities that I went to, if any. I didn't go to Kumon, I didn't go to a lot of these places that Asian Americans or Asian parents who maybe have the resources to put their children in these… I didn't really go to those. So, thinking about operating around the free space, but also having that parent influence to be able to question the system. I kind of learned that, oh, if there's an institutional problem, let's try to go solve it is, I think, just a very unique form of growing up and child rearing that I was exposed to. And yeah, so generally, I think that there were, throughout my childhood, there were a lot of ideas about challenging the system and kind of also operating within inequitable education spaces. I'm currently minoring in education, which has framed the work and the stuff that we do for Asian American studies to kind of make these spaces more equitable.

Christina Huang 09:19
Yeah, thank you. That was really, again, very thorough, and I think it does really take a sense of maturity to admit that there are some privileges that you benefit from, but also to recognize and analyze resources that weren't available. And so, I'm curious, you're talking about your minoring in education. You came into UNC knowing that you wanted to study Biostatistics and you know, you’re a Chancellor's Science Scholar, a lot of things predominantly in the STEM field, but now you're a huge advocate for education policy. And now in this activist space, you’re passionate about challenging the institution. So could you explain a little bit? What got you really interested, invested, and involved in this activism sphere at UNC?

Divya Aikat 10:10
Yeah, so to start off, definitely during my childhood and up until I was 16 probably, I had a very STEM-dominated mentality. We talked about this earlier, but I thought I was going to be a doctor too. There's all these ideas of what it means to succeed as an Asian American, especially with our parents. Generally, there are these set career tracks – doctor, lawyer, engineer – these big, money-making ideas of success and wealth. I think that I just didn't consider that that was really an option – that I could go into the humanities or expand upon what I'm currently doing.

So yes, I entered.. oh, to give more background, the first humanities classes that I really took, or that strayed away from the core curriculum, were at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, with Dr. Krupal Amin, who I met through the School of Science and Math. She was my American Studies professor, and then my Critical Race Studies teacher in my senior year of high school, and she currently is the Associate Director of the Asian American Center at UNC. And basically, I don't think I ever would have stepped foot in the Asian American Center, if not for her, and she has been among others, but especially for me, an incredibly influential South Asian American woman and mentor in my life. And so basically, I was her student. She had a student dinner last spring, and a little over a year ago, and I went to her house, and we were all updating about our lives. And she was telling me about the really cool work that she's doing at the Asian American Center. And she said, "Hey, come check it out sometime.” And so, this past year, my sophomore year of college, I just ventured there. Like one time I went there – we talked about how it's a kind of a little shack in the woods, it's pretty far off campus. It was about a 20 minute walk from where I was. And I went there. And I just wanted to see what it was like. And I met you, Christina, I think either my first or second day there.

And I have never been in an Asian American gathering space, I guess that's part of an institution, like outside of my friend groups. And so it was just really cool. It was really inspirational. It was something that I've never seen before or been a part of. And I've always liked the humanities, I've always really been interested in critical race theory. But this was kind of the avenue through which I could walk through and actually be introduced to movements that are beyond theory, like actual events happening in the community – this scholar is going to come and talk about something – it was definitely just a very eye-opening community space. And honestly, I credit the Asian American Center and our group at SAAS to most of my interests and most of what kept me going throughout that. The way that I got involved in Asian American Studies at UNC was through you, Christina. I still remember we were just talking and you're like, “This isn’t happening. We don't have an Asian American Studies program here. How do we get one?” And it was just those sustained conversations, and your push were really what had me assess, and what has me here now at SAADA, is just that setup and that background. And I think that it's something that's easy for me – Asian American Studies and the Asian American Center. I've always had confusions and difficulties understanding my identity growing up and like here is a space where people are trying to do this. Here is where we're reimagining what it means to be Asian American. Here is a beloved community. Like it was just a really beautiful space to walk into. And I think that the people and the place is what have brought me in there and kept me there.

Christina Huang 14:34
Well, thank you so much for sharing. I think we, as a group of SAAS, are so lucky to have you there. And I think you bring such an amazing energy to the Asian American Center. So, I think you credit a lot of people, but I think you also contribute so much. And you are also a huge reason why everybody keeps coming back with the joy, your compliments, just your entire vibe.

Divya Aikat 15:00
That's very sweet.

Christina Huang 15:03
Do you have any advice then to give STEM students, particularly students of color or Asian American students who are not interested in activism or topics tied to activism? And how to navigate this community space on that you're talking about?

Divya Aikat 15:22
Yeah, that's a good question. I would say there's this big distinction and this giant line that we draw – we say it's either STEM or it's the humanities. There are two totally separate pathways. One you make money in and one you don't. Like there's just a binary mentality that we have about it. And I would say that it's not at all separate. And actually, it's very, very interconnected. Specifically talking about America, the ways that we've set up the institutions, companies, everything in our society, is heavily intertwined.. with systems of oppression. And when you think about UNC as a research institution, we talk a lot about research and social justice. Early research studies marginalized people of color – you think of the like, Tuskegee Syphilis study – I'm speaking from the public health sphere – there has been such a systematic mistreatment of people of color, and especially Black Americans throughout history. And I think that it's easy to just exist in one space and ignore everything else. But these topics don't exist separately. We think a lot of Asian Americans go into computer science, like, let's talk about racism and AI.

There's so many avenues for making change and exploring this really nuanced world that we live in. And I think that people don't have to be interested, this isn't work that everybody has to get involved in. But I would say that the idea that they're not intertwined, and that one doesn't relate to or benefit the other, is just not true. And I think like with our research, right now, the amount of information that we're able to find online, the amount that's so easily accessible, the way that we can find things on the internet. So much of that we're able to do because of the work that STEM students have put in and done. So, I would say that it's all intertwined, and that it's okay to not be interested. But it's also a good thing to recognize that they very much complement each other.

Christina Huang 17:59
I really appreciate how you were able to look at this and bring in that perspective. I think a lot of people, especially now during this political climate, of people like "Get your liberals out of STEM and stop-“ kind of, that entire mentality. But you know, as you bring up the Tuskegee study, and a lot of medical fields, it's so important that we talk about how marginalized voices are forgotten, especially in the medical field, since it impacts so many people. Listening to you, I was wondering, could you walk through the process of trying to implement this Asian American Studies program at UNC?

Divya Aikat 18:45
Yeah. So basically, to start off, we formed a student group. Christina was kind of our anchor for all of it. And so, she went and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but from my perspective, you individually sourced every person, and were like, "Hey, this is something that I think is really important. Do you want to join?" And so I think that Christina has really been our anchor and our gathering spot. And so she brought all of us together.

And I remember the first meetings it was only like you, me, and maybe I think Abbey. There wasn't a lot of people. And eventually, we gained that student group and with that, we started drafting a petition. And so, to give a bit of background, there's five members of SAAS. Me, Christina, then Joanna Yeh, Abbey Kollu and Alicia Bao. And we're all first and second years, or we were when we formed SAAS. And so basically, we're new to this institution, we found a problem, we found something that's missing. And we want to bring it here. So we started by looking at work that other institutions have done. So Duke, who's our neighbor, just got their Asian American and Diaspora Studies minor. And we looked at the petition that they had drafted and the signatures that they had collected, and we said, this is a way to get attention. Let's make a petition and our list of demands. And let's put it out to the community and see the response that we can get. And so the drafting of the petition was a very long process. It's an eight-page petition just of us listing things that the institution hasn't fulfilled for the Asian American community, things that we want to see happening.

And so we had three main demands. We wanted to create this Asian American Studies major/minor that we don't have. And to do that, right now, we only have two tenure – not even tenure. But we only have two faculty members who are Asian Americans, who hold up the entire curriculum and teaching for the 30,000+ student body. So it's distributed unequally. If we're going to have a program, if we're going to sustain a student body and actually teach Asian American Studies, we need more faculty members. So, we aim to hire six tenure-track, Asian American faculty members. Our College of Arts and Sciences has been doing a cluster hire each year. And our goal was to have a cluster hire of Asian Americanists. So to do this, we put all of this in our letter to keep going over the demands for our petition. The cluster hire and eventual development of the major/minor was one of them. Then the Asian American Center, as we've talked about, is lacking some resources. It's not a space that’s easy to walk to. It's also not accessible for students who are maybe differently abled. Generally, there's so much community that we could support. UNC’s student body is 20% Asian or Asian American – there's so much that we could support – but due to limits of the space it's not there. At the time, we only had 2.4 full time equivalent staff members. And so we wanted to expand resources for the Asian American Center. That was our second demand. Our third was to disaggregate data. So basically, whenever UNC does institutional reports about Asians and Asian Americans, we are just one big clump. They clump us together as a monolith and we are not a monolith. Different Asian American ethnicities have such diverse and detailed histories that just weren't being represented. So we wanted to disaggregate the data, the Asian American Center actually did a recent report about disaggregated data that was really informative. So okay, those are the three main demands that we were seeking in our petition. So we drafted that petition. It took us a few months, like four months I would say, to really draft it and get eyes on it from various mentors and make sure that this is what we want to be asking of our community.

So after we drafted the petition, we launched it, and we shared it on social media, we tabled in the pit at UNC, we just really tried to get signatures from everywhere. I think that we were lucky in that our group was involved in a lot of different areas at UNC. And so, we were able to have large outreach with only five people running this, drafting it, communicating it; and so that was a big point. And then also, we created a presentation and a slide deck. And we met with 10 different faculty departments and two deans at the school – Dean of College of Arts and Sciences and Dean of Global and Social Sciences. And so we met with them and we presented the Asian American history at UNC, the reason that we needed this, our next steps, and why a cluster hire was so instrumental in getting this going. So we did all of that. And generally, we tried to participate a lot in community gathering spaces. So, we had events with our Asian American student group; there was just a lot of different avenues that we tried to push this through. So I think that was a big point. And since then, we have accumulated over 900 signatures on our petition. And we're working towards getting more and really having our voice heard in this space, where there is not a lot of Asian American representation in the institutional level. That was one of the things that we recognized is that there are so many dance groups and cultural groups and various ways that Asian Americans are gathering and discussing things on campus, but it's all informal. We don't see this at an institutional level where students are getting an academic analytic for their experiences. And so that was our goal behind this, and then kind of how we continued with the student advocacy.

Christina Huang 26:02
Yeah, thank you so much. That was very insightful, and very step-by-step. This is very helpful for future listeners who also want to get involved. So, you talked a lot about big talking points in the Asian American community now, which I appreciate. You talked about our petition and the accessibility of the Asian American Center, and how there's a huge topic about Asian Americans with disabilities and how they're often forgotten with the model minority myth. Looking at disaggregated data and now working with SAAS, and as an East Asian myself, I see how a lot of South Asian American voices are forgotten. Like, they're very involved in activism. But when it comes down to recording history, or the people who get job positions, South Asians are disproportionately underrepresented, if they're represented at all. And so, I was wondering if you could provide some insight on how your South Asian identity is perceived or presented in relation to activism for Asian American Studies. Specifically, I'm interested in understanding the visibility or invisibility of your South Asian identity.

Divya Aikat 27:16
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that a lot of these Asian American spaces are often East Asian dominated, and they largely ignore the experiences of Southeast Asian and South Asian communities. And I think that's also something that we talk about with our Asian American student group on campus is that people feel that it's a really East Asian dominated space, or that it's tied to the Greek Life sphere. And so, I think that a lot of times the offerings for Asian Americans can really be directed towards a certain group. And then if you're not a part of that, you really don't feel like you're necessarily welcomed in that space, or even want to engage with it. Because there's the expectation that, oh, this might not be for me, this might not be for my Asian American experience, and it's not going to be representative. And so I think that growing up, I definitely did have more East Asian friends than South Asian friends. And I think that there are so many cultural similarities but there's also a unique experience and certain things that I felt weren't as represented. And so I think what's been really nice is that in our we have very diverse group in within SAAS. And so there's Abbey, another South Asian American member. And I think that having someone else within the group of five when the rest are East Asian was so helpful, because we really got so many different perspectives. And we were able to have these conversations and really talk openly.

And I think that that was a big way in which that barrier was broken down is that we were able to have really open conversations and be like, Hey, we might not feel represented, what are ways that we can shine a light on that in our work? And we talk a lot about queer intersections and about how the queer students within our group feel that there's a certain lack of representation or invisibility. And so I think that it's just really important to have these conversations and consider the marginalized groups and then find ways to bring them in. And I think that being a part of a marginalized group is has given me more insight and because I've been welcomed into positive spaces, it's been good. But definitely in the past, there's that barrier and there's that feeling that this isn't for me.

Christina Huang 30:06
Yeah, thank you for sharing that, and being vulnerable and talking about your experiences. And I'm glad that that you feel that you're not alone in in SAS. And we also continue to try to outreach other groups of Asian Americans to make sure we're more inclusive. Another point that I thought was kind of interesting that you hinted at just a little bit, is, we talk a lot about how SAAS is a predominantly non-male space. And I think is very interesting, because you do a lot of research around women's health, and specifically research about how stress impacts women's health, and you’re doing so much uplifting on your own time at SAAS. Like, how do you navigate this space as an Asian American woman? And the responsibilities to be a community builder? How does that work for you? And how do you see that dynamic playing out in SAAS?

Divya Aikat 31:05
Yeah, that's a really good question. To start out, I'll actually give a little bit more background on my research. So I work as a research assistant in the social epidemiology department in our Gillings School of Global Public Health, and I work with Dr. Anissa Vines, and we focus on Black women, and the stress that occurs in their life or the trauma that can cause stress, the different pathways that can lead to stress, and especially cumulative stress, that can eventually cause adverse health outcomes. And we specifically focus on uterine fibroids. And we're having a conversation about stress and mitigating stress.

And there's this weathering theory by Geronimus, where he talks about... it focuses on the difficulties that people face, and there's this idea that you get hit by a stressor, and then you get hit by another one, and your body hasn't had time to process this. And we talk about like micro aggressions, and it's a million paper cuts. And there's this idea of the body being broken down by repeated stressors, and something occurs in your brain is trying to process the trauma. And then another thing happens, and there's this idea of repeated trauma. And in our research in Black women, it's found that their telomere length is actually shorter, which is a measure of age, and there's an idea that they're aging at an advanced rate because of this incredible stress of being Black American women. And I think that with women of color, there are so many spaces to navigate at once, there are these daily difficulties that we undergo, and then also, these larger life barriers. Like I was talking with my dad on the phone last night about another woman of color being denied tenure at an institution. And there's a long history of women of color who are very deserving of these positions. They have the credentials, but they are still not welcomed into spaces.

And so I think that, in general, as an Asian American woman, I've definitely felt that pushback I feel there. People can sometimes make it out to be that, oh, we live in a society that's not racist or sexist anymore. And that's just not true. And there are so many ways that that pushback shows up in my life and thinking about SAAS and the work that we do. I often feel that a lot of people don't take us seriously. We're just, we're a group of five people where none of us are men. And it's just, I think... again, there's that sense of invisibility and the idea that we're maybe easier to push off. And that ties into ideas of Asian American women as being submissive and as being docile in a society. And I think that those stereotypes can really negatively affect us.

But to generally go back there there's this stress theory in my research, but also we find that coping strategies and social support buffer the possible negative effects of stress. And so that's a significant thing – to be able to find social support and ways to deal with these really complicated gendered and racial issues. And that's kind of a way that I think by setting boundaries, and by having people to talk to about these harrowing experiences, I think that is something that keeps us going. And so, setting boundaries, I've gotten better at it. I talked with you a little bit about this, Christina, but I have this- This idea in my head because I would just do things for other people all the time, and so much of my life was spent just being someone who was serving others, and that's something that I still want to do. But if I do something at my expense, then I feel that I'm not really doing something for genuine good, because I want to be doing it. But I'm doing it because there's an expectation that I should be doing it. And so turning things into a want and trying to make sure that I have the capacity to do something for someone else before I do it. I think that that's part of the way that I set boundaries.

Christina Huang 36:31
But yeah, I think that's such an important topic. Because setting boundaries and being able to say no, sometimes it's really difficult to say like, 'I can't take this anymore" especially as a woman of color where you're kind of taught to be like a community builder, all the time. And at a certain point, it's an obligation, not because you want to, as you said. I think your research is very powerful that you're doing – you can imagine that million paper cuts because you can't see it. But you know what it feels like, you know, the pain of a paper cut over and over again. And it is traumatizing to do this work all the time, and not letting your body rest and heal. So, it kind of reminds you when you're talking about all these responsibilities – they take off.

And you also talked about professors of color not getting tenure at universities, it reminded me of Jennifer Ho who left UNC, because she was overworked and not getting the credit that she deserves. And she had said that people were told to go to her, if they were having any problems related to Asian Americans or Asians, and she had talked about how a medical student had come to her talking about like, "I'm having a workplace issue with my supervisor. And I think I'm being targeted as an Asian American". And she's just an English professor, she's not very specialized in that field. So, you know that again, it's that burden you have to take off. So could you provide some advice about like, setting these boundaries that you have, that you're starting to do? And especially for Asian American students who tend to be overworked? What would you tell the students or students at work that are in or were in your place?

Divya Aikat 38:13
Yeah, that's a good question. So, I'll talk about something that we actually referenced in your oral history, Christina. But this past year, we had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by Dr. Shinhee Han, through the Asian American Center. She gave a talk about “Healing and Building Community Through Racial Melancholia.” And she talks about this idea of racial melancholia in reference to community loss. So there can be this collective thought or condition within a community and she gave the example of the pandemic and the difficulties that Asian Americans, especially East Asian Americans were facing. And it's this idea that there's a sense of mourning and despair that we can be trapped in. And she gave one example from her own experience in therapy where she explained that white students will come in at a level 5 out of 10 of difficulty. And Asians will only come in at level 10. And they're often brought in by other people. And so one of the really important things that stuck with me is she said that Asian American students can have a sense of racial disassociation, where they have this big head that's been filled with knowledge and all of these different things that are expected for Asian Americans under the model minority myth. But she says that we need to connect our large heads to our emaciated body. And that was just a very visual image of the hyper education and all these expectations that Asian Americans often store within themselves but aren't able to express. There’s this sense of going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing, and you always have to be succeeding, and you can't give yourself breathing room or space. And there's this idea that how do we take a step back? How do we relax? How do we heal in order to move on to the next stage of our lives?

And she gave a quote; she said when we play, we lose ourselves. And there's this idea that there has to be a distinction, there have to be places where we can lose ourselves and enjoy ourselves. And, for me, that's really been within my friends and community that I've been able to find those spaces. And going out in nature, finding touch with the natural world and the experiences that we know to be true within ourselves without all of the these institutions and systems; like shining that light on our lives as people. I think... that's something to take a step back to make sure that you have places to talk about this, people to talk about these things with and if you don't, maybe finding that community online or reading different things. So many of the books that I've read have given me elaborate context to better understand my life. And just also understanding that living as a minoritized person can be difficult enough and you shouldn't expect- I know it's hard because we've been indoctrinated with all of these unrealistic expectations, but just kind of giving yourself some leeway and learning that it's okay to take things one step at a time. And it's okay to not take any steps at all. I think kind of just yeah, getting out of that capitalist mindset and trying to find community connections and natural connections.

Christina Huang 42:28
You explained that talk so well, like I listened to it, like I was there, mesmerized by Dr. Han’s lecture, but then you gave it again. I was in there like, this is so good. The way you talked about it and guided us through the train of thought was so good. One thing about that lecture that I noticed was that it was hosted by our Asian American Center. But I also noticed that there were a lot of other students of color at that talk. And I think a lot of other students will also benefit from this conversation. And it makes me think about Asian Americans Studies as a whole. This work has been inspired and supported by the Black, Latino and Indigenous Studies programs and scholars. We talked to Dr. Nayan Shah, who is now at USC. But he was a first tenure track hire at SUNY Binghamton University. He talked about as he left, they implemented a program. A huge reason for it was that it was supported by not only Asian American students, but also Black students and Puerto Rican students. So there was a coalition of diverse students. And I'm wondering, from your experience, you work a lot with intersections of different racial groups. What does that solidarity community look like for you at UNC campus?

Divya Aikat 43:51
Yeah, I think that's a really impactful question. When we talk about ethnic studies, and we talk about Asian American Studies in general, we can look to the origins of it all and look at the Third World Liberation Front and these conversations that students have been having on campuses nationwide, and the solidarity between different groups of color that have allowed these movements to take charge, there's power in people and there's power in numbers. And having that multiracial solidarity and inspiration from other communities, I think has been really influential in ethnic studies as a whole movement nationwide, but then also with us in our work at UNC when we were figuring out how to get the ball rolling and try to understand how we can get these faculty members that we don't have. The American Indian and Indigenous Studies program did a cluster hire last year, and they were able to propose that and get the cluster higher approved. And so that was definitely a point of inspiration and a place that we were looking at. So, when we think about movements from people of color, there's all of this groundwork that other ethnic and racial groups have put in, and that we can take inspiration from, and we can build from. And I think that we haven't started this process alone. And we can't end it alone. And with the different racial and ethnic groups in America, there are all of these various points of privilege and of power, like Claire Jean Kim has this racial triangulation theory which speaks about the experience of Black Americans and Asian Americans, and their triangulation in relation to white Americans. And obviously, racial dynamics are much more nuanced than that one triangle. But I think it's important to recognize there are so many systems of being oppressed and then also being the oppressor under white supremacy.

And there's this struggle of gaining power and maybe having our voice heard in Asian American studies without further marginalizing other communities. And it's been something that we've talked a lot about in our work, and that we've really been wanting to consider, and I think that one of the best spaces to reimagine that and to do this work without furthering any oppression of other communities is to get out there and speak with them, go to events, work with them, get involved, learn about their struggles. We all have these really different histories and really diverse backgrounds that I think it's important to explore and to understand at an interpersonal level before we go into this big institutional work. And yeah, I think generally... I'm a part of, you mentioned earlier, the Chancellor Science Scholars Program, and we have an incredibly diverse cohort. It's meant to increase representation of minority students in STEM. So the majority of us are people of color, especially Black students. And then there is also majority women, and so they're trying to increase that representation of women and people of color in STEM. And so, I've been fortunate enough to be in constant spaces with a very diverse group of people of color and women-centered spaces. And I think in general you can't learn with tunnel vision. I think a lot of solidarity and a lot of these interracial movements are about saying that you don't want to be looking at- we kind of talked about this earlier: you don't want to do good to do good. You don't want to check, "Oh, I did good, I went to a talk” box off in your mind. You want to be doing this work for others; you want to step back and listen and give space to other people in their community, and just hope that they're going to do the same for you when the time comes. And so, I think that community building is a lot about relinquishing power, relinquishing control, and opening your ears and just hearing others out. So I think that's what it kind of looks like for me.

Christina Huang 48:38
Yeah, I'm so glad that you are finding these spaces on campus. And that you were able to find the system support and also support other communities. And I totally agree, the formation of these different communities and identities are not in a vacuum. And they all coincide with each other and in support, that we build this multiracial solidarity. And continue to support different groups, especially now in a climate where we see how Asian American communities are upheld to put down other racial groups. And I'm thinking about what you're saying about being at an institution and bringing up this idea of the Third World Liberation Front, and how we're kind of going through a second wave of it, or whatever happened back in like the 60s, coming back in the 90s a little bit and it's now back. There's these constant cycles.

And I'm wondering, as we're researching, and we just had a conversation about the extreme measures that students back then took, into hunger strikes and they occupied buildings and they got arrested. Thinking strategically, what has worked for your activism, and what hasn't? What strategies have you found to operate around these largely nameless and faceless institutions?

Divya Aikat 50:07
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think in general, it's important to recognize that we attend a predominantly white institution. The curriculum, the offerings, the school, in general, was created for white students. And I think a lot of their missions, and a lot of their goals are to sustain the majority, which is white students. So we think about operating at a school that is made for white people. And we think about being a minority group there, and trying to have a say, and trying to have our voice heard. And it makes me think of Derrick Bell's interest convergence theory, where he was speaking about the rights of Black people. But generally, it's this idea that for a marginalized group to kind of get a goal accomplished or to have their ideas be heard or their rights actualized, their interests have to align with the benefit of the majority group. And so, I think that that's a big thing that we navigate in our Asian American Studies work. For the average white faculty member or person in position of power at the university, having an Asian American Studies major and minor, allowing Asian American study, allowing Asian American students to better understand and conceptualize their identity isn't going to benefit them. If anything, it's going to allow us to question these systems of white supremacy, to try to make more space for voices of color. And I think that can often be scary to them. And I think that can be something where they don't see, oh, how am I going to benefit from this like?

And I think that often, when we talk about these hunger strikes, when we talk about these larger movements, a lot of it has been that the university was getting really negative attention because of students. One student was in the strike at Northwestern for 12 days straight. Like, that is really bad negative attention for the university. And then their interest convergence is not, let's help the Asian American students. Their interest convergence is, this was a really bad look for the university, we have to give these kids what they want, or else they'll keep making our university look bad. And so I think that that's a really difficult thing that we grapple with in this work is thinking about – Where do we meet with them? How do we get their attention? We've played nice, we've been through all of these spaces. And we've said, "Hey, can you please sign our petition?" "Hey, can you please cluster hire our faculty?" And it's also talking about… When do we get rough? When do we riot? When do we say, “You're not giving us this, and this is something that we need, and we're not going to give up on it.” So, I think that part of it is trying to figure out where the line is drawn between being an institutional pawn and playing into white ideas of this institution and the systems that aren't built to support us. How do we play into those? And to what extent do we do that? And then to what extent do we say, this isn't for me, I'm not going to operate by these arbitrary rules that end up oppressing me, and I'm going to fight for this cause that I believe in.

So, I think that that's a big – I don't know if that's a suggestion – but that's just a big thing that I think that students should consider is these lines that we draw, and when we decide to draw them. And then generally what else has worked in my activism work. I think that the friendship that we have in SAAS is incredibly important. That's what kept us there. And that's what keeps us coming back is that we have this incredible friendship and this impactful system that we built. Like, there's a reason the petition took four or five months to be drafted, we were really putting in all the groundwork we have. We have so much communication about the communication that we end up doing. We talk about things we talk about. How are we going to go about these meetings? What are we going to say? What if they say this? How do we respond? And I think it really sets us up well. The great levels of communication and dedication that our group brings sets us up to be properly represented. I know that if I'm not going to a meeting, but two other members of the group are, I know that we're going to get our points across. They’re going to do things right, they're going to represent my vision and further the way that I want it to be done to and the way that we've all agreed. I think there’s a really deep trust in the others that are operating within our group.

And then also that community building where, for example, like I remember, there was one meeting around a really intense time, like we had been petitioning. We had been doing so many things, and we walked into the meeting. And we tried to get started. And we were like, "Guys, I'm exhausted". And then, once one person said it, everybody else was like, "Oh, my goodness, me too". So, recognizing that this activism work in these pushes waxes and wanes, and you're not always going to feel like it's the best day ever. And you're not always going to get a good response. Sometimes you're going to walk out of a faculty department meeting, and you're going to think, "Oh, my God, I feel so discouraged. That was one of the worst experiences I've had.” And that's gonna happen. And it can get really good too. But I think recognizing that there are really strong highs and lows to this work, and that sometimes it's not going to be your day, sometimes you need to take a break. For example, this summer, you and I are doing this with SAADA, but we're not working actively on our group until we start getting back in for the fall. So, I think taking breaks, trying to understand that you’re people pushing for a cause, but that you're also students. And Christina, you mentioned this in your interview. And I thought it was really impactful. That the institutions should already have this, we're fighting for something that shouldn't be our job to fight for. And I think that it's important to realize, and it's important to be willing to be disappointed and keep going. But also, be willing to just say, “I'm done with this, this is the institution's responsibility. I'm tired of fighting for my rights". And it's okay to keep going. But it's okay to give up. That's important. And, yeah, I think just the community support and the conversations that we've been having are really key in this activism work.

Christina Huang 57:26
Yeah, those are three really good points. I think that's what really drew me to you; that you're super gregarious. You're a natural community leader. I think everything you're saying is so valuable. And it's going to help so many students long-term when they start approaching this, because it's important to set boundaries and important to build that community first. And I think it's so interesting that you bring up the last point, like the institution should have this. And saying that, like walking away is also so powerful. This is enough, like I've had enough. And it reminds me of a conversation the other day, again tying back to Dr. Nayan Shah, he has a book called Refusal to Eat. Looking at hunger strikes, because there was a hunger strike at Northwestern, it kind of goes against your human instinct, because your human instinct is to survive to fight for yourself, I guess. Human instinct is also to fight against the institution. And so kind of being like, these needs are so important that they go above my human survival skills to keep living. And I'm going to, like sit there hours upon hours just to sit there and not eat or, you know, occupy a building or go do this almost really uncomfortable thing to push for what I know that I deserve on campus. And you bring up such a good point. Once you hit that point, you're against the institution. And it's more about bringing shame to institution, as opposed to being diplomatic, and working with the institution. And I think long term I'm thinking about the consequences, because something that that we talk about a lot between the both of us, is about the sustainability of a program. I think pushing for a program is very difficult, and it's so hard to get with funding and getting the logistics, as you said previously, like you don't want to just to be a checkbox. And so how would you recommend to current or future students and institutions without programs to really sustain themselves and also care about the implementation of an Asian American studies program?

Divya Aikat 59:23
Yeah, that's a good question. I think that there will be pushback; we have faced pushback. You talked about the hunger strikes. And this was a really upsetting detail that I was reading in the articles about the hunger strikes, but as the Northwestern students were going on a hunger strike for Asian American Studies, and that was such a beautiful point that you brought up about Dr. Shah's book and going against our basic human instincts. But as these students were hunger striking, there was a fraternity on campus – I think it was a conservative fraternity – that got pizza and ate it in front of the protesters, just as this really... it was basically to diminish their efforts and diminish what they're doing and make them feel that their work was not important. And mock them too. It was just a very disgusting thing to do to other people.

And so, basically, I think that thinking about how there will be these pushbacks, and people are not going to see our vision. We see it clearly, we see what needs to be done, the steps that need to be taken, the ways that we want it to be implemented, and then eventually, the program that we want to have. And we can see it clear as day, we know what has to be done. But other people won't see that. They won't think that what we're doing is important, they won't understand, again, back to the interest convergence. Sometimes it won't benefit them, sometimes it'll work against them. And people are really scared to give up power. And I think that for people who are just trying to start this work, I think that it's important to understand that it can be really grueling, but it can also be so incredibly rewarding. And I think that it's really important to not measure your success by the institutional response but by the group effort.

When we had that first day of the petition, and it got like 300 signatures and we weren't even expecting like, many at all. It was amazing. It was exciting. It was our progress being measured and saying that, Oh my gosh, we've done this, we're here, we know our stuff. Especially as women of color, it's easy to have imposter syndrome and to feel like, oh, what we're doing doesn't matter. But there was really an impactful group response. And even if you aren't getting a lot of signatures on your petition, hey, you drafted one. Like there are all of these different points that... these measures of joy and of community and different checkpoints that you can reach that aren't at all measured by an institution or what they say back to you, but are measured by what you know intrinsically as good and what you know, that you've been pushing for and that your community has been pushing for. And so, I think that that's part of it. I think that finding a really good group of people can be super helpful; we were lucky enough to form a friendship, and we're all very close friends. But I think that trust above that is what's important and knowing that you're going to be heard and that there's a distribution of responsibilities within the group; one person shouldn't be taking it all on their shoulders. And yeah, generally, I think it's also helpful to seek out mentors in the community. Reach out to other Asian American activists, especially maybe if your school doesn't even have any Asian American studies faculty. And yeah, that's what I would say is just kind of take it step by step and day by day and just don't look at the institution to say, Oh, we've done this. Look at yourself and how you feel that you're doing.

Christina Huang 1:03:31
Yeah, that is super powerful. And I feel like that kind of ties into our last question that I have for you is like, you’re doing all this work, and it's gonna have a huge impact for the next generations of students. So what does it mean for you to be part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

Divya Aikat 1:03:55
Yeah. I think just generally, a lot of the positive impact that I found in Asian American Studies was because I feel like, as Asian Americans, I'll speak from my perspective, but I feel like I've been really embarking on a quest for identity and trying to find myself as part of a minority group in America. And just kind of understand that I don't know like, even within the South Asian community. My parents are both Indian, but they're from different parts of India. So there was a really unique experience that I had with that, growing up. There's this quest for knowledge and this want to be understood. And I think that Asian American Studies and the scholars and the activists that are working within it, really try to understand the way that we live and the way that we function and the way that we gather. And I think that is super-duper important. I think that it's just every Asian American person who is trying to understand their identity, it takes so much time and frustration and microaggressions to get to a place where you can feel like, oh, this is my identity, like, I'm going to claim it. Some people may never get there. And that's not an individual's fault, but a result of the system put in place against them. And I think that, generally, as a part of the Asian American Studies movement, to even be able to take an Asian American class at UNC. That's because other people have been doing this before me, that's because UNC has had this push for Asian American Studies for over 30 years. This isn't something that is coming out of the blue. This is something that previous people have put the work in for me. And I think that's a big part of what we do as SAAS is we're putting the work in for other people. We're here at SAADA, we're trying to record these oral histories about Asian American activists in the Asian American Studies sphere so that other people can have an easier time, I think it's a lot about contributing to our community. And there's this really big want to be seen and heard and understood. And I think it's just about passing that on and saying, here, like you've done all this for me, let me do something else for the community. And let me try to help others who are just starting out or who need a hand or who need a friend. So I think that's what it's about – that community space and search for identity.

Christina Huang 1:06:41
Yeah, that's a beautiful way to end it because it circles back to our first question about identity. Thank you for sharing your story with us today. And I really appreciate your vulnerability and what you're giving, because it's gonna help other students try to figure out what they want to do in the future, and how they want to approach similar activism as you have. And I think that you're definitely someone that people are going to look up to in this Asian American movement.

Divya Aikat 1:07:10
Thank you so much for facilitating this, Christina, you did an amazing job. And I'm honored to have worked with you and still be working with you here.

Christina Huang 1:07:19
Oh, my God, I don't know where I'd be without you. I think this was an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for being here. I am so honored to be interviewing you, and good luck in all your future endeavors.

Divya Aikat 1:07:31
Thank you!

Christina Huang 1:07:31
Bye!