Interviewee: Jane Sung E Bai

Interviewer: Christina Huang

Date: August 9, 2024

Location: Brooklyn, NY

Transcriber: Christina Huang

Length: 1:32:30

This transcript has been edited by the interviewee for clarity and accuracy. Christina Huang (00:00:00)
Hello, everyone. My name is Christina Huang. Today's date is August 9th, 2024. I'm recording from Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA Today. I am very honored to have Sung E Bai, who was a graduate student during the 1996 ethnic strikes at Columbia. Thank you so much for being here today. Would you like to introduce yourself and explain where you're calling in from?

Sung E Bai (00:00:25)
Sure. Thank you for inviting me to do this really important work. My name is Jane Sung E Bai, some people know me (as Jane) from back then, I'm calling in from Brooklyn, New York, The land of the Lanape. I was a graduate student at the time of those strikes in 1996. And during that time, previous to that time, I was active in the Asian - American community in the social justice movement. And since that time, I have also been playing different roles.

Christina Huang (00:00:59)
Yes, totally. Thank you so much for your introduction. I love to start learning about your identity based experiences. Could you share about your upbringing and how that influences your identity?

Sung E Bai (00:01:16)
Yes. So I was the first person in my family to be born in the United States. I refer to my parents as accidental immigrants, not necessarily planning to move here. But I was born here, and my father was able to bring his entire family from Korea to New York, as well as my older brother who was born in Korea. So I was born and raised in New York. We lived in multiracial, working class neighborhoods. And, you know, I just grew up as a child, right? But as I started to get older, especially when we moved, ended up moving to Long Island right on the border with Queens, the environment changed for me. It really felt like it was mostly white. And while there were people of color and immigrant families, we were kind of seen marginally to the majority of the residents of that area. And as a student in junior and high school, I actually moved through these different cliques, these different groups. So I was part of the group that was really smart and in the AP classes and co-president of the class for three years and organized events, etc. And then I was part of a group of people who were always in the general purpose room, all people of color, mostly Black and brown. Some people there were into punk music, different kinds of things as a different kind of community. And then I was also friendly with people who were newly arrived immigrants. Their families had just come. Some of that was the pressure from my parents who were like “Hey, you better be nice to this person because they just moved here.” So I started to feel a little bit of an identity crisis during that time because different incidents would happen, which really spoke especially to the racialized, the racialization of me in this context. And I didn't understand it. I didn't have consciousness; I didn't have the political awareness to really understand what this was all about. But I experienced sexual violence in my senior year of high school and didn't tell anyone, felt shame, didn't understand it. And when I went off to college in my first semester, I experienced sexual violence again. And so that period of time where it was just like confusion, a lot of different experiences, not knowing how to make sense of it, I really spiraled, like it was a downward spiral for me. When I came back to school in my first year spring semester, I stumbled across a protest happening on campus and it was an anti-apartheid protest and I'd never been to one before. I didn't even know about [South Africa’s] apartheid. It's an indictment against public education because I was never taught about this in my school. And after this protest, I went to my first political meeting that evening. And then that was just the path that I ended up taking. So I educated myself. I learned from a lot of important mentors. I learned about systemic oppression, the intersection of gender and race. And I just had this incredible awakening and became very active on my campus, and even got kicked out of school for a year because of my activism. But I did end up finishing. So that was the college era when I cut my teeth on political activism.

Christina Huang (00:05:18)
Yeah. I’m sorry to hear about your experiences with sexual violence, and I appreciate you opening up and sharing that story with me. I would love to hear more about your involvement, like you mentioned, getting kicked out of school in that experience and how that tied in to getting involved in community organizing.

Sung E Bai (00:05:46)
Initially, my view was very narrow. It was very centered on myself, like what’s going on with me, and feeling helpless and disempowered. Learning about what was going on in South Africa and then broadening up to what was happening in the history of the United States and in other countries helped me to have a mindset that I'm just one small piece of this larger universe. And so that passion and drive and commitment I had to be part of something that was larger than just myself, came from understanding that what happened to me was not about me personally but it was about the conditions of society. Why certain things happened to me happened because of systemic oppression. That happened because of the culture of oppression that gets created and sustained because of systemic oppression. Every moment was about how I keep learning more intellectually, and also learning through activism and organizing. And I learned so much, as many generations have. As a student activist, you learn how to organize. You learn how to build relationships. You learn how to connect the dots. You learn how to fight the power, right? You learn how to fight institutional power. That was a really important environment, a laboratory, for me to then come back to New York City after college. I thought, okay, I’m going to go on to graduate school–because when I was an undergrad, I was fortunate to have an academic mentor, Professor Henry Louis Gates, who encouraged me to come into his graduate level seminar with Wole Soyinka, who had recently been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. That was an amazing experience.

That same semester, Rocky Chin, an Asian Americanist and lawyer, was brought into the law school to teach Asian American Civil Rights and the Law. I was the only undergraduate allowed to enroll in that class. That was really fateful because in that class, my project was with a group of other law students on anti-Asian violence. That’s how I learned about the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV) in New York City. We didn’t have email back then so it was calling, writing letters, waiting for the packet of newsletters to come from them and learning about the work that CAAAV was doing at the time. When I came back to New York, I took a year to work and apply for graduate school. I particularly sought out organizations that were about countering violence against Asian women in particular. That's how I got involved with the New York Asian Women's Center, which at that time, had a view based on its grassroots origins in terms of organizing and issues related to violence against Asian women. I was an advocate, and later helped facilitate the advocate trainings and served on its Board of Directors. But at the same time, I was also getting involved in more politically active campaigns. There was ad hoc organizing around different kinds of issues and I got involved.

Then I got into Columbia graduate school. My plan at the time was to successfully complete my first year and get a 5-year fellowship to complete my PhD. During that first year, I kept my head down, taking classes and leaving campus right after as I spent most of my time organizing in the community. When I got the five-year fellowship, I thought, okay, great, I'm going to get my Ph.D. probably go on and maybe teach or something, but I'm going to continue to do my activism. So that was kind of my life and my plan. For a while, I was living parallel lives, one in community activism, and one in academia. I did start teaching Asian American Women’s Literature as an adjunct instructor at various schools and encouraged the students to volunteer at community organizations.

But then as I started my 2nd year of graduate school, I had to decide what I was going to study. I knew it would be Third World feminism, Black women's feminism and Asian American literature. But when I looked around, there weren't any Asian American Studies classes. There was nothing. So I thought, okay, if I want to do this, sure, I can go outside of Columbia and get mentors to help me (which I did–two of my three Masters’ panelists were Asian Americanists from the West Coast). But there needs to be something here at Columbia. So that's what started me looking around, asking around, has there ever been anything? And I found out that there was a group of Asian Barnard students the year before who had gotten the first Asian American Studies course taught at Barnard College. During my first year of grad school when I wasn't paying attention to campus happenings, they had organized because of some anti-Asian incidents that happened. They did some guerrilla tactics, plastering fliers up, etc. and apparently they had convinced Barnard to bring someone onto their campus to teach an Asian American Women's Studies course as an adjunct instructor. So as far as I know that was the first time that we ever had something like that on the Morningside campus.

So in my second year, as I couldn't find anyone from that generation, I approached an undergraduate organization at Columbia; I think it was called Asian American Alliance–I can't remember the title of it, but I met the leaders and I talked to them about it. They were very interested in doing something to get Asian American Studies on campus. And so one of the tactics that we decided to do, because we needed to really educate the campus, had to raise awareness. As a graduate student, I had access to a budget. So I decided to create the Asian American Graduate Student Organization and got $1,000. I used that money to do a speaker series. We invited Asian Americanists from New York to come onto campus and to do a speaking event so that we can outreach and invite students to come in to learn about it. We did that in the first year, also connecting the undergraduates to the Association for Asian American Studies–a really, really important venue for all of us to stay connected to what was happening nationally, as well as to build relationships with the faculty who would then mentor us in our struggle to bring it to campus, as well as other graduate and undergraduate students that were also connected. Through this national association, Professor Gary Okihiro helped to establish the East of California Network. Many AAS programs were established on the West Coast due to the history of Ethnic Studies organizing and the East Coast barely had any. So it was a strategic move to create this network and have annual gatherings so we could address the particular challenges we face over here. I think one time it was at Cornell and another time I think it was on a CUNY campus; I can't remember where we held them all, but that was a really important gathering. There was definitely the academic piece of it, the scholarship, what people were doing. But there was also this activism part of it; the organizing part of it, and how we did it on campus. So that was very important community support for what we were trying to do on Columbia's campus.

Eventually I found my way to volunteer at CAAAV. I was a volunteer there and soon joined the Board of Directors. A particular campaign I was a part of that would eventually lead to support of the Columbia students was a city-wide shutdown of the bridges and tunnels in 1994. In protest of the rampant police violence, I and other CAAAV members organized the blockade of the Manhattan Bridge with the National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights.

In that same year, things started to grow in terms of student support of Asian American Studies on Columbia's campus, so we decided to approach the Latino students to join forces and fight for Latino Studies. There already was a long standing African American Studies Institute. The Latino students told us that they were just getting together and started a new organization but it was too soon to get involved and we should come back to them in a year. So we kept doing our educational work, teach-ins, etc. And then the following year, we went back to the Latino students. They said, “We're ready.” So we came together to talk about Asian American and Latino Studies. We had a lot of debate and struggle. Over in Los Angeles, they had just had this hunger strike for Chicano Studies. One of the hunger strikers was a graduate student at Teachers College and had connected with the Latino students in our group. So they learned about hunger strikes as a tactic and as a strategy and what they did. They really wanted to launch a hunger strike. And us Asian American students didn’t think it was a good idea. To us it didn’t seem like the right context. And so we had this very long debate. The Asian American students were pushing more for direct action. So after hours and hours and hours of a lot of debate, we landed on an agreement that we want to be open to any and all tactics (a key teaching of my mentor Richie Perez who led the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights). So we're going to support a hunger strike, but we're also going to support doing direct action and that we were going to then be strategic about how we work with both of those tactics at some point. We agreed to first launch a direct action (to take over the President’s office, inspired by what students had just done at Princeton University). We also agreed to push for a Department of Ethnic Studies.

Please understand that my memory is definitely foggy, so I'm not going to remember sequences and timing too well. But at some point we approached the Black Student Organization about this campaign that we were going to launch for Ethnic Studies. They decided to join us, and their position, as I remember it, was that while Columbia had the African American Studies Institute, that they felt as Black students on campus that it wasn't enough, that there was more that was needed and that they were in alignment with our vision of a Department of Ethnic Studies–we would have more autonomy and hiring power, etc. So that's how we came together, formed the “nucleus.” We had student representatives from the Latinx community, Black community, and Asian American community. We did reach out to some students who were part of an Indigenous student organization, but at that time they had said that they were going to support us but were not at the place where they could join us. But they knew that in the fight for the department that we would include Indigenous Studies as part of the bigger picture. I said a lot. So I'm pausing.

Christina Huang (00:19:07)
Thank you for breaking down the time and I think that's really helpful to understand how you got involved and how things proceeded. I think it's so interesting and so amazing that there was this multiracial solidarity going on, which I haven't really heard too much of. It is like working separately, but it seems like with the nucleus, everybody's working together and I'd love to hear more about that. I've read that Black students understood that they weren't going to get anything materially. There's been no material gain, but they chose to continue to support and help Latino/Latina Studies and Asian American Studies.

Sung E Bai (00:19:48)
That's right. So I do feel like there was a connection between the incredibly powerful relationship among organizations of color that I mentioned earlier. Through CAAAV, I was part of the founding of the NYC Coalition Against Police Brutality (CAPB), a coalition of multiracial organizations: Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, The Audre Lorde Project, Student Power from Hunter College, Youth Force, and CAAAV. We launched it after the 1994 city-wide shutdown. We focused on police brutality and state violence (e.g. immigration detention and deportation). I mention this coalition in particular because they really supported the Columbia students when we started to escalate our campaign on this campus. We had done a lot of direct action together and there was a lot of mutual support and there was also a lot of principle and integrity, meaning that sometimes some communities were going to get more support than other communities because of whatever the situation. We're all in this together and it's going to shift depending on what the situation is. And I feel like the nucleus, by choosing the banner of Ethnic Studies, was doing something very similar, meaning that there was a lot of principled struggle with each other so that we would fight for the greater cause that ultimately benefited all of us. And I think that's why the bonds of solidarity and allyship really got strong. It's because even if there were disagreements, we put it on the table. And we weren't leaving that room until we really heard each other out and we really worked things out. I don't recall a time where anybody was ready to throw up their arms and just be like, I've had it, I'm walking away. Everyone always stayed till the end, which just meant sleepless nights.

These were very long principled struggles. And I attribute that to probably two things. One is a deep belief in changing the way that things are. For a lot of people, it might have seemed like it's “just” a Department of Ethnic Studies, to have more courses, etc. But I think a lot of the leadership, a lot of the people who are really in this thick and thin is because they understood that this had to do with a broader democracy project that we're fighting for, that this is really about fighting systemic oppression beyond just Columbia's walls. And so there was that heart in mind commitment in that. I think what also was helpful around the nucleus and the way we functioned was at the very beginning, we understood that everybody had a particular role to play and that we were going to be stronger if we trusted each other to take on their role and to run with it. It was a decentralized and centralized structure. We're the nucleus. We're going to do the strategy and we're going to make the plans. But there was also a decentralization aspect to it. So some people were in charge of media. That was what they were responsible for. I had nothing to do with media. Even if you saw a quote, it wasn't because I was a spokesperson. I was never a spokesperson. That was other people's roles and responsibilities. I never even read press releases or things that got generated. We just trusted that everyone was going to do what they were supposed to do. And I think that helps to build collective ownership. And that sense of solidarity is because we all know that we're playing this key role in something that's greater, right? Is there more that you want to ask about the collaboration among the different groups.

Christina Huang (00:23:36)
I think the focal points of the strike was the hunger strike and the takeover of Hamilton Hall. But there's a very long, expansive history of the Coalition against Police Brutality. Could you walk me through the tactics that were used and the process of student advocacy with your campaigns, the demonstrations, the teachers, the sit-ins?

Sung E Bai (00:24:01)
So what I will say is that it makes sense that the media, whether it's the Columbia Spectator or other mainstream news, was going to cover the hunger strike or the takeover of Hamilton, because those kinds of things are elevated to that level. But it is exactly what you are implying, which is that this really started way before spring of 1996. And so kind of zooming out in terms of the chronology, I'm going to get some of the sequencing wrong, perhaps. But again, it was first started by, in my view, Asian American students bringing so much education around Asian American Studies within the context of the Ethnic Studies. Although, as I say this, I do want to say nothing happens in a vacuum. So there was this massive fight that was happening around the Audubon and Columbia's gentrification of Harlem. There was also something about which I can't remember exactly, but it was some racist medical initiative that Columbia was funding. So, understanding that even on Columbia's campus, there was a lot of student activism. There was this consciousness among the student body that was there. So what we're doing is just a piece of that. Just expanding the consciousness to something called Asian American Studies and then Ethnic Studies, as well as what's happening in the community. So there were a lot of high profile police killings that were happening around that time. And so the work that CAPB was doing against police violence that was also in the news was on the consciousness of students. So when we joined with the Latino students and with the Black Student Organization to talk about really escalating this for the fight for the Department of Ethnic Studies, we connected it to what was happening outside of campus, in the community.

We did plan for taking over the president's office, and that was inspired by the fact that I believe it was Princeton, and there were several East Coast colleges that either successfully took over president's office or had made those attempts. And so one of our tactics, our initial direct action, was to take over the president's office. And we planned it out. And we also agreed that if the president is in the office, we will abort because we do not want to get mixed up in charges around taking a hostage and things of that nature. The plan was for a group of us to go into Low Library with the goal of barricading ourselves in the president's office. And in the meantime, we wanted to set up a platform so that when we were successful, there would be a platform ready to then announce what is happening and to talk about our demands. So a separate group of people were responsible for going over to Dean Quigley's office to demand to speak with him, but basically keep him occupied and to hold it down until they got word that we had successfully barricaded ourselves in the president's office. So early in the morning, we implemented our plan. And when we got to the door, the first ones of us, opened the door and saw that the president was there. Who would have known that he gets there so early in the morning? So we had to turn right around. And then we were like, okay, what do we do? Where do we go? And we said, “over to Quigley's office.”

So we all started running across campus and we joined the other students. And of course those students turn around and they're like, What are you doing here? We thought you were going to be in the president's office. And so we whispered to each other and we said, for right now, let's just hold it down here. So the outside world thought that this was planned; nobody even knew about the barricading of the president's office. We didn't need to say it to anyone because it was a failed attempt. And I guess the president's office didn't want to say anything either about how this even got attempted. So now we're in Dean Quigley's office. We were whispering to each other that we needed to create a reason for why we're here and we also needed an exit plan. So we came up with this idea of just issuing a demand: We want a meeting with the president about Ethnic Studies, and we're not leaving here until you give us this meeting. And so that's the demand. And then meanwhile, the office is packed with all these people just sitting there. An impromptu sit-in for us, and a seemingly intentional one by the Dean. And through my relationship with CAAAV and CAPB, one of the well-known reporters had been tipped that we're going to take over the president's office and he was all ready with a camera to come in and get an exclusive. But because that didn't happen, then he, I think, covered this as a takeover. I think we got some small news mentioned about students sitting in the dean's office. So the dean comes back hours later and he's like okay, we agree to meet with you. And so we all said, great, now we can leave. That was our exit plan. So we left and we regrouped.

So again, I don't remember all the details, but I know that we did plan on doing a hunger strike and we did plan on doing more direct action. We also knew that we had to plan for civil disobedience training because we knew that at any point anybody could get arrested. In those other previous struggles I mentioned, like the Audubon, students got arrested, censored, and some students were kicked out of school. So knowing that was the climate, we wanted to be prepared. So we did have students go through civil disobedience training. At some point, I think we did have this meeting we had demanded, but I think the president wasn’t present and of course it didn't lead anywhere. So we left and said and messaged that the administration is stalling, they're not engaging us. And so we're going to have to escalate. I think we did a few symbolic direct actions or teach-ins–I remember one was in the lobby of Butler Library. But what I do clearly remember is the time when I was an adjunct instructor of Asian American literature at NYU. Back then we had pagers and I don't know if they had cell phones, but I remember getting a call that there was this big event in Low Library and that students who attended the event started demanding and talking about Ethnic Studies. And so this is what I mean a level of centralization, but there's also a level of decentralization, right? Students were moved to take action as they saw the opportunity. So I ended the class, jumped in a cab to get up to Columbia as fast as I can. I walked into Low library. There were all these administration people. And then there's a bunch of students in the rotunda, and the nucleus came together on the side and we're like, okay, here's an opportunity. We're not going to leave and we're just going to issue our demands.

So long story short, we came up with a plan to wait for people to leave, and then we were going to barricade the doors. We sent word out to other students outside of the library that this was happening. A bunch of students ended up on the steps of Low Library. And then we had this plan on how to actually get the students from the outside to join us on the inside. So should I talk about that plan? I mean, I feel like after the pro-Palestinian campus movement, this pales in comparison. So in some ways, anything I say about the past is like it's just the past, right? Because we're in a totally different climate right now and we need totally different tactics and strategies.

Christina Huang (00:33:08)
Yes, I would love to hear. I do think you're right. I think following like Ethnic Studies strikes and then South Africa apartheid and things like that, administrations have also evolved knowing that this is a tactic that students use. So the pro-Palestine encampments at least from my understanding have since upped and escalated their approaches because the administration is so aggressive. I would love to hear more about your plan and how you guys barricaded yourselves in and took over.

Sung E Bai (00:33:37)
Yeah, well, I love this story because it's such a statement, a reflection of the incredible solidarity and support of the students in that moment. So we're in the library. It's pretty much empty now. And there is I don't remember how many students, maybe there were 50 or 40 of us involved on the inside and many more on the outside steps. Security had locked the doors so nobody could enter. And we had this meeting. It was even like early evening or dusk or something. Our plan was to send one of us who is small in physical size to go through this small window to run outside and then go and inform the leadership on the outside of what the plan was. Remember, we didn't have cell phones. So she was basically the messenger. So we told her what the plan was. She went out, she told the leadership on the other side, and then they organized the students on the outside. We intentionally had the people in front of the doors be only those students who went through the civil disobedience training and who are willing to get arrested. They would be that front line. Everybody else should be behind them. For the students inside of Low Library, it was the same rule. Who went through the Civil Disobedience training? Who's willing to get arrested? You guys are going to lead and be in the front as we march out. I went up to the head security guy and said, “Listen. You win, we give up. We're going to leave. But can you at least let us leave on our own terms so we can have a little dignity leaving, walking out of here?” He agreed.

So we lined up inside of the rotunda, people who were ready and willing to get arrested in the very front, and then everybody else was following them. We started chanting, we had our fists up. And then we waited. Then security opened up the front doors of the library. And as soon as they opened up the front doors, everybody on the outside pushed through to come inside. That was the plan. We're going to get those doors open. And as soon as those doors opened, everybody who wanted to be inside, came inside. It got intense. I observed one security guard, these are not police officers, took one of our students and physically lifted him up and threw him. Clearly they did not expect this and completely lost their cool. So there was mild injury because it was really getting physical right at that front door. And I think because of that, the head of security had to put a stop to it. So they pulled their security guards back. I mean, they were completely outnumbered. But it was also because people's energy was so intense that they were afraid that somebody was really going to get hurt. So at that point, the doors stayed open so that people can freely walk in and out and I guess the administration was trying to figure out what to do.

We spent the night in the library but needed a way to escalate the situation because now the doors are open, people are coming in and out bringing us food and drinks. And we were like, we're not here to have a picnic. We have demands. So we decided to escalate. First thing in the morning, when the staff wanted to come into the building, we would barricade ourselves in so that they couldn't actually come in through any of the entrances. We stationed groups of us at every single entry of Low Library, and we basically held it down so that people couldn't come in. Now the administration was like, what are we going to do? That's when they decided to call the police. So when we heard that they were bringing in the police, all of the students that were prepared to get arrested positioned themselves in the lobby area. We waited for the cops to come. The cops came. We stayed there to witness and observe as they got arrested. We sent support out to the people who were taken to the precinct and people went with them as they were put through the system. The remaining nucleus members regrouped to organize our next tactics.

I can't remember whether that happened while the hunger strike was happening or we launched the hunger strike soon after. So this is where my memory is just really foggy. But I know that when we did launch the hunger strike to raise awareness and gain support. We set up an encampment outside on the lawn. We did teach-ins like the one in Butler Library. We walked in there and took over the entire lobby area. We sat down and conducted a teach-in. They could have kicked us out, but they didn't and maybe it was because there was rising contention because of the arrests. We did other symbolic things like make a human chain around Low library. We also did a direct action on Broadway and 116th Street to stop traffic. As soon as we heard that the police were on their way, we released it because we were not planning on anyone being arrested for something like that. So we did different things like that to keep raising attention, but also to build that momentum.

These were assessments for us on how much we are mobilizing students to support this. The more that they supported us, the more we had to create activities that they could continue to participate in and that would push their own comfort level. I'm sure the people who ended up getting arrested didn’t start off supporting this with that in mind. But it was by being part of this community, being part of this micro-movement that I think that they felt empowered to do something like that. For the hunger strike, we had community allies coming in to really support and work with the hunger strikers because they knew exactly what they should do to take care of themselves. They sent medical folks from the community that could check on them and make sure that they were okay.

Trying to remember if there's anything else that led to the takeover of Hamilton. There might have been. To be honest, we didn't expect that this campaign would result in Ethnic Studies being handed to us. We knew that was not going to happen. But the idea was that we just needed to change the terms of what currently existed, and open up the pathway for us to chip away so that eventually we could get something like hiring autonomy, etc.. So our inside objective was to get teaching positions, especially tenured positions, and tenure track positions, we would have courses and faculty, and then we weren't so beholden. Then we would have more of a base to advocate for something that would be a greater structural change. And so it was kind of a long view of what was going to happen and what we needed to do right now, today, in order to set that up.

So with that said, we had this plan to escalate with taking over Hamilton Hall. And the way that we did it was to be open about what we were doing knowing that security was listening in on the campus phones and there was likely some people who were reporting to the administration about our plans. So the nucleus set up two tracks–one was an open communication to everyone, and one was internal communication of what the actual plan was. We did a big gathering of students in Avery Hall, a student dorm right next to Hamilton. In the lobby, we told everybody that we have to keep mobilizing and organizing so we're going to do this nonviolent civil disobedience in Hamilton Hall. We're just going to go in and as students are leaving for the day, we'll just be sitting down in the hallway and we'll just be chanting for Ethnic Studies and that's it. That's what it's going to be.

So we told everybody that we're just going to do this symbolic action in Hamilton. In the meantime, the nucleus and other people that were closely in the center of the organizing, planned for the takeover. So towards the end of the day, during the last set of classes, we sent in small groups of people and they would make their way up from the top floor to the bottom floor, and they would just hang out as if they were milling around. And then right before the last class was over, they positioned themselves along the hallway. They sat in a row, one after the other along the hallway, and they had signs. And when the last classes were released, they all chanted "Ethnic Studies now." But it was like an eerie whisper. Totally non-threatening. It was just symbolic. Faculty came out wondering what was going on and saw that it was symbolic and left the building. As soon as the last classes were over, everybody came downstairs. We had people on the outside ready to come in. And that's how we took over the building. We barricaded the building. Security came over, but we outnumbered them. There's nothing that they can do. And then we held it down. We got the threats of “you better leave by this time and so on. But we didn't leave. And a lot more students came. And that's why we got contacted to go into what they called the “mediation” with the administration. So me and I think five others, we were the designated negotiation team. And we did that for several days–I think 5 days–until we released the building.

Christina Huang (00:45:06)
Wow. That's incredible. That sounds really intense. It's amazing how everything was planned down to the tee and everything. Reflecting on all this work that you did what do you guys think you did successfully, and what do you think you would have done differently knowing what you know now?

Sung E Bai (00:45:28)
It's a hard question to answer, that second part about what you would do differently, because I think that we did our best and did everything we thought was the right thing to do. And so of the things that I look back, I told you some of the stories that I feel really proud of, these ideas we had, sometimes we came up with them after a lot of planning and discussion, and sometimes we came up with them on the spot. And I think we were successful, for example, with the Low Library takeover because we had already worked together for months, maybe almost a year building that really trusting relationship, building our communication with each other so that we can make quick decisions when we needed to. I think that was really important, our ability to build those relationships of trust. I also mentioned already, but I'll just highlight again the sense of shared ownership and empowerment. I know that I would sometimes be the one highlighted. Partly because I was a grad student. And partly to divide me from the undergraduate students. There was definitely a lot of behind the scenes attempts to divide me from undergraduate students. But the thing is, the reality, like in terms of who really fueled what happened on Columbia's campus, that was 100% this collective effort of the students. There was not one champion, not one person. I remember there was one of the BSO leaders, Sharod Baker, who wrote a lot in the newspaper, The Columbia Spectator. And he was very active in all of these protests that were happening on campus. And he was part of our nucleus, and we would strategically be like, okay, Sharod, you need to go out there and you need to just take the microphone. You just need to talk your talk and distract people and have them on you so that we can go here and do X, Y and Z. So we do things tactically like that, right? But the reality in terms of the planning and decision making, everybody had principles. We had principles when we struggled with each other.

And so that to me was the most significant. That piece of it is what I would attribute the most successful. Without that, I don't know that we would have done as much as we did. And as long as we did, I don't know if we could have held that building. The six of us on the negotiation team were 100% dealing with this committee and our meetings. We barely got any sleep for four nights. What was happening over in Hamilton was amazing. I remember the first time we came out of our first negotiation meeting, walking up to Hamilton, and I see that they covered the front wall with chalk, all the names of all of these revolutionary liberation figures, and there was a big speaker with music blasting, and a lot of empty pizza boxes. I heard about people being in different classrooms. They were doing teach-ins, they were educating themselves. They made it their own. So the other nucleus leaders were there creating this real community at Hamilton. We (the negotiating team) had nothing to do with that. But all of this happened because we all, I think, had relationships beforehand. And then the new students that weren't involved in the previous planning or activities, they came in and were welcomed and got involved. So it just kind of grew, I think, from that culture of solidarity, of care, of shared purpose. So the tactics were relatively successful except for the takeover of the president's office in terms of what we wanted to do. But we were able to pivot when things didn't go so well because we were able to make decisions quickly based on trust. So going to the second part of your question about what we would have done differently…Like I said, I think we did our best given our conditions. However, the one thing that I do sometimes think about and it's a lesson I take with me in my everyday life is that I did not anticipate that once we went into negotiations that we, as the students, were going to be under tremendous amount of duress, meaning we're in these meetings with these administrators and they get to go home at night and sleep in a comfortable bed, take a nice shower, unwind, do whatever they want to do. But as negotiators, we were in these formal meetings, these intense meetings and, every break wasn't a break to go get some nourishment or to do whatever. Every break we had to strategize. We had to run back to Hamilton, talk with our colleagues, the other members over there. So we were constantly moving and active. We barely ate and whatever we ate wasn't that great, right? We barely slept because we had long nights of talking things out with the rest of the nucleus. So and I bring this up because in my life after that, I had become much more educated and aware about how we are physically, emotionally and mentally is all connected to how we show up in the world. And so when I look back, we were riding on fumes. Whatever decisions we were making, we were showing up like it was being on fumes. And that had an impact. I wish we had understood and had in place easy ways for us to actually take care of ourselves better. I don't know if the outcome would have been different. I'm not saying it would have been different. But I just think that was a key element that when you're in the heat of things and you're all amped up and your adrenaline is running, you're not thinking about how it's going to affect your decision making. So, there's pieces around the release of the building that I'm not that thrilled about. When I think back, I feel like my judgment might have been off a little bit because I was exhausted and I just didn't know it. So, yeah, that's how I would answer that question.

Christina Huang (00:52:29)
Yeah, I think you guys definitely did everything to the best of your ability. And it's so incredible to listen to the story and especially knowing and with the ongoing encampments and things like that happening, knowing this long history. So thank you so much for sharing. You mentioned earlier that there was numerous attempts to divide students tactics to sever relationships between Black students, Asian students and Latino students. And one particular tactic was to bifurcate graduate students from undergraduate students. Specifically, there was a letter from the president written to you titled "Dear Jane.” Could you walk me through the tactic that was used and like, what was going through your head?

Sung E Bai (00:53:12)
So the day that that letter got delivered to the Hunger Strike encampment and we opened it up and we looked at it and I just went straight for the content, wanting to know what the letter said. But I heard people standing around me being like, “Dear Jane? What's that? He doesn't even have the courtesy to just address you as, Ms. Bai, or anything like that.” I can't say for sure if it's one or the other or both, but I think part of it is the mindset of the administration–it's a very dehumanizing mindset of students, right? They see students as either they're the source of tuition money that comes into the school or they're the empty receptacles, and we're going to dump all of this stuff into. And then they'll go out and be the kind of citizen of the world that we want them to be. They don't see students in their full humanity. They know that they come and go after four years, which is something. So that already is their view of undergraduate students, in my view. And for graduate students, it's a little different because for graduate students, these are the ones who can make academic contributions and really improve or advance the reputation of the school. So it's a little bit of an investment in the graduate student body. But then to have graduate students supporting undergraduate students in this campaign... I'm sure for them, from the administration's perspective, that's not something that they want graduate students to support, right? So there's a little bit of that.

There were a lot of graduate students that were front and center in the mobilizations and in these activities, there were definitely graduate students like my peers, people from my department, from my school. So there's definitely graduate students involved. But nobody else was in the nucleus. That's why for me, I had a personal commitment and obligation that I needed to always remember. I'm not an undergraduate student. When I started this, when I started working with people, it was something that I was very transparent about; talked about and put on the table, which is that there's going to be some things I can be helpful with because I am a graduate student, and then there are going to be more things that I'm not going to be either helpful with or I shouldn't be involved in because I'm a graduate student. And so part of that decentralization was also so that I wasn't the center of things just because I was a graduate student. So I think we were successful in that regard. And so when this letter came in, I don't remember us feeling that this changed anything from our side. It was just this letter that confirmed that they really dehumanize students and that they don't really give a damn about what was going on with the hunger strike. I think it helped to make people realize, the ones who weren't as eager at first to engage in direct action, that we're going to have to do direct action. This letter showed us that if we don't do direct action, they'll just sit by and see our students start to lose energy and risk their own health. So that's how we proceeded to do the things that we planned to do. With that said, some of the pressure that I know of, I'm sure that other students would talk about other kinds of things that have happened, but what I knew, what I was aware of was that, one, there was direct pressure put on the Black student leaders. And what I heard was things like: listen we have Black studies here, you should be working with us; don't get involved with the Asian and Latino students because it's totally different from what you guys should be organizing around. And so there was that pressure to just not work with the Asian and Latino students. And one of those people was a pretty high profile, very powerful figure. What he didn't know is that those two leaders he spoke to, they immediately came to the nucleus and informed us about what was going on. And so we came up with a strategy around how to work with that situation, which was basically, don't show your cards. Nod your head. Let this person think that you are in agreement or whatever. Don't show your cards that you're still part of our nucleus and when the time is right, then he'll find out. So we were able to do that.

I personally, and I know that other people as well, was approached by a few faculty members. Some of them were tenured. In particular, I remember one of them, a person of color on faculty. He was one of my academic advisors and he basically said, listen, if you don't pull out now, you are going to stain your academic career. When he came to me, he wasn't saying it to me in this way of criticizing me, he was really saying it from a place of care and concern. And I think he thought that maybe I wasn't aware of the risk that I was taking. And so his words were really, you need to stop doing this because they're already looking at you and you will not have a career in academia if you continue to do this. So that was the message. And so, not right at that time, but as a side note, at some point after that conversation, after seeing and hearing what was going on, I did make a personal decision that when this is over, I'm going to withdraw from my PhD program. So I had actually done five years. And all I have to do was write my Ph.D. But I had decided that I'm going to withdraw. And the reason why is because I never saw myself really as an academic. And I knew a lot of people in the Association for Asian American Studies, graduate students and faculty at Columbia. I saw all these people who were really great at what they were doing, what they were researching, writing about; they were very powerful academics. And I just never saw myself like that. That's not where my heart was. So there was a piece of that. But the other piece of it was, I realized that I don't need a PhD, I don’t need to be in the academy to do what I wanted to do. So I'm just going to pursue a career and a pathway outside of the academy. So I had made that personal decision around that time. Unfortunately for others, they weren't in that position to have options. For some people, the choice was facing the threat of being expelled from school or censorship, or stay involved. And that is what happens.

Christina Huang (01:01:23)
Yeah, that's a very honorable decision, especially after committing five years of your time. And so I look up to you for making that choice and also recognizing that other people didn't also have that choice.

Sung E Bai (01:01:39)
They didn't.

Christina Huang (01:01:39)
You were doing the best that you could and making decisions that it was best for the team. So while you're doing this work, you're talking about the turmoil, the emotional aspect of it on top of like planning things ad hoc and trying to manage relationship negotiations with administration. And you had mentioned that administrators have dehumanized students to financial support, to kind of like misbehaving children on campus. And so how did the negotiators navigate that conversation with meetings? And often people say change often happens in the streets, not in meeting rooms. Often they'll try to lowball you or give empty promises just to end a strike. So how did you navigate that kind of situation and make sure that you got the demand that you guys wanted going into the meetings with administrators?

Sung E Bai (01:02:36)
Well, first of all, I don't know that we really got any of our demands from the strikes. It came after because really, we released the building one day so that they would set up a “blue ribbon” committee to look into this and to look into our demands, etc. And when we released the building, I think my view was that everybody was just really exhausted and I think easily influenced at that moment because you didn't have the collective capacity to keep going. That's my view; it’s a very harsh view. But we had a number of things to be concerned about. One was the health of our hunger strikers. I think by then there were only two strikers left, but they didn’t want to stop until we got something. And so we had that responsibility as the nucleus that we needed to make sure we got as much as we can and that we ended this right before their health were severely affected. And also the future of the students that had taken over Hamilton. Some of them were first year students and some of them were seniors. And not everybody really understood the gravity of what it would mean to be expelled.

So, again, different context to what happened with the pro Palestinian encampments. And it's a very different context. Back then in 1996, it was just a very different climate, very different context. If you think about it, like I'm a first year student, and I really believe in this. So what do you mean I'm going to be kicked out of college? Like the weight of that was just different. So when we were in the negotiations, when we were in the meetings with administrators, we stuck to our guns about what it is that we wanted. And I also think it helped because a lot of us, including myself, were knowledgeable (about how things worked at the institution). We can tell when they were saying something that was just bullshit. And so we called them out. We also did go and seek counsel with other faculty, whether on campus or outside of campus, just to verify, does this make sense in an academic institution? Is this possible? Is this not possible? Whatever. So we did seek out other sources of information. But our leverage was that we could always come back to what we always went back to. We're going to go and consult with the rest of the leadership.

The other small thing I want to say is that there was also in those meetings, I remember a tendency to only want to talk to me. And so there were efforts on our part that we have other people speaking for us and that it's not just a conversation with me because I'm a graduate student. And I guess I don't really know how to answer your question except to say that when I look back, I think we did succeed in advancing, creating an opening so that the next generation of students, the ones that came back in the fall, they were the ones that made sure to pick this up and not let it die. They were the ones that made it possible so that this blue ribbon committee convened. And then they were able to set up the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. That was a huge victory. A lot of campuses that were fighting for Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies, they didn't get something like an actual physical structure of a center. So as much as it's not a department, as much as it has those flaws and weaknesses, it was a pretty big success to have that established it, and even though I have withdrawn from graduate school, I was still connected to the Association of Asian American Studies and students. So in terms of being able to connect to Franklin Odo, who I believe was initially hired. And then I think Gary Okihiro was the first director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race). I don't know if he was the first one or not, but he did so much. I remember Gary because he had brought me up there to do a talk once and I learned and saw all that he was doing. So getting it connected to things that were outside of Columbia was super important so that it's not just isolated and easily reduced to something that was ineffectual. I don't know if I answered your question…

Christina Huang (01:07:49)
Yes, you answered my question perfectly. I also wanted to ask if you wanted to talk about your mentors like Gary Okihiro.

Sung E Bai (01:07:56)
We don't have time for me to mention all the many people. But let me just evoke their names out loud. Elaine H. Kim and Michael Omi from California. Gary Okihiro, Franklin Odo, Peter Kwong, Ling-chi Want, Lisa Lowe. There are so many faculty members and I know that I'm missing so many. Both in terms of their time, when I reached out to them they gave me time to answer my questions, as I was trying to understand and figure out the power structure, the history of Ethnic Studies. They gave me references of other people that I could speak to. And I think that spirit of sharing what you have and passing it forward is what I learned from them. And it's what I continue to honor to this day. To me, any student from Columbia who is part of all of this, if they call on me and ask me for support, I'm there 100%. I really believe in passing it forward. I'll do requests to talk about 1996. My memory is failing though so I really should write this down. So I don't forget. But I'll still do it because that is part of the spirit and tradition of Ethnic Studies and Asian American studies is that this all started because of our communities, our communities of everyday people. And so no matter how far we go, no matter what it is that we do, I really believe everything has to be grounded in and always come full circle to the uplifting of our communities, everyday people.

And so I think that those academic mentors in the Asian American Studies space that I mentioned and the many more that were there, the intersection between what they taught me and what I learned through community mentors, my political mentors like Richie Perez, Yuri Kochiyama, Espe Martell, Iris Morales. There's so many. They all have that same path, the same spirit. We're all part of one community and we're all going to support each other. And that's why I say that's the most successful aspect of the strikes to me is that community that was built among the leadership. And I am so, so happy and proud of all of us because after the strikes, I have seen on Facebook and here and there, that they are all doing work connected to social justice values. Somebody should do a little story about what people from the strikes are doing now. So many of them are bringing a social justice mindset to the work that they're doing. People are in all different kinds of industries doing all sorts of things. But I like to believe that we all remember how powerful it is to manifest this idea liberation is only going to come when we are all liberated. And so that sense of real, soulful solidarity…I can't say enough about it in terms of my own shaping.

Christina Huang (01:11:37)
Yeah, totally. And I think it's so important, like when you were talking about this passing the baton and you recognizing movement elders and talking about the future organizing spaces. And I think it's so incredible that your generation at Columbia, students risked their lives for this collective struggle, the hunger strikes and practically starving themselves, putting themselves on the front lines when police came. I think it was 21 students who were arrested. And then and I think there was a striker who was even hospitalized. And fortunately because of these efforts, Columbia was pushed and pressured to hire faculty in American and Latino studies. And that ultimately led to the formation of the Center of the Study of Ethnic and Race. And it's such incredible thinking about it and so many students benefiting from the work that you put into this and the sacrifices that were made. And however, the bastion of white supremacy is still erected and the legacy kind of continues. From your perspective, what can students do to build upon this legacy and and continue to fight for epistemic equity and liberation for all, as you mentioned?

Sung E Bai (01:12:51)
I guess before I directly answer that as I'm listening to you speak, I want to highlight that part of our success, and anywhere, to institutionalize Ethnic Studies is also because the door was ripped open, pushed open, forced open by people of color in the community to get on to campus and to start doing the research to create their own scholarship, making these important, unique contributions. People who were part of the core curriculum, people who are part of the higher echelons of academia, they're not dumb. Like, they see how this scholarship is super important. So I say that because I don't think I mentioned that faculty support was really important. And in terms of agreeing and acknowledging the legitimacy of the field. They knew it, but they couldn't do anything on their own and they wouldn't do anything on their own. So with the student movement, then you had faculty who would kind of step up and kind of support it. There's just so many bright academics whose work ...there's a dynamic between outside the academy, inside the academy. So that kind of dynamic gets fostered because we have people who are doing this scholarship, which is why I said I wouldn't have made any contributions to that. So that's why I left. But there's lots of people who are making those kind of contributions. So if it's about how do we keep this going, to acknowledge that I think it is happening, it just may look a little bit different. So every campus has a different context and we're also in a different moment in society and in the world. And so I think it's about just acknowledging, recognizing that there are. There is a thread that's running through from our ancestors in the previous generations to what's happening today. And I think as long as we honor that thread, then we are going to keep advancing. We are going to start to move the needle on this. Malcolm X said something about how racism is like a Cadillac, they come out with a different model every year. I think it is about understanding history, understanding the current context, and then always making sure that you keep to your vision of what it is you're fighting for. So your generation's role is how you are moving the needle, how you are advancing it to the next level. I don't know if that makes sense…

Christina Huang (01:16:03)
No, that makes a lot of sense, I think. Racism itself has like evolved to manifest in different forms. It's now I feel like more subtle colorblind racism as opposed to overt racism that we see. And sometimes it's very hard to tackle when it's has evolved and takes different forms in addressing it. So I think that's a really brilliant point. And to your the other point that you made about the institutionalization of like inside and outside the academy. Scholars worry about the institutionalization of Asian American Studies. You know, then it becomes like diluted down to just producing scholarship or just classroom and syllabuses, as opposed to its origins of like self-determination and liberatory pedagogy and things like that. So how do we balance the two of like trying to get resources for a community, but also sticking to the origins and roots of Asian American organizing?

Sung E Bai (01:16:59)
So for me, I just think it's very simple. Everything in the academy should be grounded, connected to what's happening in our communities and what's happening in the rest of the world. Period. Because when you do that then it makes the purpose of the scholarship, at least the purpose of what's happening on campuses then becomes the tools for people in communities, the organizers, for the movement to use that to advance their ongoing struggle for democracy, the ongoing struggle to dismantle systems of oppression. So undergraduates to be connected to community organizations, to be connected to what's happening in the community. People doing scholarship and not just using academic sources, but also sources that are not necessarily academic. Thinking out of the box and being creative and understanding that's part of how we break down the walls to the academy. So the academy needs to be a People's Institution, the People's Tool. So that's the way I saw it as a person of color when I was a student. I'm here because the community fought for me to be able to walk on this campus. So now I'm here. So now what am I going to do with what I learn here and what I do here, what I obtain here that's actually going to bring it back to the community? That, to me, is simply what the origins of this struggle was about. And I really believe that that the spirit of that is manifested in so many articulations whether on campus or in the community. It's there, it exists. And so anyone who is kind of new to organizing and activism, you can connect to that, right? Like we're not inventing anything new. People are doing it today all over the place.

Christina Huang (01:19:14)
Yeah, totally. And like, based on your experience, like if students want to start doing Ethnic Studies organizing or if their institutions don't have programs, how do students start and sustain themselves?

Sung E Bai (01:20:38)
It's unfortunate that we are still in a time where there are institutions that don't have some form of Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies to take classes. I think what's really important is for students internally to be thinking about this within a larger context of Ethnic studies, Asian American Studies, global studies, so that there is an understanding that when you're fighting for Asian American Studies, it's not in isolation to other fields of study, they intersect. And so once there's that clear understanding in terms of where Asian American Studies is positioned, then on a campaign level, on an organizing level, it's about how do you connect with those students. And they don't have to be Asian American, right? They can be any student that's trying to get a comprehensive liberal arts education. How do you connect to them about the importance of Asian American Studies when there isn't anything currently on campus? I would start with Asian American students because that should be an easier lift in terms of connecting to people's own personal experiences, their identity, etc. and doing that through perhaps a series of speakers coming out to campuses or different kinds of activities as opposed to doing just a one off–like thinking we're going to do this one event to teach them or we're going to write someone to speak and then see who shows up and then maybe we'll do something else. I think about it as we're going to plan out maybe 5 or 6 of these events over the course of the next 2 to 3 months. And that way they're identifying who are the different kinds of people they want to be speaking in this space, connecting with the different experiences, the different types of Asian Americans. As well as even maybe moving towards a panel that's going to have people that are in Latino studies, Native American Studies, African American Studies. So kind of building up this understanding of Asian American Studies as being part of a larger field of study. And part of that is also around not just the student engagement, but it's also graduate students and faculty, like identifying who already understands that this is a legitimate field to study so that they can sponsor the event, they can come and do opening remarks. But it's slowly trying to gain support of other people who hold some level of relative power on campus. So that's what I would say as one piece of it. I think that there's another piece of it, which is what's the state of student organizing and activism right now? What are the issues that are most pressing for students, both in terms of world events, national events and local community events, and being able to connect Asian American Studies that I think is really key.

And so and if there are relationships with local community groups, then including them in some kind of activity or event on campus so that the students understand that was the origin of Ethnic Studies. And I think it's an important value, principle and core of why we do Ethnic Studies. It is because it is connected to communities. It's connected to communities who are experiencing systemic oppression, therefore really need to be part of the solution, really need to be part of identifying how we fight against systemic oppression. And so those relationships and campaigns are really important to connect with.

And then let's see, the last thing I would say, and I mentioned this before, is that fundamentally I think that Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies is both about the history and also about the contemporary situation, and it's about shaping our future. So that means not only seeing what it is that is capturing the hearts and minds of the students in terms of global, national and local politics and events and happenings, but also having a read on what are those things that are happening right now that are going to have an impact on any efforts to bring attention to Asian American Studies or Ethnic Studies. And in particular the campus organizing that students are doing around Palestine, because my sense is all of what is going on will continue. And so I think it is a very important conversation to be had around how do these efforts work together to synergize and support one another as opposed to pulling people in different directions and making it seem as if they're two separate things. And I think it's a very complicated and challenging situation because my sense is administrations are going to want to really denigrate any efforts to attach themselves to a pro-Palestinian movement. And so I think you just have to be really strategic and smart about how do you manage that relationship. So there's a lot more to be said about that. But I just wanted to point that out because the oppression, the repression from administration and Congress and society has been so intense against students. And I think it's important that anyone who is trying to fight for Ethnic Studies or Asian-American Studies understands that there these are connected struggles. And if you try to separate them, you will in some ways bottom out the core value of Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies, if that makes sense.

Christina Huang : (01:27:34)
Yeah, that totally makes sense. And I really like your point about how we have to draw upon the past and form connections, but we all have to be present and be very thoughtful that there's something in the past that may work, may not work now, and we have to continue changing our methodologies. It's something that I've been struggling a lot. So I'm very grateful that you brought this up. I've been thinking about how do we use the past, but not over romanticize sensational moments of building takeovers, hunger strikes and things like that, but use it just enough to continue the movement forward. So yeah, thank you so much for your point. My last question is about what does it mean to you to be part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

Sung E Bai: (01:28:21)
There's a personal level to this, and then there is the kind of community level and then kind of a broader societal level to this. And the personal level is really important in terms of my relationship to the Asian American Studies movement because without Asian American Studies or let me say this in a different way…It is because of Asian American Studies that I was able to at a time in my life when I was very unstable, confused, just had experienced a lot of different things in terms of racism, anti-immigrant sentiment against my parents and my community. And it was through Asian American Studies that I then felt a sense of belonging, and I understood that I was part of something greater than myself.

And in particular, I remember that it was through an Asian American Studies course that I was introduced to Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior. And there was this part of that novel where she talks about the ghost stories, that is the way that as a young child, the character would remember these ghost stories that her parents would talk about, where it meant that they wouldn't tell you the history or the specifics or describe the experiences that they had in their home country. But you would hear it through these little bits and pieces. You'd overhear it or through some kind of like lesson that they were trying to teach you or some kind of activity that they want you to do or behavior that they want. And it really resonated with me growing up with parents who lived through war. They were immigrants. And I would never get like a full story, but I would hear these bits and pieces. And it wasn't until I started taking Asian American Studies courses and learning about Asian American history that it all started to make sense. And I was able to place my family's immigration history to the United States within the context of the changes in immigration law. And so everything just started to fall into place. And I think all human beings want to feel a sense of belonging. And for me, Asian American Studies courses started to open me up to that, especially because prior to that, the only thing on my campus was African American Studies. And so that's where I started taking classes. Now, that was a strong foundation for me. So much resonated with me in terms of an analysis of systemic oppression, in terms of experiences of racism in this country. And I definitely felt a connection there, no doubt.

But then being able to then learn about the specific Asian American histories that shaped my life and people around me just really helped me to shape my own identity and worldview. And that's what led me to stay involved in community organizing in social justice, because my understanding of justice, not just in terms of on a personal level or community level, but even on a national and global level, that's been the foundation of what's allowed me, sustained me to be part of the movement. And so being part of the Asian American Studies movement to me is really part and parcel to being part of a social justice movement, right? I feel like they're both one in the same. They should be one in the same. That we study and we do the research because we're all seeking to manifest a better reality, a more democratic reality for everyone and really dismantle systemic oppression. So to me, it's one in the same.