Interviewee: Prahas Rudraraju

Interviewer(s): Divya Aikat

Date: July 24, 2024

Location: West Los Angeles, CA

Transcriber: Divya Aikat

Length: 1:30:30

Divya Aikat [00:00]
Hello. My name is Divya Aikat. Today's date is July 24, 2024. I'm located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. And I'm here today with Prahas Rudraraju. They're a former member of the Asian American Student Initiative at William and Mary, and recent graduate of UCLA with an MA in Asian American Studies. Prahas, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling in from today?

Prahas Rudraraju [00:29]
Yes, hi. My name is Prahas Rudraraju. I use they/them pronouns, and I'm calling in from California, specifically West Los Angeles. And so, I graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2017, with majors in World Performing Arts and Cultures and Asian and Pacific Islander American Studies. After that, I worked at a local nonprofit in the DC area called Asian American LEAD. And then, I worked at a National LGBTQ+ nonprofit called the Human Rights Campaign, which then led me to my Masters in Asian American Studies at UCLA, which I just graduated from.

Divya Aikat [01:10]
Thank you so much for giving that introduction. Yeah, congratulations! To start us off, I wanted to talk a little bit about your own identity-based experiences and the ways that it might inform your advocacy work. So could you tell us a little bit more about your upbringing, your values, or any experiences that you've had that have shaped your perspectives and your work in organizing. I'm interested about how it could influence your AAPI Studies interests and your passions now.

Prahas Rudraraju [01:48]
Yeah, so I guess, before I go into some of my identity-based experiences, something that- in terms of values that I've held from a very young age, is what I've later started to refer to as this innate sense of justice, or being able to understand when something unjust was happening and wanting fairness and equality, equity to happen. And this was, you know, simple things like watching, you know, scenarios playing out on the playground, reading a comic strip and being like that wasn't fair.

And then, you know, at a very young age for me, when I was six years old, is when 9/11 happened. And I would say that this was a really world changing event for many people. But for myself as a very young Indian American, a very young brown kid growing up, I can remember what life was like before 9/11, and then I can distinctly remember what life was like after 9/11. And it's not like I didn't experience racism as a young child before then, but I think it was a little bit more of Othering, and perhaps this kind of Orientalism or this kind of mysticism around my culture. Versus afterwards, being very distinctly perceived as a threat, even as a young child, and kind of seeing how my family was now being viewed in public, seeing how this was happening to other families and other brown people around me as well. And I think that, you know, this was really my experiences as a – and I'll say Brown specifically – because the experiences that I had as an Indian American were things which others, whether they were Indian American or not, whether they were Muslim, other South Asians, West Asian or Middle Eastern, North African, folks were experiencing this type of Islamophobia after 9/11. And so, I think I also kind of started to feel this community or this sense of an imagined community with others, whether they shared my identities or not. And this post-9/11 racism and Othering that I experienced is something which just always filled me with so much rage, to the point where I felt like my blood was boiling whenever I experienced it or talked about it, but I couldn't really articulate myself. I just knew that something was wrong, and it kind of filled me with so much anger, and I just didn't know how to articulate myself.

And it wasn't until I went to college, when I was able to talk with other folks about this and be like, "Yeah, that wasn't right." And also take classes on Asian Americans, Indian Americans, South Asian Americans and our histories in the United States, that I finally was able to develop tools to counter all of these racist narratives and to understand why I had these experiences as a child. And so, I would say that 9/11, my experiences post-9/11, were all so formative in driving me towards APIA studies and wanting to create it. I also had some other identity-based experiences growing up. General bullying, and I think that it really centered around my fatness as a child, but it was a combination of things, right? It was being a young fat kid. It was being a tomboy, because apparently that wasn't cool if you weren't white [laughs] and didn't look a certain way. And then also my race and all of these things together made me almost this undesirable at the predominantly white K-12 schools that I went to. So for me, it was a combination of things.

But I also would say that experiencing such intense bullying, experiencing being an outcast in many ways, for these things that I couldn't change about myself. These all led me to work that involves empathy and social justice and caring for others, because essentially, it was me not wanting others to experience what I was experiencing. And just to add one more thing to that, I also discovered that I was queer when I was 15 years old, and ultimately, in about a year, came out very publicly at my pretty conservative majority white high school. And this ended up being, I would say, my first broad step of activism, where I came out through a YouTube video that I then posted on my Facebook, and it was viewed by many people. And then I also experienced backlash from within my family for posting that video, potentially having my family abroad seeing it, and so I was experiencing backlash, both from my family and from my school, as well as a lot of support for this. And I think taking that step when I was so young, as a 15 year old, it helped me to maybe feel like I could do that even more in college and really step into my advocacy, especially now that I had a larger community of other people who also wanted to do advocacy work.

Divya Aikat [07:29]
Yeah, thank you for sharing. I think it's so important the way that you speak about these feelings and knowings and experiences that eventually funnel into this academic analytic and then a call to action to help others and pave that way so that others may not have to feel the same things that you did. And talking about moving into this academic sphere and approaching Asian American Studies, both from your self-made major in undergrad to now you have recently graduated with an MA in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Can you tell me about that path of academic pursuit for Asian American Studies, and what has now inspired you to pursue that at the graduate level?

Prahas Rudraraju [08:25]
Yeah, honestly, if there was a PhD in Asian American Studies, that would be my next step [both laugh]. Like, I absolutely love being involved in Asian American Studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies, Ethnic Studies in general. I think, especially for people who are committed to racial justice and really equity and, you know, essentially a brighter future for everyone, especially those who are marginalized and disenfranchised by the state and those with positions of power, I think Ethnic Studies is such a great field to be in. And for myself, as someone who's Asian American, Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies felt like really the right path for me. And you know, actually when I was in undergrad itself, I, had wonderful professors who were kind of pushing me towards graduate studies. They were saying, "Oh, you're PhD material." And I do think that sometimes professors really kind of are trying to get you into the field, because they know that people like you should be in the field, and it's also just going to make academia so much better to have people like us in there. But also graduate studies, becoming a professor [laughs], these are all extremely difficult, and a lot of people say that, you know, they wouldn't wish that upon anyone. So, it's kind of twofold, but at the time when I was hearing this from professors, I just kept thinking of what a terrible experience I was having in undergrad itself, and how trapped I felt, and how much I was suffering, and how I simply could not imagine pursuing any form of graduate studies, unless it was a Master's in Asian American Studies. And as I mentioned before, if there was a PhD, I would take it. But there are not. The only Asian American Studies programs in this country exist at a Master's level. Therefore, the Master's in Asian American Studies is a terminal degree.

I know of at least one PhD program in a specific field of Ethnic Studies. There is Chicano and Central American Studies offered as a PhD at UCLA. And I know there is a broader Ethnic Studies PhD offered at some universities, but within Asian American Studies specifically, for myself, I only wanted to do a Master's in Asian American Studies. And I could only imagine it at UCLA as well. And the reason for that is because so many of my formative professors from undergrad were from UCLA and they were from the Master's in Asian American Studies, or they were adjacent to it, and they were so inspiring to me that I really wanted to pursue this at UCLA. Once I learned more about the different Master's in Asian American Studies that existed, I still was drawn to UCLA for the aforementioned reasons, but there really aren't too many Masters in Asian American Studies that exist. I think it's something like now there might be five, but there's really not a lot. And location did have a factor in it, the fact that it's in Los Angeles. There's such a higher percentage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who live in Los Angeles, certainly than William and Mary, and many places on the East Coast. And so these were all contributing factors to this specific program, but I also took many years in between my bachelor's degree and my master's degree. And the reason for that, it kind of comes back to the suffering that I experienced in undergrad and really feeling scared to get back into academia, and also thinking, why do I need a Master's? Why can't I continue to pursue the work that I want to do with a Bachelor's? Because I really wanted to do nonprofit advocacy-based work as well as programmatic development, meeting people face to face and trying to help them, doing a lot of education programming, and that sort of thing. So, I would say that ultimately, finally taking that step and pursuing the Master's in Asian American Studies did actually come from a place of being extremely fed up by my workplace and being fed up by white managers and supervisors who would really- they were enacting racism in so many different ways against me. Whether it came from this strange control they tried to exert over me, dismissing my achievements at work, or for the other manager, taking credit for my work, really just enacting a lot of racism and other problematic behaviors at work. And after working at a place where, even though you're seeing such a great impact, you're being underpaid and you're being exploited and you're just experiencing so much harm and witnessing so much harm, I was really fed up with it. And that's when I decided, okay, now is the time to apply and to get into this program. And luckily, it worked out on the second try.

Divya Aikat [14:07]
Yeah, I think that's so important. So speaking more about that, could you tell me about what your work with nonprofits looked like, and your work with the Human Rights Campaign?

Prahas Rudraraju [14:20]
Yeah, so I started off working at Asian American LEAD, and I had actually interned at Asian American LEAD between my second and third year of college, so the summer of 2015. And it was truly a magical experience. And the reason why is because when I was in high school, I really wanted to be a teacher. I really wanted to support students, like queer and BIPOC students who may need extra support. Maybe they're not getting support from home, or they're experiencing due to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etcetera, just needing extra supports at school. And I thought, I want to be that sort of teacher for them. And I was also inspired by my own teachers, who had been such great adult figures and role models in my life. And then when I came to college, I suddenly became so aware of the issues in the world, issues that were hidden from me due to the areas that I grew up in. And suddenly, in college, I'm aware of all of these issues. I also have the means to begin to get involved in advocacy. And I suddenly thought, I can't be a teacher anymore, I have to become an activist.

And this is where Asian American LEAD was such an amazing alternative for me, because this nonprofit, it's based in DC, the DC metropolitan area, and it serves low-income AAPI youth through educational and identity-based programming and mentorship. And so at AALEAD, I was their DC Summer Program Intern for their elementary school, and I was able to do identity-based workshops with youth and also generally administratively support the program. And so this combined my passions for education and AAPI advocacy. So AALEAD was really an incredible place for me to intern at, and afterwards, I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else. It so happened that around the time that I was graduating, they had an opening for a position that would have been in the county that I grew up in, and I applied for the job and ultimately received it. And the work that I did at AALEAD was so wonderful. It was extremely draining, of course [laughs], to be working with young people, and that's not always because of the young people that you work with. Sometimes it's because of the administrations you work with, the logistics of coordinating field trips. Sometimes it's, you know, things with navigating with parents. Parents who want to make sure that their kids are safe and protected for very, very good reasons. It can be sometimes difficult to work within all of these factors.

At the same time, it was extremely rewarding. And a person who was in my position before and left before I joined, he told me, "Sometimes you're gonna work for months, and then suddenly there's a party or a celebration or a graduation, and the youth are saying such lovely things to you, and it makes all of that struggle worth it." And that's really how it was here, where you know, even if- It was not thankless work, is what I would say. Like every single day, I was learning something, my youth were learning something. There were wins, and even if it was extremely difficult day in, day out, like there were those bright moments that just made everything really feel worth it. And so when I was at AALEAD, as their middle school program coordinator, I ran summer schools. And in our summer school, it was a combination of middle school and high school youth, and we did kind of summer day-long programs for about anywhere from one to two months with them. We had field trips, and we also would start off with a leadership summer camp where we worked with our high schoolers who were then going to be our high school leaders, who we depended on during the summer camp. And these youth were just absolutely incredible. They came up with some of the workshops that we would do. And the youth, regardless of their age and regardless of their position with the program, were just constantly blowing us away with how they really thoughtfully interacted with our programs and materials. We were able to teach them about things like, for example, the school-to-prison pipeline, about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, about the Model Minority Myth. All of these things, which oftentimes you will never learn about as an Asian American or Pacific Islander in this country, we were able to teach them at a very young age. Of course, making it appropriate for their age. But these are things that a lot of my friends don't know about or have only been able to learn about recently since the pandemic started, and a lot of this education became available through TikTok and Instagram and stuff. And then during the school year, I would do after-school programs with them. It was anywhere from two to three hours during afterschool, twice a week at each of the sites that I was at. And there it was the same sort of programming, but just in an after-school sense. So, there were certain other things around after-school, like snack time and just different factors that are involved when you do after-school. But it was at the same sites that we were at in the summer as well. Yeah, and working at AALEAD was absolutely amazing. I do think that, you know, and I don't know if it's like this now, but I would say, you know, frankly, if they were unionized and paid better, I would have probably just stayed there my whole life [laughs]. I just absolutely loved the work that they did.

There were difficulties there that come with working at nonprofits, but really, just the folks that you work with and the youth that you work with make it all worth it. Difficulties came from, you know, feeling like maybe the board was out of touch with the staff, very disconnected. They oftentimes didn't know our names, and just almost treated us like, I don't know, like nameless people. It was just very strange how they were so connected to each other and didn't bother learning who we were or even recognizing our faces. Ultimately, I ended up leaving AALEAD for the reason that brought me to HRC, the Human Rights Campaign, and it was because of conservative pushback from one of the middle school administrations I worked with, to the identity-based programming that I was doing with my youth. It started off with an LGBTQ workshop on National Coming Out Day, and then it extended to really every workshop that I was doing, that they were trying to just suddenly really control everything that I was teaching. And even workshops on anti-Chinese racism with the MSG scare, or workshops on Black liberation, or Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. They were just finding little things to try to nitpick and ask me to remove and sometimes even the day of they were telling me to change things, like when I walked into the building and really had no time to be able to do these sorts of things [Divya: Oh my god.] but I managed. And ultimately they ended up canceling the programs and lying to the students about the reason that they canceled the programs. And, you know, we had to totally pivot to see, how can we continue to support these students, but not as an official program anymore? And my programs at the other school actually became even stronger when the administration heard about what happened. They said, well, that workshop sounds amazing. We love the work that you're doing. Can we offer you more support? We're so sorry that this happened.

So those things were good, but I think that this all kind of planted seeds in my mind that, you know, I have been focusing on AAPI youth so much, and AAPI youth absolutely need to and deserve to be centered, but I was realizing that LGBTQ youth were also under attack, and I realized that I wanted to get back into my advocacy work for LGBTQ youth, in this case. So around the time that the school year was ending, I discovered that there was a position opening at the Human Rights Campaign for a Children, Youth, and Families Program Coordinator. And I was like, that sounds literally perfect. That sounds exactly like what I want to do, and that's how I ended up applying for and ultimately transitioning into the job at the Human Rights Campaign. While I was at the Human Rights Campaign, it was definitely a shift in the type of work that I was doing, in that some of the things remained the same. Some of the administrative work stays the same. My administrative work increased and my programmatic work decreased, but I was also suddenly working on a national level where one of the biggest things we would do every year was the Time to THRIVE annual conference for youth-serving professionals to essentially learn about LGBTQ advocacy or LGBTQ inclusion. And so it was very much national advocacy there. I was doing some face-to-face direct service, like with our Parents for Trans Equality Council and our Youth Ambassadors, who were kind of national LGBTQ youth leaders. But a lot of the stuff that I was doing was now kind of this national advocacy, national webinars, seminars, etc.

And so the work that I was doing at the Human Rights Campaign, I really loved it at first. I loved switching to that, and I still would say to this day that I loved the work I was doing, but not always the people that I was working with. And I think that sometimes, unfortunately, with larger nonprofits, they can become almost corporate in their nature. And they can replicate a lot of the toxicity that exists within corporations, that exist within like really anything that is white and cishet dominated. You know, at the Human Rights Campaign, even though it was majority queer and trans folks who were working there – I'm not exactly sure about the exact racial demographics – they replicated a lot of really terrible constructs, and ultimately, there was a lot of worker exploitation. But it simply wasn't worth it at the end of the day. At the same time, when I worked at the Human Rights Campaign, I was really proud of the work that I was doing, and I was able to eventually, after a little over two years, get promoted to the Youth Wellbeing Manager at the Human Rights Campaign. And essentially, I was getting the title to really reflect the work that I was already doing. And I wouldn't say the pay to reflect it [both laugh], but at least in a pay increase, you know, there's not too much you can get at nonprofits, at least unless you're at a certain level, because they do pay folks a ridiculous amount at the Human Rights Campaign when you're senior leadership. So yeah, I suddenly was able to have this new title, really able to take on, or at least get credit for, the leadership and the work that I was doing. Ultimately, still a lot of my work was being taken credit for by some of my white managers, and I was just extremely fed up at a certain point, which was around the time that I ended up, you know, taking a weekend to apply to my Master's in Asian American Studies.

And, you know, I'm really proud of a lot of the work that I did at the Human Rights Campaign. I think I was able to incorporate Asian and Pacific Islander American Studies into it a lot. In terms of, for example, really pushing the organization to increase the diversity of our Youth Ambassadors, in terms of our recruitment, in terms of our selection of Youth Ambassadors. It's slightly different with the Parents for Trans Equality Council in terms of how it happens, like folks roll off, other folks are kind of recruited and added in. But you know, essentially, like with our SMART goals, trying to really push my supervisors to change certain percentages of BIPOC folks that we would like to recruit. And also things as simple as phrases and speeches that we were giving. Instead of saying Black and Brown, my manager had changed something to Black and Latinx. And I was like, actually, this also applies to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Middle Eastern folks, so we need to change that language as well. So I think having me on the team, on a predominantly white team, was extremely helpful. As essentially, I could check a lot of the things that my white managers were not flagging and they were using, kind of this corporate DEI sort of language [Divya: Hmm] for which they didn't even fully understand. So, I was very proud of the intervention I was able to make within this program, and I know that it's continuing with some of the folks who I know are still within the program. And yeah, I would say that's how kind of my background in racial justice advocacy and APIA Studies kind of came into play with the work that I was doing.

Divya Aikat [28:36]
Right. Both of those experiences sound like such an amazing combination of that youth engagement and then also advocating for both AAPI and queer communities. And I think that's also a very interesting commentary on nonprofit work and the disillusionment or racial hierarchies that come into play there. But then also the impact and outreach that you could have at a personal level. When you were talking about that, I was also reminded- just thinking about Ethnic Studies as a concept, so much of it is about mentorship in and out of the classroom, just amongst people who are trying to uplift. And so I think that that's also just a beautiful part of that journey. Kind of moving along to talking about William and Mary and talking about your advocacy work there, can you tell me how you got involved in the Asian American Student Initiative?

Prahas Rudraraju [29:42]
Yeah, so it came about through Facebook [laughs]. I had seen on Facebook that there was something called the Asian American Student Union at the time that had formed. And I was like, oh, that sounds really cool. And I knew that my big brother in the Korean American Student Association had formed it, and that was about all that I knew. I was already a part of several Asian American orgs, so I was just like, "Oh, that sounds cool. I don't know what it's about. I'm not gonna join something because I have too much stuff I'm already involved in." And then I posted a status at one point where I was taking a South Asian Studies course- or it was a course called South Asian Studies, or South Asian History. We didn't officially have South Asian Studies at William and Mary. And I was reading this extremely racist thing in a book, and it was so frustrating, and I just posted a Facebook status saying something like, History repeating itself... so stupid..." and just kind of rage quitting, and then I just posted it. And my big saw that, and he said, "I'm in the library. Come find me." [both laugh] And so I just walk over to him, and he's like, "Hey, what's up?" And we're just talking, and he mentioned his organization. And I was just like, "Oh, yeah, that's so important." And he knew that I was involved with the local LGBTQ organization on campus. And I was just like, "Yeah, I've been thinking of switching and getting into racial justice and Asian American advocacy, because I think things are okay for queer people now," [laughs] You know, which was a very funny sentiment, because things were not okay. But I was just like, "Yeah, let me turn gears. And he literally told me. He was like, "No, no, your queer advocacy is super important. But let me know if you'd like to get involved in this."

And then it was kind of funny, because the day that he invited me to a meeting for the Asian American Student Union was [laughs] the National Day of Silence. So, I literally had a mask on or something like that, and I was just typing onto my computer. I decided to take notes for the meeting. It was something like four or five of us. We met in one of the restaurants that's inside of a campus building. I don't even remember what it's called anymore. I think they changed their name. Cosi or Aromas, or something like that. And then, you know, I was just taking notes for the meeting, and it was just five of us. I don't even fully remember what we were talking about. It's the end of the school year. It was maybe the last week or two of classes. We were talking about things that we wanted to do for the summer, like summer initiatives. And my big told me- He was just like, "Oh, you really need to meet a couple of professors before you leave for the summer." And one of them was Francis Tanglao Aguas, who later became the director of APIA Studies. And this professor has been, literally since 2005, had been trying to create APIA Studies and trying to gain a lot of student interest.

So from this meeting, you know, he plants that seed. I think maybe he introduced us over email or something like that. I got the chance to meet this professor. And then ultimately, over the summer, is really where this involvement in the Asian American Student Initiative, kind of launched. So me and a few of my friends… I think we became administrators for the Facebook group, and we were talking with folks over Facebook Messenger, and just like gathering folks who were interested in this. But really, our professor, Francis Tanglao Aguas, was also very helpful in terms of spurring interest, like when he was coming across Asian American students who he thought might be interested in advocacy, he was also steering them towards us. And he, of course, was one of the main professors who we were working with for APIA Studies. And the reason why I keep mentioning APIA Studies in the same breath as the Asian American Student Initiative is because for a long time that was really the main thing that we were doing. We were doing other things that always tied back to creating the APIA Studies major. Yeah, so that's how I initially got involved in it. And then, sorry, can you remind me if there were additional questions that you had asked?

Divya Aikat [34:44]
Yeah, so that was perfect as for how you got involved. I also wanted to know what made you become invested in this work and kind of after joining that first meeting, what made you stay?

Prahas Rudraraju [34:59]
Yeah, I think it was just amazing to see other Asian Americans who wanted to do the work, who were fired up about the community, and thought that there were issues of racism that we experienced, and, you know, wanted to do something about it. Because for so long, especially in my first year of college, I was used to being the angry Asian kid [laughs], where I was just getting really angry about racism that I was experiencing or seeing happen to other Asian Americans or other BIPOC communities. And I was talking about it in my Asian American circles, and everyone was just like, "Calm down." Or like, "It's not that big of an issue," or, 'Well, what are you going to do about it?" And so, to finally see other people in the then Asian American Student Union – think probably by the end of the semester, we had changed it to Asian American Student Initiative – but to see these folks also passionate about Asian Americans and racial justice... seeing these kindred spirits, I think was so important for me, and that's kind of what helps me to get invested. I was like, I don't feel alone anymore. There are other people like me who want to get involved in this. And also in that first meeting, there was a lot of diversity within the group. There were East Asian, Southeast Asians. There was myself as a South Asian. And I think that was another thing. I think if I had shown up and it was all East Asians [laughs], I think I would have maybe felt a little like, oh, I don't know. Is this my place? I think I still would have been involved, but maybe wouldn't have jumped in as strongly and felt as connected to them.

And also, something that was happening at the end of that semester is the Asian American Student Initiative was doing their FACES campaign, like Faces of Asian Americans at William and Mary. And they interviewed me and several other Asian Americans for this and were posting our images along with little clips from the interview. It was kind of similar to the Humans of New York sort of stuff, except it was more like a question and a couple sentences, that sort of thing. But I really liked that, the profiles that they were making of us, and how they were highlighting really cool folks within the community. It was also just a way to feel very connected to people. Some of them were like-minded. Other folks just had other stories that they were sharing that were really cool. And I felt very suddenly connected to the community outside of just the cultural orgs. The cultural orgs were amazing, but they were more focusing on the specific culture, not doing so much Asian American work, or racial justice, or anything like that. So it was a good space to maybe engage with your culture, if you imagine that your culture was very much planted within Asia and kind of almost stagnant. But that's how I would say my perception of it was in the first couple of years.

And then, you know, as AASI was expanding, especially when I'm looking back at it now, this space really felt like a home for me. It was my community. Those were my people. You know, there were, I think only ever like a couple of other South Asians in it during my time at William and Mary. But whether folks had my background or not, these were people who were willing to fight the good fight. They were working in community with one another. So it was a Pan-Asian sort of movement. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of Pacific Islanders involved during my time, I don't think we had any in my time. I don't know if that's changed since. But definitely, it was Pan-Asian, Pan-Asian American. It really felt like a community, despite the fact that we were all different, we were connected in the fact that we were committed to advocacy. We were committed to creating APIA Studies, and we were committed to making the school a better place for all racial minorities. There was a lot of solidarity work that we did, especially with Black student organizations and Black-led student initiatives, as well as Black Lives Matter weeks of advocacy, like campaigns that they did, especially in my last two years at William and Mary. So I was very proud. I felt like this is how Asian American activism should be in a lot of ways.

Divya Aikat [39:43]
Yeah, thank you for sharing. I think that aspect of community building and moving towards a reimagined sense of community or belonging within William and Mary is so important. Really quickly, would you mind listing some of the members of AASI just for our record and to kind of preserve that memory of who was involved?

Prahas Rudraraju [40:09]
Yeah, there were so many people involved. And apologies in advance, because I'm not going to have everyone off the top of my head, but especially in the earlier times. So Max Nikoolkan is the one who started the Asian American Student Union, and we can really credit him as our founder, even though, in our second year, that's when we became official. So we also consider folks from the second year to be the co-founders. So Max Nikoolkan, there was Paul Atienza, Caroline Gao, Benny Zhang. Oh, my God, so many people. Heein Choi. And then going into my second year, there was Jack Zhang there was Aastha Uprety, Elliot Ayres, Joey Wong, Julian Iriarte, Jin Hyuk Ho, Arya Espahbodi, so many people. I think I'll stop there. [both laugh] But yeah, there were, there were so so many people involved.

Divya Aikat [41:27]
That’s a lot of people!

Prahas Rudraraju [41:27]
Yeah, especially in my junior and senior year, it really exploded in terms of how many people were getting involved. So, yeah, just kind of more and more, the events that we were hosting were getting our name out, and other people were getting interested and eventually getting involved. There were a lot of people also who were tangentially related, where sometimes they would maybe put on a workshop for us that we were hosting. So yeah, a lot of ways that folks got involved, even if they weren't maybe some of the primary members. Oh, I can't forget Jonathon Hsu as well, and So Dam Hong, they were very involved in our second full year.

Divya Aikat [42:07]
Great. Thank you for listing those for me. Talking about that student advocacy process, you said that it kind of expanded and boomed through you getting your name out and things like that. Can you tell me more about that timeline after the inception? How did you all move along through your years at William and Mary?

Prahas Rudraraju [42:30]
Yeah, so that second year was the 2014-2015 school year. And I say second year, but it was really just a few months after the inception of the organization, just going by the school year timeline, I guess. But yeah, there was a class that we all took together, which was essentially the- we still were taking the class and having the proper class. It was like three hours on a Friday. But after that class, we were meeting for AASI, right after. And so that class also pulled folks- I think everyone taking that class also wanted to be a part of the Asian American Student Initiative. But that was also a way to pull folks in. And then AASI would meet after. So, folks were getting interested in the class. In the program- The class was [laughs], I think it was called Ethnic Studies Since 1969 but there was this funny thing where in the course registrar, it got shortened to Ethnic Stud 69, so we would joke about that [both laugh]. But yeah, that class was also taught by Professor Francis Tanglao Aguas. And so I've been mentioning him a lot, because when he came to William and Mary in 2005, I think the first thing he did was look for Asian American Studies courses. Because he came from UCLA and while he didn't do the Masters in Asian American Studies, he knew how important it was, and he wanted to continue it. And he saw that several years previously, there was a course called Intro to Asian American Studies, taught by Sociology, by Professor Deenesh Sohoni, who I think was on sabbatical at the time when Professor Tanglao Aguas joined. But, you know, the first thing he did was call him up and be like, "Oh my god, it's so exciting to hear about this course. Will you teach it again?"

And, you know, trying to find his connections in in terms of the field of professors at the school. And kind of, from there on, he was in Theater and Africana Studies, and he was teaching several different courses in theater. But one of the really important ones that he would teach, South and Southeast Asian Folklore Performance, is where he would teach a lot of Asian American students. And this is where he was able to talk to them and ask them like, "Are you interested in declaring a major in Asian American Studies?" The founder of the Asian American Student Union, Max, was the fourth person to self-declare a major in Asian American Studies since Francis had started speaking to students in 2005. And then basically after that, there was this huge boom where there were just multiple of us in a year who were declaring this. So really, those were some of these seeds that were planted. And so with Francis, he was definitely hoping that everyone in the class wanted to major in Asian American Studies. And I do think that almost everyone in that class ended up majoring in Asian American Studies and ended up graduating year after year from it. But yeah, he really, he created that space. The class itself, learning about Ethnic Studies, is going to get you fired up. And I feel like there's no way to learn about it and not be like, I want to get involved in some way. [Divya: Mhm.] Like, even if maybe you're not majoring or minoring in it. You want to encourage folks to do it. You want to take the classes yourselves. You get inspired by it. And you want to join local racial justice, Asian American student advocacy, get involved in your community. So, this class itself was really fantastic.

I would definitely say the FACES campaign that I had mentioned earlier, the Faces of Asian Americans at William and Mary, that was also creating a profile for the Asian American Student Initiative. A lot of people were following the page from that, and then from following the page, we were posting like, "Hey, we meet in this classroom at this time on Fridays. Come if you're interested." And we started to get a handful of students outside of that class who were joining us once the class ended, and we were talking about this major that we wanted to create. And Francis would usually leave us to do our thing. But I think during one of our meetings, he handed us a piece of paper which had the tentative minor, and he was like, "This would be a 15- or 18-unit minor." And so, it's basically hefty enough that if students are interested in the minor, they can very easily add a few extra classes and major in it, because William & Mary is a liberal arts school, and therefore I think you only needed something like 32 or 36 credits out of 120 credits that you need to graduate for any given major. And they kind of did this approach so that we were forced to take many classes outside of our major and hopefully develop a lot of different skills and perspectives. So yeah, having a robust minor was helpful, and students could then be incentivized: "Hey, just take a few extra classes. You can get the major itself."

And so, once we had this paperwork, we were then trying to see, how else can we get involved? And, one person in particular, Jin Hyuk Ho, took the initiative to start to email various administrators at William and Mary trying to set up meetings with them. And the idea was like, "Oh, we're a group of Asian American students who would really like to discuss with you issues that Asian American students are having at William and Mary and discuss possibilities and strategies." And this was received very- I don't know if saying "this was received very well" is an accurate way to describe it, but at least folks were willing to meet with us. So, we had a couple of meetings in that first semester itself, and then another meeting, I believe, in the spring semester. But the couple of meetings that we had in the first semester were with the Deans of Arts and Sciences, as well as with the president of The College itself. And I started referring to this as our crying tour [laughs], because we really went and talked to these white administrators, and really, essentially, talked about our traumas to them, trying to convince them that there is a plight that Asian American students are experiencing at this school, and also just from living in this country, in the South as well. And you know, something needs to be done about it. And we were presenting that we really think that Asian American Studies is an important way to address this, and it's going to help give us the tools to understand our experiences. And you know, also just the fact that a lot of the courses that we had listed for the minor- actually all of the courses were already being taught. It was a matter of: Create the official label of Asian and Pacific Islander American Studies, so that we can then cross list these classes that are already being taught in English, Sociology, History, etc., under APIA studies. Where you don't have to do much. These professors already exist here. They're already tenured or tenure track. You just need to sign- there's very little you need to do.

But I loved and hated these meetings because it was a way to really feel so connected with my peers and to feel connected to their stories, understand just how broad this issue was. But I hated those meetings because literally, it is so dehumanizing to be essentially crying out your pain and trauma to people. And especially when you're then met with this very stoic, uncaring face. That was difficult in some ways. But something that was good is that we always, after the meetings, would debrief together. It was usually like we're just standing outside of the building, [Divya laughs] talking about what happened, and then one of us would call Francis on the phone and be like, "Hey, Francis, this is what happened." [laughs] So, you know, just a little bit of that. But these meetings were really important, and we did not realize- or at least, I think I didn't realize just how important they were, until a couple years later.

This is a little bit of an aside, but I had mentioned the Black Lives Matter week of advocacy that students did, and in my senior year, Black Lives Matter was invited to come and speak with the president of the college, similarly to how we as an Asian American Student Initiative had spoken with the President, so they were invited up. And they actually, as they were going up, they pointed to a few of us within the Asian American Student Initiative, and they said, “Come with us”. And I was kind of like, why are you asking us to come with you? Because I was just like, this is for Black Lives Matter. We don't want to take up space. But it was actually so important for us to be in that room, because as they were sharing their demands to the president of the college, they had a list of 10 demands, and these 10 demands were actually the same as the 10 proposals that the Task Force on Race and Race Relations at the college had created the year before. And I was a part of that task force [laughs], so I knew them intimately. So they presented those task force recommendations as their demands for the college, essentially emphasizing the urgency of it. And he was saying awful things to them, like, "I don't deal in demands," saying that he has color too [laughs], and just really dismissing them. And at one point he tried to use us to dismiss them. He didn't remember that a couple of us in the room had spoken with him two years before, but he said, "The Asian students came and spoke to me about their problems," and he was trying to say, like, "Oh, and they were nice to me and stuff." And I was just like, "Actually, sir, I was a part of that group." And he kind of looked to me, thinking I was going to be a lifeline for him. And I said, "What we talked to you about is exactly what they're talking to you about and asking for." And I was just like, "I also was a member of the Task Force on Race and Relations, and they're asking for literally the same exact demands." And he was just kind of flabbergasted. But, you know, the reason why I talk about that is to just kind of show how Asian Americans can, with the whole Model Minority Myth, folks try to use us as that wedge, especially against Black and Latiné communities. And so to kind of see how that was playing out in real time, but also how we were able to counter it. Because of those networks of community and solidarity that we had built with each other, I think it was a beautiful moment to be able to really see him trying to enact the Model Minority Myth and just kind of shut that down. Yeah, but sorry, I was kind of doing an aside there. [Divya: Mhm]

Within that first year, there was- also something that was hugely important, is that we had a petition that we were bringing around for folks to sign. I think at the time, we were calling it Asian American Studies, but really Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. We were saying, like, "Do you think we should have an Asian American Studies major? Like, are you interested in this?" And at the time also, in order to form a student club, you would have to get a petition with 50 signatures from students. But for this petition, since it was for an academic program, it could be anyone, as long as they were a student or administrator or faculty. So we were taking this around to clubs, initially, like student organizations, the cultural clubs, etc., to try to get signatures. And then this kind of funny thing happened at the end of my first semester where there was a comedian who I really loved called Hari Kondabolu. And I liked that he talked about race and racism in his comedy. And he had posted something like, "Oh, where should I go next in 2015?" And I had posted, like, "In my college town, wishful thinking," and then he responded, "Set up a show, and I'll come." And I was just like, Oh my God! [both laugh] And I didn't realize he was probably saying this to a lot of people. So I freaked out, and I screenshotted it, and I was telling everyone. I was telling my professors, I was talking to the Center for Student Diversity, and they were like, "Oh, that's so exciting. Let's try to think of something." And then in the beginning of the second semester of that year, there was this -- this sounds very long winded, but I promise I'm going to land the plane.

There was an event called Bending the Arc Forward, and it was about racial justice. And it was on Martin Luther King Day. it was supposed to be about his legacy. And so we were talking about racial justice. It was really great and also very timely given the- I don't remember if he was still a boy or if he was just a young teenager, but Michael Brown, who was killed in December of 2014. And so, I think that this event was very timely, not just because it was MLK Junior day, but also because of the turmoil and the Black Lives Matter protests that had been happening and how it had affected our campus. It was a really important event, and it gave me a lot of hope, and I was really happy to be there. And then when I get back to my dorms later that night, I see that people have been posting on social media that there was a really racist party that happened that night, and there was a racist party that happened the night before. It was, I think, two or three racist parties that happened that weekend itself, by the white fraternities at our school. And me and my friend Jin Hyuk, we just met in the lobby of one of our dorms, and we were just really angry. We were livid about this. And one of us was just like, "Hey, I think it's time to see if we can bring Hari." And so we were like, "Yeah, maybe this is what we need. Maybe we need to have this sort of show where, you know, he's going to be talking about race. And maybe we can do a workshop on race before the show, and kind of turn it into this bigger event.” And we start putting the wheels in motion to bring Hari to William and Mary. And he sees the GoFundMe and this and that that we have, and he got really excited about it, and he got in contact with our team. We didn't find this out until later, but he apparently told his manager- He was like, "See how much they can raise, but if they ultimately can't raise enough for the show, we'll do it anyways." He was very touched to see how much we wanted to bring him.

The event ended up being really amazing. And at this event, we were able to get even more petitions, because literally, I think we counted over 230 people at this event. And for William and Mary, events usually – even cultural nights – don't get maybe more than 100 or 150 people. And even then, it's like, you know, everyone knows it's gonna happen. It happens every year at the same time. And so that's how they get the big crowds. And the only other events that would get crowds like that, were concerts hosted by the big school-based event team, that sort of thing. So this was a really enormous event, and we were able to get so many people talking about the major, getting them to sign the petitions. It really, I think, was just one of those pivotal moments in terms of our fight for Asian American Studies.

And afterwards, we did have another meeting with another administration member, the Provost. And at that time, we were kind of showing him this overwhelming support that we were receiving. And we were also showing him like, "Hey, the minor basically already exists. Just make it happen." And then he turns and says to us, like, "This is really great to hear. And I'm very proud of your advocacy," and blah, blah, blah. "But just so you know, in order to create a program, you need to have an endowed chair or a professorship. You need a professorship in order to have a academic program, and that means that you need to have $3 to $5 million.” And I guess this is probably what the salary would be over the course of their tenure. And he was just like, "If you can raise $3 to $5 million, I'll get you APIA Studies." [laughs] And that was just so absurd. Our conversation, our debrief after that was literally just- This was a group of 18 to 22 year olds, maybe, [Divya laughs] and he's telling us to raise $3 to $5 million. We had just exhausted all of our resources trying to raise $5,000 to bring Hari Kondabolu to William and Mary, and we suddenly were told that we need to raise $3 to $5 million. It was just so absurd, and it was really infuriating to us, because we were like, we have been doing all this advocacy throughout the year, putting on these events, talking to people, just doing so many other things behind the scenes. I would say, I would split up my day into- I would sleep maybe four to six hours a day. I would do my schoolwork for maybe six to eight hours a day, including attending classes, and then the rest of my day was either dance practices for maybe like a couple hours a day. And then the rest of it was just advocacy. So literally, we were putting a third of our lives into advocacy for this program, and we were very worn out, and he's suddenly telling us to raise $3 to $5 million. It was just absurd. And to us, it was really racist as well, because how are young people going to raise $3 to $5 million? And would he have said the same thing if, for some reason, maybe we didn't have a political science major and we needed to start up a political science major? Like, there's no way he would tell us to do that. So we were really frustrated. And you know, it was really disheartening to hear that.

I don't remember exactly what was the in-between that happened, but I do remember that there was a- I believe that it may have been, at this point, we were kind of leaning on our faculty coalition. I can't remember if it was a vote that was taken, or if it was that they had pushed the paperwork through to the Deans of Arts and Sciences, and ultimately gotten the approval. This was weird, because it was an official approval, but it wasn't the final approval, but they received the approval for the minor. And this was in the fall of 2015, so this was the next academic year, my third year. They received that approval, and from there, they knew it was going to be a several month process until there was a final vote with the full Faculty of Arts and Sciences to then get the final approval for it to become a program and an official minor. But once we essentially got that, we were just like, "Oh, we're done." There was very little left that we needed to do. I think from there on is where the faculty, who had already been extremely involved, were able to kind of take on those additional steps that were needed. All of the administrative work, whatever logistical work needed to be done to essentially ensure that those courses were in place. But the faculty really took over from there for later in the year, and then by, I don't remember if it was April or May, I just remember that it was finals week.

But in finals week of 2016, so the end of that academic year... [laughs] the Asian American Student Initiative was told to come in, and we were told that we had to keep quiet until the vote was taken, and then we could freak out, but essentially, we had to remain quiet. And then they were voting on many different measures, initiatives, I don't know the exact term for it. And finally, I think that the last one that they voted on was Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. And it was just kind of like a yay or nay thing. Or I think it was like, if there was anyone who disagreed, they had to say something. No one disagreed. Everyone was for it. We passed it. It was amazing [laughs]. [Divya: Yeah] I was so happy, you know, we took this picture with all the students and the faculty at the end of it. And it was just kind of funny, because one of the deans, I just vividly remember her very uncaring face while I was crying to her in that crying tour. She was the one who had to be like, "And it passes." And I was just like "Justice!" [both laugh] So yeah, officially by 2016 is when the program was finalized as a minor, officially. Still had to self-declare the major. But then by 2019, and I think this would have been spring semester 2019 because it was before the academic year where the pandemic started. But in 2019 is when it became an official major as well, and therefore it became the department, rather than just the program. So yeah, it took another couple years after that, but it finally happened. And so there were other students, perhaps some additional faculty as well, who were involved in that final push to get it as a department. But yeah, we were there for the initial push, and it was really amazing, because at that point, it was the culmination of just a little over 10 years of hard work, from when Professor Tanglao Aguas started, to when we were able to have it become an official program. So it was a really beautiful moment.

And I just felt like... I think for so long, I hadn't really seen how someone's efforts can just pay out in the end. And so this was a really powerful lesson for me that sometimes you can win and you can succeed. [Divya: Yeah...] And so it was really a powerful and beautiful moment. And I really credit that to every single person who was involved, from the core group of students and faculty involved to the people who we touched along the way, the way that maybe we inspired them or just made them interested and want to believe in our success. Because really it was a huge amount of stakeholders beyond just us who ultimately pushed this through. And I was, yeah, very, very proud of that. I still feel, at the end of the day, that that shouldn't have been so difficult [laughs], like there was no need for that to take as long as it did, take literally 11 years. And one of my professors, and this was the professor who was the first South Asian to graduate with a Master's in Asian American Studies from UCLA, Professor Bené Ferrão. He spoke shortly after, I think it was at a kind of ceremony or something that we had later in the day to commemorate that event, or maybe it was later in the week. But he spoke and he said something like, "Oh, I did my Master's in Asian American Studies at UCLA. And you know that program has existed for 50 years, and so it's just very humbling to now be here at the start of this program at William and Mary." And I thought that was like the funniest way to throw shade [both laughs], because he was clearly dissing William and Mary, that it took so long for William and Mary to get to this point. And William and Mary talks so much about how proud it is to be the second oldest college in the United States. And a lot of a lot of folks would start to twist that. And they were just like, "Well, you're certainly acting your age." [Divya laughs] Because they were just so behind on so many things, and then they would try to turn it around and always celebrate it as a win. And we were just like, this is an institution that owned slaves, that literally would send Black students who applied to VCU instead. Such a racist institution. They always tried to turn these around as their own victories. So I thought that Bene's little comment was such a beautiful way [both laugh] to really talk about this specific moment.

Divya Aikat [1:06:23]
Yeah, thank you for giving me that very comprehensive timeline. I think that- Oh this is separate, I wanted to mention. I'm pretty sure that Christina, who's my partner for the oral history collection, is collecting Professor Tanglao Aguas' oral history. I think so, because I'm pretty sure that I've seen emails circulating. So that might be really cool that both of you will be in our collection, and we'll have those various sides.

Yeah. So thinking about... you set up this really, really wonderful timeline of how you've gone through this process, how it began, and then how you continued. Do you have any advice on sustainability for groups? Because, like you were saying in your meetings with administration and deans, a lot of times they're trying to wait students out, or not necessarily – for XYZ reason – even listen to the demands in the first place. And they know that students have an impermanent time at a university, and I think often administration uses that to their advantage. And so, talking about sustainability in this burnout, do you have any advice or could you tell me more about how you dealt with that and experienced that?

Prahas Rudraraju [1:08:27]
Yeah, that's a great question. And even at UCLA in this Master's program, we've been talking a lot about them trying to wait out the student activists. Like, you know, just knowing that it's typically around a four-year cycle. Obviously not everyone's gonna graduate in four years, but just hoping that the activists will graduate out and then it'll be done. So in terms of sustainability and avoiding burnout, there's a lot involved. And I'm gonna give- I hope it's not conflicting, but I am going to say, due to the fact that they're going to try to wait you out, try to push it through and be as urgent as possible. Try to get that overwhelming support as much as possible. I do think that social media, especially nowadays, has really helped mobilizing students and organizing students. It certainly did for us through Facebook, we were mostly using Facebook, back when we were pushing this through. I don't know what the landscape looks like at universities for something like creating an academic field right now. I've been able to see how students, especially undergraduate students, have powerfully mobilized for Palestine. So I'm kind of thinking like, could that potentially mean that you can then mass mobilize folks for academic programs as well? Like I'm hoping so. And because of that, that's why I'm going to try to say: try to make it urgent, try to make it overwhelming that people can't stop talking about creating this program.

But if you think that it's going to have to be the long game, something that I would say, regardless of whether it ends up taking one to two years or taking six to ten years, building the community is super important. Building a legacy is really important. And Professor Ferrão, who I mentioned a couple of times, said this really important thing to me: “Part of creating that legacy is doing the work and having faith in others that they're going to be showing up as well." But an important component of that... and what he said also speaks to burnout, because I was feeling really burnt out when I was speaking to him. And ultimately he was saying, like, "It doesn't all have to be on you. You can rely on the other people around you." But part of relying on the other people around you, relying on your community, means building that community. And so I would say as much as you can- you know of course emphasize the importance of the work you're doing. But something which I wish that we had done more in those first couple of years when everything was so urgent, which AASI really did start to do a lot of in my last couple of years, and they do this to this day in a really beautiful way… is maintaining relationships within the organization, with other organizations that are similar in terms of their advocacy, as well as building connections with alumni, which AASI does beautifully in all of those regards, with their events. So having meals together, having quality bonding time with each other. I don't know if bigs and littles is helpful, but anything that you can do to create these networks and communities in the organization, creating supports outside of the organization.

But really getting alumni support is super helpful, because with AASI, they were able to then lean on us as alumni for initiatives that they were doing in 2021 trying to support AAPI students, especially in light of the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans, especially in light of the Atlanta shootings. So I would really say to try to build those connections and build that power with everyone in your community, within your org and with your alumni networks, because schools are scared of alumni [both laugh]. They know that alumni are the ones who are giving them the donations and so I would definitely say that can be very, very helpful for you. And I also think connecting to other schools in the area maybe where they're trying to do the same thing. Because if schools are starting to see that there's a wave of energy for things, it might push them to be like, "Oh, we want to do it before others do it.” So almost trying to peer pressure them [laughs] into it in a way. I think that can be helpful. So definitely creating connections across different schools,

Divya Aikat [1:09:59]
Nice. I think that's all really powerful advice. And I like how you stressed community, because I think that, in the end, is what gets you through this work. And helps make it long lasting. And in that same vein, we've talked a lot about the different parts of this work, the good and the bad. I wanted to ask if you found any strategies to operate around these largely nameless and faceless institutions. I think that often, when advocating for this work, as you've said, there is so much frustration about this long-standing institution with its often racist history and trying to reach some sort of intersection where you can find a path forward or work towards that. So both internally, in terms of what you're thinking of and the ways that you're framing it, and then externally, in terms of actual strategy if you have any that you can think of... What would you say worked for you operating around an institution?

Prahas Rudraraju [1:16:00]
Yeah, it certainly is something really difficult. Yeah, William and Mary especially, it was just so, so hypocritical in so many ways. There were literally all of these statues and buildings on campus named for really racist people, like slaveholders, etc., and oh my god, yeah, especially being an institution in the South. And I'm sure you understand this. It was really, really difficult to deal with that. Internally, I was really angry. Ranting was really helpful, honestly. Being able to rant to my friends in AASI about things, those frustrations as we were experiencing them, was really helpful. Oftentimes... I didn't journal very much, so processing was either happening through talking to folks. I didn't have a therapist at the time, but I would highly recommend like therapists and journaling, because that certainly has helped me after that.

And then also, I would process with physical outlets. This is where dancing, being involved in cultural performing orgs, was helpful for me. Because that was almost a way to heal what I was dealing with. For me, I think physical outlets were really good for processing difficult emotions within myself. And then I felt connected to my culture and to my community through performing with these organizations. And it almost felt like a way to, in some ways, combat some of this racism that we were experiencing by finding pride in my community and culture. But yeah, in terms of actual strategies for managing it, I think just this idea of overwhelming support for the initiative was really helpful. Nowadays, as an activist, I would talk about dismantling systems, but when you're trying to start an academic program [laughs], you're not trying to dismantle the system so much as change parts of the system or add yourself into the system. Obviously that doesn't mean that there maybe aren't other things that you're doing to dismantle parts of the system or dismantling the system itself. But typically, when it comes from the perspective of these academic programs, that's why I'm going to say getting overwhelming support, rather than other strategies that I would use for other areas. So getting that overwhelming support, trying to show that there's student, as well as faculty, as well as administrative support for stuff, maybe getting testimonies.

With us, we did a lot of student testimonies in these meetings, and the reason for that is because, you know, Professor Tanglao Aguas, he was almost made into... I don't know if scapegoat is the right word, but the administration tried to view him as the one troublemaker trying to get Asian American Studies. And so, it was super important that- He would even tell us, "Don't mention my name at all, because they're gonna start to essentially deny your own agency and say that this is just about me." That's what he was telling us. So for us, that's why we focused on just students. But I do think it could potentially be a very strong strategy, especially if they don't have those sorts of dynamics in their own institutions, to bring about student testimonies. Maybe it's in these meetings, or maybe they're having video recordings. There's so much they can do with social media. Testimonies from faculty, testimonies from administrators. Also, I think, showing that the support goes beyond just the AAPI community could be helpful. Showing maybe how it's cross coalitional with folks of other demographics, folks in other departments, administrators across multiple different departments. I think all of these things can be really helpful, whether it's through the format of petitions, emails, written or verbal testimony.

Yeah, I do think that kind of overwhelming support is really helpful. And then also in terms of strategy, they’re probably already doing this, but really getting very familiar with any sort of legal or academic parameters that they need to work with, so they're just intimately aware of what is needed in order to get the program on the ground. Because administrators are going to try to be like, "Oh, well, that's just not possible." And then so if you can then turn around and say, "Why isn't it possible?" And pull something up, I think those are all going to be very helpful.

Divya Aikat [1:20:57]
Yeah. Right. I think those are really strong strategies. And even listening to you talk, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I should incorporate this in the work that we're doing." Another question that I had is, I think that even within these various social justice and organizing spaces, there can still be and there is nuanced experiences of identity. And I personally felt that within my own Asian American Studies group. So I wanted to ask about the visibility or invisibility of your South Asian identity within the student organizing atmosphere, and then how that's kind of trailed throughout this work.

Prahas Rudraraju [1:21:50]
Yeah. So I did mention briefly how in my time, there were only ever a couple other South Asians involved in the work. [Divya: Mhm.] And that- [laughs] it was kind of complicated to deal with that, because, on one end, I'm trying to make sure that we're being inclusive within our Asian American Student Initiative of South Asian experiences, that there isn't any potential colorism coming into play... Colorism in so many degrees, like not even just in terms of skin tone and shades and stuff, but also in terms of this almost belonging of South Asians within this idea of Asianness. Because, you know, I think we've all heard the racist sort of people saying like, "Oh, you don't look Asian." Or saying, like, "Asian culture is chopsticks," or something that's maybe very specific to East Asian or perhaps some Southeast Asian communities. And so, there was a lot of work of being super visible, to just assert that South Asians, Indians, because I'm specifically Indian American, are part of the Asian American community. [Divya: Yeah.] That was really important for me. And trying to make sure that we were never saying the whole "Asians and Indians" [laughs] sort of thing. So yeah, that was work that I was doing within AASI.

And then it was disheartening for me, mainly in terms of the fact that there weren't more South Asians wanting to get involved in AASI, and kind of seeing how a lot of South Asians- and honestly I think that this was happening across many communities, but I'll speak to it as a South Asian. To see how South Asians, mainly Indian Americans, mainly the North Indians, but really just across Indian Americans at my school, were kind of just focused on engaging in culture and not engaging in community issues as much. Like engaging in culture in terms of, like, oh, we're gonna dance or put on a little play for culture night. Or, we'll dance for the dance competition that we're holding. And I was involved in this. I was part of the Bhangra team, and later formed a classical dance team with some other folks. So I very much was a part of the dancing culture. But I went beyond just that, when I was thinking of my South Asianness. And so it was just very disappointing that very few other South Asians really wanted to do the racial justice and advocacy component of it. And you know, even beyond that, they weren't even involved in any other issues relating to them. This is not to say everyone was like this, but for the most part, it's like, "We're not going to talk about sexism, we're not going to talk about domestic or inter-partner violence or child abuse. We're not going to talk about all of these other issues that also affect our communities. Like we're going to engage in this club as a social club, and sometimes as a dance cultural club, but like just not really much beyond that."

And I know that our South Asian organizations have changed in some ways and then in other ways they haven't, but that was definitely very disappointing. And some things that I would say that I think would be different today, especially now that I think there has been language for Hindutva that has become circulated more widely and stuff like that. But I do think that today- and I'm already seeing this from like, I sometimes will go back and talk to student orgs, or some current students will reach out to me. So I know that they are confronting these things. But something which we did not talk about as much when it came to South Asianness in racial justice advocacy was that we didn't talk about Hindu nationalism as much or casteism. And I'm really happy to see that these are things that are being addressed nowadays in South Asian spaces at William and Mary. But yeah, those were things that I think were not discussed. It was really just more like inclusion of South Asians when it came to the racial justice work that we were doing.

Divya Aikat [1:26:15]
Right. Thank you for talking about that and highlighting a lot of those things. I think in almost- Honestly, every South Asian American that I've spoken to for this collection has said so many similar things. I think it just rings true across all of these organizing spaces. And so, yeah, I think it's important to highlight. So for my final question, zooming out, we've talked a lot about these individual relationships and these interpersonal dynamics within this Asian American Studies organizing. Zooming out, what does it mean to you to be part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

Prahas Rudraraju [1:27:01]
Yeah, I love this question. I just feel so much pride to be a part of this legacy of the creation of Asian American Studies programs in the United States, especially coming from a university where I was one of the people who created that program at the university, and then going to the program, which in a lot of ways, is considered the best Asian American Studies program in the United States. It's just like I feel so much pride to be a part of both legacies. I taught a class in the winter quarter of this year called Asian American Movement. It's literally about the Asian American movement, like mostly focusing on the Long Sixties, but essentially the Asian American movement in this country. And so, to see these folks who I am just so in awe of in the 60s doing this sort of work, and then realizing, "Wait, I'm doing this work in the 2010s, on the East Coast, in the South." And so I feel really humbled, and at the same time, very proud to have been a part of it. You know, I talked a lot in the beginning about the suffering that I experienced going to school at William and Mary, but I will say, even if I hated the school, I loved the people that I met there. I loved the community that I formed, and I specifically loved Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies at that school. And I'm proud to come from that program. Similarly, I feel the same way about UCLA for other reasons. You know, mostly in terms of their violent suppression of the Palestinian Liberation Movement on campus. But in a very similar way, I am so proud to be a part of the Master in Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies at UCLA, and the people that I've met.

And it's just been really incredible, especially with that class that I was mentioning, to be able to teach Asian American Movement, teach my students about creating these programs, and then be like, "Oh, and by the way, I did that as well a few years ago." [Divya: Yeah!] That was really cool. And, you know, just the way that that connected me even more intimately to the course materials that I was teaching, and the way that students were able to connect with me about that. It was a really surreal experience. So, yeah, just ultimately super proud to be a part of it. And just, you know, I just hope that more universities can create APIA Studies, and I hope that more people can maybe get some inspiration from this story and the other stories about creating APIA Studies, to be able to do that at their own institutions.

Divya Aikat [1:30:02]
That's wonderful, and that's such a beautiful full circle moment. Yeah, well, thank you so much for sharing, Prahas. I think that this story will continue to inspire generations of Asian American Studies, Ethnic Studies activists, and yeah, thank you so much for sharing.

Prahas Rudraraju [1:30:22]
Of course, Divya, it was a pleasure to speak with you about this. So, thank you so much for reaching out and asking me to share my story.