Interviewee: Vishal Vaid

Interviewer: Christina Huang

Date: July 29, 2024

Location: Evanston, IL

Transcriber: Christina Huang

Length: 0:57:55

Christina Huang (00:00:01)
Hello, my name is Christina Huang. Today's date is July 29th, 2024. I am located in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. Today I am here with Vishal Vaid who studied at Northwestern. I was part of the Asian American Advisory Board and became one of the first ever Asian American Studies minor graduates in Asian American Studies. Thank you so much for being here today. Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling in from?

Vishal Vaid (00:00:30)
Certainly. So my name is Vishal Vaid, 2001 graduate from Northwestern University and from the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. It's actually opportune that I got to graduate from the College of Arts and Sciences because that allowed me to have a minor in liberal arts. I majored in computer science, but they actually offered us an option to get that degree as a BA, which allowed me to take the Asian American Studies minor. So it was very fortuitous that that was allowed. I'm actually now living back in Evanston where I went to where I studied for the last two years. And so I've been in Chicago for about 15 years prior. No more actually, ever since graduating. Chicago after graduation. Back to Evanston now. And that's where I'm having this dialog from.

Christina Huang (00:01:28)
It's great that you're still in Evanston. It's a lovely city. I would love to learn a little bit about your childhood growing up. How did that influence your Asian American identity?

Vishal Vaid (00:01:42)
Certainly. Well, I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey.
I was born in Yonkers, New York, and when I was three, we moved to Fort Lee, New Jersey. Fort Lee, New Jersey is right across the George Washington Bridge. A very transient, stepping stone neighborhood. We had incredible diversity: socioeconomic, racial, religious, cultural, etc.. In kindergarten, first and second grade, which were the years that I was there and in preschool as well,(there were) a ton of East Asian friends that I had, many of whom had just recently come from various parts of East Asia. Japan was a predominant contingent, amongst and Koreans as well. And so I was the only Indian kid in my class, but I had plethora of East Asian friends. And so that was comforting in a way because we all had a similar experience. We had recent new immigrant parents. Many of them were actually immigrants themselves. They were not even born in America, but a handful were.

And then we moved, when I was in second grade to Bergenfield, New Jersey. Bergenfield, new Jersey ended up being a little bit different or maybe a lot different, in that it was more, a way less, heterogeneous. It was predominantly white, a little bit of, sprinkle of Black, Asian, and Hispanic. And so it was definitely a bit of a culture shock. The education system was handled differently. It wasn't what I had experienced in Fort Lee. And I stayed in Bergenfield until graduation from high school. And a lot of my experiences were unfortunately tinged with a healthy dose of racism. And so there was a lot of xenophobia, a lot of anti-religious sentiment, lots of anti racial sentiment. A clear example that I can come up with is.. so I played baseball from kindergarten through eighth grade, actually beginning of ninth grade. And the majority of the teammates were of Italian American origin or Irish American origin. Sprinkle again, of some Puerto Rican, some Black and other Hispanic background.

But the racism got so bizarre at times that for instance, I would be up at bat and my own teammates would be chanting racial slurs. While I'm up at bat. And so at one point I started getting a little...And I was very subdued in my demeanor and interaction. That changed a lot towards the middle of high school, But prior to that, I just didn't really have a basis to give responses to people that would make ignorant comments. And so at one point I did. They were chanting while I was at bat in a game, not even at a practice. And I looked in my dugout, I'm like, “I'm on the same team as you”. Like sort of implying, like, “don't you want me to actually get a hit? Don't we want to win this game? Isn't that what's important here, or is it more important that you satisfy whatever urges you have to try to put me down or try to make me less than."

So that was that was a sort of, you know, there was also a concerted effort to try to convert me religiously to a Roman Catholic because that was the majority in our town. And so at one point they found out that I loved pasta. And so they invited me to pasta night every single week. And they would have me at the local church. And friends of mine would say, hey, “we're having a pasta night. You want to come? We know you like pasta”, and then you get there, and then it's a sort of a planned initiative of taking newcomers, feeding them, making them happy, and then asking them about their faith. And as new immigrants, parents that have had, a sort of a Hindu existence for their entire lives and for hundreds of years in their lineage, in their mother country before coming here, they never had to explain their religion. They never had to explain and never had to defend or justify their faith, particularly because we were that's a majority Hindu country. It's just a way of life there. But then they had no way of teaching that to me in a way that I could defend myself with. So I would give answers like, my parents are Hindu, but what is that? Well, I don't really know. Well, do they have multiple gods? I'm like, I think so. Well, you understand that that's a sin, right? That's not how you know the world works. We have one God. His name is this. And you, if you don't pray to him, you're going to go to hell. And don't you think you want to not go to hell? Like your parents should also not want to go to hell, right? And so I would go home confused and I would tell my parents and they again, new immigrants, they didn't have a good way of balancing this out for me. And so I did unfortunately have a lot of pain and confusion and anger towards my race, towards my religion, and towards my country of origin or my parents’ country of origin. I was born here I came I was born a year after my parents emigrated. So, in a nutshell my upbringing and my youth was unfortunately sort of tinged with some of these situations, so to speak, for lack of a better way to put it that did sort of help me establish an identity. Unfortunately, it was an identity of sort of an inferiority complex and an anger towards people that wanted to use those power systems like racism and dominant religion and so forth to make me feel less than.

So that was that was a good portion of growing up, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, because when I did get to college and when I did establish my identity towards the end of high school, I was able to put things into perspective and understand that the people that were doing this had way bigger problems than I did. And were really just acting out on impulses from their parents and otherwise that made them resort to things like that, in order to better justify themselves. And so a couple of sociology classes into college, and you start understanding really quickly that this is all just bullshit that's happening on the ground, so to speak. But there's real issues, and there are real systems in place that have been put in by our predecessors that explain these things and rationalize them and make you realize that this is designed to be this way. Racism is intended to exist. Classism is intended to exist. Sexism and xenophobia are intended to exist because it helps keep the power structure intact. Anyways, long winded answer to a short question.

Christina Huang (00:09:10)
No. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing and I'm so sorry you had to go through that at such a young age and being racialized. Could you explain coming to terms and understanding your identity in high school and then going to Northwestern? How did the transition influence your identity?

Vishal Vaid (00:09:27)
Well, actually, that's a fantastic question. I did competitive debate in high school. When I left baseball, I joined the debate team in 10th grade - a year too late. I should have joined in ninth grade when my friends were begging me to join, but I joined in 10th grade, and I had fabulous experiences with that activity. We read an immense amount of literature, current news, philosophy. Everything from Karl Marx to Malcolm X to Immanuel Kant, like just the gamut. And so you get a crash course. I was from a lower middle class school that did not do very well in the state or nationally, just as far as academics or scholastics was concerned. But because I was on the debate team and because we had to compete with other affluent schools that had access to immense amounts of resources, schools that valued education where mine really didn't in many ways. I got to really wrap my head around a lot of identity building and identity reinforcing leaders throughout history and reading their struggles and learning of how they overcame their struggles. And I would honestly say Malcolm X is probably the best example because I was charged. I do have a political mindset. I do have a mildly revolutionary kind of perspective or anti-establishment perspective that may have been beaten into me through past experiences or maybe just biology. And my mom is a justice fighter as well, in her own right. And my paternal grandmother was actually a political activist in India at a time when women had almost no rights. And she still had death threats against her and so on and so forth. And so with learning those stories had me gave me a political, sort of leaning. And going into college, I went in a completely different person than when I started high school. Let's just put it that way. The middle of high school, when I really started getting deeply entrenched into debate and having to really argue my point, defend my points and so forth, and also getting exposed to some really good worldviews, gave me the confidence, gave me the inner strength, and gave me the resolve and motivation to sort of take on the challenge of adulthood. Take on the challenge of college, and so forth.

And so I did go to college with a good grounding, at least from that standpoint. I was, of course, still very raw and still very unfinished or how do you say unrefined? But yeah, that was that was sort of the turning point that got me. And that's also why when I first got to campus and I saw that there was no Hindi language program and no Asian American studies that before even meeting any student leaders, I got on listservs because I'm very technically inclined, and I just started sending mass emails with petitions and getting people’s signatures to start these programs literally in my first two weeks of my freshman year, which caught the attention of some student leaders that had been there for 2 or 3 years already and got me recruited into sort of the struggle and the fight for - I originally was more and more motivated by the Hindi language program. It pissed me off that a language that’s spoken by over a billion people worldwide was not even remotely represented at Northwestern's campus, which, by the way, had a student population that had about 8-10% Indian people. And so it was bizarre. And so that was my, my initial sort of fight and then it sort of got absorbed into the Asian American Studies fight because there are similar fights. And so then when I got to see the big picture and acclimated into the Asian American Advisory Board and so forth, then it was a natural fit because it was already something that I went there wanting, and it just sort of made the struggle bigger, and more actionable, because then I was linked up with student leaders that were already doing this and was able to plan and create some of the action around these concepts and these fights.

Christina Huang (00:14:00)
Yeah, totally. That's so admirable and fantastic that you had this transformation in going just two weeks in college and going to petition. I've read that you came and you didn't know about the predecessors before you. So what was your engagement like? What role did you take up with the Asian American Advisory Board (AAAB)?

Vishal Vaid (00:14:24)
Well, my freshman year, I ended up, I joined AAAB, but I was just a member. But I became the political action chair of the South Asian Student Alliance in freshman year. And so I had I'd already begun sort of because of the work that I'd already done all year. And people already recognized my name because they were like “oh you're the one sending all those emails”. Yes. That's me. And so they would be like, “oh, it was annoying, but you have a great message and we totally support you”. So then I became the political action chair for the South Asian Student Alliance, and that got me (in). Then you basically have a leadership role within the AAAB as well. So all of the student groups that were sort of individually inclined, whether it be the Korean students, the South Asian students and so forth, would have sort of a tie in or hook into the AAAB, And so that's how I got linked up with a lot of Asian American Advisory Board leaders, was sort of by default, not only through invitation from outside, but then also from the inside when I actually gained an actual student leadership role, or position, as well. And so then I was always a liaison to the Asian American Advisory Board by that purpose, by that function. But then I also started attending meetings independent of the South Asian Student Alliance to get more politically active within the AAAB as well. And that led us to other struggles. So the AAAB would link up with the Hispanic Students Association, the Black Students Association. We didn't even have Martin Luther King as a holiday when I got to campus, but because AAAB had influence, because the Hispanic Students Association had influence or is called Casa Hispana, and because, For Members Only, the Black organization had influence. And then collectively, we had even stronger influence. We were able to fight for things that applied to everybody, like MLK day. And so yes that was sort of the, the way into the AAAB, and then what we could do within the AAAB to make a bigger change on campus and beyond as well. And so of course, along with that was Asian-American studies, the fight for that. Fighting with the administration, so on and so forth, which I'm sure you're going to get to in your questioning.

Christina Huang (00:16:48)
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I would love to hearing and seeing the racial solidarity that was happening, right? That Asian American Studies doesn't happen in isolation. And it's important for all groups to come together and work towards the goal of whether it be a holiday or ethnic studies. So during your time. It was roughly like four years prior. There was an intense hunger strike. But it took quite some time to actually get the Asian American Studies program implemented, and get the core faculty lines What was that struggle like with administration, especially a large, faceless institution, that often doesn't listen to student demands?

Vishal Vaid (00:17:36)
Yeah. Well, fortunately, some of the freshmen that hunger struck were Seniors by the time I got there. And so that Freshman year was really beautiful from that perspective, because we still had some remnants of those original hunger strikers that were still pushing and pushing and making sort of a stronger and stronger case for Asian American studies. And so partnering with them, working with them, arranging rallies with them, arranging protests with them was the sort of the passing of the baton that was needed. And I was a freshman, so there were juniors, sophomores and other seniors that were also involved. And so we almost because as the original hunger strikers were graduating - and some of them were still coming back to campus, because if they were still living in Chicago or pursuing graduate studies or something like that in Northwestern as well, they would still be in the meetings and they would still lend their experience and tell their stories and so forth to continue to motivate the next crop. And so I was on the young end of that next crop. And so, we were able to continue their struggle and their fight and were able to arrange, I want to say that it was in my Freshman year - but maybe by then it was my Sophomore year. My sophomore year, when I was the president of the South Asian Student Alliance, we arranged a protest of about 600 people, across the AAAB, and throughout the entire rest of the campus, to fight for Asian American studies specifically. And so that, that protest, basically caught the attention of the administration and got them to realize that this isn't going away. The hunger strikers they may have mostly graduated by now, but the struggle is still there. The demand is still there. Most importantly, I think it was important to continue to convey to them that not only did we want the program to exist, but that we were itching to take those classes. We were itching to find them the professors. We were itching to eliminate all the excuses that they were making as to why the program shouldn't exist, and that itch was only turning into a greater and greater sort of urge, so to speak. And so that, it sort of made it cemented in the administration's eyes that they're going to have to start taking it seriously. Otherwise it's going to get more and more embarrassing. The hunger strike was embarrassing for the university, but it was considered a one-off, I feel.

As that those freshmen that were in the hunger strike were becoming seniors, they had years of experience in talking to media, bringing media to campus, having media interview the administrators and asked them embarrassing questions like with a 25% student body, and I'm just making that number up I know it was somewhere around there, that's Asian American, why are you guys not implementing a program? Is there a racial component to this? Is there a xenophobic component? Is what is the excuse? What is the reason and the reasons that they would give: Not enough demand, not enough resources, no professors, were of course all bullshit. And we were able to debunk a lot of those excuses and make them just obvious that they were just excuses and not grounded in fact. And then we're able to get them to realize that this isn't going away and there's no reason to continue resisting this. And that's why in 2000 the minor was created. And that's why in 2001, myself and one other, I think her name was Tammie Leung, where the first minors in Asian American studies in Northwestern history.

Christina Huang (00:21:45)
Yeah. Thank you. That's amazing. To keep pressuring administration and being resistant. Being like you can't make us back down. That's brilliant.

Vishal Vaid (00:21:54)
Yeah, and it's all and ultimately doesn't even make any sense.

Christina Huang (00:21:58)
Yeah.

Vishal Vaid (00:21:59)
You know, it just reveals almost an ignorance and just a sort of, a stubbornness or maybe worse, maybe there was a racial component for a while. Maybe there was a sort of “why?”. You're going to be doctors and engineers, whatever. Anyways, why do you even care about this? That's a very common thing that's done with immigrants, especially immigrants that have a focus in specific areas. That's the reason that they came here in the first place, right? Our parents didn't necessarily come here - I don't know if you were born here or not - but they didn't come here expecting their kids to be entrenched in liberal arts necessarily. They came here for economic opportunity. They're looking for their children to do things that can make it legitimized as towhy they came. And so I think the flip side of that is that's the assumption that everyone has of us anyways. And that sort of becomes a vicious cycle. And those that do want to branch out and not be doctors, lawyers and engineers, get typecast or get stereotyped against and maybe that was another thing. Like “who cares? We're going to put this minor in here and who's even going to take these classes? They're all busy in the technology lab anyways”. So, we need to obviously make that clear that's a narrow minded, untrue assumption to have and work back from that.

Christina Huang (00:23:29)
Those are brilliant points. Could you walk me through like the importance of Asian American studies and ethnic studies, especially coming from a computer science background. A lot of times in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) neglects the importance of social sciences and humanities. So as someone does STEM what is the importance of bringing these fields into your work?

Vishal Vaid (00:23:54)
I would say, of utmost importance. And I think the way to crystallize it is just because you're a Stem student doesn't change the fact that you're a fucking human. It doesn't. It doesn't mean that you don't have a history. It doesn't mean that you don't have experiences that shape your identity and your position in life or disposition. It doesn't mean any of that. And so it is so fulfilling to understand who the hell you are and where the hell you came from, and why the experiences that you're having outside of STEM, aka your real life, why they're happening. It makes you feel less alone. It makes you feel less, unimportant. It makes you feel less marginalized. STEM can be a crutch that “All of this stuff is going on. At least I'm smart and can do my job well”. We don't expect that of most other groups in our lives. We expect them to have a well-rounded existence. We expect them to be full people, confident in themselves, secure in their history, secure in their experience, and also good at their jobs. And so I think it's vital to - the types of classes that I was lucky enough to take, explaining the various elements of the diaspora, the various experiences that different groups had to face throughout different periods of time in the United States. It’s just a knowledge and it's a fulfillment that can take you into any career path, because you're just better understanding yourself. And so with that, you can approach any profession with a stronger sense of being and a stronger sense of purpose. So THAT’s why.

Christina Huang (00:26:14)
Yeah, totally. So we're not just machines at work. And it's important with our interpersonal relationships, but generally as a whole to interact with our communities and things like that. So when it comes to a lot of these things aren't just like deliverables, right? It's hard to write down paper. But often when we advocate for Asian American studies, we have to use the language and currencies that the university understands. How do we advocate for this community building, identity building wise while simultaneously using almost capitalist tools. Sorry does that make sense?

Vishal Vaid (00:26:46)
It does. No, I think actually, because that is ultimately what it comes down to. And I think in the case of the school, I think they noticed that there was probably a greater proportion of alumni that weren't giving back that were of Asian American heritage. And that was at least a threat that we would put out there, that I won't give a dollar back to the school after I get out of here, because you guys made our lives complicated, and you didn't give us basic things that other schools of the same stature are able to give to their students. So that was one "capitalist-minded” threat that we had at our disposal. I haven't given the rest of that that question enough thought to really rationalize it, but it's I mean, I think that even that one example is just a way of hitting them where it hurts because they want their endowment to grow, they want their alumni engaged. They don't want their alumni pissed off and talking shit about them in this day and age, especially on social media, Twitter and whatnot. And so it's in their best interest to hear their students, particularly their masses of students that are demanding things. And ultimately I guess what's the cost benefit drawback of starting a new program that is popular and is going to attract students to come to the campus? It seems like it pays for itself pretty quickly. If you realize that if you if the concept of Asian American studies is important to an incoming freshman and they're looking at schools that have programs that can... I guess the unfortunate thing is most high school students don't realize that this is something that should be important to them. And so maybe what I'm about to say doesn't, doesn't actually hold water. But if they want to see who has Asian American studies programs as to where they want to select their school, Northwestern should show up on that list, shouldn't it? Otherwise it might get overlooked by another school. So that doesn't necessarily help Northwestern keep its dominance in the sort of their economic, sort of empire that they have such a immense war chest. But yeah. I want to better answer your question. That's a really good question. And I'm going to give that one more thought. I love to hear. I'd love to hear some of your some of your ideas on that since you came up with the question.

Christina Huang (00:29:25)
Yeah, I we've been thinking about a lot because it's hard because I don't want to reduce students needs down to like data points or numbers...

Vishal Vaid (00:29:36)
You're not doing it. They're doing it. You're just playing a game

Christina Huang (00:29:40)
That's fair, but then when each market studies gets institutionalized, that's what happens, right? What does drives numbers and what drives money. But that's not always what the community needs. Like sometimes our Asian American needs to go into our local Chinatowns and Koreatowns and things like that to that supportn elders and things like that. But that doesn't make money or doesn't look as good as in paper. So it's hard to sometimes you balance the two. But I've heard the same thing with students trying pulling alumni being like alumni won't support the university. Talking about demand. Asian Americans are one of the fastest racial groups growing in the country. How do you not have any programing or professors in teaching and any studies programs? It's it's hard to balance.

Vishal Vaid (00:30:27)
Well I mean I think an easy thing to also do at times is to just, go with some programs that are a given. African American Studies is a given. If you don't have that as a school, you're going to be lambasted. Now, why aren't we asking what the viability is from a cost benefit perspective for African American Studies? Why aren't we assuming that African American STEM students don't necessarily need African American Studies to better understand their lives or their histories or their socioeconomic, disposition and so forth? No, we've agreed as a civilization that all those are absolutely important, and they are absolutely important for any group. So what did African American Studies have to do to convince academic institutions that irrespective of what majors these students are selecting, they need a program that helps them understand them, or that helps people that are not even in that racial group better understand them. Same exact thing applies to Asian American studies. Same thing. Same exact thing applies to Hispanic Studies. And we don't ask these questions when it comes to other programs. Why do we have to ask them for Asian American Studies? Isn't it just basically every group should have the opportunity to take coursework that helps them to flesh out their knowledge and their understanding of the experience of the different groups that exist in this world. But of course that’s very pie in the sky. It's not down to brass tacks and it's not down to data points. But I mean that's a very sort of reasonable comparison to make.

Christina Huang (00:32:21)
Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of people have taken inspiration from Black activists, Latino, Chicano, Indigenous studies, especially from how they've petitioned and advocated for their studies programs alongside of frameworks and aesthetics for their Asian American studies programs. Shifting the gears a little bit, I want to hear a little bit more about solidarity and community building. You touched on it earlier, but what did that like look like for you at northwestern?

Vishal Vaid (00:32:52)
I thought it was inspiring. I thought it was great because everyone had the things that they wanted to achieve for their own groups. But it was thankfully understood that a lot of those individual struggles couldn't just happen from constituents and within those struggles themselves, that they needed a broader audience to support them in order for them to be more effective in their own tasks. And so to have Black students, Hispanic students, White students join the Asian American Studies struggle, and for us to do the same for their struggles, was very refreshing. And the fact that there was that understanding, of course, it wasn't friction free, because ultimately people still want to get their stuff done first if they can, because they feel that their struggle is more important than anyone else's. And that's just, that's humans. Most of the time we were able to build solidarity and get enough representation from outside of our own group to help further our causes. And so that was great. And then of course, when there's common things - and not everybody thinks that MLK is a common thing, they see that as a Black struggle. But if you think about that, take a take a couple of Asian American studies classes and see when Asian Americans actually were able to start getting some level of political influence, start getting some rights in this country to vote, own land, so on and so forth. It's almost exclusively because of the civil rights movement that Asian Americans were able to even come here, have rights here and be able to prosper here. So MLK is very universal. Because that was I mean, he was there for a tremendous portion of the civil rights movement that benefit not just Black people, but every other minority as well. And when it came to “common fights” so to speak, it was thankfully not hard to build that solidarity because there was already some underpinnings of it already in place with the support that they were able to build and help with their own struggles in the first place.

Christina Huang (00:35:20)
Yeah, that's impressive to hear. I love hearing, how groups are working together. And it's also hard because you can't reach liberation without liberation for all. Right. Talking about equity for all.

Vishal Vaid (00:35:34)
I mean, I remember there was “Take Back the Night”, which is, domestic violence, a very feminist-ingrained the event that takes place every year, events like that would just gain widespread support. Ethnic groups would be involved. Gender groups would get involved. Political groups would get involved. Fraternity boys would get involved because you just understood what was right. And if you were looking at things from the right perspective, you would participate in things that were definitely good for everybody. It might take some convincing or some eye opening or some awareness-raising. And that's what the case with any struggle. And it's never easy. I hope I'm not painting a picture that shows that that that tries to make it seem like this was all a cakewalk. This was actually a lot of really fucking hard work. And often at the expense of going to class, being awake at class, studying for exams. And so that's the problem with being a strong student leader is that you kind of have to really balance a tremendous amount of work put towards your involvement as a student leader and trying to get other students to take time away from their personal, academic, social lives to be a part of struggles. But when there's an energy and when there's a spirit, then it's something that can actually become reality. And so that was a part of it and it was just sort of building and keeping that energy going in that spirit of we're going to we're going to make this place better. We're going to make this place better. And if it's not better for us, at least it'll be better for those that come after.

Christina Huang (00:37:29)
Yeah. And that's such a great point you made at the end. And I would love to learn how did you set boundaries with this? There's an emotional toil to it, there's a lot of labor, you're a student, but organizing was at the forefront of your work. How did you navigate that? How did you navigate that situation?

Vishal Vaid (00:37:49)
Very inefficiently. My first two years were harder years than my last two years. And I really had to, from an academic standpoint, I was way more involved in being a student leader. And also I was starting a business at the same time in technology that I actually continue doing to this day, in a slightly different fashion. But it started when I was a student. Actually I came from sort of a more middle, lower middle class background, so I didn't have the same luxuries that a lot of other students had at the school. I wanted to have the same fun they were having. But I didn't have the means to necessarily do it, so I had to go make those means. So I was working constantly, and I was organizing constantly. So, yeah, academics were sort of third, for a while. And then when that started being a problem, then I had to I had to figure out how to balance better. But I joke about this, but it's actually true. Because of debate. Because I was able to read so much and be able to look while you're reading for the gold in the text, especially my liberal arts classes, I was able to read about 25% of the material, but still understand it enough and be able to explain it enough, or maybe even bullshit enough, if that's the way you're trying to portray it, to get the grade, to get the point across, to get the A. And so it's a little harder to do that in the sciences, but, I think that's what it came down to, is sort of drawing from a variety of experiences from high school and beyond to be more efficient with academics to still get a respectable GPA, but also make time and priority for things that I found even more important at the time like work or like student organizing.

Christina Huang (00:39:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vishal Vaid (00:39:50)
You got to get creative. You got to get creative. It's a part of trying to become an adult somehow.

Christina Huang (00:39:57)
That's so true. And you're right. It is such a privilege to be in these organizing spaces because not everyone has the stability, the financial stability and support to be doing these things. And I'm amazed that you got creative. You did what you could. You use past skill set that you had to really make sure that you could balance all the work that you had to do. And I'm sure like you're very grateful. Like, I'm so glad that you got to experience, Asian American Studies minor. And also, your son, I believe fifth grade, wrote about the hunger strike in his report.

Vishal Vaid (00:40:31)
And he was able to interview one of the stars of the entire movement,Sumun Pendakur, she was the most inspiring leader I've come across in my entirety of my academic experience. And so I asked her, “hey, my son wants to write about and an era in history that's worth encapsulating and he's heard about what I've had to do on campus and stuff like that. Would you would you let him interview?” And she's like, oh my God, yes of course. So yes, he did get to interview her and ask some fun questions. And and was able to write a report about it. So. Yeah, that was fun.

Christina Huang (00:41:19)
Oh. That's amazing. He must be so in admiration because my dad is part of this movement.

Vishal Vaid (00:41:24)
He's 16. He has no admiration for his father at the moment At this point, he's also a know it all. And he thinks that his dad's probably just an idiot. Give him a couple years!

Christina Huang (00:41:37)
He'll appreciate it by the time he goes to college and he inevitably thinks about Asian American Studies, he's think that's really cool that my dad did that.

Vishal Vaid (00:41:49)
Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Christina Huang (00:41:50)
Yes, of course I mean that wholeheartedly. I understand as a teenager the things that my parents I didn't think that was so cool, but going to college and experiences and intellectualizing it was fascinating. And I want to hear more. So he'll probably come back soon ask more questions. But talking about this like intergenerational passing the baton that you had mentioned before. What would you pass down to a new coming group of students and what strategies to implement?

Vishal Vaid (00:42:25)
Like. It's a great question. It's a lot harder when I'm this removed from that that time in history. But no, I think it's very important for the next generation, so to speak, to realize certain things. I think what it comes down to is nothing is set in stone. Nothing is so firm and so undoable that you can't fight for it, that you can't start a movement for it. And whether that ends up being a racial or religious or cultural or national movement, I think it's irrelevant. I think what experiences you have that shape who you are and that drive a certain type of interest, it's important to know that you can actually make change. It's important to know that if you work hard enough at it, get enough people to realize it, that you can raise awareness about it and that you can pull it off. And I think that's a little harder for the new world view, to sort of convey to people because our news is coming from all over the place, we may not even be able to verify the integrity of it or the authenticity of it. We don't all sit around and watch the same thing every single day on the news or on the late night TV and so forth. So we all do have a totally different set of experiences and exposures that get us to this place. And so it is very hard to understand where you're at. Understand what you can and can't do. And so that's the first thing I would say is that “yes these things are possible”. In a world where we had less social media, where we had less exposure to be able to spread a message, things were able to get done. Now, if we use the tools that we have at our disposal, like many do with social media, with political action and just making change or just understanding the world around you, you can use those tools to even further maximize these ambitions that you have. But dedication, focus, work, hard work, those are still very timeless. And those are still those are still requirements. It's impossible to make any of these big things happen without that. So as far as strategies, I kind of feel like leveraging today's tools, but still having a lot of the same things that we were able to do. Right? We had to meet, we had to plan, we had to organize. We had to find a way to reach out to people to get them to take us seriously. Those strategies are still timeless. It's just, how do you do that in today's world? How do you do that? When maybe power structures are even deeper ingrained. Do you fight fire with fire? Do you fight fire with water? How do you make this happen? That is actually a great question. And the next crop of people that want to that come into this fold and are looking for that path to adulthood through college.

That's an interesting question. I don't think I have a very great answer. But when it comes to Asian American studies, knowing who you are is something that really shouldn't ever change, you know? And I think the whole concept of Asian American Studies is going to continue to grow or morph as we have more and more generations here. If you look at the British model, Indians in Britain, they're like five generations in now. And now in America, we're only about three generations in maybe only two. And so what it means to be an Asian American is evolving. I kind of would love to know from a professorial point of view how that changes, how they actually plan on teaching children. I think there's enough in our recent news with everything from Covid to other elements of anti-Asian hate or Asian hate, whatever the term is, to have a relevant sort of catalyst to inspiring incoming freshmen to want to take such a program seriously because the world hasn't changed enough. There are still stereotypes. There's still, xenophobia, there's still racism. It's just in sort of different manifestations and taking on a different form. Sadly, I think what happens with the concept of racism, and this even happened when I was growing up, is that there will be groups that will band together, and those could be other marginalized groups as well can actually join up with white people to make themselves feel a little bit better about themselves, and take it out on a new group like Asian Americans. I was actually convinced, not directly, but it was very well understood that if I joined the white students that I went to school with in coming down on Blacks and Hispanics, that I would have a second place. I could be second place if I could put down third and fourth along with first place. I'll never get first place - that I had to be okay with. I'll never be number one, but I can be number two if I helped number one put down three and four and. That hasn't really changed yet. When it comes to racial politics, it's very common to see other groups join the majority in putting down another minority. So I think it's important to articulate to the new crop that the world hasn't changed enough for this not to still be important. In fact, it may be more important than ever just to sort of continue growing us into more well-rounded, more well-informed, more knowledgeable people, to be better at this America experiment than ever before. And so that's why. I don't think I answered your question. I went all around.

Christina Huang (00:49:21)
No, I think that's really important to talk about. When I was thinking about this , especially at the end, about how white supremacy has crafted this racial hierarchy, and you see it now, especially with overturning affirmative action. You see Asian Americans trying to ban DEI policies that we as a racial group have benefited greatly from. And so I think there's something also inherently very violent about depriving marginalized communities of the education of strong history of a radical history of different racial groups coming together '68-'69, in the 90s calling for ethnic studies strikes and things like that and how the way that groups are pitted against each other very strategically. And I think that's why it's important that we're here today to talk about how do we combat that. So thank you so much for your advice. I think that was a lot of great advice. And so I think that's what's important. I also wanted to ask you're talking about, in organizing, and a lot of work that you do. I've noticed when I reach out to folks, there are not a lot of South Asians. Who have been documented doing this work or invisiblized. And I want to ask about your experience, either visibility and invisibility of your work that you've done.

Vishal Vaid (00:51:00)
It's no dirty little secret that, South Asians feel like they were just kind of grouped together with East Asians and called Asians. So I think a lot of Indian or South Asian people already have a South Asian identity, that's not as all-encompassing as an Asian American identity or an Asian identity, but it's still a very strong and significant one that they're having to wrestle with on its own. And so it does take a little bit of coaxing. It does take a lot of convincing to show South Asians that their experience is not isolated to just South Asians. That it is part of a larger Asian or Asian American experience. So many similarities between how new immigrants are viewed and treated. The concept of “model minority” is not exclusive to Indians. It's very much inclusive of the rest of the Asian diaspora as well. And so, I think that's part of it that Indians, Pakistanis, other South Asian groups or nationalities just feel like they're on their own. They don't feel like there's this this larger or that there's any benefit to joining a larger sense of awareness because they're working through it themselves and that they're going to figure it out. It's very myopic, but it is very real. That said some of the strongest Asian American leaders that I've, I've had the benefit of working with, one of the one of whom I just mentioned, a couple of minutes ago, you know, are South Asian. They get it. Are they in the minority? They might be. And I think a lot of that actually gets explained by Asian American Studies that, again, a lot of us were brought here to not think about politics, to not think about sociology. We were brought here with a very specific objective. And we were brought here; many of us were brought here with the luxury of education. Either our parents came with bachelors or masters (degrees) and were able to find white collar work very easily. Or at least had an understanding that if you don't educate your kids, you're fucked, right? And so within a generation are able to do what they need to and luck out by not falling victim to social disease like so many other groups throughout American history have. And are able to pull that off. And so they're just focused in areas that don't really allow them to come together, don't really allow them to think bigger picture. And it's maybe only until the next generation that were born and raised here that they get to really have that luxury to embrace these larger ideas or even consider them in the first place when they're not just busy grinding away all day, at their jobs. So I think there's maybe a couple of explanations for why there's not so much South Asian involvement in a larger Asian American or larger Asian understanding. But I would think that those would be some of the two top ones that I could come up with.

Christina Huang (00:54:36)
Yeah, really? I have one last question. My last question for you is what does it mean for you to be part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

Vishal Vaid (00:54:53)
I think in my 20s it was profoundly impactful. It was a pleasure and a blessing to be involved that way. To be so politically active, to be so influential. I never thought I'd have influence the way I was able to have influence. They were calling me. I would get called almost daily by the paper to be asked about any topic. Because I was so loud and so vocal, and so I tried at least to be a sane mind, not just a loud mind. And so it was awesome. It was incredible. 30s and 40s are a little bit different, right? You don't pay as much attention if you're not in that space mentally or professionally. And so I think I've drifted away, unfortunately, from a lot of that energy and that feeling that I had in my 20s or late teens, early 20s, when I was able to be a part of those things. It's actually strange that that you come across, you come up around this time because maybe this last year or two was the first time where I've actually in over a decade, said, I don't know why I stopped being so active. I got busy, married, kids, business, jobs, buying a house, do this and that. I lost touch, and actually, it's funny, it's probably, like I said in the last year or two where I've been like “this was something that was significant”. It's something that I want to model again for my kids and for my nephews and nieces to get them to understand the importance of this. And so I think I had a period where I just didn't pay much attention to it either, kind of a part of the problem again. But no, I think with reflection comes awareness, self-awareness. And so I think I'm getting that feeling again. And maybe being close to campus again has stirred some of that up again perhaps, or maybe it's just maturity or a combination of the two. But I am wanting to reconnect with that. Whatever shape that ends up taking, I'm not quite sure, but yes, I think maybe because I had such a great overall experience, a rough one, but a great one all the same that I want to find ways to connect with that again.

Christina Huang (00:57:48)
Yeah. That's beautiful.

Vishal Vaid (00:57:49)
And I think I think there's value in doing so, like I said, for the next generation.