Interviewee: Mae Lee

Interviewer: Divya Aikat

Date: August 22, 2024

Location: Santa Clara, California

Transcriber: Divya Aikat

Length: 01:19:49

Divya Aikat (00:00)
Hello. My name is Divya Aikat. Today's date is August, 22 2024. I'm located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. I'm here today with Dr. Mae Lee, a professor of Intercultural Studies and Department Chair of Asian American and Asian Studies at De Anza College. Mae, would you like to tell us where you're calling in from today and introduce yourself a little bit more?

Mae Lee (00:25)
Sure. Hi, Divya, I'm calling in from the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. De Anza College is in the city of Cupertino. I am nearby there. And shall I introduce a bit about myself more? [Divya: That would be great!] Okay, so I've been at De Anza College. I started teaching there in 2001. I was still a graduate student in a PhD program in Cultural Anthropology at the time. I was finishing up, and I was working on my dissertation, and I knew that one of the things I wanted to do after I finished my program was to teach Asian American Studies in a college setting. And during that period, I ran into an old mentor of mine, who happened to be the chair of Asian American Studies at De Anza, and said they were looking for someone to teach an Asian American history class. So of course, I jumped at that opportunity.

So, I started teaching as a part-timer at De Anza College. My first classes that I taught were Asian American history. A few years later, a position opened up, and I was encouraged to apply for a full-time position teaching. Actually, the load was Comparative Ethnic Studies, various Ethnic Studies, including also Asian American Studies. And I applied for that. And so, I've been teaching at De Anza for over 20 years. Yeah, and just as a background – and for students also who sometimes worry about their undergraduate degrees and where it will lead – my undergraduate degree had very little to do with what I'm doing now. I was an International Relations major and a Bachelor's in that, and then had a Master's in an area called Food Research, which had to do with political economy of development. And I never worked a day of a job in either of those fields, [Divya laughs] formally, but they certainly have informed my thinking and my approach to things that I do.

Divya Aikat (02:28)
Wonderful. Thank you for telling me a little bit more about that. You've had such a rich journey through Asian American Studies. So to start off, I wanted to walk us a little bit back, to talk about your own identity based experiences and the ways that it could inform your work today. Could you share with us a little bit about your upbringing, values, any transformative experiences that you may have had, and how that might influence your interest in Asian American Studies and these passions today?

Mae Lee (03:02)
I think one of the things that stands out the most to me retrospectively is realizing that I was introduced to the pan-ethnic Asian American identity term when I went to college. I grew up on the East Coast, New Jersey, and New York, pretty small suburbs. My parents were immigrants from Taiwan. They were both born in China. And I grew up thinking of my identity in terms of ethnic or cultural contexts. So, at one point, probably when I was younger, I thought of myself as being Chinese. It was my first language, my mother tells me. My parents spoke Mandarin to each other at home. And so I thought of myself probably as being Chinese. Later in school, I think maybe middle school, my identity changed to understanding that I was ABC, American Born Chinese. I was Chinese, but not the same Chinese as someone from China or Taiwan or Singapore. So, I was American Born Chinese. In high school, I remember we were assigned in English class where we got a choice to read and select a book, and I chose Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior. And I understood then I was Chinese American, an American, but a certain kind of American. And so that was all the way through high school.

And I grew up in predominantly, I'd say white, initially working-class neighborhoods, and then more middle class, upper middle class neighborhoods. And so I never encountered the term Asian American, until I moved from New York to California to attend college. And it was in that setting that I discovered there was this term Asian American. And I think importantly, when I was exposed to that term as an identity, it was in the context of my first year in college. I hung out at the Student Resource Center, it was called the Asian American Activities Center. It still exists at Stanford University. And I hung out there throughout the year, my first year. And there were upper class students who were just a year or two older than me, but they would fill me in.

I don't know how these conversations came about, but they would often fill me in on the history of Asian Americans at Stanford. So, they would tell me, you know, that the university didn't have Asian American Studies. This is in 1988. I entered in fall of 1988. And there weren't Asian American Studies classes taught by faculty. If they were offered, they were offered by students. They were student organized classes at the time. They were called SWOPSI classes [Stanford Workshops on Political and Social Issues], like student workshops that students put together themselves, curriculum wise. And so those are the kinds of Asian American Studies classes that were offered, but these upper-class students would tell me that advocacy for Asian American Studies had been going on for 20 years. So if this is fall of '88, that's '68—makes sense. The historical marker of the origins of Asian American and Ethnic Studies. And so I didn't know any of that at the time, but they would tell me this and how students have been advocating for it, and administration would basically say it wasn't that important, it wasn't intellectually rigorous, or that there were other priorities.

So I was introduced to that history at the same time I was introduced to Asian American identity. I think initially, very early on, my sense of Asian American identity was understanding it as- in the context of race and politics. So it was a racialized identity, and it was a political identity, which retrospectively looking, prior to that, I think I thought of my identity more in ethnic and cultural terms. So I was Chinese American. That meant I spoke a certain language. We ate a certain kind of food. My parents came from a certain place. But I don't think I had a great awareness around race or racialization, or thinking of identity, my identity, in terms of politics or a political identity. So really, to know that, to discover and to call myself Asian American, was something new. And simultaneously at that time my move to California was also the first time I met people of Asian background, of different ethnicities. So growing up, I knew, you know, some other Chinese Americans, maybe a Korean American, maybe I had a friend who was Filipino American at one point, but very small in numbers. But when I went to Stanford campus, I mean, I think at the time that I went, it was either 12% or 18% [Asian American]. It jumped up very quickly in the late 80s and early 90s. So, the population of Asian Americans grew pretty fast. And so it was the first time that I met Cambodian Americans, befriended Vietnamese Americans, Japanese Americans. So that was all new to me. And so my sense of developing, being exposed to the term Asian American, and then meeting other people of different Asian ethnic backgrounds.

And then the university itself had all of these activities. They actually had an orientation that was specifically called AANSOC, Asian American New Student Orientation Committee. So, it was a group of students who were already there who organized all these orientation activities geared and targeted for Asian American students. So that was completely eye opening to me. And then the other part, which I think will lead to talking about Asian American Studies, also, was throughout that year, I guess the campus was particularly active with student organizing in the years and decade previous, with a whole bunch of things happening. And by the time I got there in fall of '88, you know, students were advocating for Asian American Studies already. Students were advocating for greater financial aid because tuition was kind of skyrocketing at the time. Also, there was a Chicano Student Center, and there was advocacy for more student involvement in the selection of the Dean or the Assistant Dean of that Student Center.

And so, I kind of also appeared on campus in the midst of a very vibrant student organizing community. And my first year there, there were students advocating for Asian American Studies. And as I said, I met some of these students who were a year or two older than me, and they were very friendly. And I often say, you know, one of the best tactics as an organizer is to be friendly. [Divya: Mhm.] So many people kind of join in and hang out, and a lot of the social ties- What I've learned from some of this experience is some of the strong political ties that develop in organizing work is actually based on friendships and social connections and trust. [Divya: Yeah.]

And so that really happened in my first year. And there were rallies throughout the year, and people would invite me to participate, particularly because I was a first-year student. So, they wanted a representation of students who were seniors and juniors. And then they wanted to, you know, say, "Even first year students are dismayed that this university doesn't have Asian American Studies! Listen to what they're saying!" So I would be invited to rallies and to speak out about my journey from the East Coast to the West Coast and discovering, wow, we don't have Asian American Studies. So all of that to say it was a very active year, lots of rallies, lots of organizing events on campus, and the culmination of that was in the spring of 1989, May 15, to be exact. After numerous events, kind of organizing events up to that point, there were lots of students. And this was also formative to my understanding of organizing. This was a multiracial student coalition, and it was very explicit that we had Black students, somewhat symbolized by the BSU (Black Student Union), but the BSU wasn't, in fact, as an organization, a part of the whole action. But students from the BSU, students from MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), students from AASA, the Asian American Students’ Association [correction], I think that's what it was called. Also from the Stanford American Indian Organization, SAIO at the time. And then also called out specifically progressive white students, and they were part of a group of the student government. They were called, I think, Committee on Democracy and Education, CODE. And so it was very explicit and very deliberate that it was a multiracial coalition of students. And what was so impressive to me was that this multiracial coalition of students, in May, organized a takeover; an action, a takeover of the president's office. And there were maybe, you know, 10 demands or so. And one of the top demands, if not the top demand, was the establishment of tenure-track positions for Asian American Studies. And so, you know, non-Asian American students were advocating for this. So, I'd say that period of time was probably my discovery and walking into being an embodied Asian American, consciously Asian American person, and it happened in my first year in college.

Divya Aikat (13:13)
Yeah, that's very interesting. Thank you for talking about that evolution of identity and then these associated labels that are everchanging and your related experiences. I think that your experience at Stanford is so valuable, and that's such an important thing that you were able to get involved with that organizing coalition. Could you speak a little bit more about what that looked like? What was the day to day of that organizing group? How did you get involved? And what were the various strategies that you all used?

Mae Lee (13:53)
I mean, I think, to put it in context, I was like a foot soldier. I was a first-year student, you know. I kind of knew what was happening, but I would say, not really, you know. So, there were students who were older than me, who had been on campus for the previous years, where there were divestment efforts, where tents were set up – not that unlike now – in the center of campus and advocacy to get the university to divest in the effort to end apartheid in South Africa. So that was something that was happening. And there was also, I think right before I entered, maybe in '87. This was in the middle of- I don't know if you've heard of the Multicultural Wars. So, there were lots of debates across the nation around the word at the time, kind of the buzzword, was multiculturalism and challenging the canon. So it was either… I think it was my first year in at the university was when the university enacted a new first year core curriculum that was different from before. So whereas the year prior, it was called, I think Western Civilization, ours was called Cultures, Ideas and Values, CIV. So, there were these kinds of very contentious debates and advocacy efforts prior, that other students who had been at the university before me were involved in.

And so when I arrived, you know, I think a lot of the conversations were continuing, the debates were continuing, and I just kind of walked into it with my very limited knowledge and very wide eyes, curious about all of this. And so, I think in terms of specifically advocacy for Asian American Studies, you know, I made friends with some of the students who were older than me. We hung out. I was invited and went to, at the time, there was a regional group kind of on the West Coast called APSU, the Asian Pacific Student Union. It was very politically active at the time, so we would go to conferences down in Santa Cruz and other places. And so that was a regional – possibly West Coast, but even maybe smaller than that – network. So Asian American student organizers and activists from different campuses knew each other and told each other what was going on and what they were doing. And so, you know, again, I kind of fell into this. But throughout the year, a lot of these students organized rallies on the center of campus. That year actually, I believe in spring of '89, our student government at the university – including a lot of the Asian American students who were active with advocacy for Asian American Studies – also organized a Lobbying and Rally Day in Sacramento. So, it was called Spring Action '89 so this is probably in the newspapers. I'm just recalling this now, so one thing's kind of leading to another. So there was Spring Action, which was advocacy around education. I'm not sure if it was around financial aid, but hundreds, if not thousands, of students from across California, university students, landed on Sacramento.

And all of this for me was just learning, like wow, being exposed to student organizers and seeing what they're doing. And so, you know, I participated in these things. So I was kind of getting my politicizing education. Somewhat unbeknownst to me that it would lead to something later on in May. Yeah. And I think most personal for me is, as I mentioned, there were a number of rallies, two or three rallies where I was kind of the first-year student, prominently pushed out in the front like, "You go say something!" And so I would, and so I'd have to write a speech, you know, maybe just a one or two or three minute speech expressing my dismay and outrage and what I think the university should do. I guess I learned to be- As a political activist, you have to express entitlements, like, "Yes, we deserve this, and this is wrong!" And so that was really a kind of, I would say, politicizing education for me, you know, in trial by fire. So that happened, yeah. And so leading up to this student action in May, which was the takeover of the president's office, there were a few things. There were a few rallies. And I think the rallies resulted in then students sending petitions and setting up meetings with administrators. I was not a part of any of that, but they were meeting with administrators and sending in written requests and demands. And because of this sequence of events to which many of the older students felt like they didn't receive sufficient or satisfactory responses, that's when things began to move in spring of '89, leading up to the takeover.

And how did I get to actually participate in it? On the campus, in one of the dorms, it actually is tied to- There are ethnic theme houses at Stanford. One of them, at the time still exists, is Okada House. It's the Asian American theme dorm. And next to it, at the time – it doesn't exist anymore – was a tea house. It was a student-run eatery for snacks. And these students would go to San Francisco and buy frozen dim sum, and then they would heat it, at night, and they would open this eatery. And for students, any student, can go there and for very cheap, buy snacks at night and hang out. And so one of the days, one of the nights, I think it probably was like May 14, probably a Sunday, I'm guessing, I'm not sure. If May 15, the takeover day, was a Monday. The night before, I was just hanging out there with friends, and one of the older students, upper-class students, who was an activist and advocate and had befriended me, she just whispered in my ear and said, "There's going to be a takeover of the president's office tomorrow. If you want to participate in it, meet at this time in the history corner downstairs, and we will all go from there." And I thought, "Okay, sounds very reasonable to me. I'll participate!" I just said sure, you know.

And that kind of was my attitude, like throughout learning about Asian American history at Stanford, learning about Asian American identity, listening to debates and how people argued about affirmative action. I just thought, you know, the position that I eventually ended up taking, I just thought it was very reasonable. Like it's so reasonable, to ask the university to offer these classes. Why wouldn't they? If students are saying they want to learn about a particular subject, why wouldn't you offer that? So, intellectually, all of these things seemed very reasonable, not hostile or divisive or overly demanding. And so I just participated because I thought, yeah, this makes sense, and I support it. And I know the people who are involved, we have good conversations. Why not?

Divya Aikat (21:21)
Yeah, I think that I really appreciate the way that you spoke about that organizing journey. I think when you get that first taste, and get your feet wet in that atmosphere, it kind of swoops you away. Because, like you were saying, it's logical, it speaks to the heart, and once you open your eyes to it, you can't close them again. It's a point of view that you see your environment with. And so, thinking about your advocacy at Stanford, could you tell me more about how you have continued that push for Asian American Studies and what that looks like now at De Anza?

Mae Lee (22:07)
Yeah, so you know that was- So if I graduated in '92, '93, I stayed a little longer. You know, it's 30+ years. 32, 33 years. I'd so, and I think the way I see my organizing experience, and I don't, I mean, I think the term activist was also kind of more thrust upon me than something I felt comfortable with, which I still kind of think of in that way today. I feel like “organizing” makes sense because it's what we're doing and what we do. We organize people, and we organize around ideas, and we organize resources. So that feels more comfortable to me as a term. And so even looking back and now, if I were to connect the dots, I wouldn't say... Things seem to make more sense looking back than they were in the moment. [Divya: Yeah.] So, if I were to look back now and see if I could connect some dots around advocacy or activism or organizing.

So, I left Stanford, I graduated in '93 and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought maybe I would go into law. Maybe I was, you know, pre-law, and I would study for the LSATs. Ugh. But I ended up working for a nonprofit organization. It was the one job I got. This was in '93. I didn't know we were in the middle of an economic recession, and I sent out 100 resumes, and I didn't get any job offers, but I got one. It was with a nonprofit organization in Boston called City Year, and this was during Clinton's administration. So '93, I went there. And Clinton, at the time, President Bill Clinton, had promoted and gotten quite a bit of energy around a program called AmeriCorps National and Community Service. And so this organization was somewhat of a poster child, you know, a very prominent part of this AmeriCorps program.

And so, I ended up going to Boston and working for City Year. And essentially it was like a Youth Leadership Development Program through community service. So, I worked there, working on service projects, creating after school programs. Organizing demolition work for rebuilding housing, a whole bunch of variety of things. And the program is designed for 17- to 25-year-olds, I think. So, people participate as corps members, and I was on the staff side. And it was during my time there that I started working, I was tapped to do staff development, so internal staff training. I was actually tapped to do kind of these diversity workshops, you know, thinking about race, gender, ethnicity, and class and all of those things. And when I started doing that, one, I discovered I like this. I like the content of this. This is very interesting. Two, I kind of have a knack at facilitation and creating experiences and designing something and then facilitating it. And then I was tapped to do it a number of times. So it dawned on me, I like this, I think I'm kind of good at it, this might be something I like. So essentially, I think of it as, you know, designing collective learning experiences, and also cultivating self-knowledge in individuals as they're going through these experiences. So that put in my head, yeah, okay, so that's something I've learned about myself. I like creating collective learning experiences, you know, that are really centered on self-knowledge.

At the time, I was also still reading. bell hooks was really profound to me, as was Cornel West, and also reading some anthologies by Asian American writers. So, this is the early 90s, I'd say. So Asian American Studies was at that stage, where I don't think it's the bloom of publications that you see now. So, this was the early 90s. And after working at City Year for a few years, I discovered that I think I want to teach Asian American Studies at a college level. And so that led me to think, I think I need to go back to school. So, I asked a number of friends and people that I knew, because there aren't that many Ethnic Studies programs to begin with. There aren't that many and the ones that exist may not be PhD programs. So, I was asking around and a couple of friends, two people who I knew, happened to be in PhD programs in Cultural Anthropology at the time. They just so happened to be. And so they said, go with Cultural Anthropology. Go that route, because you can always teach anthropology, and you can teach Ethnic Studies too, because, of course, anthropology topically, you can choose anything, you know. So, I ended up going that route. And I ended up going to UC Santa Cruz in Cultural Anthropology.

So during this time, I'd say, you know, I'm just reading on my own around Asian American Studies. I took a lot of classes at Santa Cruz on race, capitalism, theorizing those areas. And it was toward the end of my dissertation writing period, that I met someone who actually had been a mentor of mine and was then the Chair of Asian American Studies at De Anza. And the funny thing is, I had known him when I was an undergraduate at Stanford, and he was a graduate student at Stanford. And he had become involved in a nonprofit in San Jose during my college years, and he created an advocacy internship with a very large, or the largest, multi-service Asian American nonprofit in San Jose.

And so while I was in college for three years, I worked as an Advocacy Intern, and he was kind of my supervisor, mentor at the time. And so years later, as I'm getting my dissertation, he tells me, "We're looking for someone to teach Asian American Studies at De Anza. Would you be interested?" And I thought, well, isn't this why I went to grad school? [Divya: Mhm.] So hence, I jumped on the chance, and that's how I got my foot into teaching Asian American Studies. Your question around advocacy. I feel like all of this is kind of my way of participating in the world of Asian American Studies and discovering what my contribution could be. And I did discover that I really do love teaching. I love interacting. I love translating difficult theory into very understandable language. I love that task, and I love it if students feel like they hear something that just reorients their thinking. So I think that was my way of participating in Asian American Studies, and I taught it for many years. When I moved into a full-time position at De Anza, my teaching in Asian American Studies lessened a great deal, and I taught it infrequently, so that I feel like kind of took me away from Asian American Studies. But there were other things that I was involved with that kind of brought me back to Asian American Studies. I guess I can share.

So a few things that kind of brought me back to Asian American Studies. I think one was... so the chairperson of our Asian American Studies program at De Anza... So I was hired in 2001 and then full time in probably 2003. And this chairperson, one of his strategies- and the context, I would say is this. You know, Ethnic Studies, at least from my perspective, in California, has not received a lot of love in the last 45 years, maybe other than the very early years, when, the national climate propelled people and universities to establish Ethnic Studies. There was a lot of, I think, debate and discussions around the purposefulness and the purpose of Asian American or ethnic studies. I think, you know, by the time we get into the 70s, it's already questioned. Ethnic Studies is questioned. And so when I was at De Anza in the early 2000s, Asian American Studies had been there, but I think it, like most other Ethnic Studies programs, is always kind of vulnerable, institutionally speaking. It's there. It exists. There are classes, but you can't really get more classes. You can't really write more classes, because it's hard to be offered, because enrollment sometimes is challenging. Student enrollment figures are not that high. Very few people major in it, you know. So that context makes Asian American Studies institutionally vulnerable.

And so this chairperson, I think, one of the reasons he started an initiative at De Anza called APALI, which was Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute. So, he created a Leadership Institute. And I think that revitalized, or just kind of energized, our Asian American Studies Department. Essentially, we took Asian American Studies classes that we already had, and we kind of transformed them into leadership classes for the general public and student population. And one thing I think worth noting about De Anza College, maybe unlike most other institutions of higher education that have Asian American Studies, is that we are a two-year public community college. So that means it's open enrollment. You know, anybody in the community can sign up and take a class. You don't have to, you know, apply and be admitted in the sense of exclusive admissions. And so this chairperson, he created a Leadership Institute, where we took the classes we had, but we designed them so that- One particular program which was one of the most successful ones, and kind of the regular ones, was a Summer Youth Leadership Academy.

So we took an Asian American Studies program, but we transformed it so that there were mentors in the class, kind of college students from other places who would apply over the summer, whether they were from UNC Chapel Hill or from UC Berkeley, they would be the mentors. And then the course itself would be teaching content of Asian American Studies, and there would be so many guest speakers invited. The local scene of Asian Americans who are in the public sector primarily, but also in the private sector. Mostly in the public sector. And so this whole Leadership Institute eventually became a training ground for people who are Asian American, who wanted to run or go into elected office, or kind of public affairs type of things. So over the course of 20 years, most, I would say, of the elected officials- I'm guesstimating in some informed way. A lot of the elected Asian Americans in our area, in Silicon Valley, have somehow had a touch point with this Leadership Institute. Either they went through a training program, or they came through as a speaker, or they, you know, somehow. And so I think that program that utilized Asian American Studies courses really energized our program. [Divya: Yeah.] And it was multi-generational. That class was for high school and college students with college mentors. Then, we created a whole number of other programs. One was for what we called senior fellows. So, these are people who have been in office. And we would invite Congressman Mike Honda, to come and talk and meet the folks who were in the program, for people who wanted to run for office. So that was another one. And then I think there was an internship. So, it was multi-generational. I think that really helped build and maintain the viability of Asian American Studies.

So, in some ways, I would say, that's advocacy through program building. You know, it's actually creating a presence of Asian American Studies through this program. And I think the other part of it was that it actually gave Asian American Studies at De Anza some political power, because now we were tied to all these local elected officials, including members of the Board of Trustees of our own college district and city council members in the city that the college was in. So I think it would have been harder for the college to get rid of, or to question, or to challenge Asian American Studies like the other Ethnic Studies program, knowing that we have all of these people who are kind of now part of the program that you would have to confront or face, should it disappear. So I think that was a way of advocating through program building.

And then another piece, I would say, that is a way of advocating and also bringing the institution to be more of a public champion of Asian American Studies itself, and also recognize Asian American and then Pacific Islander students was... I don't know if you are familiar with the AANAPISI (Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions) program. The AANAPISI program is a federal grant program that was established by the US Department of Education as part of what they call Minority Serving Institutions, MSIs. So MSIs have existed for decades. Historically Black colleges and universities are part of MSIs. Tribal Colleges are part of MSIs. Hispanic Serving Institutions are part of MSIs. And only in 2008, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were kind of the last, the most recently designated, ethnic, racialized, you know, categorized population, for which a federal grant program was created. So AANAPISI, so that was established in 2008 and so there were federal grants given out to universities and colleges across the country, with the purpose of researching, recognizing, advocating for, and serving the needs of Asian American and Pacific Islander students across the country. And so De Anza was one of six colleges and universities in 2008 to receive the first inaugural grants, and we were one of three community colleges.

And so I was involved in that because I was the grant writer, and I became the program director of that program. And through that program, Asian American Studies courses were used as part of our curriculum for students. So if we're trying to retain Asian American and Pacific Islander students, well, wouldn't it be great if they took courses in Asian American Studies or Pacific Islander Studies, which we wrote. We wrote a new course, so we could serve that population better. So again, that's a way of advocating, but it's also through program building. And what was interesting – this is from my point of view – was because this was a federal program, and it received quite a bit of advocacy across the country, and also public attention, and there were researchers who were trying to research these new AANAPISI schools, what they were doing, how they were doing, what their success rates were, and all that. It ended up involving our College President at the time, primarily, and put him in the spotlight, and said, "Okay, you have to go speak on behalf of this program and say something about De Anza and this AANAPISI program, and why it matters to pay attention to Asian American and Pacific Islander students.”

So I think prior to that, it probably was pretty rare across the country for any institution, you know, college or university, for the executive officer to say, "What are the needs of Asian American and Pacific Islander students at a community college or a four year? And what are we doing about them? What do we know about them, and what are we creating for them?" So I think that was a way of really thrusting upon our own college leadership the mantle of now you're going to be accountable for something, and you need to speak about it. So, learn as much as you can, and then be a champion. I think that also was part of the experience of De Anza in terms of advocacy over the years.

Divya Aikat (39:40)
Thank you for sharing that timeline. I appreciated how you emphasized the fact that advocacy is so multifaceted, and there are so many different ways to be involved, whether that's through program building, like you said, or more of an imagined version of protesting and all of the organizing that you've also been a part of. So, along the lines when you were talking about your teaching and this kind of medium experience, serving between these lived identities and experiences of students, and connecting that to the world of academic scholarship and serving in that role. I also wanted to ask you, since you have both been on the student activist and fighting for Asian American Studies at Stanford side, and now you are in a high role in Asian American Studies at De Anza. How would you recommend that students and faculty members find common ground and connect with each other in Ethnic Studies pushes, such as this one?

Mae Lee (40:53)
Yeah, how do they find each other? How do students and faculty find each other? That's a good question. I think, you know, I would say some things I would imagine at a four year university what might be, but maybe I should just speak about... like at De Anza, what would be something exciting for students and faculty, and also productive, from my point of view as a faculty member? So I think, hmm. As a student, you know, I did not interact very much with faculty members. They were very intimidating. [Divya laughs] You know, I didn't want to go to their office hours and sit one on one with a faculty member and prepare what I had to say or- you know, I wasn't that comfortable. So I think that's a hard thing to do for students, to introduce themselves to faculty members that way. And simultaneously on the faculty end, as a faculty we're so busy. Part of the inertia sometimes on faculty is we are made to be so busy that some projects that we might want to do, or advocacy that we want to do, it would have to be on our own time and our own dime, which is overwhelming sometimes. So, I think the institutional environment of a college lends itself to faculty and students not finding themselves. It's not unusual, you know.

Okay, given that, what? You know, I think students organizing, just getting to know each other is important. And you know, some of that is student gumption, some of that is also faculty maybe creating environments and opportunities for students to know each other. I mean, I could flip this around and ask you, how did you know to advocate for Asian American Studies? How did you meet your allies? How did you meet your friends? Because that has to be somehow... If it's not happenstance or accidental, some things have to facilitate that. You know, whether it's in the classroom or outside the classroom. As a faculty member, maybe I have the time and capacity, mental space to do that. Most cases, I think we don't have time and capacity to do that, you know. But I do think if students can find themselves enough as a group to meet with faculty members, to have just that conversation would be so interesting. I think I have seen where students think they're protesting, or they think of advocacy as the protest, right? And so it's like, "We have to demand this." But I think what's also necessary is to have the opening conversation, so that each party can kind of learn what the other is thinking, where they're at, and what can they actually co-create? [Divya: Yeah.]

Because part of- I think what was so valuable in my own undergraduate years is that I had those students, those juniors and seniors and sophomores, in my ear all the time telling me the history of advocacy at the university for Asian American Studies. But that was because they just told me that. No one told them to tell me, you know, and it wasn't in the classroom. But somehow knowing that context, that historical context, then helped me understand, okay, what would we want? How would we advocate for it? So similarly, at De Anza, it would be helpful to know well, what is the history of how this department has unfolded, and how it was established, and where has it been, and what is its road, and what are its challenges? And then we can co-create together to figure out, okay, what would make sense? And what are some possibilities, what are some really far reaches, what are some easy things we can do? I think just that we don't even know each other. [both laugh] [Divya: Yeah.] We don't even know each other. So I think that that dialogue facilitation process is really important, yeah. Especially as departments grow, or they want to grow. You know, I can imagine at a four-year what that would mean.

At a two-year, you know, one of the things that usually stops a community college from developing something is if we offer classes and no one comes. And because we're a public institution, at our institution, we have a minimum number of seats we have to fill. And if we don't fill those number of seats with students, then the class is canceled. And once it's canceled, it doesn't set a good precedent for the next time we ask for that class, because the data says there isn't enough student interest. And so I think on the student end, there's a huge opportunity there just to organize students, to organize, to share. What is Asian American Studies? Would you want to take it? This is what you could take. This is why it would be cool to take it! And then that actually helps build Asian American Studies. The very fun, the very basics, you know, just get students in the classes.

Divya Aikat (46:12)
I think those are all great points that you bring up. When you were talking about focusing on co-creating and understanding both parties and both parties’ interests, I thought that was interesting. Because I think that a lot of times within this organizing process, sometimes from the student side, it can feel like a an "us and them" thing, where there's different approaches, and we can't find that middle ground. And even within student groups, there's a wide range of opinions of what should be done and how it should be done. And I've talked a lot about, both within my student group and with these interviews, ideas of reform versus revolution. Do we take things step by step and have these meetings and go to these events and do these small things that align with the institution? Or take more extreme measures? Like, for example, the building takeover that you described at Stanford. So, I wanted to ask how you've seen both of these ideas play out, [Mae: Yeah.] and what you think the time and place are for each one.

Mae Lee (47:22)
Yes, that's a good question. I think both are needed, and both probably have their results. And of course, they all have their own- Whatever anyone chooses or whatever groups choose to do in any institution or time or place, has its moment, right? Has its context. So the example of the 1989 takeover of the president's office at Stanford, it had, in one way, great results. The following year, the university created hiring committees. They actually did searches. They established two tenure-track professorships. So they went out and they hired two folks, who are still to this day at Stanford. And that basically established the Asian American Studies program at Stanford. So if the goal was to achieve that, it achieved it. Good. [Divya: Right.]

I think one of the things that also happened, and this is to understand the political moment also. Again, going back to the context at the time, you know, this was around a moment where debates around multiculturalism were intense and fierce, and Stanford was just one voice – a big voice – but one voice among many on the national landscape. And there was also a backlash to the takeover. And the students who were participating in it, you know, 55 students were arrested, and probably a couple more hundreds, few more hundreds, were participating in it and actively helping the students. But at the same time, there were other students, you know, like any students today, for any protest or advocacy, some students, eh it's not that important to them, or they actually vehemently oppose or they disagree with the tactics. And they have their reasons, and they can make their arguments.

And so I think in that case, in '89 and then '90, my personal experience was that I lived through a backlash, you know, personally and in the context of the university. For the years after, certainly for the year after, I felt like everywhere I went, I was defending myself and the action. Everywhere. In the classroom, outside the classroom. Because, you know, if you brought up the subject, people would have opinions about it. And sometimes they were very strong and in opposition. And so, you know, personally I learned how to debate and speak and argue and all of that. But it was also, I think, politically, very tiring. And, in the end, some things that also happened where I was part of a student political party, the progressive Students of Color Coalition, which included progressive white students. The takeover was part of this... it kind of fed into a backlash also. And so for the student government dimension of the university, the progressive party lost for a couple of years because there was this backlash. Like, "Oh, students of color, you're too divisive, you're too demanding. We agree with what you want, but your tactics were too extreme. They were too radical." [Divya: Interesting.] And so there was a lot of that. And so, you know, there's wins and there's losses, and they come together sometimes. But if you wanted the tenure track positions established, that we won. [laughs] You know.

Part of the trickiness of that was, though, over the 30 years, that program just remained that size. And, you know, it hasn't become a department. The two faculty were that. There were never any other full-time faculty tenure track positions opened. So it was a struggle then, it was a struggle over the years, and still is a struggle now. I think sometimes, you know, radical things are helpful, and also that it probably worked in that moment, because there was a tide. There was a tide in the country too. There were student actions happening all over in the debate around multiculturalism. So we were acting in that moment. I think on that revolutionary, or more radical or extreme side, yes, there are times when it will be useful, and maybe you get what you want, but you also get some things you don't want too, that you can't calculate and you don't know until it happens. On the other side, reform- I think because Asian American Studies is in the institution of higher ed, it is always doing reform, you know, incremental things. Because you are within a system. And part of what Asian American Studies has struggled over the decades in terms of its own validity institutionally, as an intellectual field of study. And this, what I would say would be in the 80s and the 90s, probably even still today, in places where it hasn't existed. You know that it needs to validate itself through the eyes of others, right? [laughs] Which means other faculty, administrators, board of directors, alumni, students. And that is hard. And to do that, you do have to engage in incremental opinion changing and educational efforts and all of that.

So I think, you know, if you're going to do any extreme measure, like in our case, in the takeover of '89, there were also all the reform measures that were taken up until that point. And then we can say none of the reform, none of the incremental actions we have taken, have led to what we are wanting. And so therefore, now we are going to take the extreme measure. We are not irrational. We are well thought out. We are not just thoughtless about this. But we actually have taken all the steps that the university has already laid out, and none of them have led to the fruition of what we're asking for. Therefore, now we are taking this more extreme measure to get your attention, right? So I think that's why they work hand in hand, the more incremental stuff and the more extreme measures. And, you know, because it's also the institutional setting, you have to play by the rules of the game, because you want to be part of the game, right? [laughs] You're like any other department or program that's there. So...

Divya Aikat (54:11)
Yeah, I think that those are all important notes, and it's good to understand what the correct timing and the overall larger atmosphere of it is in terms of this greater movement. And along those lines, when I was looking through your information on De Anza's website, I found a piece about how in your philosophy, you really emphasize that it's critical to understand these current events with a historical lens. You quoted that "the present is always partially determined by the past." And I wanted to ask how you feel that that's relevant to the fight for Asian American Studies. I think that so many times, with almost everyone that I've talked to, they speak about the Third World Liberation Front and these small seeds of Ethnic Studies that have bloomed into such a vibrant national movement. So how do you think that that past informs Asian American Studies today, and what can we learn from it?

Mae Lee (55:16)
Yeah, thank you for that question. So, I think even my own story about how I was introduced to an Asian American identity was in the context of students telling me about Asian American history at Stanford and beyond. So, you know, I learned about that identity at the same time that these juniors and seniors and sophomores would tell me, "Did you know that Chinese worked on the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s?" Oh, I didn't know that. So they would tell me those things. Or, "Did you know that students have been advocating for Asian American Studies at Stanford for 20 years, and the university has never put any resources in it?" I didn't know that. So I feel like that history informed my understanding of what Asian American Studies is, and Asian American identity. Similarly, because they told that story, this is part of that imagined community idea. You get called into a community, because we repeat the same thing. So, you know, the Third World Liberation Front, 1968, San Francisco State, UC Berkeley, UCLA. So the degree to which I think the present is shaped by- it grows out of something, right? But just because it grows out of something doesn't mean we know that history or we tell that story. And so it's as important to realize that what is developing grows out of something, but then to repeat that story, or to tell a story, or to tell many stories about it.

And so this is interesting, because at De Anza right now, one of the projects I'm working on is working with a student doing the research on the origins of Ethnic Studies, specifically Asian American Studies at De Anza. Like, how did it come about? It actually was established in '69, '70 also. So right up the street was San Francisco State. And then further up, you know, was UC Berkeley. How were we a part of this? Because, you know, I didn't hear of any student protests at De Anza that led to this. But by 1970, the second academic quarter in which Ethnic Studies was offered at De Anza, there was its first Asian American Studies class, which was the “History of Chinese in the United States.” Okay, well, how did that happen? So right now, what we're doing – in the project I'm working on – is trying to dig up whatever archival material we can and talk to people who maybe know, and just to find out the history. And to me, I think to know is good, but I think there's the piece in addition to that, which is, we can build a sense of community if we have some shared history. Like we actually have a historical narrative that we can point to and say, "We connect to this. We feel compelled by this." And there's a we, because we point our finger to some origin story or myth. You know, however broad or vague or accurate it is, but you know, we're kind of pointing together. And when we can point together, then we can say, "Oh, we are a 'we' in this." And then we're like, "Oh, we can do things together," because we share this history, figuratively mostly. Some figurative history of where we've been and maybe where we want to go together.

So, I think that part is really important to me, particularly because in the last few years, especially in 2020, '21 you know the Black Lives Matter movement, and also Stop Asian Hate. What was interesting to observe during the height of media coverage, and you know, online activity around Stop Asian Hate, was how limited the spread of Asian American Studies ideas was. Meaning there were all these webinars online at the time with Asian American Studies faculty trying to teach about the history of Asian Americans in the United States, because so few people knew it. It just wasn't known! You know, even though the field has been around for 50 years, most people, including most Asian Americans, don't know. We don't know anything about Asian American history. And therefore, how do you make sense of violence that targets Asian looking people, and Sinophobia during COVID when you don't have that context, right? That means your analysis can't incorporate that.

And so, I think it was important to realize that, yeah, Asian American Studies is very powerful in its theorizing and its scholarship and its research and what it shares and what it can offer. But it's also a very exclusive community of people who teach it, who read scholarship, and students who take those classes, you know, far and few between. And so Asian American Studies, I feel like the power of it can be- And I think about this particularly because I'm situated at a public, two-year community college, like, what is the power of Asian American Studies if I'm not at an elite, exclusive university? Like, do I just keep it within the bounds of my little college in the classroom? Or can I do something beyond that? And that's kind of what I've been thinking about more, particularly with this history project we're working on. Like, can we then present this history in a way that would be interesting and engaging and exciting to someone who's never going to take an Asian American Studies class, but happens upon the website? Or maybe we go out and we do a road show and share about, "Did you know the history of Asian American Studies at De Anza? Why would it even be relevant to anybody?" So, I think that kind of relates to the question about why is historical reference or context relevant or useful? And to me, I really am thinking about it from the purpose of community building, actually. Gathering a 'we' or making a 'we.'

Divya Aikat (1:01:33)
Yeah, I think that the community aspect is so critical. And in the organizing work, at the beginning, you had mentioned that one of the best traits of an organizer can be that they're friendly. And I think that that is something that will keep you coming back, is having a community, having sustained friendship. And I wanted to talk a little bit about sustainability. So, within our oral history collection, we've spoken a lot about how institutions can wait students out in one way or another. And I'm sure that that particularly resonates with you at a two-year college. And so, I wanted to ask if you have any advice on sustainability for groups. Not only sustaining themselves within the span of their advocacy there, but being able to pass the torch down and keep this going without that burning out?

Mae Lee (1:02:34)
Yeah, that's a really good question. And not only are we a two-year college, we are also a commuter college. So that adds to the challenge around sustainability. I think the first thing is probably to just acknowledge that sustainability is going to be hard. That's going to be an uphill battle no matter what, particularly at a two-year commuter community college. I mean, I can track that there were times when our Asian American student club was powerful and present and important and did a lot of stuff, and all these folks were incredible. And then five years later, they're all gone, you know, or four years later, they're all gone. There's no club anymore. The whole club disappeared. And to add on top of that, you know, we still have a lot of online classes right now, probably more than in-person classes. And then, you know, mental health issues now, because the way we understand mental health issues. I feel like there's a lot of cards stacked against sustainability. And I think that plays out because the sustainable organizing is not that present, I think, right now on our campus. So I think for students to know that it's hard and to then think like you are continually community building.

And it's not just the community that exists now. You are continually seeing the next group that's coming that you are preparing to leave- Like you're leaving, you're on your way out. After two, three years, you're on your way out. But the next group just came in, or they are about to come in. And so it's like building that – I don't know if it's a lineage – but just something like that that carries on. I think it's very difficult. And you know, if I were to be wise, and have a great deal of capacity, I would probably build some training around that. Like you actually would have to prepare students with some attentiveness to that goal of sustainability and then the skills of what does that mean organizationally? If you're a student club, what does that mean? That if you're going to be here – you just entered – or you’re second year, and you're going to stay one more year, but you're going to be gone, and who are the other officers and who's coming in? And I do think that that is asking- It's possible, but it also is asking a lot of students, because it's beyond thinking about themselves, you know. And for a lot of students, college is discovery. You're experimenting, you're trying things, you join a club, you leave a club. But now you're saying, "Think about somebody else that's not you that you want to bring in, and think about them."

It's hard, I think it's very hard. Not to be a total downer on that, but I think it would require some deliberate effort on someone who sees it. So if it's faculty or other students or someone who's, you know, responsible for leadership training or student development on a campus, that would be part of it. And I think our college has it in kind of the student government side, like we have strong leadership development programs. Not specifically… I think for Asian American Studies we don't have that.

Divya Aikat (1:05:58)
Yeah, I think that it can be very difficult. Even the commuter aspect is such an important one, because a lot of meetings in our school happen off hours on campus. And there are all of these hidden organizing resources that just may not be available there. And so, I think that that's something important to note. And then turning around that conversation on sustainability, because it is something that is so difficult, what has internal sustainability looked like for you? And you can speak to this either when you were an advocate in college, or what does it look like now as a faculty member? Thinking about navigating this space to keep the ball rolling, but also to set boundaries.

Mae Lee (1:06:50)
Yeah, sometimes things may work, and maybe they don't. In our case, I feel like we're really small. I think De Anza is probably unique among community colleges, could be in the context of other universities. We are part of an academic division that was originally created as an Ethnic Studies Division, an academic unit. So just like we have a division of Social Sciences and Humanities, we have a division that is essentially Ethnic Studies and World Languages. So that's what we have. Our title is Intercultural Studies and International Studies. It's essentially Ethnic Studies and World Languages classes, with some other things as well. So, the formation of this division gave academic legitimacy to Ethnic Studies. That's one.

Two, my department – Asian American and Asian Studies – is actually a department. That probably doesn't exist at most- Most other community colleges do not have an academic division in Ethnic Studies. And then if they have Ethnic Studies, they do not have departments. So I think structurally, that has given us viability over the years, just to keep existing. You'd have to get- do away with the whole division, or you'd have to do away with this department, which could happen. But I think that helps. And that also gives us some degree of autonomy, like I can hire, I can schedule. I can give a little bit more say in terms of what we're developing. I can write new courses. I think other things, internal sustainability, kind of the structural arrangement, which is what I'm referring to, probably key figures in the positions too. And what I mean by that is in California, because of the legislation in the last few years, at the UC level, the CSU level, high school level, and also community college level. We are all – all of these systems – are now required to have Ethnic Studies. And in some cases, like schools that didn't have it before, they were maybe creating courses or hiring people who didn't actually have that formal background. So I think hiring someone who is invested in building and dedicated to the field really helps too.

And then three, I think, you know, key people. Like, I've had Deans- So I'm a faculty member. I have a Dean. The Dean manages the entire academic division. The Dean really matters. You know, they can clear the path for us in terms of what we do. They can give us the go. Or they can, at least not say no. You know that's a big deal. To just not say no is a big deal. [Divya: Right.] [both laugh] And then they become the advocate to the administrators higher up. And if they understand Ethnic Studies, it helps. If they don't understand Ethnic Studies, it's really hard to translate. And the context of that is, I actually think probably most faculty at our college probably don't know much about Ethnic Studies. Like they probably couldn't really explain it, or they couldn't tell you the history about it. So that makes it really hard, you know, to defend ourselves with our peers sometimes when they don't really know much about our department or our division, which is legitimate, because I know about chemistry to the extent that I took a chemistry class in college, but I don't know that much more about chemistry department and how they teach and all that stuff. And even more so for Ethnic Studies, which is a very politicized field. It's not like something you just neutrally offer usually, [both laugh] people have a conversation about.

So I think those things all matter. And then, of course, key friends in key places and leadership. Do they understand Ethnic Studies, and do they believe in it? And will they go to bat for it? You know, we've had some administrators over the years that say, "Ethnic studies will not disappear on our watch, it just won't. While I'm president of this college, or I'm VP -- vice president -- of this college, Ethnic Studies will not disappear." Well, that's good to know, [both laugh] because there have been times over the, 20+ years that I've been there when the financial situation got really tough. There's budget cuts. There are other faculty members who say, "Well, why don't we consider this department? Ethnic Studies? Like, there aren't that many students who major in it. They don't offer that many classes. Let's get rid of them." That's happened, you know? And what's happened now, I think, external to our institution is the legislation in California. That has transformed Ethnic Studies, including my experience with Asian American Studies. Without that legislation, in my 20+ years at De Anza in Ethnic Studies, I would say there was not much love. There was not much love, you know, in the college or outside the college. Most people didn't know what Ethnic Studies was, you know, and if they did, it probably was pretty contentious.

And so, you know, strategies that people have used, including us, is like, you hide. You hide for 10 years. As long as no one's knocking at your door, you basically do your thing and you hide. You don't try to attract too much attention, because best not someone say, "What are you guys doing? What do you teach? What's in your curriculum?" You know, so hiding is a strategy of survival. Creating programs, like I mentioned earlier, program building is a strategy for survival and advocacy also. Tapping people. Tapping people in other departments. For instance, a lot of our faculty are in other divisions or departments, and we have friends. We have a lot of friends of our department who have nothing formally to do with our department, like counselors. At a community college, the academic counselors are really key. They tell students what classes to take or encourage them, and they set the word of mouth like, "Take this class, take this professor." So, we have a lot of friends with counselors, and they help us. They help us direct students to our programs. That's a way of surviving and sustainability. And then I think now we have the added luxury of the legislation that helps us out. Like we can't go away, because if we go away, we'll be in violation of the law. [laughs] So it's good in that way. But that was amazing to see in the last four years, that that happened. That's the first time that I have seen institutionally and outside of the college, we got a little bit of love. [laughs]

Divya Aikat (1:13:57)
Yeah, I think those are really great points about visibility, especially of Ethnic Studies, which, as you said, is a very politicized field. And that's very important that you have department status so you're able to dig your heels in in some ways that other programs might not be able to. And I think that's also interesting. I haven't thought about counselors and who is advising people to be put in those classes and how that works. So those are all important notes about the inner workings of an institution. So for the last question, we've talked a lot about these details and intricacies of this organizing work. I wanted to ask zooming out, what does it mean to you to be part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

Mae Lee (1:14:51)
That's a good question. I love it. I mean, I feel like, I love Asian American Studies, for so many reasons. I think as a student, it offered me a way... knowing things about Asian American history and talking to people about ideas within Asian American Studies, within the field. I think it allowed me to make sense of my own life. So on a very personal level. It introduced concepts of race, concepts of a politicized identity, as I said earlier. Like that helped me understand that I didn't feel awkward and left out in my high school years or middle school years just because my parents are immigrants, or we didn't look like we were the same race as the predominant majority. It actually had, not just to do with cultural differences, but it had to do with kind of racial identity and belonging, and who represents an American and who's an outsider. Like I would not have come to that kind of, I think, an analysis without the help of Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies in particular. So the language, the ideas, the theories, that has helped me personally.

I think in terms of professionally, like, this is my life's work, and it's great. Everything I do, even if I didn't teach it, I'd read stuff anyway, academic stuff, it's interesting to me. It's like what I think about, it's what I see, it's what I observe, it's what I encounter. It's what I want to try to make sense of. So I feel like, wow, we created a professional place of belonging for me, you know. So that's two. I think three, it's like such a vibrant field. I'm in an institution where I'm not required to research. In fact, sometimes it's difficult to research. It is difficult to research, not sometimes. It is difficult to research at a community college. I'm not evaluated based on the production of my scholarship or research. That has its kind of pros and cons in terms of participating in Asian American Studies, because the field itself, what does that refer to when I say "the field itself"?

I mean the one most concrete example of how it's embodied is AAAS, right? The Association [for Asian American Studies]. And I think for me, this is where it gets a little bit more complicated. You know, what is the place of community college, Asian American Studies, at AAAS? It's hard to say. It's actually kind of hard to say. I think right now, we're a little bit on the outskirts, and we don't know if we belong or if we're wanted, or if we're part of the community. But I love going. I love going because I see friends. I love the workshops, the panels, I learn something. It's intellectually so vibrant, and it's fun to be there. The politics align with mine. But I think, as an institution, hmm, I'm not sure where the space is. So actually, for the last couple of years, I'm trying to carve some space out, just to have a conversation. Community College Asian American Studies programs, should we be here? Or should we be somewhere else? Or where else would we go? Where else is our home? I don't know. So that is something that I've been exploring with people and trying to create community with other community colleges that have Asian American Studies programs, which is increasing, you know, on the day to day level. So I think that's something that's exciting. There's potential and a lot of promise there. I don't know exactly what the path is and how it's going to unfold, but I think it'll be worth exploring, you know?

I feel like Asian American Studies at this point in my life, is very tightly connected to my own sense of identity. Like my personal identity, my professional identity. So thank you, Asian American Studies [both laugh]

Divya Aikat (1:18:53)
Yeah, I think Asian American Studies, for almost everyone that I know, once you get introduced to it and see that, it just exists everywhere. And it's inseparable from daily life. And so I think that that's such a wonderful point and such a beautiful note for us to end on. I just wanted to thank you again for sitting down with me and having this conversation. I think that this will add so much to our collection and bring in so much rich history and perspectives. So, thank you.

Mae Lee (1:19:31)
Thank you. Well, thank you and Christina for initiating this project and working with SAADA to create it, and for all the work you're doing and the effort you're putting into collecting all these oral histories. I really appreciate it. Thank you and thank you for the invitation to participate.