Interviewee: Karina Maciel

Interviewer: Divya Aikat

Date: July 10, 2024

Location: Miami, Florida

Transcriber: Divya Aikat

Length: 1:16:04

Divya Aikat (00:00)
Hello, my name is Divya Aikat. Today's date is July 10, 2024. I'm located in Salisbury, Maryland, USA. And I'm here today with Karina Maciel, a current member of the Asian Pacific American Action Committee and student at Amherst College. Karina, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling in from today?

Karina Maciel (00:23)
Yeah, so my name is Karina Maciel. I am a rising senior at Amherst College, American Studies major. And I'm currently calling in from Coral Gables, Miami, Florida, United States.

Divya Aikat (00:41)
Thank you so much. So just to start off, I wanted to talk a little bit about your background, and your identity-based experiences that might inform the work that you do today. So, could you tell us a little bit more about your upbringing, and how it might influence your identity?

Karina Maciel (01:02)
Yeah, so my name is Karina, as I said. And let's see… I'm from Kailua, Hawaiʻi. But I've also lived in a bunch of different places all over the United States. And that's because, growing up, my dad was actually in the US military. And so because of his job, we moved a lot, I think, like every three or four years. So, I don't really consider myself to have like a hometown per se. I'm kind of from all over the place. And I usually just tell people that I'm from the last place I lived. And so because of that, when I think about my upbringing, that sort of transience and constant change is one of the first things that I think about.

I'm also the oldest of four, and I'm half Filipino, half Mexican American. My dad is an immigrant. He was born in Michoacán in Mexico, and he's been in the United States since he was about 11. And my mom is Filipino American. She's from Orange County, California, that's where she grew up. And my grandma actually immigrated to the United States -- I believe in her mid 20s -- to be a nurse from the Philippines, from a town called Nueva Vizcaya. It’s actually funny that this question is here. I was just thinking about this the other day, because I had to write about it for something. But I feel like being mixed, and also not particularly claiming anywhere location wise, or feeling a super strong connection to one place has really influenced not only how I see my own identity, but the identities of others around me, and kind of how I want that to show up in the work that I do. So like, in my schoolwork, in my academia work, and also in- like, I don't consider myself a super big activist, but in the advocacy work that I do.

And I guess here, you have this question: Could you explain a little bit about the visibility or invisibility of your Filipina and Latina identity? Yeah, I really feel like- Hm, I don't know how to explain this. So, I think the thing about being mixed Asian and mixed Latina is it's not that it's an uncommon mix. I think in certain places, there are lots of people who are half Filipino, half Mexican or half Mexican, something else. I just think that combined with the fact that I lived in a bunch of places means that I felt growing up a really nebulous tie to both cultures. Particularly my Mexican identity. So, my mom is Filipino American, right? And so I know her side of the family, my grandma lives with us. I don't speak Tagalog, but I know what it sounds like. I know a lot about the food, I know my cousins on that side. And so for a long time, I think I considered myself to be more Asian. And then a lot of my formative years were spent in Hawaiʻi, which is a place that's really heavily influenced by Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians. And there are not a lot of Latinos or Mexicans or any type of Latinidad in Hawaiʻi, like it's not really there. So before starting at Amherst, I feel more Filipino than anything else. And also, I felt like I was really exposed- and this wasn't something that I realized until after, but I feel like being Filipino in the United States, or at least how I conceptualize it, was a bit different. Because like, I'm brown, my mom is brown, my siblings are brown, like my grandma's brown. (Divya: Mhm.) And something I noticed as I was growing up is that a lot of Asian American narratives are very East-Asian centric. Like that was something that I noticed. And then living in Hawaiʻi, like it's a little bit more complicated than that.

And then I got to Amherst, and all of that complexity was kind of just stripped away. The Asian community at Amherst is really heavily East Asian. And that, I guess, was what kind of drove me to not only be interested in Asian American Studies at Amherst, but also to become involved in APAAC in the first place. Yeah, so like, I don't know. It's a really complicated answer. This is so cliche too, like, it's so cliche. [both giggle] But like, I never really felt like I checked one box or I fit super well into one thing or another thing. And so yeah, that kind of really influenced what I became interested in academically. And what I decided I wanted to do with myself once I got into college. And even what I was interested in before like in elementary school, middle school, high school. I remember being a kid and making it a point to only ever read books that were about girls. (Divya: Yeah.) Yeah. And I would seek out books and stories about kids that looked like me, girls that looked like me. And I think I've grown a little bit beyond identity politics now. [laughs] But I feel like my own cultural personal identity really just sparked my interest into what I do, and what I study, and what I'm involved in at school.

Divya Aikat (06:54)
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for talking about that. I think that the transience and constant movement that you talked about is so interesting, both externally and internally. And I also feel like, sometimes when you're the only constant in your life, that identity is something that you really cling on to and want to find more about and learn more about yourself. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Kind of talking about that, a couple days ago, we were talking about your interest in history and people and how that's informed your archival work. So could you tell me a little bit more about that archival research that you started and how you got into it?

Karina Maciel (07:41)
Yeah, so I guess, like I said, when I was a kid growing up, I was always really interested in history. And just reading about people that looked like me, people that had similar experiences, or experiences that I could see my family in. And that was particularly true as I got to middle school, and I started to read more nonfiction and stuff like that. As I started to have more diverse friend groups, that sort of thing, as I just really started to become more aware of my own identity. And again, like I said, I lived in a lot of different places. Some places were really diverse and some places were really white. And I feel like switching constantly from really diverse to really white places would be like: "Oh, I'm actually not like my friends who are white and blonde, but oh, I'm not like my friends who are fully Mexican and speak Spanish at home either." (Divya: Mhm.) And so I became really interested in that already, just like history, difference, that sort of thing.

But a lot of that learning kind of came outside, like I would do it on my own. Because, I went to just a regular public high school in Hawaiʻi, and the public schools in Hawaiʻi sometimes can be a little bit spotty in terms of what sort of education you get, what type of reading you get to do. There were some classes I took that were really interesting, like I really loved AP World History, I really loved Modern History of Hawaiʻi. So there was always that through line. Like, yeah, I like learning about things in the past and seeing how you can kind of connect that to the future and just basically like the contemporary situation of where we're at. I also really liked the US History class I took in high school. Yeah, I can see how all of these things influence the political social climate that we have, like that's always been really interesting to me. (Divya: Yeah.) And then when I was applying to college, I was super directionless. I had no idea what I wanted to do, what I was interested in. It was also like peak COVID when I was doing all of that, and I was really concerned about, well first getting in and then second, getting in somewhere where I would be able to afford it. That would give me, you know, good money. Because I knew I wouldn't be able to go anywhere, necessarily, if it was too expensive. Like, I would have just had to stay home and go to the University of Hawaiʻi. And I didn't want to do that, because I was ready to just expand beyond that. (Divya: Yeah.) So I was applying to college. And I ended up doing QuestBridge, which I don't know if you know what that is.

Divya Aikat (10:22)
Yeah! But explain a little bit for the listeners who may not know.

Karina Maciel (10:27)
Oh, yeah, okay. So my junior year, I applied for QuestBridge, which is this program that's designed to offer full ride scholarships to low-income students. And I bring this up because before I had first been really interested in history and stuff in the past, and then it was through applying to college and learning how that process works, and also just really taking stock of what sort of resources had been available to me as I was in high school and going through that process, and what sort of resources were available to other kids. But I was like, oh, there's also this contemporary, people aspect to it. And so that kind of sparked my interest in sociology. And so it's not just why things are the way they are and how we got there historically, but the actual ramifications that has today. So yeah, I was applying to college, I was taking note of that stuff. At the same time, I was really just super directionless. COVID was going on, there was a lot of shit happening in the news, that was also really sparking my interest. Basically like social justice. (Divya: Yeah.) And I found out about Amherst through QuestBridge and I got in, and I noted that they had an open curriculum. And that was a really big draw, because it was like, for the first time in my life, I can study whatever the hell I want to study. Like no core requirements, nothing like that. They're always like, "Oh, you'd never have to take a math class again at Amherst," and I never did. (Divya: That's great.) [Karina laughs] And so once I applied there, and I got in, I didn't get a QuestBridge match or anything, which is the full ride scholarship, but I used my QuestBridge application to apply. And I got pretty decent financial aid from the Amherst Financial Aid Office, which is what empowered me and enabled me to go.

And it was there that I took my first real college history class in Asian American Studies, because it was offered on the history department's courses. And not only was that my first sort of exposure to Asian American Studies, AAPI Studies, as like a super concrete field. It was also my first exposure to a lot of historical research methods. And so, this ties into the archival research assistant part. So the professor my freshman fall, fall 2021, who taught Asian American history, and it was an introductory class. It was Asian American history, like 1850 to the present. But her name is Professor Christine Peralta. And like, a month or so into the school year, she sent out a call for a research assistant job. And I needed a job at the time. And I probably would have tried to find work at the library or tried to find work in dining services or something like that, because I just needed money. And you know, those jobs are pretty accessible if you apply. Like, there aren't enough of them for the amount of students who need to work but, you know, there's stuff that you can do. But I was also feeling, at the time, really insecure about my own academic performance and my own capabilities, because again, I had just gone to a regular public school. And I was suddenly, for the first time, surrounded by kids who had gone to schools like Choate and Exeter and Andover and all of that stuff. And so this professor whose class I really ended up enjoying, because not only was I learning in what felt like a really real formal academic setting, about history that actually interested me. But I was like, Oh, this type of job has clout on campus. [Divya laughs] Yeah. And so I waffled back and forth on it for a really long time and I finally ended up applying on the last day. And she accepted me to do the job!

And I had no idea what archival research was, I had never collected an oral history, except I ended up collecting one in her class, as like a project. But suddenly, I was helping her do her research on Filipino migrants and health care on sugar plantations in Hawaiʻi. So not only was I doing something that was Asian American Studies focused, it was also place-based. Like super, extremely, extremely place-based, in the place that I considered home and that I had a lot of ties to and that I felt really strongly about. Because the other thing is growing up in Hawaiʻi and also having a dad who was in the military, I feel like that also made me really aware of sort of the complexities of certain things like identity, certain things like class, certain things like race. (Divya: Yeah.) Like you grow up in a military family, and you kind of see the gaps there, you see the sort of divides. Like I remember seeing kids who are not that much older than myself, who looked like me, who are running around wearing their gear and doing the basic training and all of that stuff when I was in high school. And also, you know, you learn in school, and I also did some reading on my own, the history of Hawaiʻi as a colony, as a territory of the United States, like the forcible annexation and all of that. And so, being in that class, and also doing this job, sort of gave me a real serious vocabulary for the first time to talk about stuff that I had noticed, (Divya: Yeah.) that had always bothered me that I'd never been able to articulate. And suddenly I had people to articulate it to as well. My family- they had other stuff to worry about, you know what I mean? (Divya: Mhm.) Yeah, there were other things to worry about. Yeah, and so that was really interesting. And it was my first foray in academia. I was like, "Oh, my God, I love this when I don't feel like a fraud or imposter." Yeah. And also that class Intro to Asian American Studies, like, I really credit that as the official start. Like, I found that class really interesting. I loved it a lot. There were a lot of really cool units. One that really stuck with me was just kind of this idea of- we talked about the origins of Ethnic Studies, for example, and the origins of the Yellow Power Movement, student activism, that sort of thing.

And also, this kind of goes into the next part of the question, which is how did all of this shit segue into my advocacy for Asian American Studies? So because that professor was new, I think, and this is kind of me extrapolating, like it was her very first semester at Amherst, she had just gotten this tenure track position. I think she also was kind of really interested in how previous Asian American Studies, AAPI Studies activism had played out at Amherst. And so one of our final projects for that class was to talk with an alum, to interview an alum and ask basically about their experience being an Asian American student or advocating for Asian American Studies or something like that, on campus. And so that was a group project, a big group project. And with that group project, I ended up speaking to an alumni named ShoYoung Shin, who graduated in 2019. And she was an American Studies major and I'm pretty sure, if I remember correctly, she had an Asian American Studies concentration. And she ended up being one of the, I believe, founding members or key members of the Amherst Asian Alumni Network. (Divya: Mhm.) And so we were able to speak to her and she talked about this big push for Asian American Studies that had been going on in the college, that I had no idea about, but had been going on for a really long time. And all of this is happening maybe in November of my freshman year. And so yeah, it was really interesting to kind of learn about that, to hear that from somebody who had been there before. And also, there was a lot going on at the same time, like I was still figuring out how Amherst worked and uncovering all the special little nuances of that place that you know, maybe, if you go to a school that is designed to prepare you for that, that I had like no idea about. It was a really long, winding path, but that kind of led me to APAAC eventually in the spring of my freshman year.

Divya Aikat (19:22)
Yeah, I think that that's all wonderful. I really appreciated how you were talking about the past informing the present and that kind of personal push that got you into Asian American Studies. Because I think that it's one thing to research a population from the ivory academia tower and just think about them as a concept, and it's a whole other thing to actually have knowledge in real experience and real life and be able to put some larger theory to what's actually happening. And, and so yeah, I think that that path was really cool.

Karina Maciel (20:05)
Yeah, I think the other thing too, that kind of brought me there... Like my freshman fall at Amherst, I was so angry. Like I was really angry and really disillusioned, not only because of COVID and what had happened. And there was a lot of talk during COVID and I remember because I was watching it on my phone and also just play out in Hawaiʻi. First of all, the whole tensions between the Asian American community and the Black community, obviously. So you see that. And then I get to Amherst, and the Asian American community is so heavily stratified by class, like, it's so maddening. At least it was to me then. And I feel like Amherst as an institution has tried to take a lot of steps to get better at their socioeconomic diversity, as well as their racial diversity, for sure. Like, I'm gonna give them that credit, because it's there. But my freshman year, that was my first time being surrounded by all of that. And I was really angry because I came from a place that, I mean and you can kind of argue about this, which I learned in my Asian American Studies class that freshman fall [laughs]. But I came from a place that really prided itself on being a super multicultural, super mixed plate of ethnicity, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, like all of that. And you can see it like. I felt like I could see it. I never felt, at least in my Asian American identity, I never felt lesser than when I was in high school, or when I was at home. And then I got to Amherst. And suddenly, it felt like there was this really cookie cutter, sort of stereotype and role about Asian American students on campus. And it felt really shallow to me. It felt very shallow to me, especially like the affinity groups that existed. And I'm not gonna like dog on the affinity groups because, you know, they have a place and I participate in them. And I enjoy them a lot, I do. But it always just felt like there was something sort of missing, that nobody was talking about. And it really frustrated me. Like, I felt very angry, alienated. And I was learning about all of this stuff that happened in the classroom. I was experiencing stuff in my personal and social life. And it all kind of converged. I was like, "Okay, well, I want to do something." And then, I went home for winter break. I was so happy to be home. I was like, "Thank God, I don't ever want to go back." I went back. [Divya laughs] And eventually, I ended up at APAAC eventually.

Divya Aikat (22:48)
So, when we were talking earlier, you talked about your work as a student journalist, and the ways that you helped document this really expansive Asian American Studies history. So can you tell me more about that article? And then how that kind of led you into APAAC?

Karina Maciel (23:09)
Yeah. So I started writing for the [Amherst] Student (newspaper of Amherst College), I believe, in the fall of my freshman year as well. Yeah, I took on a bunch of stuff in the fall my freshman year, because I felt so behind. And also, there was just a bunch of stuff that I never had the opportunity to do before. I was like,"Okay, I have to do all of this!" And so yeah, I started writing in the fall, like little puff piece articles. And then that trend kind of continued in the spring, also because I just didn't feel super confident in my writing ability yet. Which looking back, I had no reason to feel like that. But I remember, they were doing- "they" being the student newspaper, which is called the Student, and "they" being the feature section I believe I was writing for at the time. They were looking for longer articles. I don't remember what month it was, it might have been April, March or April. And I had been hearing a lot of stuff on the ground, just from friends and just from the class that I'd taken in the fall about this Asian American Studies movement, this AAPI Studies movement. And I also realized because that was -- Spring 2022 -- that was the 50th anniversary of the first call in the Amherst student newspaper back in 1972, like the very first call for Asian American Studies, so the 50th anniversary.

Did I already know about AAAN and all of that? I think I must have already known about the Amherst Asian Alumni Network and all of that stuff that were really doing this big push. And so I was in a Features meeting one evening, they used to meet in the evenings. And I was like, "Hey, I have an idea." And this was my first big pitch. I was like, "So it's the 50th anniversary of the first call for Asian American Studies. And they're really trying to push for this major, and they've been pushing for it for a really long time. Can I write this article?" And the Features editors were like, "Yeah, go ahead." And so I was like, "Okay." So I went around, I was trying to collect sources and talk to people. I spoke to this girl who was a graduating senior at the time, who I'd met that fall, in my Asian American Studies class. Her name was Jiajia; she graduated in spring 2022. And she was really, really cool. Like, I really admired her a lot. And she had been a part of what APAAC was back in 2019, which was called the Asian American Studies Working Group. And she was about to graduate and so she had all of this institutional knowledge, because she'd been there right from the beginning. And so I remember in our interview, in our discussion, that was one of the first times where I was actually learning about all the work that went into it.

And I have the article pulled up on my computer, because I don't remember it all off the top of my head. But basically- obviously, there had been the stuff in the 70s, in the 80s, in the 90s, in the early 2000s. It's like fluctuating pushes for this sort of thing. But Amherst, in 2015, had this really big event called the Amherst Uprising. And if you go to Amherst and you ask anybody about it, as it relates to ethnic studies, as it relates to DEI, as it relates to their diverse recruitment practices, they will cite the Amherst Uprising as this super big catalyst. But basically, what it was, was in 2015, there was a huge sit-in in Frost [Library] that was sparked by three Black women. They were students, and they sat in Frost demanding a better addressing of racism on campus, essentially. Well, Amherst is originally an all male school. And it didn't become co-educational until way late, like way late in the 70s it became co-educational.

Divya Aikat (27:35)
In the 70s??

Karina Maciel (27:36)
Mhm.

Divya Aikat (27:38)
Oh, my goodness.

Karina Maciel (27:38)
Yeah, like I think the first fully female class graduated in the early 80s. Like me, I want to say 84. [The first women arrived at Amherst in 1976]

Divya Aikat (27:46)
Oh, wow.

Karina Maciel (27:47)
You might have to verify that, definitely verify that. But yeah, it might have been the 80s, because I know somebody whose mom was a part of that first female class, I think. Yeah. (Divya: Wow.) So super duper recent, like if you think about it, super recent. And so for a really long time, they had had all of these repeated issues with sexism, with racism, with a lack of diversity in their faculty, with a lack of diversity in their student body. All of it, over and over and over again. And so the Amherst Uprising was like this huge catalyst. They started a sit-in. It developed and grew over the course of- I don't know how many days, maybe like a week, it was a really long time. I believe it ended up having the support of the very little affinity groups that existed on campus at the time. The president at the time had been on the way to Japan, and they had to turn her plane around or something. Anyways, it was a big deal. (Divya: Oh, wow.) It was a really big deal.

And so, yeah, the Asian American Studies Working Group, which is today known as APAAC was born out of that, because at that time, there had been no Asian American affinity group, advocacy group, nothing. It had been basically essentially been dead, been defunct. So the Amherst Uprising sort of brought it back. And the student that I was talking to a time, Jiajia, she told me a little bit about this. And then I also spoke to the women who founded the Amherst Asian Alumni Network, and they told me more about this, because they were on campus for the uprising. So the Working Group kind of started, they were doing a bunch of advocacy while Jiajia was there, and she was telling us about this. They ended up getting approval for that first tenure-track line that led to the professor coming to Amherst who would eventually offer the first AAPI Studies class that I ever took. So that was a direct- (Divya: Yeah.) I wouldn't have been able to take that class if students like Jiajia hadn't done the work that they did. So basically talking to Jiajia sort of unearthed all of this background information. It was a really good conversation. It was a really long conversation. And she gave me the numbers of a bunch of other people to talk to. So I also ended up talking to Mica Nimkarn, who just graduated this previous May. And they were the Junior Chair at the time, I believe. And Mica was actually super instrumental in a lot of what APAAC did for a really long time, as well. And so I spoke to her, I sat in on a meeting to sort of tell them, "Hey, I'm writing this article. I want to observe what you guys do." I think I also had- I was friends with another person at the time, Hibiscus, who had been involved tangentially- Hibiscus is in my year. And they-

Divya Aikat (30:51)
Did they go to [the North Carolina School of] Science and Math, too?

Karina Maciel (30:53)
Yes, yes. Yeah.

Divya Aikat (30:56)
I think I remember him.

Karina Maciel (30:58)
Yeah. And so he'd been pretty involved heavily freshman year as well. And after I sat in on that first meeting, to sort of pull people and just update them on, "Here, this is what I'm doing. I want to make sure I'm representing you guys actually." Like that was it, I kept going back. And I met a lot of really cool people through APAAC. I actually met another kid from Hawaiʻi, who just graduated. And he was one of the only other kids from Hawaiʻi who went to public school and ended up at Amherst. So that was crazy. And that sort of took me through the end of my freshman spring. And I was like, this is really cool. This is what I've been looking for. And there was a lot of momentum as well, because I don't know if you remember, but in March of 2021, so like, March of the year, previously, there had been the spa shootings in Atlanta. And so that event in and of itself, I wasn't there, obviously. But if you talk to anybody who was there, they'll say that event was a huge turning point in support for the program. Which, yeah...

Divya Aikat (32:02)
Yeah, I think having talked to a lot of people at different universities… The increase in hate crimes and the Atlanta spa shootings are both catalysts for the push for Asian American Studies, which is really unfortunate that things have to come to that. But that's a thread I hear throughout this.

Karina Maciel (32:22)
Yeah because of COVID and the Sinophobia and all of that, yeah. Um, it was super huge. And so that... what else was happening? And that class that I took in the fall had just introduced me to a lot of people who were doing the work already, either because they had been students or because they found out about APAAC right from the beginning. And, yeah, actually I really credit that article from the Student, because if I hadn't decided to write that, I probably wouldn't have joined APAAC. And it had been there the whole time. And it had been pretty much what I was looking for, without me even knowing it. So, yeah.

Divya Aikat (33:09)
Cool, yeah. Thank you for sharing. I think it's so cool how you're talking about history that even stretches 50 years back still has a direct trail that leads to you and what you're doing now, and things like that.

Karina Maciel (33:23)
Oh, yeah. I think when I started at Amherst, I was really looking for community. Like I was able to find in some way, a Latinx community, like that came, you know, more- I'm not gonna say it came easily, but like it came. I think the Asian American aspect I had to work a little bit harder for, for sure.

Divya Aikat (33:55)
Yeah, and I think that it's one thing to kind of join a group by accident, but you continued so much with APAAC, and you've done really cool work with that. So what made you stay in that space? And what did that mean to you? APAAC as a whole?

Karina Maciel (34:16)
I just found that I really liked the people, I really liked the work that they were doing, and I thought it was important. And I thought it was also like there was something that was missing from Amherst, I felt. And it was this. Because also, like I had said before, I was really disillusioned with the state of the Asian American community at Amherst College. I just was not happy and I wasn't finding the community that I wanted to find within the Asian American community at Amherst, within my year in particular. I felt like an outsider. And you can argue that's because they're exclusive or because I just had a lot of outsider feelings that fall. I think both are probably true in some aspect. Truly that fall, that first year Amherst, I felt like a fish out of water the whole time. And APAAC sort of had a concrete thing that I could direct my energy towards, first of all, and second of all, I thought that it was really valuable. I was taking classes in Latinx studies as well, because there is a Latinx Studies Department at Amherst College. I would go on to take classes in Black Studies, I'm an American Studies major. But it didn't feel right to me and it didn't feel super fair, that there wasn't a similar avenue for Asian American Pacific Islander Studies. And I felt particularly that the Pacific Islander Studies aspect of it was really lacking, like, really, really lacking.

And another thing too, is just like... it would really bug me, even though I know people are very well intentioned, and they wouldn't ever mean anything by it. I would be like, "Yeah, I'm from Hawaiʻi." They'd be like, "Oh, my God, like I went on vacation there." Like, "Oh, my God, I honeymooned there." And that, to me, just felt really indicative of the fact that people don't know about the stuff that I know because I was lucky enough to grow up where and how I did. And the whole point of education and the whole point of attending a school with as many resources as Amherst, with as much capital as Amherst, with as much opportunity as Amherst, is that you can learn. And there's an entire chunk and segment of history that we're not learning. And if we are learning it, it's very one-dimensional. Not that the professors that were there are one-dimensional by any means. But the field of Asian American Pacific Islander Studies is so rich, and it's so broad, and it's so complex, and it's actively evolving. And it's a conversation, like all academic, scholarly conversations. And I felt that that was lacking. And that was something that I wanted, not just for myself, but for other students. Because also, realistically, I knew that we weren't going to get anything good until probably after I graduated. (Divya: Yeah.) Also, I like the people and I like the work. Yeah, it was just it was it was a good thing to direct my energy towards, I thought.

Divya Aikat (37:29)
Yeah, that all makes sense. I think, so much of this advocacy work and all of this – especially from the student side – I think so much of it has to do with the people and liking the people and having community that's maybe not the mainstream Asian American community. I think that that is really impactful. So, talking more about APAAC. So, from the point that you joined to now, or to getting the major can you walk me through that timeline?

Karina Maciel (38:06)
Yeah, so I started with APAAC for real, I believe, as in officially being a member in the fall of my sophomore year. So that's fall 2022. What do I remember? Because what happened was that spring, I believe, freshman spring, they had announced a cluster hire. They had finally approved a cluster hire for three tenure-track positions in the field of AAPI studies. In the departments of English, Econ[onomics], and Psych[ology]. So that gave us huge momentum. When did that happen? I'll double check on when that happened, but I'm pretty sure that happened in the spring of my freshman year. So that gave us huge momentum. And we came back in the fall, everyone had big energy, because the hiring process was about to start and we knew that this was something. Like this was the final push, essentially, because one of the big arguments against having a major program is that there's not enough faculty, and that there's not enough resources, and the faculty load that we have, there's going to be too much crossover from other departments, it's too big of a load. But suddenly, the Committee for Educational Policy had approved this cluster hire, and we were all super stoked. It was a great thing for us to have. And so came back in the fall, there's this momentum. Professor Dhingra, who actually ended up being my advisor, but he wouldn't become my advisor until later in the year. He worked pretty closely with APAAC; he has consistently worked pretty closely with APAAC. And he was like, "We need you guys to help generate momentum on the ground, essentially, from students, from faculty. Just gather momentum on the ground, collect opinions, that sort of thing." But basically, that sophomore year, I remember a lot of my energy in APAAC being devoted towards first of all, just generating student interest with the professors and faculty and stuff that we already had on campus. And second of all, actually participating in the cluster hire process for Psych.

Divya Aikat (40:31)
So what was the cluster hire process like?

Karina Maciel (40:33)
Yeah, so once they had approved that cluster hire. Each respective department, so English, Econ, and Psych, posted job postings, essentially, saying We're looking for an Asian Americanist in this field, concentrated in this, this, this and this. And yeah, so I was able to participate. There were three, and I was able to participate fully in the Psych process. And that was really cool. Not only because it showed me how this whole academia hiring process, job search process works, but also because a couple members of APAAC got to sit in on each job talk for the Psych hire, for the English hire, for the Econ hire, and ask each candidate questions. So for the Psych hire, they whittled it down to three candidates to come and give a job talk. And those were the three that I went to. And each of the talks were really interesting. Just about just different aspects and areas of Asian American psychology and psychology research, that sort of thing. I'm not a psych major or anything like that, but it was pretty cool. And then after each talk, we would actually get to sit in a private session with the candidates and just ask them questions. So, we had a prepared list of questions. Let me see if I can find those for you, so I can share them. Yeah, but we would essentially ask them, not only about how they plan to further Asian American Pacific Islander Studies, in their respective department, but what they planned essentially to do to help get the major and to help promote our student activism and advocacy work. Because that was really important to us. We wanted someone who had experience working with students and would be able to help us out if we needed it, because there aren't that many Asian Americanists or people who focus on Pacific Islander Studies on campus, and everybody is stretched really thin. And at the time, we were still working really hard to actually get that approval for the program. So yeah, that cluster hire thing was really cool. A super, super valuable experience on a variety of levels.

Oh, and then another thing that I ended up doing that was pretty big in that fall was -- as I said before, we were trying to generate interest. So myself and Evelyn Chi, who was also in my year and a member of APAAC, we sort of came up with the idea to plan and host a faculty and staff meet and greet. So we did outreach to all of the Asian American and Asian Americanist faculty and staff on campus as well. At the time, there hadn’t been a lot of people who focused in Pacific Islander Studies. So unfortunately, that was lacking. But we gathered them together, we had students come and basically we sat in a big room in Frost library. And we had students all introduce themselves, talk about their research, and have students ask them questions. And the idea was kind of like a mixer.

Because also another big priority of ours, and it's always been a big priority of APAAC, is to actually have people take the AAPI Studies classes that are offered. Because that's how essentially, we were able to sort of prove like, "Hey, people are interested in this. We're here, we're valuable. Give us a major please." To admin, basically, because that had also been another one of their big critiques dating back years and years and years back from when Jiajia and them were working on the Working Group. "Why is this valuable?" Admin would say. Because Amherst already has an Asian Languages and Civilizations department. And if you ask anybody who is an Asian Americanist, they'll tell you that's super duper different. Because it is. It's incredibly different. But yeah, there was basically just an idea, like, Oh, why is this necessary? Why do we need to do this? So there was a lot of that. We're trying to just internally drum up interest and show that this is a valuable thing that people want.

And then throughout my sophomore year, we also did a lot of attempting to coalition build and work with other Asian American student groups, Asian American Pacific Islander student groups, on other campuses. Not just within the Pioneer Valley, or the Five College system, but in Massachusetts. We haven't made it outside of Massachusetts yet. [laughs] So yeah, that was that was a lot of the work that was done my sophomore year. And then sophomore spring, I was really lucky to get to attend the Association for Asian American Studies, like their annual conference. (Divya: Yeah!) So that was a big thing as well, in the spring, in particular, drumming up the fundraising for that. And it's cool that we send people to that. And this previous spring, while I was abroad, they sent a huge cohort of people. The year I went, there was three of us, including me. And this previous year, the interest has grown so much since approving the major. They sent, I think, like 10 or 12 people. Yeah.

Divya Aikat (46:01)
That's so cool.

Karina Maciel (46:02)
It was really cool. And I think it just shows like, this is valuable, this is stuff that people want. And they have wanted it. And, yeah, and then... So where am I now? Oh, yeah, I'm about to be a senior. I think my junior fall, planned another meet and greet. I think we want to try and make that a yearly thing. And the question now, I feel like at least when I when I left in December because I was abroad in the spring of 2024, was how to sustain our own organization. (Divya: Yeah.) So recruitment, retention, because a lot of people who are in APAAC right now- so we had a huge chunk of people graduate. And now a lot of people who have come to APAAC meetings are in my year, and we're about to be seniors. And a lot of us are doing theses... in AAPI Studies, actually. And that also ended up being like a huge thing for why the major was approved in the first place was because there were a lot of theses writers in AAPI studies, which Professor Dhingra, I'm sure, will tell you more about. Yeah, as for the actual moment of approving the program, I was abroad, and I was in Spain, so I wasn't on campus. But there had been a huge push that fall, to actually write the proposal for the major. And so, I was lucky enough to be able to read that first draft of the proposal along with a couple other people and discuss it with some of the professors who had helped draft it, and who were going to propose it to the faculty in a faculty meeting, so they could vote on it, in order to get it approved. So we were able to read that, give our feedback. And there was a lot of stuff that we really wanted to see with that. Lot of intersectionality things, overlap with the other sort of ethnic studies departments on campus. And, yeah, when I left in December, that was still in the works. And now I'm coming back in September, and there's gonna be a major. So...

Divya Aikat (48:16)
That's awesome. First of all, congratulations on the major. That's amazing. I think that there are a lot of universities- I know there's a lot of variables as to how a major actually comes to fruition. But it's just incredible. And I think that's always something to celebrate. So yeah. I had a couple of follow up question. So, you talked about the faculty meet and greet and kind of how that's going to become a recurring thing. With these processes that are both engaging students and faculty, what are the responses on both ends?

Karina Maciel (48:54)
It's really hard, I think. Because we know students are interested. Because they take the classes, like they take the classes, they really do. They show up to ASA, which is like the wider Asian American affinity group on campus. But we're small, APAAC is. And so it's been hard to kind of get people to show up to our things, in particular. When it comes to APAAC and AAPI Studies, faculty and staff were always really happy to help. Like, I think the hardest thing for them was scheduling. So with that meet and greet in particular, we would always get a pretty good, pretty consistent turnout of faculty who wanted to come. And students would show up too. But I think because Amherst is so small and I feel like a lot of Amherst students sort of overload themselves, that doesn't leave a lot of time to go to extracurricular things, especially when there's not food at these extracurricular things. So we're really working on that. It's kind of funny because I do think that getting that major approved really drew in a lot of people. When I left, in December, there had been some incoming freshmen who had really shown a lot of interest, who were showing up to meetings and stuff like that. And we didn't have that my sophomore year at all.

So yeah, outreach to faculty members was kind of like- So we have our own faculty connections, whom we work with pretty regularly. So we have Professor Dhingra, who was super instrumental in the whole major process, Professor Peralta, who taught that class, who was a tenure-track hire as a result of the Asian American Studies Working Group's advocacy, who's also been a super big ally. And then Professor Saito and Professor Coráñez Bolton, who are both also Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies at Amherst. So Professor Saito was the English cluster hire, essentially. And then Professor Coráñez Bolton has been working with APAAC. And I think he's our faculty advisor, yeah. So we have those people who regularly work with us. But there's also just a lot of faculty who aren't Asian American, and even faculty who are Asian American, who are Pacific Islander, or even faculty who aren't, who are super supportive and super enthusiastic about what we do. Like Professor Melillo in Environmental Studies, I believe. He was a big advocate, and a big faculty voice for getting that major passed. So yeah, faculty outreach. The hardest thing for faculty is coordinating a date and time when they can show up, at least that's my opinion [both laugh] (Divya: Yeah.) And also, sometimes getting them to respond to your emails. Students are harder.

Divya Aikat (52:03)
Yeah. Interesting. That makes sense. Another question that I had was... we also just had a recent cluster hire where Asian American Studies faculty members came to campus to do the job talks and exactly what you were talking about. And I think one thing that showed up for us was that our opinion of who should be hired and why we liked them, sometimes differed from other faculty or the departments. Did any of that happen to you in your experience, and what was it like? Like, what do you think you prioritized versus administration?

Karina Maciel (52:46)
Yeah. Okay, so the thing about the AAPI Studies program at Amherst is that it's not technically its own department. It's a major, but it's a program. So, what that means is the faculty that are going to compose it, they're drawn from other departments. So those faculty that were hired were in English, Econ, and Psyc. They are going to have dual roles as psych professors and as AAPI Studies professors, as an English professor and as an AAPI Studies professor, as an Econ professor and as an AAPI Studies professor. And so we found that, sometimes within the individual departments, while they were all super amenable, they wanted us involved in the process, like 100%. They were super communicative, particularly for Psych, because that's the one I can speak about, because that's the one I participated in Super amenable, super open. Sometimes... and this is pretty typical, right? Like they're gonna prioritize the needs of their own department and what their own department is looking for to sort of round it out. Whereas us as students, we will be like, "How can you help us with our activism? What do you think the role of faculty is in supporting student activism on campus?" That sort of thing. So I know there was that immediate tension that I can recall, that's sticking out to me.

I don't actually know the involvement of admin in the hiring process. I know that it's the Committee for Educational Policy at Amherst College who approves those sort of lines and those sorts of hires. As in, they give each department the reins like, "Yes, you can hire somebody." I just feel like the big tension, historically, with admin has been APAAC and the Working Group and all the other students just trying to prove why this is valuable. And then once that cluster hire was approved, and it had been deemed as valuable in the eyes of the faculty and etcetera, etcetera. It was a matter, not just of the timeline, but the timeline was a pretty big matter. And we got a new president, I forgot to mention that. After my freshman year, the old president, Biddy Martin, who had been there for 11 years, and she was there during the Amherst Uprising. Who, I'm pretty sure if you ask people who've been doing it for longer than I have, she was pretty- I don't know if she was resistant to it. But it was harder with her to sort of get ground on this particular issue. And then the new President Michael Elliott came in. And the work had already been done. It had just been a matter of being like, "Hey, we're here. Can you listen to us? And help us with this thing, please?" And he did. For the most part, I think. By the time these sort of mechanisms were coming together, I was still going to APAAC, and I was still participating, and I was still doing the stuff I wanted to do, and showing up to the meetings and things like that. But the super nitty gritty details, I wasn't paying as close attention to, because I'd already started working on my thesis. Yeah, there was just a lot going on at the time. Ask Gabby. If you can speak to Gabby, ask Gabby, because I think she'll know more details about that. But also, the big thing was just the timeline. Again, generating student interest, sustained student interest, to show that yes, this is still something that people want and prove that to the new president, and the new administrative changes that are happening. And also just like, when do we think this is going to actually be feasible to achieve? And it happened a lot faster than anybody expected, to be honest, I think.

Divya Aikat (56:49)
Yeah, do you think that there were any unique factors at Amherst that made that timeline so quick?

Karina Maciel (57:01)
It's been going on for a long time, consistent pushes for a long time. This big push in the 70s. Another big push in the 90s. And actually, if I think- This is me hypothesizing, but I think the big pushes have come every time they've tried to do a big shift in what kind of students they recruit on campus. So there was a shift in the 70s, I think. Not a super big one. But politically, nationwide, with the whole rise of Ethnic Studies, there was that sort of cultural context. You know, who you should talk to, if you can? Anthony Chan, who graduated in 1972. (Divya: Mhm) Yeah, you should talk to him. He plays a big role in funding what we do and helping to advocate what we do. And he was one of the only Asian students in his class in 1972 when he graduated and so that- (Divya: Wow) Yeah, back when Amherst was still all men.

Divya Aikat (58:11)
Okay, I will definitely add him to our list.

Karina Maciel (58:13)
Yeah. If you want that super historical perspective, you can talk to him. And then again, there was this big push that was started by the Amherst Uprising. And that also sort of came from shifts in demographics of the school, and then they've gotten super intentional, I feel. Like the incoming classes are some of the most diverse classes that Amherst has ever had. So I don't know if that helped contribute to it, but I'm sure it did, in some way, shape, or form. Just the fact that it's super sustained effort. The fact that more and more students are coming in. And it's not just like Asian American and Pacific Islander students want to study this. Like, that's not the case. I feel like part of the reason why we were actually able to get this done, is because we were able to prove that everybody, at least, wants a little bit of this.

Whether it's from the classes that they take, or from like... Like for example, this was something that really struck me. So in the fall, Professor Peralta, who I took that Intro Asian American Studies class with, brought a scholar to campus to give a talk to her Intro Asian American Studies class. So I went. And it struck me how much the demographics of her class had changed in just two years. Like when I took it, it was a pretty Asian American heavy class. And then when I sat in on that one session, super diverse, like super duper diverse. It was really interesting. I was like, "Yeah, this is exactly why we're doing what we're doing." Like, people want to take these classes, people are interested in this. Maybe they're not all going to major in it, but you know, there's a need for it here. (Divya: Right.) Um, what else? I don't know, Amherst is also really tiny. There's only about 1800 of us who go to Amherst. And so I don't know, and a really vocal alumni network as well. And so, I don't know if that all helped contribute to it and created this specific environment where they could kind of accelerate that formal major process. But yeah. I can't say anything like 100% this is why this happened the way it did. (Divya: Right.) Yeah.

Divya Aikat (1:00:55)
Yeah. And I think it's always a bunch of little things that just add up. And sometimes it's luck, too. But that's helpful and that's really interesting. So for another question, you outlined these different strategies in terms of student outreach, and then, like cluster hiring and these different things that are going on in this process. What would you say has worked the best? Like the things that you've seen the most responses with? And what would you say maybe just didn't work? Because I know, there's a lot of trial and error in this organizing or advocacy.

Karina Maciel (1:00:56)
I don't know, I think this question is really interesting for me, because I was doing the work and I liked doing the work, but I never super thought about it like organizing. I never super thought about it like advocacy or activism or anything like that. It is. (Divya: Yeah.) But I never conceptualized it that way. Um, it was just like...

Divya Aikat (1:02:01)
Why do you think- Like, what would you classify is the line of activism?

Karina Maciel (1:02:07)
I don't know. I just feel like I have a hard time, for me personally conceptualizing a lot of this internal.... I think it is advocacy work, actually. I'll revise my statement. I do think it is advocacy work. I think I have a hard time, though, sort of conceptualizing it as activism, because we were really confined to working within the institution. And, you know, sort of playing those politics and that sort of thing. (Divya: Yeah.) But I think it helped that- I personally feel like, again, because Amherst is so tiny, it was never nameless or faceless to me. You could always look in somebody's direction and be like, "You are one of the reasons- you are a wall for us here. How can we work around that wall? Do we have to meet with you to talk to you? Do we have to meet with a professor in the Latinx Studies department or in the Black Studies department to sort of get ideas as to how they form their new major?" Or, I'm sorry. Latinx, LLAS (Latinx and Latin American Studies), is a program and Black Studies is a department, I believe. Yes. But yeah, so there was that. I think also just collaboration, a lot of collaboration, I think. It felt like we were, at times, doing a lot of it by ourselves. But we never actually were. There were always a lot of people, especially on the faculty side, Professor Dhingra, Professor Peralta, Professor Saito, Professor Coráñez Bolton, Professor Melillo who were really riding for us. Maybe they weren't thinking about it the same way that we were. I feel like we were really trying to be super radical [both laugh] in a lot of areas. And eventually that had to be restructured like, "Okay, do we think that Amherst College is actually ready for that? Is that something that's actually going to go over well? What's the best way to sort of appeal to this institution that sees itself as really diverse, really equitable, really inclusive, really a champion of the future? What's the best way to appeal to those sensibilities and get what we want?" And we couldn't get everything that we wanted, I don't think. But even just from my freshman year, it's a big change. Feels very different.

Divya Aikat (1:04:53)
Yeah, I think it's a really significant change. And I think that even what you were saying about the class that just in two years, you can see that way more people now have a vested interest in Asian American Studies, who might not have before. I think it's a lot about the small changes that are happening too.

Karina Maciel (1:05:11)
The other thing too- I'm not saying that all of us – that big, diverse group of people who was taking that class – are gonna go off and be an Asian American Studies major, AAPI Studies major, or dedicate their lives to the field of AAPI Studies. But I think it just kind of shows... To me, having a program, having a major, always kind of signaled to me that the institution thought of this as legitimate, as something to invest in. (Divya: Yeah.) And I think that where an institution puts their money shows you what their priorities are. And so, I don't think that the approval of this major was symbolic at all, because it's not. It's a huge material win. But it's also just like, "Hey, you're preaching all of this stuff. Now, you actually have to put your money where your mouth is." And look, people want to do it. People want it. Even if it's just this one class they're going to take, or maybe they're going to take two classes within the major, or maybe they're gonna declare the major. So it definitely feels different. Yeah.

Divya Aikat (1:06:17)
Mhm. I think that's so true and I think a lot about ethnic studies is just wanting to be seen and having some sort of an academic analytic to pair with your lived experiences. And the institution recognizing that is very validating, and teaching that, and exposing more people to it, and hiring people in the name of it. I think that's really important. (Karina: Yeah.) And then also, kind of talking about being in this activism work, in this space. From your experiences, and everything that we've talked about, you've had a very broad reach in your work. Thinking educational policy, restorative justice, you've done a lot of different things. And I wanted to ask, in APAAC or in your personal life, what has intersectional solidarity, organizing, or community building looked like?

Karina Maciel (1:07:22)
I think it's meant a lot to me, to be honest. And it's been really important that I sort of center that. And I think it ties back to that sort of transience that I mentioned in the beginning. Not only having a sort of upbringing, where I lived in like a bunch of different places, I was able to become exposed to a bunch of different things. But also having a sort of overlap of my own identity in a bunch of different areas. So being mixed ethnicity, just living in so many different communities that showed me the importance of that from the beginning. And like, I don't ever feel like one thing, which is kind of corny to say. But I don't. And because I don't ever feel like one thing, I don't ever feel like I have one interest. And part of what I really loved and really valued at Amherst, because I feel like I shat on it a lot over the course of this hour. [laughs] But part of what I really valued about being at Amherst is the opportunity to have a finger in many, many different pies and to try a bunch of different things, and to learn from a wide variety of scholars, of fields of study. of people. And sort of taking this idea of intersectionality and multidisciplinarity, right. I don't know if that's a word. But apply that to the sort of work that I do.

So for example, with this whole major proposal thing, APAAC actually came up with some requirements and standards that we wanted to see, as they were sort of writing this proposal, that we eventually gave to Professor Dhingra for him to include. And it was really important to me and other people as well, that one of those major requirements be that, "Okay, if you want to be an AAPI Studies major, guess what? You need to take a class in Black Studies or you need to take a class in Latinx and Latin American Studies, or you need to take class in Native American and Indigenous Studies. And also because the field of AAPI Studies itself, as I said before, is not only an ongoing conversation, it's an ongoing conversation with a wide variety of voices. And you can even see that at Amherst as well. So they approved the major and I was abroad at the time. But I saw in the newspaper that two students wrote out an article critiquing the major. And they were like, "This doesn't seem like it's gonna be intersectional enough and encompass the wide variety of the Asian American Pacific Islander experiences." (Divya: Interesting.) And we've had that conversation over and over and over again. It's actually been really important, particularly to me that that's at the center and that's at the forefront. Because not only does that tie into my own experiences and the alienation that I felt, not just growing up but being at Amherst. But also it's just like, you can't build the sort of equitable, diverse future you want to build, if you're not taking into account the overlap. Like, a lot of the fucked up shit happens in the overlap. (Divya: Mhm.) Not just in academia, not just in school, but everywhere. So yeah, I mean, and I have done stuff in educational policy, I have done stuff in restorative justice. And I feel like all of that has given me a super well-rounded set of skills that I want to take with me into whatever it is I decide to do next and that I feel like I've really tried to apply to my work at Amherst and to my work at APAAC as well. And just sort of keep that in the forefront.

Divya Aikat (1:10:38)
Yeah, that's amazing. Then, I can move on to our last question. So, we've talked a lot about the intricacies and details of this. Zooming out to the bigger picture and kind of thinking about our goal for this project: What does it mean to you to be part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

Karina Maciel (1:11:24)
This was also a really interesting question, because I never thought about it like that either. Like this was just something I'm doing at Amherst, because I'm a student at Amherst, and I feel like I have to do it and has to be done. And I like doing it also. And I guess I never actually thought about what that would mean for AAPI Studies as a whole. Like, I went to the conference in spring of my sophomore year. And that was sort of the first place I ever saw like AAPI, academia, all sort of concentrated and gathered in one place. Of course, we've done stuff at other schools, like with the Five College Pan-Asian Network, and with the AAPI coalition building groups at Tufts and Wellesley, like we'd seen all that. But I had always sort of, I guess, conceptualized it as these schools are doing their own thing with their own resources. This sort of academia is concentrated in one area, that sort of thing. Yeah, I don't know. It is really valuable. And that's why I was really surprised when you reached out to me, I think, because I just hadn't realized the sort of national scope that this has. There’s a joke on campus that being in Amherst and going to Amherst College is basically like living your life in a bubble. And that's definitely true. Like we try really hard. All groups, like affinity groups, all that. We try really hard. Because there are four other colleges in the area. We try really hard to intersect and overlap with them. Yeah, we try really hard to do that. But it's not always successful. Because Amherst is super insular, it feels, and it's very much a bubble.

And so I guess, to really think about this as like a thread in the tapestry, I suppose, that's really valuable, really important to me. The idea that you're building something that will last. Obviously, this whole thing has always been bigger than myself, but I'm not gonna lie. Myself, and what I wanted to see, and what I felt like should be there and was unfair that it wasn't, was a really big part in why I was drawn to this work in the beginning. Because I wanted to build a community. Yes, for other people, but also because I wanted a community. But I'm about to graduate. And so I really hope that this sort of community and this sort of momentum doesn't stop, it keeps going. Not just at Amherst, but all over the place. Yeah. (Divya: Yeah.) Because that's important. That's important.

Divya Aikat (1:14:29)
I think it is, and I think that being a small piece of what you want to see and what is meaningful to you, really makes a difference for the larger movement. Like, Amherst, you guys already have a major now.

Karina Maciel (1:14:43)
And obviously, like it wasn't just me, like I've had the privilege of working with a lot of really, really fucking cool people. Like I hope you get to talk to Gabby, because Gabby is just so incredible. Jiajia, Kiko, and Olivia and all of the alumni, like Anthony Chan. And all the professors. Like I've been very lucky to just talk to and learn from and just like listen to- Like I'm doing a lot of talking right now. This isn't normal. [laughs] Like I don't talk this much ever. So yeah, it's been about me, but it's also been about what I've been able to pick up from other people and what we've kind of been able to create together, and this thing that's going to be there after we graduate, and hopefully people will continue to do it.

Divya Aikat (1:15:31)
Yeah, that rocks. [laughs] That's amazing. Yeah. So, to wrap this up, thank you so much for joining me here today. I think that was just such a wonderful oral history about all of the intricacies of organizing at Amherst. And then a pretty meaningful look into: what does it mean to do all of this and be a part of this. But, yeah, thank you!

Karina Maciel (1:15:59)
Thank you for speaking with me. This was really cool.