Christina Huang 00:00
Hello, my name is Christina Huang. Today's date is July 28, 2023. I am located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We are here today with Aamir Azhar, a 2018 Duke graduate and a member of the Asian American Studies Working Group, a contributor to the Asian American Studies program that exists now at Duke. Thank you so much for being here today and giving me some of your time. Would you please introduce yourself?

Aamir Azhar 00:29
Yeah, so my name is Aamir. Like you said, I graduated from Duke in 2018. At Duke I studied Computer Science and Arabic and I did a certificate in Documentary Studies. I grew up in California, around San Jose, California, but I was born in North Carolina, and we moved back to North Carolina like 10 years ago. So now my family lives in Durham. And, yeah, now I'm living in New York City. I live in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Been living here, this is my fifth year here. Yeah, I guess I work... [laughter] My day job is I work at Duolingo as a software engineer, but I'm also a writer and I write fiction. So, I'm working on a novel too. Yeah, I'm Asian American. So my dad is from Pakistan. And my mom's from Malaysia. They both immigrated. So yeah.

Christina Huang 01:24
Oh, wow. Also that's so cool that you work at Duolingo. Like you do so many cool things. You were telling me, before we started recording, that you're going to a writing letter campaign thing. And now, you know, you work- there's so many different parts of your identity. And, could you tell me a little about yourself and how your Asian American identity influences your upbringing and family life?

Aamir Azhar 01:47
Yeah, like I said, both my parents are from different countries, but they're both, Asian. So my dad is from South Asia, my mom's from Southeast Asia. So growing up, I guess I was closer to my South Asian identity, because most of my mom's side of the family stayed in Malaysia, whereas most of my dad's side immigrated to America. So I spent a lot of time around my dad's side of the family, like my cousins and stuff, but my mom taught me Malay. And we used to go to Malaysia a lot. We didn't go to Pakistan as much because most of my family was in the US. But, yeah, I guess it influenced me in the sense where I was kind of very integrated within different cultural spaces growing up. And so I think I grew up with a level of cultural competency... in the sense that I had to learn what different cultural spaces were like. I was also raised Muslim and a Muslim. So, you know, I have my Muslim community in the Bay Area. And then I had Pakistanis, that's like South Asian community. And then, there was a Malaysian community in California also. So going between all of them, I think I kind of developed an intuitive understanding of how to handle different cultural spaces and what the difference between all of them were. And I guess, I also was interested in them and how different spaces operated, how they can be moved in and out of, I guess. So, yeah, it kind of got me into that stuff early. And that's partially why I have always liked languages. That's why I studied Arabic in college. But you know, I can also speak Spanish, I can speak a little bit of Malay, and a little bit of Urdu, and then English obviously. So, I've kind of always been interested in that aspect of things and never really been the kind of person to just stick to one social scene or one cultural scene and more someone to be interested in all different forms of expression and stuff like that. So yeah, that's kind of how it impacted me on a personal level.

Christina Huang 04:11
Wow, I love that. That's a lot of intersecting identities and trying to figure out spaces to be part of. I'm curious, how did that translate when you arrived at Duke campus, with your getting involved in Asian American Studies?

Aamir Azhar 04:24
So I didn't get involved in Asian American Studies until like my junior year. But I think part of it was that honestly, I didn't really like Duke's social scene, like it wasn't really very easy to navigate. I was an RA and I wasn't really part of Greek life. So I made a decent amount of friends in freshman year, but then people just get stratified at Duke and there's also a lot of social structures that are in place that made it hard for me to connect to people, honestly. But I was friends with a decent amount of Asian American people at Duke, but I wasn't really involved with the South Asian, or the South Asian student associations like Duke Diya. And then there's an East- it's not explicitly East Asian but the Asian Student Association is just kind of very East Asian and a little bit Southeast Asian also to be fair. But I wasn't really involved with any of those partially because again, I think Duke spaces tend to be a little cliquey and tend to use the same politics in them. And I just found it very hard, especially because I was young and I hadn't been in an environment like that. I found it hard to break into places like that. But I had individual friends and stuff like that. So anyways, I think it was difficult for me to find a place where I felt like I belonged at Duke, especially because I wasn't part of these social structures really. I felt like I was constantly on the margins or on the outside. But I did have a couple of friends who were involved with the Asian American Studies Working Group. And I think it started to get more traction, like in 2017, I want to say maybe 2016. So I started Duke in August 2014. And I graduated in May 2018. So my junior year was 2016 and 2017. I studied abroad in Georgia and I was studying Arabic so I went abroad. And then I came back in the spring of 2017.

And that's when I started to get involved with the Asian American Studies Working Group, which I had known about a little bit in 2016. But, again, they started to gain a little bit more traction and I had friends who were involved. And I was like, Okay, this seems like a good space. I trust the people in it. And also, it's just a little bit more... aware than other Asian American spaces, honestly, at Duke. Just in the sense where it's like, okay, we're clearly working towards something. It's not just a social scene for the sake of being a social scene. There's a purpose behind it, which made it easier for me to break into. So yeah, I think that is honestly on a personal level part of why I got involved in it, just because I tended to get involved with activities rather than like strict social scenes, just because social scenes have a lot of weird social dynamics. And Asian American Studies Working Group was one of them, honestly. I obviously also cared. Arabic is under the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies department. But Asian and Middle Eastern Studies- I mean, first of all, obviously Asia and the Middle East is just like, a lot. [laughter] I don't know, it's like, what, 4 billion people or something, probably. So first of all, it's a really broad major, and I specialized in Arabic. But also, there was no Asian American thing going on; it was just that. So that's why it was my major. So I was also a little invested in pushing the envelope a little bit to have something that could speak more directly to my experience, rather than my ancestors, I guess. Even though I'm not from the Middle East, that's what ended up being my course of study. And I liked it. I took classes on East Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and North Africa, all that stuff, Southwest Asia. But obviously, none of those spoke directly to me being Asian American, so it was more of an abstract course of study rather than something that was related to my experience. So, I thought that having that as an academic field would be great not just for me, but for people like me.

Christina Huang 08:53
Yeah, thank you for the background. I'm glad you were able to find some sense of belonging and space where you felt seen. I hear that a lot in a university setting, where there's an Asian American org but it’s very East Asian dominated or sometimes Southeast Asian dominated. Can you tell me more about your junior year and getting involved with AASWG? How did it take off? There was no program. But through getting involved, through talking with admin, and now it is a whole minor?

Aamir Azhar 09:33
Yeah, I guess there was honestly a lot of stuff going on that year because, like I was involved with AASWG but also TAASCON (Triangle-Area Asian American Student Conference) that year. I think TAASCON was a thing in 2016 too, and I might have gone to it. But in 2017 it was something that I got involved with they got a lot of people involved in it. TAASCON is like the Triangle Asian American Student Conference. And then also that year, ECAASU, which is the East Coast Asian American Student Union, did their annual conference at NC State. So, it was also in the triangle. So there was just a lot of stuff going on that specific spring, that year in general. But I think like AASWG in particular... I don't know that much about where it was before that, but at that time, I guess there were two parts of it. One: I think people learned that there had been other efforts by Asian American students in the past to bring an Asian American Studies department to Duke. And that wasn't really something that any of us knew until- I don't know who told us about it. Maybe it was a professor, or maybe someone just did their research or something like that. But, we found out that there were other efforts, like in 2003, to have an Asian American Studies Department, and it never really went through.

Partially, it was us learning that there had been efforts and wanting to continue those efforts, because they kind of died out. Partially, it was also that particular time at Duke. Actually, one of the meeting notes I was looking at had a timeline. I'm just gonna read off part of this. So this was in September of 2017. This was a little later than when I first got involved, but we were trying to define our history. So in 2002 to 2003, there was a group of faculty that gathered together in support of Asian American Studies in the form of a teach-in in front of the chapel at Duke. And they were working together with administration to write a proposal that would lead to a hire. It eventually fell through because of a lack of support for prioritizing Asian American Studies in general. And student support also fell through because people graduated, which is very common in student organizing, right. And then in the early 2010s, Trinity (College of Arts & Sciences) got a hiring cap, which led for the fight for Asian American studies to be discouraged, because Duke hires need to be through a specific department, and the departments have their own priorities. So students were kind of unfamiliar with how to advocate for it.

I think, to give context about where Duke was in 2017. So in 2013, there was this party. It's called the "Asia Prime" party. I wasn't there because I started Duke in 2014. But I knew people who had been at Duke during this party. I won't go that much into the party, because it's not really worth talking about, but it's kind of what you would expect. It was just racist. It was a Greek Life party, and you were encouraged to… I don't even know- like, dress Asian, whatever that means. It was just bad. It was all around really bad. There was a lot of controversy about it, but like a lot of back and forth, because some people were like, "Oh, it's not offensive." And some people were like, "This is terrible, and makes me feel like I don't belong as an Asian American student at Duke." So we were kind of in the shadow, honestly, of that "Asia Prime" party, and then ASA (Asian Students Association) held an event in 2015 that was like, "What does it mean to be Asian and Asian American at Duke?" The thing about ASA is ASA before that was not very political, and even in 2016 and 2015, it was not very political. It was like people getting together to get ramen, you know. That's why I wasn't involved with it. I was like, I don't care. It just didn't appeal to me or my identity or the things that I thought were important.

There was a forum held regarding racist incidents, and Mizo, which was like an event at Duke. So multiple student groups had started to organize and set up demands, one of which was Asian American Studies. So this is in 2015. Basically a couple of bad things happened. But also some student organizing started to form, just across different multicultural groups. And then Asian American Studies was kind of re-introduced during that time. And then in 2016, there was an external review process, which I wasn't a part of, but it was basically to discuss matters of sustainability and how feasible Duke was to have an Asian American Studies department. It took a long time to come around. But also there was a petition- this was when I started to get involved. So basically, we were kind of in the wake of that "Asia Prime" party, as well as a couple of other racist incidents, but also a decent amount of student organizing had started to come up and Asian American Studies was brought up again in those spaces. So yeah, I would say that's kind of the context in which I started to get involved in and why it started to get traction during that time.

Christina Huang 15:02
Okay, yeah, thank you for breaking that down. It sounds like there's a lot of different moving components to it. So where did you guys as the Asian American Working Group, AASWG, did you guys find your allies? Either through other organizations or through admin?

Aamir Azhar 15:22
Yeah, I think there were a few. So there were a few professors at Duke who were teaching... Oh my god, I'm forgetting their names. God, I forgot their names. There were two in particular. And they were both East Asian, but they were very supportive, first of all, and they also had been at Duke. To think about the professors also with these student organizing efforts is that professors stay at Duke for longer than students do, right? So they generally have a little bit more institutional knowledge about these things. And they also just kind of know how college departments work and why things happen and why they don't. So we did have a few allies in terms of professors. I don't remember their names, unfortunately, because I suck with names. But besides that, we worked also with a few other student groups, like we worked with... I think Mi Gente, which is like the Latine student group, and BSA, which is the Black Student Alliance. I believe we may have worked with a couple other groups as well. But basically a lot of other groups, because the thing is honestly there was a lot of racial stuff going on at this time. And I guess this is around the time that Trump got elected too. So there was just a lot going on. But the thing was that a lot of different affinity groups at Duke were very willing to work together at this time, because, you know, we were all honestly- we were just all kind of scared. And Greek life was still kind of racist, you know, and there was just a lot going on. Yeah, so I would say we did get support from a few professors as well as honestly a lot of student groups, especially other racial affinity groups. Yeah.

Christina Huang 17:23
Yeah. Where do you guys feel the most resistance from? Like, what was the community reaction?

Aamir Azhar 17:30
Yeah, I guess... So at some point, we also circulated a petition and stuff like that. And honestly, I mean the nice thing about AASWG and I think part of the reason it was able to keep getting momentum is it's a very hard thing to say you don't support. You know, you can ask anyone, and be like, "Hey, we don't have an Asian American Studies Department. What's up with that?" And they'd be like, "Yeah, we should have one." And they'll sign your petition, right? And so we didn't have a lot of resistance from outside of the administration. I think most of the resistance we had was inside administration. And even then... this is a very Duke thing. But Duke is very slippery about how they handle these things. Like, they will not explicitly say no, but they'll say, "Yeah, we really want to do this and we hear you." Like that kind of stuff. And so it wasn't even explicit resistance, like, "No, this is a terrible idea." It was more just institutional resistance in the sense where they were basically trying to validate us and make us feel good. But lowkey wait for us to graduate. Because that's just how Duke handles so much student organizing is they're just like, Okay. Because a lot of the times the most active student organizers have been there for a couple of years. I mean, I didn't get involved until my junior year and so most of us were in our junior and senior year. So most of the times student activists, at least the ones that are like leading these efforts are a little older, and they're like, “Okay, this person's a senior, they're graduating in a year, you know, let’s just have a few meetings with them or be like Okay, the next time we can meet is in a month and a half,” or something like that. And then the meeting is kind of unproductive, you know, so... yeah, I wouldn't say honestly we got a ton of very explicit resistance minus just like the racial stuff that was going on at Duke at the time. It was more just that administration was being a little wishy washy about the way that we wanted them to handle it, I guess. Yeah.

Christina Huang 19:44
Yeah, I think that's something that a lot of students face. Why I started this project is because that seems to be a common pattern of universities being like, okay, but then waiting. Like they'll push you to the side or say “oh yeah, I'll give you this instead.” So I think sustainability is so important. And something I really admire about Duke students, what you guys did, was the organization. I've seen the Google Drive folders and how you're able to pull up the timeline and just look at it. I think something that I've noticed when I talked to Shania (Duke graduate that worked with AASWG) -- she was talking about Duke protest culture, how there isn't really one, because Duke will get student conduct involved if it disturbs students' academic studies. And so you can't really have any form of direct action. So how did you guys get that urgency from the university to get moving?

Aamir Azhar 20:47
Yeah, there was a couple of things. I mean, that's the thing is AASWG, especially in 2017, 2018, was not really doing really any form of direct action. We were trying to do outreach, trying to get support. And then try to pressure Duke diplomatically, I guess in that way, or in terms of tarnishing its image. So we didn't do much direct action. I think the thing that we did well was we did a lot of different things that all had the same target, which was pressuring Duke by compromising its image. So we had a petition, we had a Chronicle article, like in our student newspaper that was about Asian American Studies and us not having it. And we had a lot of student groups sign that, you know, which was public. Obviously, we had a photo campaign, which I helped to organize. Because my thing was the photo campaign. [laughter]

Christina Huang 21:52
I saw the image of you holding a little "Duke doesn't teach me."

Aamir Azhar 21:57
Yeah, I look like a baby. So funny. Yeah, I was trying to look cool. I was like, "Duke doesn't teach me." [laughter] But yeah, anyways. So we had that. I think one big thing that I think was really smart that we did was, we got an external reviewer, which I think I mentioned, but we got an external reviewer to come to Duke and do a holistic assessment of like the Asian American experience at Duke, but also in North Carolina, too. So we went over Asian American history in North Carolina, Asian American history at Duke, Asian American Studies, and the resources that people get at Duke. I can even share you the document, if you want. I have the draft of it, I was able to find it. But it kind of made a recommendation, but also an assessment of where Duke was, and it was an external reviewer. And that was a good way to pressure Duke a little bit.

So we did a lot of public stuff like that, as well as getting faculty on board. We got outside speakers and academics to come in. So there were a lot of different things that I think all kind of pointed in the direction of getting people aware of the fact that we don't have Asian American Studies and that we should. But also getting also the word out that Duke is not willing, like the narrative out that Duke is not willing to invest in Asian American students, like they're just not. And especially when you play an angle that can compromise admissions for Duke. That's when they really listen, because Duke, you know, I don't know, they want “good students,” but also rich students, honestly. And they're worried. Like, they're really, really conservative when it comes to their image because of that. Because they don't want to sacrifice their reputation in a way that would compromise having new students be able to join and commit to Duke compared to another college, or be willing to pay extra to attend Duke. So yeah, we didn't do much direct action, but we did a lot of stuff that was related to both outreach as well as compromising Duke's image and creating that narrative that Duke doesn't invest in its Asian American students, which I think was overall successful enough that Duke was willing to have the impression that they were working towards these things.

So, one thing that we did was, one of our main demands at the beginning was just to get a postdoc. We weren't asking for a whole department to get started. But we did all of these things, and then we gave them a very easy small thing for them to do that they couldn't really say no to, you know. It’s like “Okay, Fine, we'll hire a postdoc,” or something like that. And so, all of those strategies, even though it did kind of suck that we weren't really able to do any direct action. And also, a lot of it at the end of the day was still at Duke's discretion, like they were the ones to say yes or no. We didn't necessarily amass power to be able to force them to do anything. However, I think being able to give them a specific timeline that they kind of had to abide by, or else we would basically go to the press being like, “Duke isn't willing to do this, this and this,” you know, whatever. So, but it was still doable, I guess. So I guess that was kind of our strategy. Like you said, not really direct action, but a lot of other strategies that all kind of pointed to the same thing. Yeah, which is Duke's reputation as well as pressuring them into getting a postdoc.

Christina Huang 26:05
Yeah, yeah, those are really good strategies. You mentioned you were the photo campaign guy. Could you talk a little more about that? I'm so curious. Where did you get the name and what was it like taking people's pictures and getting people to write something?

Aamir Azhar 26:21
Yeah, I have a camera. I guess that's why I was the photo campaign guy. I didn't even really use it; I just had a camera. I think I wasn't even the one to come up with the line, which was, I think, a really good line. It was like, "Duke doesn't teach me" you know, that was the prompt. It was like, we go up to people. What we did was we kind of advertised it to the student body and anyone who wanted to have their photo taken would just reached out to us, and we would just ask them to prepare or draft a statement that was like, Duke doesn't teach me something something something.” And most of the time it would have to do with Asian American Studies. So it was really open. And then a couple other people in the group and I would edit it and then post on social media, basically. So I was doing mostly the coordinating between all the people who wanted to take photos, as well as a little bit of the editing and getting- I was also an RA. So I had resources, like markers and stuff like that. So it was just a good thing for me to do because I had access to a couple of resources that other people didn't, basically. But yeah, it was chill, it was like any other photo campaign. It really wasn't very out there logistically. It was pretty easy. It was pretty successful, honestly. Because, I don't know, I think it was a little trendy for people to take one of those photos and look a little a little forlorn, you know. So yeah. [laughter]

Christina Huang 27:55
That's so funny. But yeah, that sounds really cool. Did you guys get any prompts or answers that weren't related to Asian American Studies?

Aamir Azhar 28:04
Yeah, there were a couple people who did something that was a little bit more general, like not super related. It was always about identity in some way. I don't exactly remember. But for example, it could have been stuff that wasn't academic, right? It could be social stuff, or even cultural things. I think a decent amount of Asian students didn't know how to navigate. Even though there are a lot of Asian people and Asian American people in North Carolina, they didn't really know how to navigate it. Because it's in the South, I guess, it's a little different. And so some people generally felt like they didn't know how to navigate their identity in that space. And so you know, stuff like, I don't know, food and cooking and all that kind of stuff was also on the table, but wasn't really related to Asian American academia. But it was still related to being Asian or Asian American. So it was still okay. But yeah, I would say that's the furthest that people went was talking about Asian American cultural things rather than something specific to Asian American Studies, I guess. Yeah.

Christina Huang 29:15
Yeah, thank you for clarifying. How did you find navigating being Asian American in the South?

Aamir Azhar 29:22
It is interesting, because I grew up in California, like I spend most of my childhood in California and then I was born in North Carolina and I came back to North Carolina. I mean, the thing about the Triangle in North Carolina is it's very diverse. And it's very different, honestly, than a lot of other parts of the South. Like not in a good or bad way. It's just that the level of education is higher, the overall income level is higher. The level of diversity and the amount of immigrants that are coming in are a little higher also, because of job opportunities as well as like, the cost of living isn't super high. So it is a little different in the sense where it's still pretty diverse.

But one thing I noticed is that I feel like people in California or like New York, or just coastal elites in general, really look down on the South in the sense where they think that it's a very racist and backwards place, when like, it really was not that different. I will say, I think the instances of racism that I or my family encountered in North Carolina felt of a different texture than they were in California. Like, I think in California, we're generally on the coast. If someone's being racist, they're going to do it in a really weird, gaslighty way where it's like a microaggression. Or they won't give you a job. They're not going to say, like, you know, "Go back to your country!" You know? They're just not going to engage with you, or they're gonna be scared of you or something, but then stay away from you. But they're not gonna, like, say a slur to you. But I found that the couple of times that I felt like I experienced more overt racism, were in like North Carolina, but I don't think that it was worse. I honestly think the fact that the acts of racism that I or my family experienced in North Carolina were more overt, also made it honestly more straightforward to organize against.

And I noticed this about Asian Americans in the South or Asian American organizers in the South is that because the South has such a racist history – I mean, all of America has a racist history – but the South knows it has a racist history honestly. And people still are very explicit about the racism. Because of that, there's a lot of organizing history against racism and slavery in particular and segregation and stuff like that and like Jim Crow. There's a lot of honestly, like, institutional historical knowledge about organizing against racism in the South. And so when those things would happen, yes, they would suck. But I found that I got a lot more like organizing support in North Carolina when things like that happened than I would in California or even, I mean, I guess New York's a little different, because New York's New York but still, I feel like on the coast, people have a level of denial when it comes to racism. I think people just want to pretend like it doesn't exist. So it's just weird because yeah, the racism is a little more muted, which can be nice, because it means you won't be called a slur as much. But also, it's a lot harder to organize against it. You know? That's my take on it, I guess.

Christina Huang 32:41
Yeah. That was a really good take. As someone from the North, I hear that too. It happens on the West Coast and East Coast. They both do it. It's just a lot less- Yeah.

Aamir Azhar 32:53
Yeah. Like, all of America is racist. Okay. You can't tell me otherwise. It's just different kinds of racism, really. [laughter]

Christina Huang 33:00
Yeah. Pivoting the conversation just a little bit, I wanted to ask about how you started doing this with two years left at Duke. And, you know, it got implemented later. You didn't really reap the benefits of what you were organizing and putting so much time into. And I'm wondering what that’s like.

Aamir Azhar 33:31
Yeah, I did think about that a little bit because I didn't expect any of it to happen while I was still there, because universities just move really slowly. I mean, I will say, we had a decent amount of wins while I was still a student to the point where I was fairly optimistic. In the sense that we got a postdoc and stuff like that. But honestly, I guess I was a little jaded too. I didn't expect much to happen after I graduated. In the sense where I was like, okay, they'll probably continue doing small things like that; they'll probably rotate a postdoc in and out. And, you know, they might make sure that there are one or two Asian American Studies classes, but that's it, you know. And so, leaving Duke, I was honestly happy to get involved with it, in the sense where I was just happy to be part of the tradition, the organizing tradition. I was just kind of honored. And it was meaningful to me to be part of it. I wasn't necessarily expecting anything to happen. But I still didn't like Duke as an institution. So I was like, I just wanted to stick it to the man in some way. But you know, I also felt like these are really tangible things that can be worked towards and we should be working towards. But it wasn't for specific results. It was like, we should be doing it for the sake of pushing towards these things at all times, even right now, right? Like even now that we have a minor, which I was so surprised by. I can't believe we literally got a minor so soon. It only took a few years and I was not expecting that at all. But even then, we should still be pushing Duke to make sure that it's distributing its resources, because Duke has so much money. It's never going to be using as much money as it can be using for its students. And for North Carolina and for people of diverse backgrounds and all of that. So overall, I honestly wasn't that sad about the fact that I wouldn't see any of the benefits. I was more interested in it in a way where I wanted to push back against the power concentration of Duke and have them distribute even just a little, small, tiny dollop of the trillions of dollars they have towards these things. So yeah, overall, I do think there were enough wins where I felt motivated, but also, I wasn't expecting that much to be honest. [laughter]

Christina Huang 36:13
I think it's very noble to be like, “I'm pushing for something that you don't know what's going to happen, or I won't benefit from.” Now being in the Triangle area, a lot of students benefit from that – that Duke has something for a lot of students. So what you're doing is creating a huge ripple effect and inspiring students and helping students. So I think I'm very proud. I just met you. But listening to you and all the work that went into it, it's so incredible.

Aamir Azhar 36:49
Thank you, that's very kind of you. We're all organizing for better conditions at all times, you know what I mean? And that hurdle will never stop. It's largely a class struggle too. Even though we were all very privileged to have gone to Duke and I am reaping the benefits of that privilege right now. I think, you know, we weren't doing anything special, but in a really good way, all of us are pushing towards a better world. You know, we're just doing it in many different ways. Like you're doing it too, right. We're all doing it. So anyways, I just wanted to say that none of us are special, I guess is what I'm saying. [laughter]

Christina Huang 37:33
Yeah. But you should give credit where it's due, you know? So, in one of the episodes of Basement, the podcast that you guys did, one of the biggest concerns that was raised was about- I think it may have been you that brought this up. But the fear as you left Duke, about, first of all, sustainability when students are have five seconds of, “Oh, this is so interesting, let me involved,” and then they leave and you kind of lose the momentum of something. And secondly, giving out the power. You know, when you institutionalize something like this, what does that mean? And like, episode two was “the real Asian American Studies was the friends we made along the way.” [laughter] Yeah, that one. So, I'm curious, because I feel like the whole purpose of this was to build community. But I've heard that the implementation isn't quite what students want to be. And I think you've expressed that just a little bit in the episode.

Aamir Azhar 38:46
You mean, in the sense where it's not what students want it to be, in the sense that it dies out after people leave or something like that? Is that what you mean?

Christina Huang 38:57
I think there's two parts that I was trying to get at. It's more implemented, like now it's more about higher education and getting things published, as opposed to being a community space.

Aamir Azhar 39:10
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I think, I guess this kind of relates to what I was trying to get at with organizing in general is… the thing about, I feel like, all forms are organizing, but at least specifically for student organizing, or any kind of organizing where you're dealing with an institution that honestly has absolute power at the end of the day. And even though Duke treated its students well, in certain ways, I guess, at the end of the day, it had the power right. I think organizing in those situations, especially, but I feel like organizing in general should always have a lens where it's like, the power comes from us, right? Once you defer to the institution and you're like, "Please do what we need," you kind of already lost because you're recognizing their power in a sense, you know. You're already submitting yourself to them, I guess in some way.

So I think that's why AASWG being a community was both important, but also quite successful because we were all kind of friends with each other. And, I mean, I talked about the social scene before. I wasn't really that happy with the social scene, but with AASWG, I really liked everyone who was involved. Also, I was kind of surprised, because there were more than two brown people, [laughter] South Asian people, which is wild. I was like, this is great. It’s lit you know. It was just a good space to have and we were kind of lucky to have BASE (Bridge to Action, Solidarity, and Education) at that time too. We had a physical space that we could just be in and exist in. And so yeah, I think that's partially why community is important when it comes to organizing is because you're kind of building power, or at the very least you're empowering yourself as a group in order to work through the struggle. And that means, even if you “lose certain battles,” right? If the institution doesn't give you what you want or whatever, it doesn't necessarily compromise the the sanctity of the space and the relationships that you have. And it's literally a constant, right. And as long as you have that space, all you're really doing at that point is you're like, “There's a space and it's constant, and we trust in it. And it's always gonna be there. And we believe in it. We are just negotiating for resources.” At that point, you know what I mean? It's not like your existence is dependent on the institution's approval or not. You're really just pushing for certain conditions to change at that point. So I think that's why honestly, that's maybe a lens as to why, socially or communally, that space and the people were so important.

It is complicated, because you can also fall into the opposite problem, where if it's too social and a little too insular, then when those people graduate, or when those people stop having capacity, then you lose momentum, right. So you also want to make sure that it's not a social clique. Again, that's why having a physical space is so useful, because ideally, the community is built around that space, not even necessarily a few key people in that space. It's the physical space itself, and what that space stands for. And that means anyone can come to that space and embody the space and represent it and use it, you know. So anyways, yeah, I do think I did have anxieties in that way. When we were graduating, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. But, in retrospect, it was fine. I mean, it was largely like, people took on the torch. And they did great work, honestly. Asian American Studies had a panel thing, and I went back, last year or something like that. And it was great. There was a little reunion and everything like that. And I was just so surprised. I was like, “Wow.” The space has developed, but also kind of stayed the same in some way. And people are still very committed to it and all of that. So yeah, I was scared about it. But I think as long as there exists at least a few people who care about the space at any given time, it doesn't have to be the same consistent few people. But as long as there is that level of commitment to the space and what it represents then I think the wins and the losses can all be tolerated. I guess like the ups and downs can all be tolerated. So yeah, hopefully that answers your question.

Christina Huang 44:12
That's really powerful. How would you recommend students to kind of train the future students as you leave? How to train students to take on the torch or continue that fire and momentum that you guys already started?

Aamir Azhar 44:36
Yeah, I mean, I do think a big part of it is honestly not being that cliquey like a lot of student orgs especially at Duke tend to be kind of cliquey and they have official onboarding processes. And, you know, there's just a certain way that you should integrate yourself into the scene. And I think being able to have enough openness where you're actively encouraging and inviting. A lot of it honestly is recruitment in a sense where you're trying to recruit first years and second years in college to join, even though they're newer, they don't have as much knowledge. But it's very important to get people involved early because of that. That's exactly the reason why a couple of the people who ended up really taking on the torch were two years younger than us. So, they were first years and second years. I think Shania also was a little younger than me at the time, and after I and my closer friends graduated, ended up being part of another group that kind of took on the space. But we knew them. I wasn't that close to them, but they were part of the same space, you know. So I think a lot of it is about integrating people early, honestly, like doing outreach and stuff like that, and not being cliquey.

I think student organizing movements especially tend to fail when the juniors and seniors in the group are taking on too much power. And they're sort of consolidating the power into them. And they're making it about themselves and all that kind of stuff. And I honestly think in retrospect, we did a great job. I don't know how we did it. We didn't even really talk about it. I think we did a great job of just not doing that. I feel like we just didn't have that much ego. But it's not just ego. I think we were just genuinely interested in this space. And we just wanted to see it succeed. And so it made us really happy when newer, younger people joined. We were like, "Oh my god, that's so great that y'all are here." And we were really welcoming to them rather than thinking of them as intruders into our space. Right. I think that level of openness, honestly, really was great, even though we didn't necessarily, talk about it or make that decision. I think it was a really good thing in retrospect. So yeah, I would say welcoming people early. I also think sometimes things just naturally will die down and start back up again. But I think you want to always make sure that there are resources for when momentum starts to build. You just want to make sure that things are in the right place for when the conditions are right, you know? Sometimes the conditions won't be super great, and things will naturally die down. But then when they are you want to make sure that you have a space, ideally a community. And all of those things, people who are willing to recognize that momentum and then ride the momentum. So, yeah.

Christina Huang 47:41
Yeah, no, that's really good advice. As someone that just finished their first year, I related to that advice. If you feel excluded or if there's too much of a power difference, it does scare students to get involved. So, I'm so glad that it continues because I see now how AASWG functions, and it's very meaningful to see so many people get involved with it. And I love to hear how much care goes into it and how much you still think fondly of it. And I'm wondering, do you have any favorite stories? Or moments while doing this activism work?

Aamir Azhar 48:23
Yeah, that's a good question. I have this random memory of Cindy, who was another person who was really heavily involved with AASWG. And I think this was in the beginning of 2017. So we were still trying to figure out what our roadmap was as an org and all that. And Cindy did this whole, honestly, kind of manic thing where they got a whiteboard, and just drew a graph, and they were like, “This is movement theory,” or something. It's definitely something that they learned in some class, you know what I mean? But I don't know, I was pretty enthralled. I was like, “This is so interesting. This is so cool.” And honestly, I think it was really useful. In retrospect, we were like 19. Like we had no idea what we were talking about, [laughter] but it's kind of a fun memory because we were all taking it so seriously, which is a good thing. You know, it was really important to us. And we were really trying to figure out how to handle it the best way we could and so it's kind of a fond memory because we had this really intense conversation. And Cindy was telling us movement theory and theories of change, and all of those kinds of things. And it was a lot of serious stuff that we talked about, and then after that we kind of just hung out, you know? And so it was kind of nice, because we had multiple things going for us in the sense where we were kind of chill about it and cool about it, but we also took it seriously to the point where it was a little corny. [laughter]

So yeah, I'm trying to think of any other situations. But yeah, I think overall, it was just that the people were kind of fun to be with. I mean, even going back last year, to AASWG and meeting the people who are part of AASWG now and reminiscing with people and all that was so great, honestly. It was just nice to see people again and honestly, after I left, I didn't think that much about it. And so I forgot about a lot of what happened and what it was like, but it was nice to realize that a lot of these things have continued, I guess, both socially and organizationally and all of that. Yeah, a lot of us were also involved with TAASCON during that year, so I don't think TAASCON's around anymore. Right? Okay, yeah, I'm pretty sure it died a few years ago or something like that. I think it was maybe a thing that died during the pandemic, and just never got started again. But yeah, the nice thing was that we also had a relationship with students from UNC and NC State during that time. And so it was just generally a nice place to be in where we will go to UNC for some TAASCON thing. And then we would sleep over at someone's place, or go to a late night restaurant or something like that. And so it was just a lot of really cute experiences like that. Yeah, stuff like that, honestly.

Christina Huang 51:45
Yeah. Got it. Yeah, I love that. Oh, my God. I've been hearing about a lot of spaces about Asian American houses and things like that which I didn't even know existed. Like, there was so much collaboration in the Triangle. But that's a lot of work, doing the petition and the photo campaign, traveling around and speaking to admin and giving presentations. How did you balance all of that? How do you avoid burnout and make sure you set boundaries, but also continue this movement?

Aamir Azhar 52:15
Yeah, it's tough because honestly, I don't think this is anyone's fault. But college just burns you out in general. And I think honestly, people don't think we handled burnout that great. I don't think anyone in college handled burnout very well. It's also like, you're young, and you don't really know how to listen to your body, you know, just like stuff like that. It's just hard to learn since you don't have that much experience. Yeah, so I think we honestly did get burned out with all the stuff we were doing. But I do think the social community that we had helped us not burn out as quickly, you know, because it didn't feel like a chore. We were seeing our friends, you know. These are people we care about, and this is a thing that we care about. So yeah, I do think it was a lot like honestly. It just was a lot and I feel like any, literally any organizing effort that exists, if you talk to people and people organize with it, very rarely would I ever hear someone being like, “Oh, yeah, we didn't get burnt out.” I don't know, I mean, it's something that people are constantly trying to figure out. I'm still trying to figure out with organizing myself right now. I'm also again getting burnt out. So I don't know, it's hard. I think there are people who are a lot wiser than me and who have been doing this for longer than you know, five years or whatever. And they probably have more insightful things to say about it. But I think since I'm still in my 20s, and I'm still constantly burning myself out, I can't really act like I figured it out.

I guess the one thing I'll say is that, when you're in college, you're always romanticizing your life. And you're thinking that every single thing that happens to you is the most important thing to ever have happened. And I think it's just a lot of pressure to put on yourself, you know. Every single thing. If it goes right, it sets a precedent. If it goes wrong, it sets a precedent. And yes, it's kind of true because you're young, and the experiences you have are formative. But honestly, I don't know, it really doesn't matter that much. You know what I mean? It's four years of your life out of already many years that you have lived and hopefully many more years that you'd live. And so I think that's the thing is ideally people can focus on sustainability and community and having- just that you don't have to get everything done immediately. But what's important is that you're making constant progress towards the things that you're looking to see, you know? So for example, if you're doing a photo campaign or something like that, something I didn't ever consider doing in college was being like, “Honestly, guys, I can't do this right now, like it's just a lot. I'm sorry, can we do this in January instead of October?” Of course that doesn’t matter in the long term, like, I don't even remember what month we were doing each of these things. You know, I'm sure if we did the photo campaign two months later, it would be fine. Right?

And so again, as long as there is progress being made, I think it's completely fine to negotiate personal boundaries with it, and probably better in the long term too. So yeah, I don't really have an answer for burnout. But I will just say it's really not as urgent as you think it is, in the sense where this is a constant struggle. It's not something that is going to be solved in a week. So why are you acting like you need to get something done in the next week or else? You know, or else what? The power is being created from you. You're the one who's pushing these things forward. Why are we acting like we're the ones who don't have a choice and who don't have power in these situations? We're the ones who are building it, we're the ones who are deciding to do these things. We have the power to change these timelines, we have the power to do whatever we want, honestly. It's weird when we put pressure on ourselves, as if we don't have agency, right. That's always been something that doesn't really make sense to me. And yet, I continue to engage in those kinds of behaviors. So you know, I don't know.

Christina Huang 57:05
It's something that a lot college students need to hear. Because I've noticed, myself included, I'm guilty of this, of taking on too much. And then you're out of spoons, and you're just like, it's so much, and limiting yourself and being like, "This is my boundary." Yeah. And it's something that, I've noticed, speaking with students and faculty, it's something students talk a lot more about. And I think it's nice to hear that our generation is also trying to set standards of This is my agency, and this is what I can do. And I love that you've continued to take on more organizing work from Duke into what you're doing now. So it seems that the work you did was very intersectional. And I know at UNC, a lot of our work is inspired by Black, Latino, and Indigenous programs and scholars. From your experience, what did solidarity and community building look like for you?

Aamir Azhar 58:14
Yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, I think the other student groups were really, really helpful for us in the sense where they were always willing to be with us in solidarity and sign off on things and spread things that we wanted to be spread and all of that. I think one thing that I wish we did a little bit more was to have more events that were intersectional in that way. I think we collaborated a lot. And we knew the people in the other organizations, and we were even maybe friends with them outside of it. But on an organizational level, our organizations didn't really mix socially that much, even though we were pretty close to each other in terms of literally where we would meet and everything. So we would say hi and stuff, but I think we could have maybe done a little bit more of that, just done a couple of joint social events or something like that. But yeah, honestly, I do think at least at Duke it is nice because a lot of student organizations already have established communication routes. So all you really have to do is just reach out to them and ask them to sign off on something or you know, help with something and they'll bring it up at their next meeting. But honestly to be transparent I don't know how much further it went from that. Maybe other people in AASWG were involved with that level of engagement but for me a lot of it was just communicating to and from them. It wasn't much mixing, I guess. And the communication was good. And we both supported each other as groups, which was great.

And obviously, especially for something like an Asian American Studies department, we're going to be taking inspiration from other academic traditions in the university space, especially African American and African Studies nationally, honestly was a big thing. And looking at the mid to late 1900s. So, we took a lot of time and energy to study those movements, just to see how they went. And we talked to some people and a lot of professors also have context on this. So I will say, that's one thing that we did was we kind of did a lot of research, which is good. It's always good to familiarize yourself with how things happened. Like history, you know. Yeah, but I do wish we did a little bit more actual explicit mixing.

Christina Huang 1:01:05
I think yeah, I think cross racial solidarity is really important. Because in the 1960s, all those ethnic strikes are really why we're here today. Kind of in a similar but not similar vein, I'm more curious about not only externally but internally, the different identities. And we've mentioned this quite a few times before, but how did your South Asian identity apply into activism work? I noticed that you said it was exciting to see more than two brown people in the place, but I'm here to hear about your visibility and invisibility in advocating for an Asian American program.

Aamir Azhar 1:01:49
Yeah, I think overall, most people in AASWG were good. But I think one thing that was kind of difficult was that a lot of the examples of Asian American scholarship academia that we were taking from at Duke were East Asian centered to begin with. We had a Chinatowns class, which was one thing that we constantly pointed to as, “This is an Asian American class, it's not an Asian class.” It's Asian American, because we're learning about Chinatowns in the US. I mean, obviously Chinatowns exist globally, too. So maybe it addresses both. But, you know, the whole point of Chinatowns is its diaspora, right. So it relates to Asian Americans or the Asian diaspora. So, that was the thing, I feel like I just didn't share certain experiences that my East Asian classmates did, where I feel like they all took the Chinatowns class and I never really had something like that. It was all a little bit more abstract for me where I was like, Oh, this would be kind of good. But I didn't really have any ideas for what a class would look like. Whereas I feel like my East Asian friends did have examples and experiences that they could have pointed to.

Socially, honestly, I think part of the reason I kept going to meetings was because I felt that there needs to be some level of South Asian and Southeast Asian representation. This phase just needs to happen. And so, that was honestly kind of a motivator. And I do think the other people in the space wanted that too. And so they were quite encouraging of it. But yeah, it does kind of suck. I mean, it's complicated. It really is complicated, in the sense where, I don't know, Asian American as a term and as a political group has a very rich and deep historical context. It was created as a form of solidarity and for specific organizing work and political organizing work. But also, the way that the term has evolved, sometimes makes it seem like the term itself shouldn't exist, or shouldn't need to exist in the sense where at this point, a lot of the way that we refer to being Asian American or Asian is just so East Asian centric. Where it's like, why do we even need to call that Asian American? Why can't we just say East Asian American, or why can't we just say, this is a Chinese American group, you know, or something like that? Like, that's fine. It's fine if people do that. And that was something that always bugged me was that East Asians would say “This is an Asian American thing,” when really, it was an East Asian American thing. And I was like, it’s fine, just be specific, you know. I'm not asking you not to go for hotpot. [laughter] Just, I don't know, it was just kind of weird when it would be branded and marketed as Asian American.

So anyways, I think, again I didn't have any explicit issues, I think a lot of the issues were just broader cultural issues where I don't really know where the Asian American identity is, period, right now. I just don't know what it means and what it represents and what its utility is, compared to when the term was first created. I feel like it had a strict reason for existing, whereas now it's kind of like a weird cultural identity, that isn't necessarily political anymore. And I think that's where a lot of the complication comes, because people just forget that solidarity is a necessary part of the term Asian American. You can't be Asian American without actively working towards solidarity with all different kinds of Asian Americans. And with non-Asian Americans, too, right. That's the history of the term. So yeah, a lot of it was broader issues. But that's why I do think AASWG was a little better, because it was sort of more cognizant, or just in the tradition of that political organizing, so it felt a little bit more welcoming and appropriate for me. But obviously, it's still internally, just on a numbers level, there's just a lot of East Asians, you know. That's kind of how it was. So, yeah, it was okay. It really wasn't bad. But it was confusing I guess at all times. I can imagine it's taxing because like, I think it's good to have representation. But when you're one of the few, then you're being tokenized at a certain extent, and you always have to be there to represent our community. But I think you've definitely made it. I keep saying this over and over again. But you've definitely made an impact. And I wanted to say this at the end, but I think this is part circle moment for me, because my first Asian American Studies was at Duke, because UNC doesn't have one. So the work that you did is very meaningful, because it's helped me learn about Asian Americans. And yeah, so I really wanted to find time to thank you for the work that you did. Yeah, of course, pay it forward. You know.

Christina Huang 1:07:26
So just for transparency, we have 10 minutes left. I have one last question to close out.n I want to make sure that you have space to add anything that you feel like I missed or anything else that you feel is important to tell your story or the story at Duke.

Aamir Azhar 1:07:47
Well, I guess one small thing that is still related to the South Asian and Southeast Asian thing is something I've noticed I don't really have a solution for. That I've noticed happens especially with South Asians and Asian Americans spaces I think, because they're so East Asian centric. South Asians tend to just make their own explicit South Asian spaces. And I think it's actually fine for any Asian American subgroup to make spaces for themselves, but it also creates, I don't know. The South Asian social groups at Duke were also just honestly not great. And that's why I didn't join them in a certain way. But I think the complicated part of it is that once that precedence is established, that's like ASA is just an East Asian thing. So, we're just gonna make our own student group. Like, once that precedence is established it's kind of hard to break apart from it. Because you obviously also don't want to tokenize people and you want to also give minorities in a certain demographic like space that they need, but it also is a difficult problem. So I don't know, I just wanted to mention that's something I noticed happening at Duke was just the South Asian spaces at Duke were so separate from everything else. Probably for good reason. But, I don't know if I honestly would have gotten involved with AASWG in those spaces if I was committed to those South Asian spaces. They were just also bad. So I was just not interested in them, either. But yeah, I don't really know how to resolve that. But yeah, I guess I'm trying to think of any other stuff, but yeah, I don't know. I think just in general, it's just important for people to be committed to the struggle overall, no matter what it is, you know? As long as people are trying to work towards a more equitable world. I think that's what is important. It's not really about the logistics of it, honestly.

I guess one thing I'll say that came to mind is that I didn't notice honestly that after college, this kind of happened with me too. But the transition after college is really difficult. And I don't think it's ever productive to guilt yourself into organizing or into doing organizing work, even though that was always sort of a motivator for me, because I was always like, "Oh, my God, I need to do this, I shouldn't be doing this." So I think, while it's important for people not to guilt themselves, because that creates burnout, and also just creates a weird, unhealthy, outsider relationship with organizing. When it comes to organizing, you don't want to create a boundary between you as the organizer or the savior, and the people that you want to help. The whole point is that you're trying to dissolve those boundaries, those class and racial boundaries. But so, it's important not to kill yourself. Also, I did notice that a decent amount of people after Duke just aren't really involved in organizing anymore. And I think student organizing is weird, because it's a very specific demographic. Students are both powerless, but also especially at Duke, or really any college that has a level of social and economic access, the students can be fairly privileged and can become fairly privileged. And I've seen that happen at Duke, where people that you know are really down for the struggle in college, kind of just graduate and are just like, you know, and it's fine. Everyone kind of ends up living their own lives, everyone has their own principles that they're probably abiding by. A lot of this is probably not visible. But I do think, when people see student organizing as separate from organizing as a whole, it creates this thing where people get really woke and radical in college, and then they just kind of move on, you know, and I think that's just a bad precedence to set for student organizers. If anything, student organizing is a gateway to the organizing world. And it's a great gateway, because there are a lot of safety mechanisms in place for student organizing that aren't there for real world organizing, you know, or other forms of organizing. So it's great. It's just that when people see it as a separate thing, it's very easy after you graduate to just be like, “Okay, like, I'm gonna get married. [laughter] And I'm just gonna forget about all this stuff.”

So – and is this just something I wanted to mention is – I think student organizing should always ideally have a relationship with organizers that are outside of those institutions. And ideally, the people that are organizing as student organizers, as they graduate – not immediately necessarily – but they should be continuing on to those spaces. And I think at Duke, we struggled with a thing where Duke is so insular to begin with, where we just didn't honestly know many Durham organizers. Like I knew a couple of them. But we just weren't really familiar with it. And that creates that problem where people will graduate. And they don't know, they don't have any knowledge of organizing outside of the student world. And so they just kind of become out of practice, you know? So I think it's important to create those relationships in college too. Yeah, I guess that's the one thing I would say about organizing, and student organizing. But yeah, that's really it.

Christina Huang 1:13:42
No, no, I totally agree with that. Both points were excellent points. But I think that's the whole point of college to make those connections and relationships to help your community because, what's the point of Asian American Studies? If it’s all just a class. You should be able to apply it in the future and help your community. My final question is about what does it mean to you to be part of this movement, Asian American Studies movement, that's happening across the country?

Aamir Azhar 1:14:14
Yeah, I do think one thing I didn't mention and honestly that I don't think about much because I don't want to think about is how for the last decade we've been in this really weird affirmative action moment, where Asian Americans are being used but also are willingly letting themselves be used as political mechanisms against affirmative action. Just in a wrong way in the sense where it's just incorrect. Asian Americans of many types benefit from affirmative action in many ways, and anyways, I think it's interesting because we are fighting to be represented in colleges, and yet many of us are aligning ourselves with them, you know what I mean? It's so weird that we're like, oh my god, we haven't been represented and we don't have any resources to learn about ourselves and our identity, and all of these things, and then that will turn around. And rather than push against the institutions that have this power, we're blaming Black, Indigenous and Latino people. It's absolutely nonsensical, honestly. In so many different ways.

But I think that also in some weird way, it does speak to the importance of Asian American Studies and the importance of keeping Asian American Studies political is that part of the reason Asian Americans are honestly so stupid about this situation – pardon my language – is because we just don't have any conception of our political identity. We just don't know what it means and what it has meant. And we don’t know our roots in America. We still think that we're a new ethnic group in the States when Asian Americans have existed for centuries in the US and for so long. And for so many decades, Asian Americans have aligned themselves in solidarity with other minority groups, with queer groups, with Black groups, Indigenous groups, Latino groups, and many other groups. But the thing is, a lot of people just don't know that or just don't want to recognize that because they want to be accepted by the systems of power that we're talking about. So anyways, I think it does mean a lot to me to at the very least be part of that struggle, and also that effort to educate people. It's complicated, because Asian American Studies can also go the other way, where it becomes a way for Asian Americans to distance themselves from other minority groups, but it historically has not been that, It's been the opposite, right? And so I think being part of that group and that effort is really important. And I'm glad even though I kind of joined randomly, I'm glad that I was able to be a part of that. And also be educated by people who had a lot more experience and knowledge and everything than me to be able to tell me like, “Oh, this is what being Asian American is. It's not like these random things that you think it is, that Hollywood might make you think it's like. It's a political identity, you know.” [laughter] But that's what it is. At the end of the day, it's a political identity. And for better and for worse, we have to deal with the ramifications of that. So yeah, I'm very glad to have had that experience, I guess. And I feel very lucky.

Christina Huang 1:18:02
Yeah. No, that's a beautiful way to end because everything that I have been feeling lately, you just channeled into one big rant, and I resonate a lot with what you're saying,

Aamir Azhar 1:18:15
Thank you. Yeah, Asian Americans, it's complicated. This is probably not the- this is not associated with AASWG at all, as a group, but something that me and my friends used to joke about is Asian Americans did not deserve rights. [laughter] And it's funny because we're pushing for these certain rights and we're pushing for education and representation, but also so many of us fall short. Like we are not doing the best. Asian Americans are not being the best we can be.