Interviewee: William Liu

Interviewer(s): Divya Aikat

Date: 2024-08-15

Location: College Park, Maryland

Transcriber: Divya Aikat

Length: 1:18:18

Divya Aikat [00:01]
Hello. My name is Divya Aikat. Today's date is August 15, 2024. I'm located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. And today I'm here with Dr. William Liu, a Professor of Counseling Psychology and Department Chair at the University of Maryland at College Park. Will, would you like to tell us where you're calling in from today?

William Liu [00:22]
Hi, good morning. My name is William Liu, and I am calling in from College Park, Maryland, the University of Maryland.

Divya Aikat [00:30]
Wonderful. Thank you. So, to start off, I wanted to talk a little bit about your identity-based experiences and the ways that it might inform your work today. So, I wanted to talk about anything that you wanted to share about your upbringing, your values, any transformative experiences you may have had, either in your personal or academic life. If you could share a little bit more about that, that would be great.

William Liu [00:55]
Sure. Thank you for the questions too and thank you for doing this. I grew up in Southern California, and I immigrated there when I was about five years old from Taiwan, with my parents. And when I think back about growing up in Southern California, I didn't really understand race and racism at the time or who I was as an Asian American. I did understand myself as a Chinese person and as a Taiwanese person, and at that time, it's sort of all confused to me. So, when people asked me in school, you know, "What's your ethnicity?" or "What's your race?" I always answered Chinese. I never thought about myself as Taiwanese. And I also know that I experienced racism. I know my parents experienced racism. I know my brothers experienced racism. So, I knew that it was out there. I knew that I had those experiences and those feelings of not being well liked, held in contempt, treated in a biased way, but I didn't really have a framework or a great way to understand it.

So, I would say going to college was really pivotal for me. Going to college was incredible. Because I moved away from the people that I grew up around, and also my family, and so I was put into an environment where I really didn't have any of those connections with people that I grew up with. And so a lot of that then initiated learning about myself and who I was as a person in this new space. And then I think the most pivotal experience that I had as a college student was taking my first Asian American Studies course. At the time, I took it with an Asian American Psychology professor, Mary Ann Takemoto, and she taught Asian American Psychology. And that sort of initiated my understanding of who I was, in terms of my identity, my culture. It framed my experiences. It helped me put language to racism. And then from that point forward, I started taking more courses around Asian American Studies, but also around, at that time, cross-cultural psychology, cross-cultural studies. So, I took African American Studies, African American Psychology, cross-cultural psychology. All those courses that allowed me to put more language, more framing, more theory, more research around my experiences. And so I thought those were sort of my very pivotal experiences in terms of helping me understand who I was. And so Asian American Studies, for me, is foundational. It's incredible in terms of just helping people, especially Asian Americans, who come from an environment that may not really nurture their identity in a particular way, put a framework around race and racism. Those kind of courses and that area of study is incredible, and can be incredibly pivotal for people, because it was for me.

Divya Aikat [04:08]
Yeah, I think you speak to such an important part of Asian American Studies, which is sense-making and being able to apply that academic analytic to experiences that we've known our whole lives. [Will: Mhm] And you had mentioned living in Southern California, all of these different places. And through your life, you've studied, worked and lived in many different locations: UC Irvine, University of Iowa, and now University of Maryland, all institutions that you've been a part of. And so, I wanted to ask what regional differences that you've noticed, either within the areas that you're living in, or specifically the institutions, and how that has affected your experience working and studying Asian American Studies.

William Liu [04:55]
I love this question because when I read it, I was thinking, you know, what was it that stood out for me in terms of understanding myself as an Asian American, but also these regional differences. And I know that when I was an undergraduate at Irvine, one of the things that was incredibly important was that there was a physical place on campus, where you could see a lot of Asian American students congregate. They sort of hung around a particular area on campus, and so that, you know, seeing that was incredibly important, but also being a part of that eventually, was also just a really empowering sense-making, you know, being a part of a larger group, having a place on campus. And it wasn't the Cross-Cultural Studies Center, it was just sort of- I forget where it was on campus, but it was sort of a lounge area and out in front of a commons area, and that's where a lot of Asian American students congregated. And then when I came to the University of Maryland to do my graduate work, there was also a similar presence. When I first came onto campus and I was just sort of walking around, there was a place near and around the main library, not to be ironic, but it's, you know, around the main library where a lot of Asian Americans sort of just were. You could see them all hours of the day and night. People came and saw each other. That's where, when you wanted to meet up with somebody and say, "Hey. Meet me over here." And so it was close to where all the Asian American students were. And so, when I went to the University of Iowa, that was one of the things that really stood out for me was that there wasn't a place where you could visibly see and physically see where Asian American students were. There wasn't a place that stood out.

And some of the Asian American students, when I started to talk to them, they said, "Oh, you know, we meet over at the Asian American Studies house, or Asian American Student Union House.” And the Asian Americans, Black Student Union, and Latinx students were all in these physical houses on the outskirts of campus. They weren't centrally located. And so you could easily walk through campus and never see where Asian Americans congregated. And even then, a lot of Asian Americans didn't go out there because it was so far removed from the main part of campus. It was removed from the commons areas. It was removed from the Student Union. It was just out in the outskirts. And so that sort of physical marginalization, the invisibility of Asian Americans, really struck me, and that also resonated with the ways in which Asian Americans saw themselves on campus, which is that they didn't see themselves as really a cohesive group. And when the Asian American students did come together as part of an Asian American Student Union, they were less focused around identity. They were less focused around the politics of Asian American Studies or Asian Americans. They were less focused around race and racism. They were more focused around the cultural aspects, because that's what was being celebrated. So, they did the food celebrations, they did the calligraphy, they did the dances, which are all important. I don't want to belittle or minimize those kinds of activities, but there wasn't also the complementary aspects in terms of their participation on campus. And so, they weren't involved in the political movements, they weren't involved in political discussions as an Asian American student group. Which was different than Irvine in Southern California, but also in other California campuses, and also different than what eventually evolved here at Maryland, too. So, I think that was sort of the regional differences that, for me in the Midwest, my family in the Midwest, there wasn't really a concentrated Asian American political identity focused around race and racism.

Divya Aikat [09:33]
Yeah, I think that's very interesting. To me, that brings up questions of visibility when we're talking about who are we actually seeing gather, congregate, have community? That's a very interesting point to note. So, talking about Asian American Studies and this exposure to Asian American Studies, could you talk a little bit more about your experience at UMD and how you got involved with the push?

William Liu [10:01]
Sure. So I think coming to Maryland and getting involved in the push for Asian American Studies was somewhat of a carryover of my activity when I was an undergraduate at Irvine. So at the time when I was leaving Irvine, we were also pushing for Asian American Studies as well. And so I was involved in that advocacy, in that movement. And then when I came here to Maryland, one of my colleagues was part of the founding of the Asian Student Union here at Maryland. So the Asian Student Union at that time was just developed about a semester before I had arrived, and he was involved in it. And also another colleague of mine, she was also the Staff Coordinator, Staff Advisor for the Asian Student Union. And we got connected, and I sat in on the meetings, and started having conversation with my colleague, but also my other colleague, who was the staff person on campus, and talking about where did the Asian American students want to go with this? You know, what did they want to be involved in? And both of my colleagues at the time, were very politically active. They were actually both Filipino, and they were very active in Asian American activism at that time. And so we talked about where the students were. We talked a little about where the campus was, as well. And through some of those discussions, we sort of landed on this idea that Asian American Studies as an academic enterprise, as an academic mission, was really important to start to institute on campus, because that was one of the things that wasn't part of the campus just yet. There weren't any courses. The students at that time were learning about Asian American Studies through a very piecemeal approach. They would learn a little bit in some courses, but there wasn't a standard Asian American Studies course. There was an Asian American Studies course that was offered, like a long time ago, but it wasn't part of a standard offering. There wasn't permanent faculty that were teaching it as well. And so that's where the germ of the idea came from, which was this discussion amongst staff, my colleague, talking about where the Asian American students were, where the campus was, what was needed, and how it could benefit the students.

And then from that point forward, I started to work with the students in terms of their leadership. And part of the initial work was bringing all of the Asian American student groups together to work collaboratively with the Asian Student Union. Because the Asian Student Union, at the time, when it was created, a lot of the Asian American student groups thought of it as a competitor at that time. So Chinese Student Association, Korean Student Association, you know, all the different student associations at the time didn't really understand the need or the use for an Asian Student Union. And I say a lot of the initial work, which is, you know, over several years, at the beginning, was me reaching out to student leaders, having conversations with them. And after about a couple of years of this advocacy work, we landed on this idea of having a leadership retreat. So we did our first leadership retreat that invited the leadership from the different Asian American student organizations out to a ropes course. And it was a weekend. And so we spent the weekend doing these activities, but also spending a lot of time having very intense conversations about what it meant to be an Asian American, what it meant to be Asian American and politically active. Why was it important to have an Asian American Studies program? And then related to that, was a lot of these student leaders were seniors, so they were graduating at that time. And so, talking to them, but also one of the things that we did was we invited their leadership group to the leadership retreat. And so the younger sophomores and juniors at the time that were on the cabinet of some of these student organizations, were also part of these conversations. And so, it gave us a little bit more longevity in terms of when we came back to campus. We saw the graduating seniors graduate, but then, you know, the next class of leaders that were coming through were already knowledgeable about the need for Asian American Studies, and so they were already bought in. They understood the importance of it, and then they could teach and sort of cultivate the next generation of leaders in their student groups to also see the importance of Asian American Studies.

And so it allowed us to focus on an objective that all of us could participate in, while also supporting all of the other activities that the student groups were already involved in. Like the dances, the cultural activities, the food fairs, all of those other things. And so it became sort of we were all supporting each other simultaneously while working towards instituting an Asian American Studies program. So those were sort of the initial steps, the initial stages of the leadership development, and the groundwork that needed to be done in terms of getting people bought in. You know, like I said, it was at least a couple of years of conversations, of just meeting with students, being part of where the student leaders met, and going to their meetings and talking to not only their leadership, but also the members of their organizations as well. And while the leaders were bought into it, you know, not everybody was sold on it. It was important for me to bring the Asian Student Union leaders to have those conversations so they understood what the resistance was, what the questions were, what the anxieties were from a lot of the students, and what were the fears were. You know, a lot of these students were coming from families and communities where they were taught to be quiet or to work hard. They didn't see the need for Asian American Studies as part of, let's say, their engineering degree or pre-law degree or anything like that. And we weren't trying to convince them to switch majors. We were just saying, this is an add-on. You know, this is also just as important for us to understand Asian Americans in all of these different areas.

Divya Aikat [17:42]
Yeah, I think the leadership retreat is a very interesting idea, because even when there's a common vested interest, it can be so difficult to get everybody on the same page. And even within, say, my Asian American Studies organizing group, there's already so many different opinions, let alone thinking about adding everybody from the cultural groups, but that's kind of how you get that people power.

William Liu [18:10]
Absolutely.

Divya Aikat [18:13]
And so talking about that, I think that a lot of people can kind of brush paths with Asian American Studies, or come across it, but you are someone who has become really deeply invested in this and seen it through in so many different routes. When you first entered this space, what made you become invested? What did that space mean to you?

William Liu [18:39]
The Asian American Studies advocacy space was really important because as a graduate student at the time, but also as an aspiring academic at the time, Asian American Studies allowed me to focus my research work, really, and my interest in Asian Americans. And so, my first area of research, it was about Asian Americans. It was about, you know, Asian American masculinity, it was about Asian Americans and social class, it was about Asian American history. And so I feel very privileged to be in psychology, sort of part of the second generation of Asian Americans, where we were writing articles and chapters and books, where we started to infuse Asian American Studies, the history and other aspects into our writing. The first generation of folks were, you know, my elders, who were part of this group that created organizations like the Asian American Psychology Association. They were the first ones out in terms of starting to study Asian Americans. And thankfully, you know, I was part of the second wave of Asian American academics coming up. Asian American Studies allowed me to do both the advocacy piece, the political activism piece, which I really valued and found really important and really dynamic and really exciting, because it meant the possibility of instituting something that was going to live on well beyond myself, but also really transform a higher education institution. And it also allowed me to study, to teach, to talk about Asian Americans in a way that was really meaningful to me. And it wasn't just something that was separate from me, but really, you know, something was very integral to me.

And I was able to write some of my first papers, talk about the importance of Asian Americans, and the diversity and the complexity of Asian Americans. And what I found was that, even in my classes as I was starting to write some of these papers and present on some of these topics, this was, at that time, all new to a lot of people. And this isn't ancient history. I'm talking about this is the mid-1990s I know it's ancient history for some folks listening [both laugh], but you know, the mid-1990s wasn't too long ago for myself. And so, you know, we're only talking several decades. And at that time, it just felt like, people were like, "Oh, Asian Americans. I had never thought about Asian Americans in this way." And really challenging the model minority image at that time. That was the big thing, was saying that not all Asian Americans are the model minority. And that research has also evolved as well. And so, it was an incredible opportunity for me to forge both the sort of political activism as well as my scholarship.

Divya Aikat [22:02]
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for sharing that. And thinking about this expansive advocacy that you've had for Asian American Studies, when I was reading the UMD history, it mentioned your involvement in 1995 in this and up until, I believe, 2007, that was when the minor finally got approved, and that came to fruition. So, can you tell me a little bit about, from your knowledge, what was happening between those 12 years? What finally got that minor to happen?

William Liu [22:42]
The start of it was making sure that the campus understood that the need for Asian American Studies was about Asian Americans, but it was also about who we are as citizens in the US in many ways. And so, the importance of presenting it in that way, meant that we also were able to develop a larger multiracial coalition of people that were part of this movement. So, it was also building relationships with the Latino Student Union, the Black Student Union, the Native American Student Union, and showing the campus that this was a larger movement that was happening on campus towards ethnic studies. And Asian American Studies was a part of it. But it wasn't just about Asian Americans. But learning about Asian Americans allowed us to understand who we are as Americans, helped us understand enslavement in the US, genocide in the US. All those different pieces could be framed through the lens of studying Asian Americans. And so that was part of the larger movement. And so, in the initial stages of developing the movement, that was sort of building that multiracial coalition, and then in the start of offering some of these courses, we found an academic home in American Studies.

And the department chair at the time and the dean were very supportive of Asian American Studies. As academics, they were already part of understanding the importance of Asian American Studies. And so it wasn't too difficult for them to say, "Yeah, you know, let's offer a class in Asian American Studies, because I think this would be a great way to do it." So we found support, because academics and leaders in some of the academic departments and colleges were already involved in these other discussions, largely, nationally. So they understood what was happening on campus. And so for us, as a smaller movement at UMD, the critical part was demonstrating that if we were to offer these classes, we could get a lot of people enrolled in them. There was a lot of interest. And being on this side of- being an academic administrator now, looking back at that time, I understand what the rationale was, like, "Yeah, you know, we're not necessarily against it, but we can't necessarily just offer courses for the sake offering courses. Is there a need? Is there an interest in it?" And thankfully, when we started to offer our Introduction to Asian American Studies course, we had a 20-seat capacity, and that immediately was over-enrolled. We started with the 20 seat opening, and then immediately opened it to 40, so we had to find a larger space. [Divya: Wow.] And then within a year, we were offering the course, an Introduction to Asian American Studies course that I taught, was at 100-seat capacity. So we were in a short period of time, in a year, we were jumping from 20 to 40 to 100 and we were offering multiple sections of these courses. And then we started to expand our offerings to other courses as well. And we found, you know, Asian American literature in the English department was also very popular, Asian Americans and Gender Studies was also very popular. And so, we could start to demonstrate that there was an interest in a lot of these courses. Simultaneously, we were also saying we need to institute something soon. We need something to move.

We need the university to make this a priority, and in order to make it a priority, that's where the activism came in. Because otherwise, if we weren't politically active, we weren't politically visible, the university could have sat on this for a long time, right? Just let it just go and go and go. And they wouldn't have to commit any resources. They wouldn't have to commit anything to instituting Asian American Studies. And so that's where the political activism was really important. It was easy to get sort of sidetracked with the pragmatics of offering the courses and making sure that they were enrolled, but it was also important to demonstrate to make sure that the campus understood, "Yeah, we want this now. We want this to happen immediately." And so that's where the – like I said – the campus activism was also happening simultaneously in that period. And so, we offered the courses, we had multiracial protest movements, the campus eventually gave us some seed money to write a proposal about what this would look like, the timeframe. And so that's what eventually led to the institution implementation of the Asian American Studies minor.

So, between the time that I started it and the time that I left in 1999. Between 1999 and about 2004 and 2005, when it started to really gel, you know, I felt very comfortable that we had started something, we had instituted it. There were faculty on board that were really pro-Asian American Studies. There were administrators that were also very pro Asian-American Studies. And so it was really a good place for it to just continue at that point. But you know, like you said, over 10 years in the making. So that meant that there had to be people in place that had a very long institutional memory [Divya: Yeah] that were very, very committed to the movement over a long period of time while students were involved in it. You know, because the students would cycle in and out of it. But it was really important that you had faculty, administrators, and some grad students – you know, because grad students, they're not here just necessarily for two or four years, but they could be here for five or six years. They were also involved in it as well. So that long-term group was really pivotal in making sure that Asian American Studies as a minor became successful and implemented. So you have to have both. You have to have the undergraduate need and interest, and you also have people and personnel in place that have a long-term commitment to seeing it through.

Divya Aikat [29:58]
Yeah, that makes sense. I think that there are always so many various stakeholders that groups have to manage and consider their interests and where they converge. You spoke about the political activism that was happening parallel to the academic movement, and so could you explain a little bit more about strategies that students were using? Was it meetings? Were there petitions? What was kind of going around in the atmosphere at the time?

William Liu [30:28]
So, a lot of the activity that we were involved in at the time was around building capacity. I think that's the best way to describe it. And building capacity meant that we were really invested in... as freshmen, first year students came in, we were really invested in getting first year students involved and understanding what was happening as part of Asian American Studies. And so that capacity building was really important, because those students became leaders through, you know, two, three years later. And even if they didn't become leaders in the Asian American Studies movement, they were actually very involved in Student Government Association, they were involved in their cultural associations, but they all had a common link to Asian American Studies as a movement. So building capacity was really very critical. It was focused on the future and implementation, but Asian American Studies and the longevity of it- The importance of community building is what Asian American Studies is at its core, right, which is to develop an understanding and political activism and engagement of Asian Americans in our larger society, right? And you can go on and still do your interests in medicine and engineering and law and all those other things. But who are you as an Asian American? And so Asian American Studies, really, at its core has always been about community building, community activism, who we are as a larger Asian American group, and who are we connected to, as well, and you can't really fully understand Asian Americans if you don't, like I said, understand the multiracial history in the US, right? Multiracial, gender, sexuality, class, all those pieces were really pivotal in terms of understanding who we are as Asian Americans. And so that was what was part of the strategy, which was, you know, building capacity not only among Asian Americans, but also building capacity and understanding and continuing our links with other multiracial student organizations.

And then, as we started to develop as a student organization and as a movement on campus, we started to become much more connected to our community agencies as well. So because of our proximity to DC, there were some Asian American leadership groups that were trying to come together to develop capacity to become future leaders in Congress, for instance, right and be involved in the national sphere. So we were involved in a lot of those kinds of activities, and they came on the campus and had conversations. And so I think part of that strategy then became showing to the university that this was not an isolated interest. This wasn't a small group of students that wanted something immediately. [Divya: Yeah.] It was part of a larger transformative action that was happening in our society, that not only generated connections to our larger community, but also had a very strong scholarly base as well. It was also something that other Big 10 or other universities were implementing as well. So Maryland was not alone, right? The things that were happening in Maryland were not isolated. It wasn't just a small student group. This was something that was happening on a larger landscape.

Divya Aikat [34:50]
Yeah, I think those are all great points, and I appreciate how you bring up the community aspect, because, like you were mentioning earlier, Asian American Studies doesn't just speak to Asian American experiences. It speaks to these broader trends, like you were saying, colonialism, imperialism, things like that. And so it's very relevant. And you also brought up a few times about multiracial solidarity and community building. So I know you've given some examples, but if you have any more, I'd like to hear more about that or why you think that that's needed and important.

William Liu [35:32]
Oh yeah, thank you. Great question. So many Asian Americans within the Asian community- I'll just give you an example of this. I think one of the things that we as Asian Americans need to confront, and this is part of who we see ourselves as, in terms of our identity, and who we are as a community, and who we connect with as well. One of the things that we really have to confront, for instance, is our deep seated anti-Blackness within our community. And I'm not talking about just colorism. I'm talking about like, deep-seated anti-Blackness, right. That we weaponize the model minority, we weaponize immigration, we weaponize a lot of things as a way to uplift Asian Americans, but we don't always see ourselves as part of a larger community. So, for instance, when we were in the middle of COVID, there was some anti-Asian violence that was happening. Asian Americans rallied, and many in the Black community and Latino community rallied to support Asian Americans, and we got federal action on it.

But the persistence of anti-Black racism, the persistence of systemic racism and inequality against Black and Brown communities, we rarely see Asian Americans as part of that coalition. I mean, we do see some Asian Americans, and you know. But in terms of who we are as a community, or who we are communities as Asian Americans, we aren't necessarily always like out in front advocating, talking about these aspects. And so the only thing I can think of is that, you know, we have a very deep-seated sense of anti-Blackness that we need to confront within our Asian American community. And unless we can do that, we can articulate it, we can talk about it, we can confront it and challenge ourselves, it's always going to be difficult for Asian Americans to find ourselves in coalition with other groups, right. That we're always going to put our needs above everybody else. And we also have to confront the fact that for some Asian Americans, we have a particular racial positionality in the US that provides us the kind of privilege, a racial privilege, that we need to fully understand and fully grasp and also use at times when we can, for the benefit of our larger communities. But we don't, or we're very reluctant to. And I think that's a problem that we really need to challenge ourselves with and confront. So, yeah.

Divya Aikat [38:43]
Yeah, I think that's so critical and such a necessary conversation that needs to be had is that sometimes Asian Americans benefit from a proximity to whiteness or a triangulation that further marginalizes Black people. And I think that especially thinking about Asian America as inherently politicized, and the origins of that, it's a conversation that needs to be had [Will: Yeah] and an action that needs to be taken.

William Liu [39:13]
Yeah, I mean, our role in dismantling affirmative action cannot be underestimated, right? That we were willing to be sort of the face of the anti-affirmative action movement. But you know the political data shows that, you know, most Asian Americans do support affirmative action and do support policies that are equity-based and equality-based as well. But our willingness also to be the face of it is so problematic. And that speaks to, like you said, and as we're talking about our racial positionality, who we are as a face on these things. It's really important that we need to confront, we need to challenge, we need to talk about it.

Divya Aikat [40:10]
Exactly, yeah. And so kind of circling back around, back to talking about the this push for Asian American Studies and these various aspects. Could you share notable challenging moments, moments of tension, difficulties. Between students in the institution, within groups, things like that. And then after that, if you could share moments of joy and success.

William Liu [40:40]
Sure. [laughs.] Well, let me start there. I think since we've been talking so critically, I'll just start there. The joys and successes, I think, for me, was really seeing our Asian American students once they graduated, some of them took on really politically active positions. You know, they really were going outside of the college realm and advocating for Asian American issues in their particular disciplines outside. And so, I think, you know, it demonstrates the importance and how critical Asian American Studies can be in terms of focusing people's interests. I think there are a lot of joyful moments, you know, I can't really pick out anything specific. I think on our retreats and our discussions, we have a lot of fun with each other. I think there's something about having community, sitting around, eating, going and being with each other in community, having those conversations, enjoying people's successes. I think there's a lot of joyful moments that really- I don't know necessarily, if there's anything that stood out, but I think knowing that you are part of a larger community that is wanting for the betterment of our larger communities as well, was really important. And I think it brings me great joy to have been a part of it. I don't think you can engage in this activity in the long term if you don't also have parts that you enjoy, you know, people that you appreciate being around. It just can't exist in that environment where it's constantly negative and hurtful and damaging and harmful. That is the political work. But you also have to have a community that celebrates and supports and you enjoy being a part. So, like I said, a lot of activities revolved around eating, going to the cultural events and watching people celebrate their specific cultural activities. It's incredible. You know, we started the conversation- I don't mean to demean it or belittle or minimize it, because I think those are all important traditions that we need to appreciate, be engaged in, and enjoy. Because if we don't, then we really do lose the essence of Asian American Studies and Asian American politics as a movement.

The challenges that came up as part of our movement... I think one of the biggest challenges that comes to mind was that when we started the movement, we had several Asian American faculty come out against what we were trying to do. That they weren't in favor of the ways that we framed Asian American Studies. And in fact, they were very open about calling it "victim studies." They didn't want to talk about, you know, Asian Americans and racism, systemic racism and who we are in connection to other multiracial coalitions and multiracial groups. And so, they would come to our open meetings, you know, our community meetings, and they often had one thing that they constantly wanted to talk about, which was Asian American Studies should be about highlighting and emphasizing the success of Asian Americans. Really like leaning into the model minority piece, I mean. [Divya: Yeah.] [Will laughs] So they were all about our political successes, our economic successes, you know, they wanted to talk about Asia as the Pacific Tiger, right? [Divya laughs] They kept on talking about this idea, you know that we were this economic engine. That we shouldn't be overlooked, that that was the way to make our position known, was through leaning into the model minority image. And of course, you know, related to that would be then to say Asian American communities that weren't successful or didn't fit the model minority, that they basically weren't working hard enough, they weren't studying hard enough, they weren't- It was not where we wanted to go as an Asian American Studies group.

And so, you know, we heard them out. And at the time, I, you know, tried to be very collegial and be very open and engage in those discussions. But over time, you know, you find that they just weren't interested in that. They just had one thing that they kept on hammering. And so, of course, one of the things that came about was that our relationship disintegrated because we just weren't interested in that. Of course, the problem is that that particular line of reasoning within a very white institution, gets traction very easily by white administrators, because most white administrators at the time didn't really understand Asian Americans and the complexity that we were trying to present. And so when you present them this story of Asian Americans as economically and educationally successful, I mean, they grabbed onto it. [snaps] So sometimes we find ourselves in these sort of larger meetings. We would end up in these conversations where we knew that this other group had gotten to these administrators, and so, you know, we're having these sort of re-education conversations that were happening. [both laugh] And so that that became very demoralizing. But over time, I think, you know, we had the other white administrators, like I said, that were very sympathetic and encouraging and supportive of Asian American Studies as a dynamic, critical, scholarly area of study. They took over and were also able to engage in those conversations. But you know, there was a little bit of back and forth.

And then I think the only other time that that we had sort of a point of contention was when we did have student leaders that became leaders of some of the Asian American student organizations that weren't fully understanding of where we wanted to as an Asian American Studies group. You know, that was challenging, when our own Asian Americans- There was a time when I thought we were good to go and, you know, we sort of took the focus off of our Asian American student leader development. And so, there was a time when a group of student leaders came into the Asian American Student Union that weren't really up to par in terms of their conversation. I ended up, as the academic mentor and advisor of the Asian Student Union, asked them all to resign. So that I was like, "This is not where we're going. You're not engaged in the conversation. This is not what who we are." So, there were setbacks in terms of those kind of leadership movements. So it wasn't all linear and positive, but it also showed that, you know, if you took your eyes off of the movement, if you took the emphasis off of where we needed to go, that these sort of disruptive elements can very easily come in and derail a movement, and that sometimes you have to take some radical action. And that radical action at that time, I remember, I just, I said, you know, "You can't do this. You can't say this in an open meeting. And if you continue to do that, you need to resign." And they elected to resign. So the example, essentially, was we had a meeting. We were introducing the new student group. We were talking about our multiracial but also collaborative engagement across different groups. And we talked about our engagement with the LGBTQ community. And a couple of leaders up in front, laughed or did something when I mentioned our engagement with the LGBTQ community. And I said, okay. You know, after the meeting, I went up to the group. I said, "You're never to do that again. You're never to do that. This is not who we are as a group. If you harbor homophobia and you have issues around working with our larger communities, then you need to resign." And like later that evening, they all got together and said, "We all resign." I said, "See ya." We'll just get another group to come in.

But it was really important, because I think you just can't have student leaders or any leaders in a movement that don't understand the importance of coalitions. So, you know, and whatever issues you have, you got to deal with them outside of here. But you can't be a student leader up there expressing homophobia, right? [Divya: Mhm.] Or you can't be a student leader and express anti-Blackness or anti-immigrant sentiments, you know. Like, if you want a larger coalition to meet a particular goal, you need to get on the same page. You know, you need to understand the importance of who you are in that position with the groups that you're trying to work with. So, yeah.

Divya Aikat [52:26]
Yeah, I think that that speaks to a lot of the resistance that I've heard throughout these oral histories is that people, like you were saying with the faculty members, are focusing on like meritocracy and anecdotal arguments, and then with these student leaders, they're also thinking in a silo and not considering all of the other issues that affect Asian American communities and overlap with that. [Will: Yeah] So I think that's a very important point to bring up.

William Liu [52:57]
Yeah, and that that speaks to the importance of having, you know, like we were discussing, people who have a long-term commitment to the movement, a long-term institutional memory. And that, you know, sometimes you have to be willing to make some hard decisions about letting people go. Because if they’re not on the same page, then, you know, it really is detrimental. I mean, just is so corrosive to the overall goals that you're trying to meet.

Divya Aikat [53:35]
Yeah, and I think one thing, especially with organizing, a strength that groups can have, is knowing when to reorganize when it's not working, things need to be changed. Even though it can be an activist or a radical group, that doesn't mean that everything's being done right or correctly.

William Liu [53:52]
Yes, I love that. Absolutely. Yep.

Divya Aikat [53:56]
And thinking about ways to have longevity in a group, ways to keep this going, especially we've spoken a little bit about how that institutional memory is so important. Students are typically only at a university for four years. How would you recommend that students build sustainability. Say, if they don't have an Asian American Studies group, how do they build that momentum that will last?

William Liu [54:25]
Yeah, so I think having a long-term goal is important. So, understanding... and I say this especially for undergraduates, because, you know, they could be here for two, three, four years in terms of their academic progress. But in terms of engaging in a student movement, you know, really looking at maybe two years at the most in some ways, right? So the time span for many student leaders is relatively pretty brief. Not everybody, but for a lot of student leaders engaged in these movements, they can be relatively very brief. So I think having a good sense of like, you know, here is the long-range goal that we're all working towards. And then I think it's really important to be able to identify short-term achievements that you're making. Like, what's important to do that will build towards our long-term goal? So for when we started, it was, "Okay, one of the things that we really should be able to do, for instance, is build more collaboration among the Asian American student groups. And so let's do a leadership retreat." Right? And so that took a year in planning and execution, it took another year. So students can be very involved in it, and I think it's really important to have students involved in that sort of planning process. So, they feel as though they're making some gains, they're achieving something.

And then I think looking in, looking at the larger community that we're engaged with and a part of, what are some big activities that we can do in the short run that still contribute to our overall goal and mission? So at the time that I was here at Maryland developing the Asian American Studies program, one of the activities that we were involved in was this conference called East of California, and it was an Asian American Studies Conference called East of California. And it literally brought all the students from the Eastern seaboard to whatever campus was hosting it. And so it was a big deal. One of the first things was, let's go to one of these conferences, see what it's like and what that activity was, what was going on there. And so that, in and of itself is an important achievement. Go to a conference together, have that fellowship, have that experience, have that common experience, and then set about proposing, planning and executing the conference was a three-year process. And so these are long term processes that we're involved in. But you know, once you get something like that going, students who are coming in afterwards, are also involved in that planning and execution. And the students that are graduating can come back as alumni and say, "Oh, yeah, you know, I'm still involved in it." So it became a multi-year process that involved outgoing students and alumni coming back, but also introducing new students coming in as well. So, I think looking for projects, looking for activities, looking for short term goals. And I'm talking about like one year, two-year, three-year goals that involve students, is really important. But keeping people active, keeping people engaged, I think, becomes a very important part of the long-range success of any activism.

Divya Aikat [58:38]
Yeah, and I think also that speaks to the point that it's also important to have goals and measurements of the group that are outside of the institutional response, because that can be very unsuccessful and have nothing to do with the group at all.

William Liu [58:55]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Divya Aikat [58:57]
Yeah. And thinking about sustainability, turning the question a little bit, what has internal sustainability looked like for you? When we talk about activism and advocacy, there are so many common threads of burnout and difficulty in sustaining oneself, being stretched too thin, all of that. So how have you navigated this space to keep the ball rolling, but maybe set those boundaries?

William Liu [59:25]
Yeah. So, for myself, I felt as though I put in as much as I could to make things happen here at the University of Maryland. And I feel very comfortable with my role in it, and what I did in terms of helping set up the foundation for Asian American Studies. Coming back to it, I'm involved as a faculty member and the director of the Asian American Studies program is one of our good friends. And so we're still sort of engaged in it, but at a different level, in terms of being a faculty member. I'm not involved in the student activism. When I went to the University of Iowa as a faculty member, I did have the thought, you know, do I want to do this again? Because there was definitely a need there for Asian American Studies. There was definitely a need there to build capacity for Asian American student leaders. There was definitely a need there to build an Asian American community, and I realized I was not the person to do it. I just- I couldn't do it.

Part of it was because I was starting off as an Assistant Professor at the time, and I had to sort of focus on the things that were in front of me that would get me tenure and promotion. [Divya: Yeah.] The research was still around Asian Americans, but it was at a level of doing it, in terms of scholarship. And I also recognized, I think for myself, my interest changed as well. So my scholarly interest changed. I was still very committed to anti-racist practices and equity issues, but my interests also changed. And so I wasn't the best person to do that work. I could advise, I could consult, I could serve in a different capacity, but in terms of being the go-to person for that activity, I realized I couldn't do it. So, I wasn't necessarily burned out. I just realized I had to be very honest with myself, that once I poured everything I had into the movement here to get this instituted, I didn't have it to redo again at another campus. [Divya: Yeah.] And so it's not necessarily burnout. I think just my interests changed, and they had to change. I was also, you know, starting my own family and other things, and so I just didn't have the kind of energy to pour into supporting students. Like I said, I could consult and advise and do other things with other student leaders, other staff, and other faculty who were involved in that activity, but I couldn't do it myself.

Divya Aikat [1:02:37]
Yeah, I think that's so important. And it's very necessary, even within student groups, very necessary to step back when you feel that you need to. So that also it gives the space for others to step forward, who have the capacity. Yeah.

William Liu [1:02:51]
Yeah, nicely said, I appreciate that. [laughs] Exactly. Other people want to do that work and are interested in doing that work, and, you know, similar to what you're doing here with the oral histories, you know, I can provide sort of my experience and other things like that. But contexts change, needs change. The implementation of Asian American Studies now, I imagine, is much different than the implementation of Asian American Studies 20 years ago, here at Maryland. The conversation has changed, the coalitions have changed, and what Asian American Studies looks like now, like I said, you know, it's going to look very different. And so the conversations have just have changed. And as an Asian American faculty member, I'm involved in some of those conversations, but not deep enough to, you know, be a leader of Asian American Studies. Other people need to come up and take on that leadership role,

Divya Aikat [1:04:01]
Right, yeah. And thinking about that development of Asian American Studies at Maryland, currently there's a minor, and that minor has been there for almost 20 years in a few. And so do you think that there will be expansion of the program? Do you think that there's interest in turning that to a major? What do you see the future of that being?

William Liu [1:04:25]
My understanding is that the current goals for expansion for Asian American Studies is the next step is moving it towards a certificate program, and then potentially moving it on to a major. But I'm not fully involved in those conversations about what it means to transform a minor into a major. It does require a whole different level of institutional resources and it also means that Asian American students, but also the larger community, need to express a deep interest in Asian American Studies to keep it moving towards a major. And so I think the next logical step, rather than necessarily implementing the major would be for us, our next step would be sort of a certificate, so it's a little bit higher level than a minor, and then sort of stepping towards potentially a major in terms of expansion. But I also think Asian American Studies can expand in ways that doesn't necessarily mean expanding it to a major. I think Asian American Studies can find itself integrated into other ethnic studies areas. It could find itself integrated into other majors as well. So, like I said, the conversation around Asian American Studies is different, and in terms of what it means as a minor here on campus. And what seems to make sense is a major, but it may not be the best route forward in terms of a major. So I leave that up to Dr. Wong in terms of what she believes is the best next step for Asian American Studies.

Divya Aikat [1:06:21]
Yeah. And I wanted to segue into talking about your research that you've mentioned. Your interests have changed, you've followed that down. And so, you are an award-winning leader and researcher, and some of the topics that you study include systemic racism, masculinity, social class, and more. So I wanted to know, could you just tell me a little bit more about your research? I'm sure you can give a better summary. And talk a little bit about how Asian American Studies has informed that throughout the years.

William Liu [1:06:57]
Oh, thanks. Yeah. I have three broad areas of research, and I think you've identified it. Around social class and classism, around gender, men of color, and also around systemic racism and white supremacy. Asian American Studies has always been very foundational for me in terms of understanding all of those different aspects, because when I started to teach Asian American Studies, I was also learning about Asian American Studies simultaneously. And so a lot of what I was trying to understand and unpack was this multi-racial, multi-gendered, multi-classed history, and cultural understanding of who we are in the United States. And so that has been very foundational in terms of what I draw upon to understand my research. So my current area of research is around systemic racism and white supremacy and white privilege. And Asian Americans have a very interesting role in that.

And I think we've talked about the racial positionality. I think we've talked about, you've brought up, this idea of racial triangulation. I think Claire Kim wrote about that in terms of racial triangulation. Now her research has evolved beyond racial triangulation to talk about this idea of Asian Americans, as we talked about. Asian Americans and their deep seated anti-Blackness. So trying to understand and unpack, why are Asian Americans sometimes very anti black? You know, what does that do? What does that serve for Asian Americans? Scholars have talked about this idea that, you know, sometimes for Asian Americans, they don't necessarily want to be white. They can be white supremacist aligned, right? They can endorse a lot of white supremacist ideology. Their weaponization and use of anti-Blackness is a means by which they can demonstrate that they are not like other racial groups. You know, they're trying to really demonstrate their separation from it. So if we want to understand white supremacy and systemic racism, we really do need to understand the complexities and the complex roles that Asian Americans play in American politics and American economics, education, all those different pieces. Because you can't really fully understand white supremacy, you can't fully understand white privilege, unless you sort of unpack the complexity and the multi-positionality of Asian Americans and the roles that they play. And so I often go back to my Asian American Studies books and look at histories and other things that I understand about Asian Americans to understand how institutional practices, institutions, laws, have evolved principally because of the role Asian Americans have played in the founding of our nation, but also in terms of how we understand race and racism in the US.

Divya Aikat [1:10:41]
Yeah, that's very interesting work. Thank you for telling me a little bit more about that. When thinking about these various activism strategies for Asian American Studies, I've talked with people about reform versus revolution. Thinking about, do we work within the institution and go step by step, or take more extreme measures to be heard? The last person that I spoke to was a student activist at Northwestern about, I think, 20 or 30 years ago, and there was a hunger strike. And we were talking about these very intense forms to get the institution's attention, versus going slowly and maybe playing nice with administration. So have you seen these ideas play out differently? Are there examples of both at UMD? And what have you seen the response to both of those be?

William Liu [1:11:37]
Yeah, so in past, I have seen students engaged in hunger strikes related to Asian American Studies. I've always felt this way about it. I don't think that's the most appropriate response to Asian American Studies. I think there are times when we need to risk our health and safety. Asian American Studies, while very important, is not one of those things. We can't constantly use that same strategy, because then it becomes ineffective, right? We need to use it when it's most effective, when other people's lives, and when our own lives are at stake, right? When our communities' health and safety are at stake, that's when we need to put ourselves on the line. Asian American Studies is not one of those things. I love Asian American Studies, I love our community, I love the things that we need to be able to do, but Asian American Studies is not one of those things. And so, I think we need to match the activity with the goal that we want to have happen. And, you know, there's some variability in it. I'm not talking about sort of being demure and not being active. We were very disruptive in our own practices. We engaged in very disruptive practices. But we also have to be mindful of what it means to engage in protest and activism that doesn't necessarily necessitate it. I think we need to be very mindful of that, because there will be, there have been, times when it does need our full health and our safety. But Asian American Studies as an academic endeavor is not one of those things. Your question about revolution versus reform. Asian American Studies as an academic endeavor is reformative. In terms of changing an academic institution? We're not asking to dismantle the academic institution. So, we're asking to make it better. That means reform in many ways, right? So revolution, Asian American Studies as a part of revolution is a different conversation in terms of an academic institution. But if we're talking about instituting a major or a minor or instituting as an academic activity. that's reform. And so I think we need to be mindful of, what we're trying to do, who we're trying to appeal to, what the institution is willing to give, how long it's going to take. All those things are a part of a particular strategy that we have we need to be very mindful of, right? So, I hope that makes sense. [Divya: Yeah.} You know, like I said, there are times we need to put ourselves on the line, and I think we need to be very mindful about when that is and what that means for us as a community, right? Because when we do it, we need to do it with intention and our full spirit and the support of many communities. And you know, as an academic endeavor, we're really looking for reform of an academic institution.

Divya Aikat [1:15:40]
Yeah, I think that's a really important point that you bring up, because I think that appropriate responses are very important, especially for an organizing group that is working in line with the institution at the end of the day. And so, I think that's a really important point, and something that I'll take with me. I think this is true for every student group, but there's a broad range of views on things, and so I think that that also helps clarify things. Yeah. So to move on to my last question, we've talked a lot about the nitty gritty and the different aspects of being involved at these specific institutions, but I wanted to zoom out and ask, what does it mean to you to be part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

William Liu [1:16:33]
As a whole, to zoom out, I feel very honored to have been a part of this movement that has instituted an academic minor for the last 20 years. That, you know, many students have gone through and had the privilege of understanding Asian American Studies. And so for me, as a person, as an individual, as part of a larger movement, I just feel extremely privileged and honored and grateful to have been a part of this. You know, it's a legacy that not many people can speak to or be a part of. And I just feel so grateful to have been a part of it. A part of people's lives. To have been a part of something that changes people's minds and impacts how they see the world. I mean, that's an incredible role to have in a person's life. So I'm just so extremely grateful and privileged to be a part of it.

Divya Aikat [1:17:56]
Thank you. I think that's a beautiful and inspirational note to end on. Thank you again, Will, for meeting with me and sharing all of your layered experiences and this wonderful process of pushing for Asian American Studies.

William Liu [1:18:12]
Thank you, Divya. Thank you for your invitation and creating this oral history project. Thank you for doing this.