Interviewee: Gabrielle Avena

Interviewer: Divya Aikat

Date: July 19, 2024

Location: Lowell, Massachusetts

Transcriber: Divya Aikat

Length: 1:28:33

Divya Aikat (00:03)
Hi everyone! My name is Divya Aikat. Today's date is July 19, 2024. I'm located in Salisbury, Maryland, USA, and I'm here today with Gabby Avena, a current member of the Asian Pacific American Action Committee and rising senior at Amherst College. Gabby, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling in from today?

Gabby Avena (00:24)
Yeah, hi, my name is Gabby. I use she/her pronouns. I'm an English and Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies major at Amherst, and I'm right now in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is tangentially a really interesting place to be for Asian American Studies. It's like, I think, the biggest Cambodian diasporic population outside of the West coast. So, yeah, relevant to our discussion today, I guess. [laughs]

Divya Aikat (00:53)
Yeah, thank you so much for that introduction, Gabby. To start off, I wanted to ask a broader question about your own identity-based experiences and the ways that it might inform your advocacy work. So, could you please share with us a little bit about your upbringing or your schooling, anything that you think might influence your current identity or your interest in AAPI Studies?

Gabby Avena (01:22)
Yeah, so I grew up in Texas, near Austin, in a kind of small rural town that is slowly developing, but when I was younger, still very rural and white. My family is Filipino, both my parents immigrated. And we're a little bit mixed, like my grandma's half Chinese, but mostly just Filipino. I say that because I think growing up, I had the normal Asian American angst of like, "Oh, there's not a lot of people here who look like me," which was something I was hoping to feel more comforted about in college. But really one thing that I fixated on and was more interested in was that I think other ethnic minorities within Asian America might have a more coherent sense of what it means to look like or to be one kind of Asian.

But the thing with Filipinos is that- and I guess this is with other things as well, but their mixture is so baked into Filipino identity, with the multiple waves of colonization. And so I think growing up, that really struck me, where I felt like the Filipinos around me, like my immediate family, were all relatively lighter skinned. And Filipinos I would see on TV, like TV my parents were watching, were all relatively lighter skinned. But then when I went to the Philippines for the first time in 2017, I was like, "Oh, this is very different." [laughs] And it wasn't that I, you know, didn't know that darker skinned Filipinos existed, but it was so overwhelmingly the majority of people I saw. And I was like, That's very interesting that so much more exists than I kind of had access to, and so that was really interesting to me. And yeah, I was also kind of grappling with understanding Filipino American history at that time. And had learned about things like the 1904 World's Fair where indigenous Filipinos were exhibited. And so then I was like- and in this very small, white rural town, kind of trying to take in what this identity meant to me and how I felt connected to it.

So, I think that kind of culminated in my senior year of high school, where we had an option to make a final presentation about whatever you wanted, and I chose to make mine about identity. And I remember one of the things I said in that presentation was- we have this national food called halo-halo. It's kind of like a shaved ice drink, and the literal translation of it is mix-mix. And I remember being really interested in all the different foods that went into that dessert. So there's ice cream from the US, there's leche flan from Spain, there's little red beans from Japan. They all pulled from different influences. And I thought that was a really representative way to think about Filipino identity is that it can never just be one thing, but it's this amalgamation. So that's kind of something that I was already thinking about in high school by the time I came to college.

Divya Aikat (04:51)
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. You and I were talking about living in the South, these various Asian American representations, or lack of representations, that are kind of unique to this area. And I think also it's interesting- when I interview people, a lot of times people who are South Asian or Southeast Asian talk about how East Asia is the representation or the expectation for Asian Americans. So I think that's interesting. Could you explain a little bit more about the visibility or invisibility of your identity within your organizing work?

Gabby Avena (05:39)
Yeah. Hm. I think it shows up pretty prominently for me, because, like you're saying, I don't feel like a lot of things about Filipino Americans fit the ways people talk about like East Asian American affect as being quiet and reserved. I think that's where a lot of my research comes out of, and I can talk about that later. But yeah, for me, it was really important to think about what the particular case of Filipine America can offer Asian American Studies, or an understanding of Asian American identity, something that's informed by colonialism, an understanding of American empire, those things were important to me. Yeah, so I think it's really central, and in most spaces, even when I'm doing Asian American Studies work, I'm trying to make sure – not only for Filipinos, but for Pacific Islanders, right, or for other marginalized identities within Asian America – that they're not just there as a statement, that we're gonna put them in the title to be there. I think my understanding of what it means to be invisible in those spaces makes that a real priority for me.

Divya Aikat (07:10)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Can you tell me a little bit more about your work in Filipinx Studies and comparative racialization, as well as your archival work in the Asians at Amherst exhibit?

Gabby Avena (07:24)
Yeah. So I want to start at the beginning. Like I said, I was kind of doing Filipino Studies in my small, small way in high school where I was thinking about my identity, I was writing about it, I was researching it even, going into like the World's Fair. And then as I came into Amherst, which is really accidental. I just really liked Min Jin Lee's Pachinko, and I found out she was teaching at Amherst, so I applied. I really stumbled into Filipinx Studies. I was just looking through course offerings, and Professor Peralta, who's now one of my mentors, I found her faculty page. And I remember very distinctly seeing that she did research about Filipino nurses, and that was really fascinating to me. My mom's a nurse, like many Filipinos [laughs], and I felt like it was not something I had ever conceived of as something that would be worthy of academic study before. I was like, "Oh, this is a thing that people do [laughs] and think about critically?" And so I found that really exciting. And so that's kind of my entry point into Filipino studies, was taking that course. [Divya: Yeah]

And then, yeah, as I kind of got grounded in Asian American history, the kind of work that other people were doing, I was beginning to pull in my personal experience. So again, growing up in the South with a lot of Latinx people, it was really common for me, especially with my last name and my kind of presentation, to be mistaken as Hispanic. Yeah. And then, like we were saying earlier, when it comes to affect and invisibility, or relation to East Asian American stereotypes. I felt like some, but not all, of that worked for me, and I was relating to Latin American experiences with Catholicism, or connotations with indigeneity and savagery when it came to the ways that indigenous Filipinos were literally captured and portrayed and exhibited. And how stereotypes like dog eating have really carried down into even things I've experienced with the typical lunchtime stories of can be. So all of that was kind of informing my thoughts about how I wanted to think and talk about my identity, and how I wanted to study it.

And that kind of interest in the indigenous Filipinos from 1904 really- I just kind of chased that rabbit hole. And eventually I found the case of the first indigenous anthropologist to get his PhD in anthropology, who actually went to the Philippines to study these phenotypically Black indigenous people that are called the Negritos, which is kind of a derogatory term. But yeah, I found that case really fascinating, and that was kind of my starting point for my own research. And yeah, now that project is one of my projects, and it looks at not only that person, that indigenous anthropologist, but also a black anthropologist from the mid century, who are both studying this population of indigenous Filipinos. And for my thesis project, which is within the English department, I'm taking that into a literary sense. So I'm looking at representations of interracial solidarity or relationships in Filipino novels, following Filipino Independence. [laughs] So, yeah, it's like somehow that seed from when I was in Texas has kind of spiraled into this really big project that is now my thesis.

Divya Aikat (11:41)
That's so cool. Yeah. I think a lot of times there's like these little unofficial introductions that we have where it just kind of- like you were talking about in high school. I really like that you said that you applied because of Pachinko, and [both laugh] because I read that book too, and it's so good. But I think that then there's a more official introduction into the literature world and the scholarly space. And I think it's all along the same trail, but they can mean very different things, and can be validating. Along those lines, what does it mean to you to do this work, to continue down this trail and be pursuing Asian American studies now as a major?

Gabby Avena (12:26)
Yeah. It means for me... like that moment of when I found Professor Peralta and was like, "Oh, this is a thing that's worthy of attention." That feeling is kind of what motivates me. Is to say, oh this facet of my life that, you know, I used to never think about, can be something that can unfold and hold a million different potentials, and even the potential to change how I move through my everyday life. Yeah, that's really my interest in the subject.

Divya Aikat (13:02)
Yeah, thank you for sharing. Along those same lines, how did this research and this vested interest in Asian American Studies segue into your involvement with APAAC (Asian Pacific American Action Committee)?

Gabby Avena (13:17)
Yeah, it's a fun story. I was in Professor Peralta's class, and she had assigned us a project to go into the archives. And it just so happened that I had just started my job at the archives at Amherst, and so there was this really nice coincidence where I was, as a researcher, going through these files that were quite disorganized, filled with a lot of material that was, you know, not important, not relevant, a lot of old newspapers. And I was like, "This is really hard to find what I'm trying to look for." I have to look at literally every single document in these boxes in order to make sure I'm not missing anything that might be important to my story. And at the same time, I was working with my boss, my supervisor at the archives, who's really kind, and is always trying to make sure students are doing projects that they're invested in. And she said, “Oh, maybe this is a good opportunity that you could clean up this archive and organize it as part of your job." And so that became my project for about a year, maybe a little bit more. And I, like I said, went through every file [laughs], organized it, and made a finding aid. And I was not in APAAC at that point. I was just doing it for my job. But as I was slowly doing that work, I became more interested in the topic.

And then at the same time, again, Professor Peralta's class was really formative. We had to do an oral history interview like this. [laughs] And so for my final project, I had reached out to some of the activists from the 90s who I had read about in these archives, and I'd interviewed them. And talking to them, and kind of hearing their stories and everything that they had went through, really inspired me to be like, okay, well, it's crazy that it's been 50 years, and it's crazy that- One of the things that struck me the most going through the archives is that the same questions and the same pushback was still being asked in 1990 compared to 2022. So, that was kind of frustrating. And I felt like, yeah, I wanted to carry on the kind of legacy that they had started. So not only did I interview two former activists, but I also interviewed one of my peers who was an upperclassman at the time and was kind of leaving AAPAC, basically. And through talking to her- That was my freshman fall. I got involved in my freshman spring. So it was really a lot thanks to that class that I got involved in the movement.

Divya Aikat (15:52)
Yeah, thank you for sharing. I think there's something... when you were talking about that, I feel like there's something so cathartic about going through and cleaning up the archive, and seeing all the memory work and what the institutional history has. So that's really cool that you got involved in that, and that you got to interview those people. So with APAAC, what made you become invested in this work? I think that there's a lot of things that can bring us to something or be our first introduction, but it's very different the way that you stayed and pushed for this and have really, really been involved. So what made you stay and what did that space mean to you?

Gabby Avena (16:36)
Yeah, I think my passion for APAAC came a lot from frustration. As I mentioned, I came into Amherst being like, Oh, you know, I come from a place that's very white. Hopefully coming to somewhere that's a lot more Asian will help me feel like I belong somewhere. And this is a very typical story for a lot of Asian Americans, is that I came to college and I was like, actually, it didn't really help that much. Even within the Asian Student Association, which is a good space for people who do feel belonging there, I was like, I don't really connect with these people. I don't really enjoy the kind of- I'm not like, a huge extrovert. It's not really for me, this kind of space where you're just meeting people in a social way. And so I was more interested in the Asian American Writers Group, which we also have on campus. And that's when I found APAAC. I was like, this feels most right.

I think I'd also just taken, again, the Intro Asian American Studies course, and so I understood Asian America as a political label. I didn't really think about it as like a cultural or geographical – I don't know if it's geographical – but the bond I felt closest to was its political origin, and so it felt most right. And like the way I wanted to be connected to the term Asian American, to make it in a political context. It was also something that I had done more in high school, was to be involved in politics and activism. But there wasn't really a space to do it in like an ethnic coalition way. There wasn't really that kind of support. And so I was really excited by the fact that there was this space for specifically Asian Americans to advocate. And then finally, and most prominently I think, it was just my own personal frustration that there weren't classes that I wanted to take. I was really frustrated by the lack of – at least in my freshman year fall – offerings about American imperialism. But there was a real focus on East Asia, or East Asian Studies, which is very different from Asian American Studies. And having gotten this taste of Asian American Studies, I wanted more. It's like, there's not really the classes that I want to be taking. So, a lot of my passion from it came from that sense of: there's this thing that I want, I can feel the momentum for it coming, and I know that if I carry this on and join it now, I can help be part of that.

Divya Aikat (19:11)
Yeah, thank you for sharing. I think, especially when you've had a little taste of Asian American Studies, and you can envision what it could be, and it's not that, I think that really pushes people, that's something that I've heard a lot. And you mentioned your writing, so I wanted to ask about this. In reading about you online, I found a lot of really incredible poetry and writing that you've done. And you're also, from what I've read, Editor in Chief of The Indicator, which is a student-run literary magazine. So, can you tell me more about your experiences as a writer and your process, and if there is any connection or if Asian American Studies informs that, what's that like?

Gabby Avena (20:00)
Yeah, it's actually a huge part of my writing, so it's good that you asked, and thank you for reading my work. But yeah, I just finished a chapbook from when I was studying abroad in Singapore, which I also did specifically because it was in Southeast Asia, and the person that I wanted to take this poetry class with is a Filipino poet who is interested in writing about the Philippines, specifically through documentary poetics, just kind of dealing with archives and found documents. For him, it's images. And for me, it's also images. And so, I'm writing in this line and tradition that includes people like Diana Khoi Nguyen, and now Larry Ypil. So, it's very much a part of my writing. The chapbook is an examination of violence and care, through both a personal history and then a colonial history. So thinking about benevolent assimilation in the Philippines, and also the treatment of indigenous people. I even reference- some of the poems are just like poetic explorations of the research I was telling you about earlier with the anthropologist. So everything's very connected for me.

Writing these days for me is a way of thinking, and so I think if I'm thinking about all of these things, research wise, it can come out in my writing as well. But I think what writing can capture is the kind of messiness and tangledness and the kind of affective experience that like, writing an academic essay [laughs], you're not going to get in the same way. So for me, it's a really important part of, I don't know, the way I'm understanding my identity. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that it's part of my activism. It doesn't feel that public. But it's very important to me, and it's helped me a lot in thinking through why I'm interested in something like Filipino history.

Divya Aikat (22:01)
Yeah, that's beautiful. Actually a few people that I've spoken to in these oral histories have been writers, and I think that writing as a practice and as a way of better understanding yourself and the lived experiences, is so interesting and so important. Going back to talking about APAAC, and you said that you got involved in your freshman spring. Could you walk me through the process or timeline of your involvement and the milestones or notable moments that happened during that time?

Gabby Avena (22:41)
Yeah, so like I said, I came in at a really lucky time. It was spring 2022. We were still meeting with administration, but at the end of that semester, we got approved for a cluster hire. I was not involved in the organizing for the cluster hire. Credit to everyone else who was all a big part of that, and that's what I mean when I feel like I'm really standing on the shoulders of so many other people that put in a lot of work for this. But yeah, that kind of really helped me just get the ball rolling. So over the summer, we gathered alumni, faculty, and students in various meetings, did some research on who we should invite to those meetings, and just kind of talked openly about, you know, what we were thinking about, what we wanted to see out of the major, out of the cluster hire, what challenges we thought we would face. And some of those people were Asian American Studies professors, so it's really helpful to get their perspectives on that. And then when the fall hit and into the winter, we were just doing a lot of job talks, a lot of meeting with the candidates. And really, my level of involvement was on a case-by-case basis.

So for something like the English department, they were very open. They were- I mean, I'm an English major, so maybe I'm biased, but [laughs], you know, they let us edit their job rubric, their job description, and I felt very welcomed by them. Not to say that other departments weren't as welcoming, but we weren't as involved in all the processes, and it really depended on the department's openness. But in any case, I went to all of the job talks that I could go to, for these three cluster hires. So it was quite a bit. I think we had about four candidates for each open position. So not only was that cool to feel involved with the process and like I was helping to make this decision, but it was also really informative for me, as someone who is interested in Asian American Studies and academia, career-wise. I was like, Oh, this is really great. Like, I'm just getting a sense of, like, if in X number of years I wanted to do this, especially for English, you know, what could this look like for me, and who can I be connected to. So I felt very lucky about that.

And then once the job talks had all finished, and we had submitted our feedback, and it was in the deliberative mode. We tried to focus our attention on generating student interest, student support, making sure that was very visible for admin and for faculty. So we drafted and circulated a survey. Got about 50ish responses. Then we used that to make a report, and that was kind of gauging, like how many people would be Asian American Studies majors if they could? How did they feel about these different ideas we had for major requirements? For instance, like a community-based learning requirement, or comparative racialization requirement. We're kind of testing out different ideas we had. And then we would use that data, so like the numbers of how many people would be Asian American Studies majors. It would eventually, I think, be used in the proposal that they sent to the Center for Educational Policy to say, like, "Hey, this number of students are interested in majoring. Notice how we have no students majoring in classics right now. If this is a numbers game, there's definitely sustained interest for this major." So that was into the spring of 2023, and then when we came back in the fall, the faculty was really focused on drafting the proposal at this point.

It was still a real shock that it got approved. Everything we were being told, at this time, in fall of 2023 was like, this is going to take years. It's going to take a long time. We're going to submit the proposal, they're going to reject us, we're going to have to come back for edits, and it's not going to happen within the time you're at school. So I was fully not expecting to be an Asian American Studies major. I was like, well, it is what it is [both laugh]. Maybe I'll get the certificate from the Five Colleges. So yeah, that was the process for fall. We were invited to read over the proposal from faculty and give our comments. And then it was sent over in December of 2023, I believe. Yeah, and then we got the news in 2024. I wasn't that involved with that semester, just because I was abroad, but it was still, like, hugely exciting. And there was a ton of work that went into all of the preparations now that the major was a thing, like so much happened, and I'm sad that I missed all of it. Like creating the website, you know, presenting it to the public, all of these things that are really important that was all going on at that time. But I can't really speak as much to that work.

Divya Aikat (27:40)
That makes sense. Do you think that there was- You mentioned so many different strategies. Do you think that any [strategies] really got in there, or really appealed to faculty? Because we've been talking about how Amherst now has the major, and this is such an amazing step forward. Do you think that there were any strategies that were really unique or effective?

Gabby Avena (28:06)
I can't speak to uniqueness, because I'm sure this has been done, but I think something that was compelling was the 50-year mark of asking for Asian American Studies. And in that sense, maybe because I'm an archivist, it matters to me. But I found the historical connection very compelling and very good catch line. Like, I think it was put in a lot of headlines and a lot of the first things people were talking about. So not only is it emotionally important, but I also think it's strategically good to be able to trace the legacy and to be able to say this has been happening for a long time. And at this point it's long overdue. So I think that was compelling. I think that we, like I said, appreciated the opportunity to really work with departments, and really understand what they wanted, as much as what we wanted. So, like you have to understand that this is not just a hire for Asian American Studies. Our program is a program. So it's pulling together faculty from different departments, and they're going to have other departmental commitments to Psychology, English and Economics. And so it was also understanding that these departments are looking for someone who has an intro level teaching ability. They're looking for someone who might be able to teach X and Y course. And so knowing that our needs were not the only needs [laughs], was also important in kind of trying to gauge how we wanted to recommend people.

I think it was important to have a lot of internal discussions and be really clear about what we wanted. We were interested in someone with a Pacific specialization, because we didn't have that in our faculty yet. We were interested in Eastern imperialism. We were interested in someone who could do intersectional or comparative work. And especially, I think one of the hardest parts was meeting with all of the stakeholders. I'm not really sure what that looks like at other universities, but we're very lucky that we have a very robust alumni network who has been a driving force of a lot of this and keeping it sustained over so many years. They started in around, I think, 2016? 2016 to 2020, within that range. And making sure that we had the opinions of faculty, alumni and students, and that we were approaching admin as a kind of coalition, I think helped our position. It didn't feel like there was necessarily- I mean, there might have been tension at this point or that point, but when we were talking to admin, we wanted to be unified in what we were asking for. So that was a lot of just communication [laughs]. And then I think the survey was a good step. I think since it was used in the proposal and that sort of thing, I think it's good to gather data and numbers to present in package. Finally, we did -- I wasn't as involved with this -- a photo campaign, I think a lot of schools tend to do, "what this school doesn't teach me," and then kind of post that around the school as a reminder that this is a very active movement, and we're kind of being vigilant about this. So those are a handful of different things that we were doing at the time.

Divya Aikat (31:24)
Yeah, that's really interesting. Thinking about the things that there are to celebrate: finally getting this major after 50 years of student activism, the community in APAAC. Can you tell me about the moments of joy that you had during this process?

Gabby Avena (31:47)
Yeah. I think the most standout one was like getting the major, even though I wasn't there for that. I stayed up. Singapore is like a 12-hour time difference -- or something like 12 or 13 -- and it was fully 3 am when the announcement dropped, or something like that, something outrageous. And I stayed up the whole night waiting on the Slack [both laugh] for people to update me in the trustee meeting or whatever. And I remember the first person to be like, holy shit. And it was a really – even though I wasn't there in person – it was a really crazy, crazy moment. Just because, again, we really weren't expecting it to go through. I was pretty, pretty prepared for it to not happen. So that was really fun.

And then subsequently sharing it with the alumni who I had talked to, specifically who I'd done oral histories of. I sent her an email, and she got back to me, like, really excited. I had to be like, "Don't spread it around yet, because it's still pretty new." So that was really cool. And then, like I said, for me, it's been the joy of connecting with scholars who I'm just genuinely excited about. For instance, our English hire is Okinawan. She specializes in Pacific Studies. And I think even from like her job talk to even before she was hired, I was hitting her up, like, "Hey, I have these questions, I have these interests." And she's been very supportive. And then now one of my best friends is getting advice from her for their thesis, and I can see that work, you know. [Divya: Yeah] I can see how that's going to make a difference for people who have these interests in environmentalism, who have these interests in militarism, you know. Because I've had experiences with someone like Professor Peralta, or even someone I haven't mentioned, Professor Bolton, who's really made my comparative lens come into fruition. I know how important those mentors can be. And so I think, because it's my department, and I can see people coming up through it, it's been really exciting for me to be like, okay, there's something that I'm building through this program.

Divya Aikat (34:08)
That's really cool. I feel like so much about these moments of celebration or excitement have to do with the people and have to do with, "Oh, yeah, this one person really made an impact, and I feel like I'm gonna make an impact." So yeah, that's really nice to hear. Looking at the other side of the coin, this work can be very difficult, grueling, and it's never really without reflection or introspection. So can you tell me about moments of tension that you had or that existed between stakeholders during this process? What didn't work, or what were you challenged by?

Gabby Avena (34:50)
Yeah. I think, like any student movement, we came up with, you know, tension with admin. Typically, it's that you want to say something loud and you want to say something solid and the admin is telling you, "Well, reel it in. Or maybe don't say that so sharply." Or, sometimes, obviously even worse, they would like- I remember in my freshman spring, we were at this meeting and this one admin just kept talking over one of my upperclassmen members, and it annoyed the hell out of me. I was like, you're not- she was not listening. Yeah, I think it's really delicate. We have had moments where we've had to- I think every email we send, or most important emails we send, we pass around, like, "All right, everyone, does this look good? How do we feel about it?" Just to make sure we have as many sets of eyes on it so we're not putting anything out there that we wouldn't want to come back to us negatively.

I think there were times with admin as well that I felt like they didn't trust us, especially with the proposal, and I understand it's a sensitive document. You don't want people out there making claims about it that are not true, or if you're still editing it. They're like, "Oh, that doesn't have this. Then it's gonna make you-" Like, it's an optics game. A lot of it's an optics game, which is really annoying. But there was a lot of restrictions around- we had to select a group of five people who could come to see the proposal in person and then make physical markings on it, so that, you know, we wouldn't- Then it just felt like, I was like, you don't trust us, like it feels like you don't trust us. And that is hurtful, because I don't think we've done anything to raise this kind of suspicion. We've worked with you pretty closely, and I found that really demoralizing. And so at that meeting, I was worried about it, but I brought it up. I think part of it was because my mentor was there. And I was like, I'm pretty confident and she would understand where I'm coming from with this, because it's not necessarily her who made that decision. And yeah, she was like we can always have a follow-up meeting, or more people can come. So I think, you know, it's really delicate. Not being too afraid to make those demands that are really important. And saying what's on your chest, but also, I wasn't out there like, "You don't trust us!" [both laugh] and you know, I wasn't trying to accuse them. And different people will have different ways of going about this, depending on what the context is. So I have a hard time recommending a singular action, but that was one thing.

And then with all of the stakeholders, also with the alumni network. Like I said, getting messaging to be unified is really hard when you have so many people at play. And oftentimes we would- it's not necessarily that we were in tension with the alumni network, even. It was that sometimes we'd reinvent the wheel on accident, by doing something that the alumni network was already doing, or meeting with admin that had just met with the alumni network. And it was like, well, we're not really getting- you know what I mean, there's just a lot to manage. And so, we set up a consistent point person to talk to the alumni and make sure that we were kind of on the same page. A lot of students in APAAC also work with the alumni network. They also do oral histories for them. So that's kind of helpful to have basically a liaison to make sure that you're, you know, not mixing anything up or trying to do something where things have already been done for it.

And then finally, I think recruitment has been hard. I think a lot of us came from Professor Peralta's class, to be honest, and like that year of people in my cohort. And we didn't have a lot of underclassmen, and it was kind of hard. I think, honestly, last semester, we got a lot more. But since I wasn't there, I can't really speak. I think I'm really fascinated, really happy- Actually, to be fair, I think it was because we did more public facing programs. One thing that APAAC struggles with is like, we're so involved in this internal work, and we're so involved with already meeting with alumni and faculty and this and that and this department, especially with the job hires, that we didn't have as much time to be like, "Hey, we're APAAC [both laugh]. Like, come join us. Come to this movie night." Like that wasn't really what we were doing. So it's not that it's been a tension, as in people have been fighting about it, but it's definitely been something we've had to work to improve on. Like we have all this focus that's dedicated towards making the major but also creating and sustaining community is necessary to keep that work going. And so just being conscientious that you need to balance that out, and make sure that people know who you are and know that they're welcome has been important to us.

Divya Aikat (40:02)
Yeah, I think that rings true with my group too. Also, as we're expanding and we're trying to figure things out, it gets more and more difficult. And like you were saying with the alumni network, it's difficult to present a unified front and really get everybody together. Like we do the email passing around too [laughs], and everyone has different opinions and it's very important but it can get difficult. And so with these challenges, were there any strategies that your team used to kind of adapt around this or recognize a problem and re-envision a new path forward?

Gabby Avena (40:41)
Yeah, a lot of that's ongoing. I think specifically with institutional memory, one of the things that we do that I think is really helpful, and I would recommend to people, because I think it's unusual, is to have a horizontal club structure. So, there is no President of APAAC. There is no Vice Chair of APAAC. We are all just members. Kind of, how much you want to put in, you take out of it. That has pros and cons. So some people end up committing to a lot, and in those cases they have to be like, "Hey, I need help on this thing. Can anyone support me?" So it's not like it's a perfect system. But I do think the fact that every meeting we have a different assigned facilitator who will make the agenda and kind of walk us through it, and then someone is a note-taker for that. It's not the same person every time. And I think that helps people feel like they can be more involved and like they have to know [laughs] what's going on in the club. Yeah, I think that has been helpful.

Divya Aikat (41:49)
With the tensions and difficulties, how did your team adapt around that? And were there any times where you all recognized a problem, either internally or with admin or faculty, and then reorganized?

Gabby Avena (42:04)
Yeah, I think a lot of that is still ongoing. Like I mentioned, one of the things we consciously did was implement liaisons. But other things we've been thinking about are diversity within APAAC, for instance. Like, are we mostly East Asian? Are we East Asian with a sprinkling of Southeast Asian people? How can we be advocating for Pacific Studies if we don't have a Pacific Studies person or a Pacific person on our group? And so that's been hard. Mainly just because our school is very small, so it's not like we even have a large pool of Pacific people to pull from. And then it just feels weird to approach someone to be like, "Hey, you're this identity." You know what I mean? So, I think that's a problem that a lot of identity based organizations face, like especially Asian American ones. It's like, how do you do that without tokenizing people? How do we make sure the club feels open?

Another thing we've discussed doing but haven't fully implemented yet, at least when I was there were, again, more of those public facing things like teach-ins or lunch discussions. That's something. And then another thing that we haven't talked about yet is connections to other affinity groups. That's something that I was really passionate about, but it's hard. It's making sure that your contact lists for all of the affinity groups stay updated, which changes every semester. So that's really hard to maintain a connection to another student org. One thing we've tried to do is utilize our schools Multicultural Resource Center, who have permanent staff whose job it is to facilitate these connections. So having people who are more permanently there, be the holders of that information is helpful in retaining that connection. But yeah, we did have a couple of- we did help organize some really big meetings that were just all of the affinity groups in one room to say, "Here's what we're doing right now. Here's what our challenges are. How can we collectively strategize?" Yeah, those are kind of the main things that we've been doing so far.

Divya Aikat (44:13)
That makes sense. And adding on to that, thinking about these various strategies, one thing that we talk a lot about in my group is that it's very difficult to be organizing as a group of students, and have an idea. And then you're trying to operate amongst all of this institutional jargon, amongst admin who just want to push you off for another four years. And there are these nameless and faceless institutions that you, as people and as community, are going up against. And so I think that there's external strategies you can do, but then that also internal battle, like you were saying, all of these frustrations about what can be and what isn't. So, have you found any ways to conceptualize this or work against this impending doom and frustration that comes with organizing within a university?

Gabby Avena (45:15)
Yeah, that's hard, especially when we were being told, "This is not going to happen within your cycle. And you can do this, but you can't do that." I think, like I've mentioned, the alumni group is really helpful, because even if I didn't have this happen before I graduated, it still felt like you can't get rid of us. You know what I mean? It's not like once people graduated, they simply stopped being involved, which I think is how things might happen more easily at other institutions where there isn't a robust alumni network. They have regular meetings, I think if not something like biweekly, then at least monthly. And they were open with students coming to those and so I felt like, "Okay, well, even if I graduate and it's not done, it's not like it's over." You know what I mean? I can still do things for this. And I think for me, it also it's not like I came in at a time- I was very lucky to come in at a time where there was a lot of movement, and so I don't think it felt as much like, "Oh, this is not going to go anywhere," as much as, "Oh, it's going to take a really long time." But at that point, there was already so much momentum with the amount of faculty we had that it wasn't really a doubt that we would get it. It was more of a matter of, like, how long can they draw this out? And how long like will we need to wait for it? But at that point, there was already so many Asian American Studies courses being offered just by the amount of faculty we had gathered, that it felt like it was happening. So I don't know, it's hard for me to say. I do think that stuff like teach-ins and community events can be a space where, like, yeah, you don't have this thing, but you can still create a space where- like it might not be in the university, but here in this group, we can have Asian American Studies. Like the Asian American Writers Group, for instance. Even if there wasn't a course being offered in Asian American literature, there was always going to be that club where you could have that space and do that work.

Divya Aikat (47:39)
Yeah, I think that's very interesting. I think that there's a lot of different strategies that work and don't work and that you have to learn through trial and error. So yeah, that's very helpful to know. If you were to give students advice, students that currently don't have Asian American Studies programs and want to build the same community that you might have had in APAAC and then continue through that. What advice would you give to someone just beginning?

Gabby Avena (48:17)
I mean, you can't do it alone. Find allies. Find your people. Find people everywhere, not just in necessarily even faculty or alumni, but staff. You know, like the Multicultural Resource Center or the community engagement learning people. Find people, find experts that you can talk to, that you might have some connection to, either if they're alumni, or they're a scholar that you really admire. I think it feels really grounding, especially when I was coming in to be like, "Oh, my God, what is this? It's so big [laughs], such a big thing. What am I asking for? What is relevant, what is important? What is something that we can ask for that's reasonable, that- not necessarily reasonable as in it fits whatever admin wants but is feasible and it can happen within the institution that I'm at? While also being exciting and pushing for something new, which I think is something that we really had tried with our major to do. Is to be like, "We have social science. We have these broader ways of thinking and being connected to other webs of ethnic studies that makes our program feel not only important to us, but important to a broader community."

That community can also be not at your college. Talking to other groups from other colleges have been really helpful. I've learned from places like Smith and Mount Holyoke, how incredible those community events can be, because they're so good at it. They're at a very different place in their organizing. I think they're a lot earlier, which gives them more space to do the kinds of community events that they're having. But they're really incredible. And they draw very consistent numbers, and that's been really exciting to see is that they have that community piece I think we're more weak on. It's inspiring. I think it helps to see, like, Okay, what is this club doing that we can go into? Places like, I'm not sure if it's Wellesley or Tufts, but one of them has an Asian American Studies program, and it's dealing with its defunding. And I think it's really insightful to see the different kinds of problems people are facing.

Because it's not even just you get the major and now you're done [laughs]. And you can, like, lay back and chill. Although obviously I'm less pressed than I was before, it's still like, be vigilant. Know the importance of stewardship and that this has to be something that can be sustainable for your institution. And know what your institution needs. It might not even be like Asian American Studies as Asian American Studies. I know other groups are interested in maybe different framings on that concept, right, like AAPI studies or Diaspora Studies. So listen to your constituents as well, not just what you are interested in, but what your student body in particular is already pivoting into. I think there were a lot of students already doing Asian American Studies, and so it made sense to kind of gather around that. But that might not be the case at all other institutions. So those are my very small [laughs] nuggets of these are things I've learned, but I'm still very much not an expert. I'm always very happy to hear from other places like what they're doing and how they're navigating things as well.

Divya Aikat (51:40)
Yeah, I think that's all great advice. And following up, you were talking about your interactions and learnings that you had from other universities in the area. How did you get in touch with them? Did you reach out yourself? Was there already a network set up between the schools, and you reached out through that? Is there an Asian American Studies network? Can you just explain a little bit more about that?

Gabby Avena (52:05)
Yeah, I think a lot of it is luck, in the fact that they were wanting to have those connections. Within the Five Colleges, it's a bit easier because... Actually a lot of students from Smith and even Mount Holyoke come to Amherst for Asian American Studies classes. I made friends with a good amount of people who were just in my courses, but they weren't Amherst students, because this is what they wanted to do, and this is where a lot of courses were being taught. So they just came, and that's how I met them. And then, you know, they learned about what we were doing, and they were like, that's really cool, you know, or they had already had an idea of Asian American Studies. And they were like, how can we connect over this? And so now there is a resurrected Five College Asian American network that had a conference last semester that's really raring to go, which is really exciting. Wellesley and Tufts, I think they just wanted to make that kind of inter-affinity connection. I had done a panel with some Tufts students who I think are part of the same group, and I think maybe through that connection, talk started to generate. So that felt more like, also kind of an act of coincidence. It wasn't necessarily like there was a formal, organized inter-affinity, Greater Boston area kind of thing, but I just happened to fall into spaces with people. Which is, again, why I'm like, it's important to put yourself in spaces where there's going to be people from different communities, like conferences or nearby institutional Asian American Studies gatherings. You can make those kinds of connections, because I don't think I would have really done the Tufts and Wellesley connection without having, like, rubbed elbows with these people [laughs] at a conference. [Divya: Right.] So that was helpful.

Divya Aikat (54:03)
Yeah, that makes sense. You've already mentioned a lot about this, so if you feel this question is redundant, let me know. But what was the community response that you heard while doing this work? And this can be from faculty, from friends, from other schools. And then who were your allies and where did you face the most resistance?

Gabby Avena (54:30)
It's kind of- I think I want to be really frank. It can be really disheartening. We have a pretty big Asian American population and it's not like everyone has to care, or it's not a given that because someone is Asian American, they're going to care. And so our struggles with recruitment, with the student body feeling a little more apathetic. You know, those are real things, and people in other institutions will probably face that as well. For me, it was really hard that, you know, when the major was announced, one of my friends who helps with the newspaper, wrote an article or op-ed like, really criticizing it. And this is like, we did not discuss that. We had never discussed the major, and I think that was something that was really frustrating is to be like, "Well, I thought you- Like, we had an understanding of like, this something I'm passionate about." And it's not even necessarily that that person had to agree or support the major, but I think it's something that I didn't realize was like: I wish that I had talked to my friends more about it. Like I talked to them insofar as, like, "Oh, I am doing this thing." But I don't know if this is common for other students. But most of my friends are not involved in political organizing, so I just don't really bring it up with them, or I assume that maybe they're not interested, or they don't have opinions.

But looking back, I think, for my personal benefit and maybe for the benefit of the major, if that could inform my thinking, it might have been better for me to... Even for my personal circle be like, "Hey, you don't have to care [laughs] or want to do it too. But I'm kind of working on this thing, and I'm curious what your thoughts are about that." Just because, you know, you're in dialogue with people who are either really in support of it, or like they're faculty and admin, and you have to convince them through these X and Y routes. But it's harder to gather just kind of like, every day- I don't know how to say that, but people who are not necessarily super invested one way or the other to public events, per se, but I have the space of people that were just kind of neutral. And I think I could have perhaps tapped into that more to kind of gauge how it was landing with people who were not involved in the movement. So that was a learning experience. Though, I think generally speaking, faculty were pretty- I think it passed near unanimously with faculty. My friends were like, you know, "This is really cool. I'm glad you did this." Most of them. So, it's not like that was the only thing that happened, but I do think it's a big takeaway is like, who can you talk to that maybe isn't plugged in, but can still contribute?

Divya Aikat (57:30)
Yeah, I think that that's very interesting. And I think that a lot of times- well, in my experience, a lot of our pushback was from the Asian American community at the school that wasn't in the Asian American political space. [Gabby: Yeah.} And I thought that that was very interesting, because there was so much potential for there to be interest aligning, and for there to be really big change, and instead there was more friction. So, I think that that's really interesting.

Gabby Avena (58:00)
Yeah, can I add something?

Divya Aikat (58:03)
Yeah, go for it.

Gabby Avena (58:04)
I feel like one of the things I learned from that op-ed was like, mostly I was frustrated- not even that our values didn't align, because it's not necessarily that I disagree with the values they were trying to espouse. In terms of, you know, we're trying to have more Southeast Asian representations. We're not trying to make this a tokenizing thing or a thing to make the academy look better, although maybe it's been co-opted by admin, to be that kind of thing. But I think my biggest frustration was like, you feel like you're not understanding what we're trying to do. And that's not a unilateral process. I do think that they could have been more gracious and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. At the same time, you know, this is a chance for us to reflect on what we could be doing. And I think at the end of the day, APAAC, like I've been saying, is a pretty internally facing organization. We're doing a lot of work, and I'm proud of the way we've done but, you know, I think we could have maybe put out a statement of some sort in the newspaper. Or, I don't know, had some- it's not that we didn't even have events. To give us credit, we did have events [laughs]. But like, I think that push could have perhaps been stronger or- Without going too hard on either side, I think it's important to make sure you are communicating your values to your community, so that there isn't that kind of misinterpretation. So that's kind of one thing that could have been improved in the past three years.

Divya Aikat (59:33)
That's fair. I think there's a lot of- especially you and I are both seniors, thinking about the whole process. And that timeline is very interesting. Thinking about that timing and the fact that you're going to graduate soon, have you experienced burnout through this work, through juggling so many different responsibilities? And if so, how have you experienced burnout, and have you found ways to deal with it?

Gabby Avena (1:00:09)
Yeah, like I said, I think this is really common in APAAC, because we have that system where it's kind of like you volunteer for things. And definitely I think that can be an impulse for some people to just volunteer for everything. You'd be like, "Yes, I can do it." [Divya laughs] And it's kind of a feeling or worry, at least for my part, which is kind of presumptuous, that like, "Oh, if I don't do this, what if no one else does this?" And sometimes that's served me really well. Sometimes there's a thing that I know that if I hadn't put energy into this thing, it wouldn't have happened. And that's important. But even so, I think it's important to do that with people, and not just as an individual. And like most people, I think that's something I've had to learn. Like my first years doing APAAC, like I said, I was going to all the job talks and all of the meetings, and it was a lot. And not only is it good to make space for people who you know might be newer, might not know as many things, but also who might be really excited about it, and just don't really know where to start. I think it's important for yourself as well, to have some space.

And I think as I've gotten further into college and my life has kind of changed in many ways, I haven't been able to be as involved in APAAC in that same way, in that I'm doing literally- Like, most like action items we have, I'm involved in some capacity, just because I have more on my plate now. And I think that's honestly good, because it's given space for new people to come in. So I think knowing when there is a project where maybe there's not a lot of energy around this, maybe I should step in and do something. Versus like, we have people, we have members, and if they're given opportunities, they can be a lot more active. And you can trust people. I think that's important. And a student org is like, you need to trust your people.

Divya Aikat (1:02:08)
Yeah, I think that really resonates with me too, because right now, we're trying to build that group sustainability and hand things off to the underclassmen. And we also have a horizontal structure. And it's difficult to balance that of, "Oh, well, I think I want to do it this way, or like control-" not necessarily control, but have issues of, like, perfectionism in how we organize it. And I think that it's a learning process. So other people have the opportunity to learn, and I think that's challenging sometimes. Do you- Talking about group sustainability and you were discussing how you all are trying to find new members and continue that past your time at Amherst College, do you have advice on how groups can build sustainability and not only start this push, but really keep it going in an effective way?

Gabby Avena (1:03:09)
Honestly, my answer is pretty circular, with the kind of horizontal system that we have, and I think- Well, it's also been utilizing the courses that are currently being taught. Like, my mentors work in Asian American Studies and all of these new professors who are popping up. Making sure that we are in those classrooms to say, like, "Hey, you now know me, a person who is in APAAC. You, a person who is taking an Asian American Studies course, might be worried about joining this organization that can seem intimidating, and like, you don't know much about it. But you know me, and now we can go in together." That's kind of how I came in. Is like I had this person that I knew, and so it wasn't really intimidating. I don't know what this is, but like, I kind of have a sense of what it is. I've talked to someone about it. So I think it's important to, like, when you're in those classes, be active about saying, when you're introducing yourself, like, "Hey, I'm in APAAC, by the way. I'm in a political organizing group. This is a thing that exists." That's definitely how it happened for me. Taking my first Asian American Studies classes, meeting someone and being like, "Oh, you're in a thing. What is this thing?"

And then faculty have also been really helpful in connecting us to people, sending us lists of names of people. So I think that's definitely useful for recruitment, but it's also something- Like I said, we are still struggling on [both laugh]. I do think creating events that are as open as possible, and knowing how to incentivize people at any college space, usually with food [both laugh]. Creating open spaces for people who are not even interested in the major to give feedback to- We've had meetings, so they're open to the public, with faculty and staff, where people can just come and ask questions, or they can come and participate in a little community art project. I think those are less intimidating spaces for people to walk into, without feeling like they need to commit. That they came to the first meeting, well now, like you're expected to do something. It's like, no, you can try it out and see how you feel about it, or kind of gauge where we're at. But I also think new members tend to have similar questions, or the same questions a lot of the time. So, trying to pace that and create a kind of document where, if they have questions, they can reference that. Yeah, it's been a small thing that's come up, just because some people join mid-semester, and we don't want to have to be like, "This is the organizational history. This is what we're doing. These are our goals." This is in the middle of the semester. So I think having documents that people can go through if they're interested has also been helpful for us.

Divya Aikat (1:05:54)
Right, yeah. I think those are all really good strategies, and it's definitely a learning process throughout. And talking about that community and those community approaches. In our earlier meeting, you talked about Amherst's intentional intersectional approach with the major requirements. So can you tell us a little bit more about that and your experiences of intersectional solidarity and community building?

Gabby Avena (1:06:26)
Yeah, that's been a really important piece for me, not only because of my research, but also personal values. I think something that is really motivating for me is knowing the history of the Third World Liberation Front, right? And knowing that, you know, even APAAC didn't come out of individual Asian Americans organizing. Largely, it came out of what was called the Amherst Uprising, which was a 2016 movement started by three black women who occupied the library and then created a momentum for many other racialized minorities to speak about what they were interested in and what they felt like they needed. And so none of this happens- We know this, but people usually talk about that in a historical sense, like, none of this happens without Black Power. But really, none of this happens without other groups. So for me, it's not even that we need to organize for Asian American Studies in order to understand- I need to organize for Filipino studies in order to understand myself. It's like, I need to know this in order to know myself in relation to other people. It's not like that is the end goal for me [laughs]. And so I think that's influenced a lot of what I've tried to do at APAAC in terms of trying to sustain a network and a contact list of people from other organizations. Trying to understand if they have- like if the South Asian Association is doing a drive for flooding in Pakistan, how can we support them? How can we either show up or help out? You know, like, knowing, yeah, we're a political organizing group, but we shouldn't be just oriented towards this academic goal that is really important, but it's not the point, really.

Let's say, like, especially following affirmative action, there were a lot of things I felt like could have been done. And so... how did this happen? I think we were just invited to join an open letter written by Asian Americans from elite universities. You know, saying that this is fucked up and not okay. And that got published on Teen Vogue, and I was really grateful for the opportunity to, you know, put in even a little bit of my two cents about that. And then on campus, I organized, this Black Asian solidarity workshop that wasn't run by me, but it was really the brainchild of a professor who had two contacts in mind, people who could facilitate this kind of thing. But a lot of that legwork was done by, not only me, but two students in the Black Student Union and in the Asian Student Association. So following affirmative action, I thought it might be good to have a community conversation that was professionally facilitated. [Divya: Yeah] To make sure that this wasn't seen as a thing that we weren't involved in, because we absolutely were. So yeah, for me, it's that academic interest and how do my courses in Black Studies and Native Studies help me understand what it means to be Filipino, through colonialism or through affect or through this and that? How can I bring that into how I'm living? You know. Yeah, I think that was a really- I was really nervous about the workshop, but I think it went really well. And it's a question of how do you sustain that momentum? Yeah, that's kind of the direction I'm hoping to take the student group in. Because I think, like I said, we've been so focused on this administrative goal. And not that that's going to go away, but now I'm hoping -- we'll see how it goes -- that we have space to do other things that we've been talking about for a long time, like teach-ins or community events or connecting with this or that interracial group. So, that's kind of, I think, for me, the next step of APAAC and where I want to take it in my last year.

Divya Aikat (1:10:52)
Yeah, I think that's so important. And I think, just like we've been talking about how previous groups and this previous activism at a university can help set that up, current work, and the things that you're doing intersectionally can really help set up that framework that will continue with Asian American interracial organizing as well. And in our pre-interview, you mentioned Asian American Studies as a stepping stone. So, I wanted to ask about what that means for you, either as a concept or as an actuality of your future and your career.

Gabby Avena (1:11:32)
I think it, for me, is more of a personal feeling, where it's like, sometimes people are like, "Why Asian American Studies? Why not American Studies? Why not this or that?" And it's like, this is what made sense for us in this moment. This is what had momentum. This is where the courses were. I don't think that's always the case. I'm not going to say that every school needs to have a dedicated Asian American Pacific Islander Studies major. I don't know if that's really true or how I feel. I think that this is the best opportunity we had to get classes in these different fields. And sometimes people are like, "Oh, why is Pacific Studies part of this?" Which I think is a really valid critique. And like, for me, as a practical measure, if you want courses in Pacific Studies, well, there isn't really a movement right now for Native Studies or for Pacific Studies within Native studies. That is something that's really happening in the Asian American Studies Pacific Islander front. That's where momentum is happening, and that's where we're getting people who are interested in it. And so if we want to make that happen, what we can do is this. So I think I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of critiques of Asian American Studies as a discipline, or, like they said in the op-ed, how it can be East Asian biased and all that sort of thing.

It's like, I'm not- As someone who does Filipinx Studies especially, not someone who believes that Asian American as a label can save us. Like I was not- but it's a tool. It's always been a tool to bring people together and to make something happen for the people who fall under the umbrella. That's how I feel about it. I don't necessarily have the emotional connection. I mean, sometimes I do. Sometimes I cry when I see a really cool representation, like, that's just something that happens. But like, I'm not chasing that as the goal, and I don't think that's how people have to feel. That's why places like Smith, I don't think are necessarily organizing for Asian American Studies. And good for them [laughs], it seems like they have a real interest in something else. So for me, it's like, what is it that you need to focus on to get these critical conversations around intergroup dialogues and Eastern colonialism and indigenous people in Asia, or Pacific islands or American colonialism? Like, what do we need to make that happen? And that might not always look the same in every institution, and people are going to have their criticisms of APA studies here, and I think that's really fair. But I'm satisfied with what this is going to give people opportunities to do, even if that's something that's going to be constantly contested and reworked, that's okay. That's how I feel about it.

Divya Aikat (1:14:38)
Yeah. I think that's so important and such a good way of putting it as a stepping stone, as a part of the process of a greater future that we want to reimagine. Not the end goal, necessarily. So as our final question, we've talked a lot about the details and the intricacies of APAAC and your experiences at Amherst. Zooming out, what does it mean to you to be a part of this AAPI studies movement as a whole?

Gabby Avena (1:15:06)
I think for me, I'm kind of thinking back to like 2020, which is, I think, where a lot of my activism obviously, for a lot of people, began. And at that moment, I was like, "What am I doing? Like, there's so much happening in the world and what am I as a person going to do?" And not that one person can change anything. But I think in any context for me, it feels really validating to be like "There is this thing that is, you know, hurting my community. That we don't have the kind of classes that other groups are afforded about to learn about themselves, or that we don't have resources in this or this way." And I think about, in the Philippines, there was this people power movement in the 1980s that dethroned a dictator through peaceful protest. And that's a very simplified way of describing it, but I remember growing up finding out that my grandmother was involved [laughs] and my father was involved, and all of these things. And I was like, what? Like, these are regular people to me [Divya laughs], who have no real- they're not crazy- they're not activists on the day. You know what I mean? And to be like, you were part of something that changed something was really inspiring. So I think that's, like a lot of people were, the root and inspiration of activism comes from is to be like, "Oh, something small can create something big for someone else, right? Yeah, it's not super- it's kind of cliche, but that's how I feel about why I'm interested in this work.

Divya Aikat (1:16:59)
Wonderful. I think that's such a lovely note to end on, and such a great way to put it. Thank you so much for meeting with me.

Gabby Avena (1:17:07)
Thank you, Divya. I really appreciate your time, and I hope, you know, this can be helpful for anyone [laughs]. And I don't know if this will be in the interview, but personally, I just want to make it clear that APAAC and Amherst are still very much learning. And I don't necessarily- like, I hope it can be helpful to people, but I don't necessarily think it's a model in terms of- I mean, it can be in certain ways. But I'm saying like, I'm really interested to hear what your group is up to. I'm really interested to hear what Tufts is up to, what Smith is up to, you know. I'm really excited to learn from each other, so I'm glad, even beyond the stewarding institutional memory and history that we're just connecting, yeah.

Divya Aikat (1:17:50)
Exactly. Yeah, I feel the same way. And I think it's just been so wonderful to collect these oral histories and get all of these little pieces of this very, very large picture of things that are happening and see the similarities and the differences. I think it's so important.