Interviewee: Rohit Kataria

Interviewers: Divya Aikat

Date: June 21, 2024

Location: Wheelersburg, Ohio

Transcriber: Divya Aikat

Length: 1:25:38

Divya Aikat (00:01)
Hello, my name is Divya Aikat. Today's date is June 21, 2024. I am located in Salisbury, Maryland, USA. And I'm here today with Rohit Kataria, a former member of The Asian American Advocacy Project at Vanderbilt, and current founder and executive director of the Asian American Studies Collaborative. Rohit, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling in from today?

Rohit Kataria (00:28)
Yes, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction, Divya. My name is Rohit Kataria, as you already said, pronouns he/him/his, and I am calling in from Wheelersburg, Ohio, a small rural town on the tri-state between West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

Divya Aikat (00:46)
Awesome. Thank you. So just to start, I wanted to talk a little bit about your upbringing and the background that's brought you into this Asian American Studies sphere. So, could you please share with us a little bit about your upbringing and how it might influence your identity and the work that you do now?

Rohit Kataria (01:09)
Yeah, so I think this ties into two parts relating Asian American Studies: the first being Asian American visibility and seeing folks who look like myself, and the second being the importance of education to my life. So, I'll start with the second one, since I think that helps segue into the first part of it. But essentially, I am the son of two Indian Americans, one of which – my mother – immigrated to the States when she was in third grade and my father, who was born in New York City. They were fortunate enough that their coming to America was brought on by their parents' desire to help promote education and higher education in their kids. And that promotion of education was something that was really instilled in me from a young age. My grandfather even is still actively involved with his mission to promote education. And he just finished his time running a school remotely for a village in West Bengal, where my family is originally from, in India. So for me, education was always super important. And I knew it was something that I wanted to devote a significant portion of my professional life to. And two, my experiences being raised in rural southern Ohio as an Indian American meant that I did not necessarily see a lot of people that looked like me. I think the census report for 2020, in terms of the demographics of my home county, shared that 96.7% of the folks in my home county were Caucasian identifying. And so, if you can put that into perspective, that's what? 24, 25 people and then one of them is non-white. And that doesn't even necessarily mean they were Asian or Indian.

And so for me, I had a lot of role models. But I think every time I saw someone on television who looked like me or was Indian, I latched onto them a little extra hard. Such as Hasan Minaj, even though what he's doing as a professional comedian is nothing that I would ever want to do. I mean, I love comedians, but I just don't think I have that kind of humor to do that professionally. So in my high school government class, I learned about Yuri Kochiyama and her importance to the civil rights movement. And seeing her name, seeing someone who I knew was Asian American, doing really awesome stuff to make the world a better place and partially, you know, not through formalized education, but through community education, helped inspire a lot of change in America. And seeing that example, in real time, in my government class was something that was really powerful to me.

When I originally got to Vanderbilt, I knew I wanted to study public policy. I thought I wanted to do math for a little bit, but I dropped that after a semester. I was waiting for something that was really meaningful to me that I wanted to pour a lot of my energy into. And that's when I discovered, the summer after my freshman year at college, the Vanderbilt Asian American Studies Initiative. And I knew based on my experiences in my high school government class, based on my experiences as the grandchild of Indian immigrants who came to this country for its educational opportunities, knew that it was going to be something that was really important to me and something I wanted to spend a significant amount of my time dedicated to.

Divya Aikat (04:57)
Thank you so much for sharing. I think that quest for visibility and being able to personally relate to someone is so important. And I also wanted to ask, specifically, I know that you said that you came from a very predominantly white town, but within your Asian American organizing or experiences, has there been a more nuanced visibility or invisibility of your South Asian American identity, within these spaces?

Rohit Kataria (05:31)
Yes, there definitely has. And, for me, I always like to remind myself – and this is partially because other folks who I really respect and believe in have shared the same sentiment with me – that for everything that we do, for the ups and downs, that even me being a South Asian in an Asian American space in a leadership position in an Asian American space, starts to slowly shift people's notions of what Asian American means. And as I learned more about what Asian American identity meant, and the political identity that was sort of assigned to it, when it was created in the 1960s, I learned that Asian American identity was always intended to be a pan-ethnic identity. And I don't know what happened historically, or if it's a product of the specific environments that I've been in. But I think there are, even within the Asian American community, marginalized identities. In the sense that there isn't necessarily leadership that is proportionate to the folks who represent various ethnicities under the Asian American umbrella. And when you ask non-Asian American folks what they think of, and even when you ask Asian American folks what specific national origin or ethnicity they think of when people say the term "Asian American,” an overwhelming amount of the time, it's East Asian American.

And for me, in The Asian American Advocacy Project at Vanderbilt, in Vanderbilt Asian American Studies Initiative, in Asian American Studies Collaborative, it's something that I've seen time and time again: that Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders, and South Asians are not necessarily as visible in these places. And I think sometimes from my own efforts in trying to encourage my South Asian peers to become a part of these conversations and become active in this work, a lot of the time I've realized that there is already a feeling of unwelcomeness that's promoted by a lack of visibility, that then perpetuates a cycle of feeling like I don't belong there as a South Asian. Because I don't see other South Asians there, but then I never give myself that opportunity to be in those spaces, and that promotes a cycle of someone else not seeing South Asians in that space. And so very long-winded. I'm sure that that'll be a theme throughout our conversation, that I take a little bit of time to answer questions. But definitely, visibility work still needs to be done in these advocating spaces. Because there are different ethnicities, of course, and diversity is important, obviously, for diversity's sake. But I think the real root of why diversity is important is because there are different lived experiences, there are different things that are important to people. And by having folks with different lived experiences in rooms, then it can allow for progress that encompasses a wider range of that pan-ethnic Asian American umbrella than just folks who have historically been in the room the longest.

Divya Aikat (08:53)
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I totally agree. I think the cycle that you were talking about of there's an unspoken South Asian exclusion and so then there's a self-selection out of that space, and it just keeps going, is very prevalent, and even seeps into organizing spaces, in these social justice spaces. So that's something to note. And I also liked what you mentioned about the roots of an Asian American identity and the fact that it was formed politically to unite us, yet it's still something that doesn't necessarily represent us, wholly. So yeah, to move on a little bit, to talk about your advocacy and work for Asian American Studies. Could you tell us a little bit about how Asian American Studies has played a role in your life at Vanderbilt, and then kind of how you've gotten involved with The Asian American Advocacy Project?

Rohit Kataria (09:59)
Yeah, for sure. So, I think this ties back centrally to why I believe in Asian American Studies, and most importantly, why I believe in the power of education. As I talked about earlier, the value of education was something instilled in me by my family, by my grandparents. But finding my own reasons, and my own personal reasons for pushing for education equity in the United States is something that took a little bit longer time to figure out and it's something that I'm still developing personally. But over the last several years in college, I have been, I'd say, blessed to realize that for me, educational justice- And this is actually something I was Googling a couple of days ago, what the word justice actually means, because I hear it so much. And at the time, I didn't have a clue of what it actually meant. And so, you know, this wasn't Merriam Webster or any official dictionary source, but the first Google entry that popped up for justice was: "people being free to live empowered lives." And that's paraphrasing a little bit. But that was something that resonated so much with me that even in a country where we have freedom of speech, and all these freedoms on paper, there are so many soft power dynamics that come into play that limit people. And I think we have enough blame on our individual selves that I think as individuals we limit what we can do a lot of the time, but for me, my really big passion for education is building academic spaces and educational spaces that make people feel like they can really do anything. One of my favorite quotes of all time is that: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are most often the people that end up doing so.”

And for me, that is something that carries throughout all my education work, throughout my Asian American Studies work. And going back to that visibility piece earlier, when I saw people who were doing amazing work, who were in politics, who were making educational differences, who were going to India to make change for social justice issues, when I was learning about Yuri Kochiyama breaking a lot of these barriers, when I was learning about the first Asian American astronauts, people who have developed drugs that can help treat cancer in patients, people who have advocated for civil rights for so many issues. It gives me a sense of belief in myself that a little synapse in my brain is firing saying, "Oh, wow, no, you can do this now." I even remember when I was little- I forget her last name [Sequeria]. But I think she had she had a cooking show named Aarti Parthi, or Aarthi Party, I think, was like the way she anglicized that. And I remember seeing a South Asian chef, as someone who really loves food, was something so cool to me. And I'd always loved cooking, I grew up on the Food Network and HGTV, but I saw this person who looked like me who was doing these things. And I thought, “Oh, wow, wait, could I be a chef? That's not something that's just for, you know, folks of European descent?“ And while I may never pursue that route professionally, I think it's given me more confidence to step outside my bounds and sort of, not redefine, but help better define for myself what it means to be Indian American, Asian American, South Asian American, to be my version of whatever those labels mean. I think part of what comes with being a racial or ethnic minority in the United States is that there are a lot of labels, or at least with the model minority myth, there's a lot of boxes about what we are allowed to be and what we aren't allowed to be. So when I see folks who are doing really awesome stuff, who are doing things that are not traditional career paths for people who look like me, it's something that helps me expand that definition.

And hopefully, my goal is to one day get to a point where I can say, "my Asian American identity," and the only thing that means about it is that I identify with that label. That doesn't necessarily mean that I like this or that I don't like this or that I'm good at this or that I'm bad at this. It simply means that I see folks who are Asian American, and I have a sense of kinship with them, a sense of kithship with them. And that's about it. That there's no stereotypes in my own brain, or that I perpetuate into the world, about what I'm supposed to do with that. So, tying back to Asian American Studies, I think to have classes available for students, where every single figure mentioned is someone who is doing absolutely- Am I allowed to use expletives on this?

Divya Aikat (15:01)
Yes, totally.

Rohit Kataria (15:03)
Seeing folks who are doing really badass things is inspiring, to me personally. And I hope also to so many other folks who have felt like they have had to work with a predefined notion of what one of their identities means. And obviously, that's important for folks who are Asian American. But I think more broadly, it helps other people redefine what Asian American means to them, and what is possible for Asian Americans. When we learn more about what these possibilities are, we learn more about what our future possibilities may be like. And we get rid of old notions that may be unconsciously limiting what we believe other people can do. And that's something that's important in Asian American advocating. You know, when you call a space "Asian American," and it's only East Asians, or lacking in South Asian, or Southeast Asian, or other marginalized identity representations, then that starts to build up what that definition looks like. And when you have folks who are South Asian, who are various ethnic identities, come into the spaces, then it redefines what Asian American means in the other direction. And so, I think these are terms by nature of their constant use, which will always have evolving definitions. But I think when we teach Asian American Studies, when we have these opportunities for folks to learn more about an important part of American history, that we do justice to this by incorporating as many different voices and experiences as we can, so we can better understand what it really means to be Asian American, and that it can't really have a solid definition because it encompasses such a beautifully wide array of individual experiences.

Divya Aikat (16:50)
Yeah, that's very impactful. I think that a lot of times, when we talk about this push for Asian American Studies, a lot of it is just to draw attention to all of these diverse and incredible lived experiences that are happening and actually put it within an academic analytic and increase that accessibility. So, I think that's really important work. And it's key to be done through education. So, that's amazing that you're involved with all of that. So yeah, to talk about the Asian American Studies Initiative turned The Asian American Advocacy Project, how did you get involved with that and become invested in that work and eventually carry the torch through the end?

Rohit Kataria (17:42)
Yeah, so I think this is my absolute favorite butterfly effect. But basically, my freshman fall was COVID. And the South Asian student organization at Vanderbilt was hosting virtual speed dating so that we could get to know people in the organization, make friends, and contribute ideas for possible pairings for, I guess the best way to describe it is like a mentor-mentee relationship within the program. They call it bigs and littles. And for me, I was so busy trying to figure everything out about college. I was coming from a small town and I- still at that point, the idea of Uber and paying someone else to drive me somewhere felt like the weirdest thing in the world. So that first month was just a lot, a lot, of acclimating to what a natural urban environment is like. So I was very wiped out. And when my turn came to get on the speed dating Zoom, I was fighting the urge so hard to just take a nap and be like, it'll be fine, it'll be 15 minutes, I'll just get on the next round 30 minutes later, or like the next day, whenever my next speed dating round was. So, I decided to not take a nap, and meet people, because that was something that was important to me. I never had South Asian friends growing up, who weren't related to me. And I got on the Zoom call. And I met this girl named Abhi Nathan. And she was the then current president of our South Asian student group. And she was pre-law at the time, and now she's an incoming 2L at Harvard Law. And I had mentioned that I was interested in public policy and law and something in that clicked for her. And I remember hearing the story later on that she told the people who were in charge of big littles that she was like, "I want Rohit to be my little." And so she was involved with the Vanderbilt Asian American Studies Initiative at that time. And as President of the South Asian student org at our school, she was very influential in helping me learn more about that side of campus. And so we got to hang out, talk about these things that we really cared about.

And at the end of my freshman year, I asked her if I should apply to be on the executive board of our South Asian student org, which is the South Asian Cultural Exchange, so S-A-C-E or SACE as we call it, because I feel like that's faster to say. So we talked and she said that I should definitely apply, that she loved [SACE] and she loved to see more folks get involved. I applied to be Advocacy Chair and with her advice and recommendations on how to put my application together, I was fortunate enough to be selected. And I really wanted to do so many things with this, I wanted to do social good in the world, I wanted to- I know a lot of people say, "good trouble". But I personally resonate with the phrase, "make some waves," in the sense that you create some disturbance, right? And you don't necessarily know how it's gonna turn out, whether people are going to receive it well or not, but that's completely up to them. But you're here to make this beautiful wave and you know that it's beautiful. How other people respond is up to them. Anyway, so I got to be Advocacy Chair, and I wanted to do some good things. And so, I found out about Vanderbilt Asian American Studies Initiative. I said, hey, I want to be a part of this. And that was thanks to- I guess, when I was a sophomore, she was a senior, Varsha Nair. And she was someone who cared a lot about Asian American advocacy. She was part of Vanderbilt Asian American Studies Initiative. And I think she saw that I really cared about these things. So, she talked to me or I talked to her, I forget exactly how that conversation happened. But I got to join the Slack for the Vanderbilt Asian American Studies Initiative. And that whole summer, it was dead, nothing was happening. And I was very confused.

But I had learned more throughout that summer that a lot had happened the previous semester, specifically Iris Kim, a then graduating senior, so Vanderbilt class of '21, same class as Abhi Nathan. She had gotten together to form VAASI, the Vanderbilt Asian American Studies Initiative. She had collected a group of people to help her and essentially get over 1000 signatures on a petition for Asian American Studies at Vanderbilt. And in that, they had already seen the success of the hiring of one professor through a Mellon Mays Professorship that was going to start that immediate next fall of my sophomore year, and they had already decided on hiring another professor named Mark Sanchez. The first was Vivian Shaw, but hiring Mark Sanchez to start my junior fall. And that was something that I thought was astronomically quick, but we'll get into the history of all that stuff, a little later. But for me, I joined the Asian American Studies Initiative and in the fall semester, the then senior who was running it, named Jack Mok, was planning on graduating in the spring semester, and he needed people to pass on the torch.

And so, in that same timeframe, I had suggested, after this initiative got back up in the fall semester when folks were back on campus, that we reach out to Vanderbilt Asian American alumni to see if they could put financial or social pressure on the university. And I remember we had a great conversation with the alumni. And I remember them saying, "you know, this is all fine and amazing, but-" And I was like, oh, no, they're gonna say they can't help or something like that. But they said the complete opposite. They said that they thought there was so much more work to be done at Vanderbilt towards Asian American inclusion and belonging, and something in me thought, Wait, let's just do that other stuff then, let's hear their thoughts. And let's start something that helps advocate for Asian American needs in this academic space in this college campus that isn't necessarily Asian American Studies. And so I texted my friend Angela Yan, who was also a part of VAASI at the time, and I said, "What if we started this?" And she was like, "Okay." And then we started The Asian American Advocacy Project. And we took a couple of weeks to actually settle on the name. And ultimately, we were recommended to not spend so much time focusing on the name because the work we were doing was going to be ten times more important than whatever name we decided to call ourselves. So we started that project, and we got to do some professor interviews for a third Asian American Studies professorship at Vanderbilt. We got to run social media campaigns to enroll folks into these courses. We got to make recommendations to the then- I guess he wasn't Interim Chair of Asian Studies at the time, but Dr. Ben Tran, who was the most important faculty member I can think of on the side of Asian American Studies for this. And talking to him about changing some of the ways the courses were listed in our course catalog. And soliciting student feedback on what students wanted in a curriculum. And ultimately, several months after that, in the January of my junior year, the major and minor were officially announced at Vanderbilt.

Divya Aikat (25:17)
That's amazing. Thank you for walking us through that very quick timeline. [laughter] One of the- Actually, let's talk about that. What do you think allowed that to be so quick, because, for example, at UNC, pushes for an Asian American studies program have been going on for over 30 years. And we're just now getting traction. Whereas, with what you've told me about Vanderbilt, it was very quick. And I think institutions don't always listen to the students or give in to those pushes like that. So, what do you think made that unique in the setting of Vanderbilt at that time?

Rohit Kataria (25:57)
Yeah, and this is something that I've thought about more and more and more, and every time I think about it, I'm just like, damn, there was a lot of strategic minds that were put together and I don't know if they realized it or not. But I think so many important decisions happened that ultimately contributed to the success of the program, some of them more sobering than others. But the first being that the rise in anti-Asian American hate crimes during the COVID pandemic, I think, was a very powerful force in the national media that a lot of Vanderbilt administration didn't necessarily want to oppose or admit that they were sort of actively working against. And so, when the Atlanta spa shooting happened in March of 2021, this was only four months after Iris Kim had started circulating a petition with her colleagues for VAASI, to ask Vanderbilt to create an Asian American Studies program. And so at that point, if Vanderbilt said no, I think there were a lot of very serious student journalists who had already published pieces unrelated to Asian American Studies, but had already showed that either in high school or in college, they had the means to publish op-eds in very powerful news sources like the Washington Post or Teen Vogue, or, I'm forgetting other names, but very large news outlets. And I think Vanderbilt administration knew that. So that was one piece of it.

Another piece- and this is something that now looking back, I think, will probably draw continuous academic debate. But we made a very conscious decision that when we wanted to build this program out, we didn't want it to stand alone. And when I say "we," I mean Iris Kim and her colleagues, because that decision was already made well before I even got involved with this. But the students and/or Ben Tran wanted this program to be built out of Asian Studies. And, as I'm sure you're familiar with, Asian Studies, is a historically area studies field. And Asian American Studies is historically an ethnic studies field. And I guess for our viewers or listeners who don't know what that means, necessarily, area studies and specifically Asian studies came out of a need for extra information to propel the United States to victory in the Cold War. And so, a lot of it was implementing Asian language classes into universities, a lot of it was cybersecurity courses, a lot of it was learning more about the terrestrial terrain of the Asian landscape. And Asian American Studies grew out of this idea of ethnic studies, that looking at things through the lens of race helps us gain a much better understanding of the lived experiences of so many folks and how we can better advocate for their needs in the present-day American context. And so, at a lot of universities, there's fundamental academic opposition to these two lines of courses being taught in the same department. But at Vanderbilt, there was already a thread of Asian Studies professors who had interests in Asian America or who had an interest in the Asian diaspora. And so, one, because of our decision, or the previous students and Dr. Ben Tran's decision, to include Asian American Studies in Asian Studies. But two, the fact that the major and minor ended up being called Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, opened the door for a lot more classes to be counted in the curriculum than just ones that focused on the continental United States. I know there are several professors at Vanderbilt, particularly Religious Studies professors who focus on Asian religions, whose focus includes not only the continent of Asia, but the way that these religions specifically- like Buddhism has transformed as it's traveled across the world. And so, it was very easy, I think, logistically when these majors and minors were being proposed that there were enough courses offered to fulfill these requirements, because we expanded it to the Asian diaspora as well. So, we have the COVID-19 pandemic, we have Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies in an Asian Studies Department.

And then, three, we had a language requirement for these programs of study. And that is something that meant that there was an automatic at least 10, 12, 13 credit hours that could go towards any major or minor for Asian American Studies, Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt. And so, we had Hindi, Urdu, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese already offered at Vanderbilt. We had minors for all of those language programs as well. And so, we had the foundations for those language programs that also helped contribute to the number of courses that could already be allocated towards those academic programs. And then there's two more. One is the fact that we had a new chancellor come in my sophomore year named Daniel Diermeier. And he was very big on a hiring spree for the university. And so, I think that the report I read said that in the '22 to '23 school year, Vanderbilt hired 89 new academic faculty. And I think it was just a pure numbers game that we ended up getting lucky that some of them would, by nature, be interested in Asian American Studies and studying that, researching that, and teaching it to students. So that's four things.

And then the fifth thing is getting the courses to count for general education requirements. So, at Vanderbilt, I think it's different than other schools, although I'm not too sure how it works. But basically, at Vanderbilt's College of Arts and Sciences, which would house the Asian American Studies programs, we have what we call AXLE categories, which is Achieving eXcellence in Liberal Education, A-X-L-E. And every course that is not independent research and not considered a unique special topics course, is given one of six AXLE categories. And so, by the time you graduate, you just need to hit a certain amount in each of those six categories. For a lot of students, that overlaps with their majors. For other students, like me, I was public policy. So all of my courses were Social and Behavioral Science, so I only hit one AXLE category. But for Asian American Studies, a lot of these pilot courses and trial courses were listed as special topics. And because of the way the course catalog works, these courses were not given an AXLE designation. So, for students who see these courses, who might be interested in them, they have two automatic drawbacks: one, they're not going to fulfill a major or minor requirement, because these majors and minors don't exist yet; and two, they're not going to fulfill their general education requirement, because they're special topics courses that have not been allocated an AXLE category. And so I believe Angela Yan and I talked to – I forget which professor, honestly at this point – but we talked to someone, and we said, "I think this is probably a big reason that you're not getting students enrolled in these courses." And so, by the time my junior fall started, all of the four Asian American Studies courses that were offered by Vivian Shaw and Mark Sanchez, were given AXLE categories and their classes combined with a very strategic Instagram campaign that Angela and I helped execute. We got to have, I think it was a 75 to 80% enrollment rate for these courses, which was amazing. I think that was probably about 20 out of 25 students if I'm remembering correctly, and that was a huge increase from the previous semester. So, I guess in summation, the COVID-19 pandemic, the hiring spree from a new chancellor, the decision to put this academic program in Asian studies, the liberal arts requirement, and the language requirement were all five very influential things that made this program happen as quickly as it did.

Divya Aikat (34:14)
That makes sense. From my conversations with other Asian American Studies organizers, I haven't heard of a language requirement being involved in the curriculum. So that's a very unique approach. Also, you previously mentioned you were talking about all of these different approaches that your group took, either before or after you got there. Like the petition, the faculty hires, alumni network, social media campaigns, things like that. And so obviously, you guys cast a wide net of strategies and I wanted to know what has worked. What were especially impactful strategies? Or that rang true for administration? Or things like that. And then what didn't work? What kind of flopped?

Rohit Kataria (35:10)
Yeah, I think I'm gonna talk about what flopped first just because there's a story that I want to share. And this was a story that was told to me. But basically my freshman spring, so around March 2021, a little bit right after the Atlanta spa shootings, and several months after the petition started. The story goes that basically all these hate crimes are happening and the Chancellor of the university either invited or accepted to have a meeting with the leadership of various Asian American student organizations on campus. And so at Vanderbilt, we have what we call umbrella organizations. Which I guess is not probably a Vanderbilt specific thing, but we have the Asian American Student Association, which I have personal thoughts on their name versus who they serve in actuality, which is a very hot topic. [Divya laughs] But they are one organization. The South Asian Cultural Exchange is another organization that are sort of broad Asian organizations. And then we have so many organizations within that. We have Vietnamese Student Association, we have the Philippine Inter-Cultural Student Organization, Japanese Cultural Foundation, the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Chinese Association, Korean Undergraduate Student Association. Let's see... Pakistani Student Association, Vanderbilt Association of Bangladeshi Students. But basically, we've gotten a lot of nationality-specific ones under that umbrella. And so, we also have a pre-professional society for Asian Americans. I think at one point, we had an Asian American sorority on campus.

But basically, the leaders of all these orgs came together, and got to have a meeting. And Chancellor Diermeier said, and I'm paraphrasing a lot. But Chancellor Diermeier said, "What do you guys want? What can we do for you?" And they had not talked about what they wanted ahead of time. And so everyone had a little different idea of what they wanted to get done for their specific interest group, as they should. And the chancellor turned around and said, "How am I supposed to give you what you want, if you don't even know collectively what you want?" And that was that, and I feel like the students couldn't even argue that because they weren't on the same page. And so I think one thing- you know, every time something flops, I like to say that you either win, or you learn something, but you never lose, unless you fail to learn the lesson from it. And so the big lesson from that was that folks needed to get aligned on what they needed, and that these university administrators, while they didn't care, I guess, necessarily for or against Asian American Studies. My true opinion is I don't think they care for or against it. I think that they have a lot on their plates. And anything that's going to cause them extra time, headache, is something that they're going to try to shut down as tactfully as possible. And so unfortunately, that means students have to go in understanding that there is a very real power dynamic from that. But I also think that meeting with the Chancellor, and I don't know necessarily what they were specifically meeting with the chancellor for, but I think that something that was really crucial to learn from this was that the Chancellor's pay grade is so high above these issues, I don't even think he gets a say in whether Asian American Studies becomes a thing or not. And so the fact that these university administrators who are super high up don't care, can be an advantage. That you can fly under the radar and do so many things and find the folks in the university who do care. And no one's gonna stop you because that's extra headache for them. They don't care whether it happens or not, which means they're not actively against you either. And so I think that was a really crucial step. Acknowledging that these administrators don't care, and then seeing that as a good thing. So that was one thing, kind of a flop story.

Things that worked, I think, just the fact that the Asian American Student Association, AASA, and SACE, on campus have an incredibly strong community. At Vanderbilt. I think the non-international Asian American enrollment rate is about 18%. So if you do the math, I guess that's about 1400 students on campus. And between the Asian American Student Association and South Asian Cultural Exchange, I think our GroupMes combined have a little over 1000 people in them. So the fact that's such a strong community makes this types of organizing so much easier. At least in one of my public policy classes, we talked a lot about how presidents of the United States – and this was like one week – but basically the idea that you can either do really strong during your four years as president, as building a coalition in your party, and building out relationships in that kind of stuff, or advancing an agenda that's really powerful and getting a lot of stuff that may be more controversial, even to members of your party, done. But then your party won't necessarily be able to continue. And so, we talked about the importance of having folks who are dedicated to community building and folks that are dedicated to advancing advocacy, as both equally important in sort of ensuring that this type of work moves forward. And we were very lucky that with AASA and SACE, taking care of the community part, that VAASI and then TAAAP, were able to do that sort of talking to administrators and faculty part. Because ultimately, even the students who are on these boards, they're students, and they have classes, and they don't get paid to do this stuff. And they need to interface with folks whose full time job is to do this stuff. So having that built-in community was something that was super important.

And, truly at this point, I don't know which method of social media versus op-ed threatening or petitions worked the best. I'm inclined to say it was a combination of so many things. And that if students have the bandwidth, there is no harm, besides maybe a loss of energy, towards trying as many different things and tactics as possible. Because every situation is unique. I know that Vanderbilt, some of the language that Ben Tran used- I'm never sure if he actually used that with his superiors, or folks that he was talking to on the faculty end. But Vanderbilt and Duke have, I guess, a friendly competitive rivalry that helps each of us make ourselves a little better. And I think the big push for Vanderbilt as it's starting to climb the ranks of US News and World Report is that you can either say, "Hey, all of our peers have this. It's time for us to, you know, get on board with this." Or to say, "Hey, none of our peers have this. It's time for us to establish ourselves as a leader in this field." And as a university in the South, I think we see Duke as our main competitor. And so saying, Duke is taking their sweet time on this. And if anyone from Duke is listening to this, you guys are doing amazing work. And I know every university is very, very different. [Divya laughs] But for Vanderbilt, wanting to be better than Duke, I think helped us get a little faster. And that might be all jokes, you know, I don't know how much that actually plays into things. But convincing leadership, why this is good for the university, and not necessarily just for students is something that is also really important. And three, I think something that really helped was having a faculty member who was willing to advocate for us and fight for us. I think it's one thing to have folks who are in student affairs or faculty positions, or who are in knowledgeable positions, say, "This is something I care about." And then just say that and treat it as something else. But it's an entirely other thing to have folks who are as invested in this project as you are, and who know the landscape of the university, who know how things work at your institution, and who know the incentives of people who are in positions that make these types of decisions. And so at Vanderbilt, at least we have an academic faculty senate that has to approve these things as they happen. They have to be approved, I believe, by so many other checks and balances. But as far as I know, Dr. Ben Tran knew these people because they were his colleagues. And so having him care about this as much as the students did was endlessly powerful.

Divya Aikat (44:14)
Yeah, I think what you're talking about with strategy echoes a lot of what I've heard about some combination of advocacy that ends up giving the university bad press or some sort of pressure towards creating this is important. And then also the peer institution note, like Duke and Vandy, is important also to consider. Thinking about this kind of friendly, maybe not so friendly, competition between schools. So I did want to ask, what was the presence of Asian American Studies on campus? Was it something people knew about outside of the group, how visible was your group in the larger scheme of things?

Rohit Kataria (45:08)
That's a good question. And I'm not sure it's one I can entirely answer as someone who was part of the in-group, but I know that my non-Asian American friends, I talked about it with them. I'm not sure if they talked about it with other folks. But I felt like it wasn't something we were doing in isolation. And I think the fact that we had so many signatures on the petition for Asian American Studies, even if I didn't know any of those people or didn't read their names, knowing that we had over 1000 signatures felt like, I guess, to get political-worded, like a public mandate or the people's mandate, that we had the presence of the student body with us. Whether they knew what we were doing or not. And I think that was really encouraging.

Divya Aikat (46:05)
That makes sense. And then also, could you speak a little bit more about the professor interviews that you said- Were they related to the hire? And then did you guys have input? And then how did you kind of organize around that input, and giving the student voice in terms of these hires?

Rohit Kataria (46:26)
Yeah. And so, this is something that again, shout out to Iris Kim and the people who did the hiring- from the student perspective of helping out with the hiring process for the first and second of three professors that Vanderbilt ended up hiring in Asian American Studies. As part of the hiring process for these positions at Vanderbilt, the Asian Studies Department sent out a solicitation for a professorship and folks apply: CV, cover letter, all that stuff. And then finalists are normally brought to campus. But I guess this time it was over Zoom, because of the ongoing pandemic. But basically, folks get interviewed by a faculty committee, I believe, and then they get to ask their own questions. And for the first two Asian American Studies hires, there was another portion of the hiring process that was an additional interview, that was just students. That was facilitated by the hiring committee but was something that only students would be a part of. And so for the third Asian American Studies professorship, Angela Yan and I had reached out to Dr. Tran to say, "Hey, we know that there's something that has happened for the first two Asian American Studies professorships. Is this something that we can still be involved in? For the third one, we know you guys are hiring another person." And he said, "Yeah, of course!"

And so we got together a little team that was, I believe, five of us and the exact names of people are slipping my mind right now. But basically, we came up with a list of 12 questions that were particularly important to us as students. We asked potential faculty about their desire to mentor students, their desire and their beliefs about what it means to be a professor at a university. Does it mean they have an obligation to just their research? Or does it mean being a part of that community and helping students with these fields? Does it mean that they are going to just be searching for tenure for their first couple years, and then they'll feel comfortable to start working with students? And these are things that we really wanted to do to gain a better sense of how folks would approach their role at the university, not just their teaching. And of course, we asked questions about their teaching as well. We shared that it was important to us that there was a wide variety of perspectives shared in their curricula, whether that was ethnicities under the pan-Asian umbrella, whether that was sexual orientations and gender diversity, whether that was different neuro-types, different religious faiths, but just ensuring that a wide range of folks' voices were heard in these classes. And we got to interview three finalists for these positions.

Ultimately, we ranked all of them, we made notes on all of them. And I will say that the person that ended up getting hired was Dr. Huan He, who is a- I believe his interests are in Asian American Studies and English and Literature. And I remember during his interview, he talked about something that we thought was really cool. But he talked about how Asian American phenotypes have made their way into game characters in video games. And that was an approach to literature that we had not seen before.

And I believe this was something- they were looking for humanitarian or a literature, literaturist? A literarian? I don't know the right word, but someone whose interests aligned with that. And so I remember he talked about that and one of the other candidates who was interviewing for this position, she mentioned that she studied or had a class about Asian American fashion, and how historical trends had intertwined with what folks wear. And we thought that was also super interesting. So if she's listening, you know, she knows who she is, but we really love that idea. Yeah, so that's how we were involved in that process. And then Dr. Huan He, he ended up starting the fall after Mark Sanchez did. So we had Dr. Vivian Shaw starting in fall 2021, Dr. Mark Sanchez starting in fall 2022, and Dr. Huan He starting in fall 2023, with Vivian Shaw on a Mellon Mays professorship and Mark Sanchez and Huan He on tenure track positions.

Divya Aikat (50:53)
Okay, thank you for outlining that. We also did a set of professor interviews for our group, because we're having a cluster hire and it is interesting to see what students prioritize versus what faculty or administration may prioritize. Yeah, so talking about your involvement with The Asian American Advocacy Project, and obviously, as an individual, you are balancing a lot and are a very multidisciplinary scholar. [Rohit laughs] So do you have advice on sustainability? Whether that be how you pushed the group forward and ended up sustaining something even after there was a turnover of leadership? And then do you also have advice on how you internally sustain yourself in a variety of spaces?

Rohit Kataria (51:59)
Divya, I think you just asked the million dollar question. [Divya laughs] This is something that gets talked about so, so much, and I think it's something that I didn't struggle with until I struggled with it, which I guess sort of sounds like a really cliche answer.

I’ll start with the easier part of the question of sustaining like external leadership and continuity in this type of work. So one, I think, pull from existing organizations who you think care about these things, get targeted in how you do recruitment. For us, I know, my grade, of the class of 2024, was very active in wanting to get involved in a lot of these things. I don't know if it was just coming off of a pandemic and really itching to get involved with campus. But I think we got very lucky that when Angela Yan and I were transitioning VAASI into TAAAP, it was something that we knew we could count on a very strong base of continuity, because the folks who were a part of VAASI were mostly sophomores and juniors at the time. And so, when we continued into the transition from VAASI to TAAAP in December of our sophomore year, we had a lot of folks who simply stayed on because they cared about Asian American Studies from an Asian American advocacy perspective. And so they cared about all of these other things by extension. And so that was something important. And Angela Yan and I- I'll just call her Angela, 'cause that's the only one that's part of these stories. But Angela and I were very intentional about recruiting freshmen, also, who we thought would be interested. And obviously, you know, maybe we're making a lot of assumptions. But we reached out to folks who are in the SACE or AASA GroupMes. And you know, that's an assumption: that folks who identify as Asian American are more likely to care about these issues. Which, I guess, is an assumption we were okay with making while acknowledging that this wasn't necessarily the only group of people. What I'm trying to say with that part is we made essentially discriminatory judgments, in like the statistical discrimination sense, where we thought we were most likely to get a significant return on advertising the work we were doing. And so we reached out to advocacy spaces, we reached out to- there's an organization on campus called Active Minds that is a mental health group that is specifically for minoritized populations. And so we reached out to them. I think we reached out to our Queer Student Organization in their general GroupMe. We reached out to a lot of folks who we thought would have interest in this area. And that probably inadvertently left out so many people who we thought wouldn't be interested based off of mine and Angela's own assumptions, but we got a lot of people to join. And we were really prime on getting freshmen early so that we could be their first involvement on campus. So that was that.

And then, two, Angela and I were co-founders and co-directors of The Asian American Advocacy Project. And, you know, initially, I was like, oh, you know, we're both sophomores, we could do this up until the time we graduate. And then we get to spend two and a half years being the leaders of this organization that we sort of, half-created, half-carried the torch on from. And so, we started getting worried that oh, you know, we're not going to be able to sustain this if we graduate. What happens when we both graduate at the same time? So at the end of our junior year, Angela Yan stepped down. And we got Rina Xu to take over Angela's spot. And so Rina is the class of '26. And so we had two years to go to keep that continuity going. And then at the end of my fall semester, senior year, I transitioned out of the role, and Owen Cai stepped in, who was also class of '26. And so that final semester we were there, Angela and I were able to be there if they had any questions, to help them better understand how they wanted to run the organization. And if any fires happened, help put them out. And they did a phenomenal job. They are incredibly capable people who are both working in DC this summer for Asian American-related organizations. I don't know if you've heard of The ILF [International Leadership Foundation], and APAICS [Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies] and CAPAL [Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership] and that type of stuff. But they are on two different internships with two different of those organizations. And so seeing them doing that the summer after their sophomore year, feels so awesome, and really makes me be like, "Oh, yes, we passed on the torch to the right people." So if they're listening, big shout out to them, obviously, shout out to Angela. But, yeah, so that's something that we dealt with externally.

And then internally, honestly, so I am a person who when I don't wanna do something, I feel like my brain is just like, "Nope, sorry, we're gonna make it 10 times harder for you to do this." It’s almost like my brain will only make it easy for me to do things that I really care about. Which, you know, you can say it however you want. But for me, the way I've gotten around that is, "Okay, let me just do stuff that I actually care about and really want to do." Which I think has been a huge gift in and of itself. And it's allowed me to better understand what I like, not just topic wise, but the types of work that I want within these types of advocacy roles. And so I realized, I love to project manage and people manage, and help set visions for organizations and see them grow. And when I do that type of stuff, and I'm ideating about what the possibilities might be for the future and how this organization might get involved and how this person's skills might be used to help develop this really cool product, or this really cool campaign that's going to reach x amount of people who are then going to go around and change stuff in their own communities. That type of stuff doesn't even feel like work to me.

And I know, it's the silliest thing that I've heard when I was little. That if you love what you do for work, you'll never work a day in your life. And I thought that was the dumbest thing for so many years. [Divya laughs] And I see it and I feel it now. You know, obviously, it's hard sometimes when I've had internships to be like, oh, I gotta wake up and get to the office by 8am. Like, I haven't done that since high school. But for me now that internal sustainability is doing the things that I love in these roles. And I think I'm in a very privileged position, that I've gotten to be in a leadership position in a lot of these roles. And delegating my tasks is something that has significantly helped my workload because I think a lot of folks... Well, okay, this might be a little controversial. I try not to be overwhelming with giving people responsibilities. But I think if you imagine a bell curve, the people who leave organizations, I feel like most often, it's because they've got too much and they can't handle it, or it's too little and they don't feel like they're actually a part of the work and significantly contributing to it. And so, I try my best to find the sweet spot of making people understand that their work, their time, their input is valuable to this organization and is helping move it forward, and that they don't feel overwhelmed and stressed out by it. I think that the biggest irony would be for folks advocating for this collective idea of empowerment, to be stressed out by that work. [laughs] And so I try to balance that. But yeah, sorry, again, I know I said earlier, but I get a little long-winded sometimes. But for me, that personal sustainability comes from really learning what I really like, and leaning into that, and trying to delegate whenever I can, which I acknowledge is an incredibly privileged statement to be able to make.

Divya Aikat (56:50)
Yeah. Right, and I think that a lot of project management and this ideation, as you mentioned, comes a lot from knowing people, knowing their strengths, and leaning into that. So, I think that's such an such an important and impactful thing to be doing. And also, I wanted to ask if you could talk a little bit more about your space in educational equity and these initiatives, and what that means to you. And maybe also how Asian American Studies and this educational advocacy, how they've intertwined?

Rohit Kataria (1:01:21)
Yes. So I think what you said first about knowing people and knowing their strengths is something really important. But I think like the importance of- this gets into a little whole- everything. Okay, so I think people should do things because they care about them. And also, I think that seeking recognition for things that you've done and seeking titles or awards is something that can be really empowering, in the sense that titles are things that people listen to or look at. And it is something that helps you meet new people, that titles can often be used to catalyze change. That's something I really believe in. And so I preface that for whatever reason, but let's see... Doing the work is important and seeking recognition for the work that you're doing, whether as an organization, or as a member, or as a leader in whatever organization is equally important, because that is a part of amplifying the work and helping other people learn about the amazing work that you are doing. Helping other people who have money, authority, connections, learn about things that they care about, will only stand to make your impact larger. So, I try to talk to people who I may have no business talking to, to learn more about what they do, why they do it, and to help share more about what I'm doing and the work that I'm doing that I care about. And so with the Asian American stuff- I guess I don't know why I spent so much time prefacing this.

But in October of 2023, I got to be honored by Asian Americans Advancing Justice as their second-ever Norman Y. Mineta Spirit Award recipient. And sort of the crux of the award is that it goes to one youth advocate every year, across the nation who they think is doing, to paraphrase, really cool shit. [Divya laughs] And so I had an amazing time, they flew me out to DC to present my acceptance speech at the National Press Club, to get my award. And it was so incredibly cool to get recognized alongside three other amazing community activists, one of which was the Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, and so getting to get pictures with her and get honored alongside her. And the fact that she and my mom had a bonding conversation over mothering children in this day and age was just like, the coolest thing ever. But getting to meet these people and getting to talk to them and have some people just give me their business cards and say, "Hey, you should reach out," was something that completely shifted my world. And so, we'll get into Asian American Studies Collaborative a little later. But part of me getting recognized was for starting Asian American Studies Collaborative and getting connected with folks across the country who are working in the Executive Office of the President, like Erika Moritsugu is, is something that has amplified the work endlessly. So, we'll get into that more when we talk about Asian American Studies Collaborative.

But for me, I really care about higher education access. I think it's the niche of education that resonates with me the most particularly because of my upbringing as the grandchild of Indian immigrants, as the child of an Indian immigrant, and also as someone who was raised in a rural southern town in the heart of Appalachia. I saw so many folks who wanted to go to college who didn't, because they thought it was too expensive or college wasn't for folks like them, or folks who got athletic scholarships to attend college out of state and ended up not going presumably because they believe that that wasn't for them, or that that wasn't something that was possible. And then two, I saw so many folks drop out of college after their first year. And so with that, I see two main issues that I really care about is one, folks who want to go to college, who get scared, or who can't. And that makes me really upset. And I think a part of advancing justice in our world is ensuring that the folks who want that education are able to get it. And that ties into the second point of the folks who drop out of college. And I don't know why they drop out of college. I'm sure some of it is because of the belief that they can't. But I think a large part of it is also that a lot of folks are pressured into believing that college is the only path for them. And I think that couldn't be farther from the truth. And so for me, educational justice is ensuring that the people who want to go to college do, and on the flip side of that, the people who don't want to go to college realize that before they go to college and rack up that debt. And so that is something that I care a lot about for higher education access, and for me and my experiences, understanding that empowering academic environments, whether that's just encouragement for the individual person or seeing people who look like you in textbooks in the media, is one of the most life changing things ever. It allowed me to live my life in full color at Vanderbilt. I guess for context too, I'm also gay. And so for me, living in rural southern Ohio as an Indian American wasn't always the easiest. And coming to Vanderbilt, it's like my black and white world turned into pure color. And seeing that and seeing how much it energized me and inspired me. It's something that I want to give back to every single student in America as much as I possibly can. And so that drives a lot of my work.

I have gotten to do internships all over the place at federal, local, state governments, nonprofits here and in India, and research organizations to better understand how the educational landscape fits together; how private, public, and government sectors can work together to create really meaningful change across levels. I've gotten to do research towards educational equity in so many different capacities or disciplines in political science, linguistics, education to learn more about community colleges; learn more about how students acquire languages; how different sociodemographic factors impact college attainment. Which, just as a side note, apparently, of the variables that I looked at for that one study, the factor that most impacted whether a student graduated from college was their mother or female guardian's highest education level, which I thought was just really interesting. But I got to learn so much more about what actually leads to education equity, and I have got to learn more. And the largest factor prevailing that I've gotten to learn about from talking to professors is that students tend to drop out of college when they feel like no one cares about them, or that no one cares if they will drop out. And so, what I hear from that is students who feel valued on their campuses, who have communities, who have friends, people they love and care about, are more likely to stay in college. And so, for me, that drives my push for Asian American Studies and all of the other work through The Asian American Advocacy Project. It drove me to found a Small Town And Rural Students organization at Vanderbilt, and to create a guide to help university students at other universities or similar organizations at their campuses to provide a space for rural students, because that's a community that I know also can have a really hard time in the higher education space and feeling like they belong in these institutions.

And that drove me to- basically everything that I do is centered around that idea that when people feel like people give shits about them, that people feel valued, and that they have a community and that they are loved, they are much more likely to stay in and graduate from college. Which I think is an incredibly powerful tool. It is still helpful for social mobility in the United States. And that means colleges of all types, not just the highly rejective ones that people focus on, who are dominating the headlines, even though they make up an incredibly tiny fraction of what colleges in the US is even like. And I understand the irony of that as someone who went to Vanderbilt for undergrad and is now going to Harvard for grad school. But the public universities, the community colleges, the students who are non-traditional students, those are significant portions of the undergraduate population in the United States. And I think we need to do a better job at focusing on those needs. And as I hope to continue in my career, I know that Asian American Studies and advocating for it was an incredibly important part of everything that I have done and a part of my journey. And I want to use those examples and everything that it taught me about organizing, to help create a better world where all students feel valued in their communities, systemically and socially.

Divya Aikat (1:10:49)
Yeah, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing. I think what you're talking about with educational access, thinking about, like the precarity of rural areas, and the difficulty that people, both internally and externally, feel in attaining this education is so important. And I think that it's really inspiring that you're doing what you love, and you're really pursuing these passion projects. And also, congratulations on that award.

Rohit Kataria (1:11:25)
Oh, thank you.

Divya Aikat (1:11:25)
That's amazing. [laughs] And I think that this whole conversation, and your discussion, really speaks to the fact that you are a trailblazer in this field, and- [Rohit laughs] You are! I think you should recognize that too. You're setting a new path and making a route that maybe you haven't seen for people that look like you. And I think that that's really, really awesome. And so I think that kind of ties into your work with the Asian American Studies Collaborative. Could you talk about what inspired you to found that and then what the process has been like moving forward?

Rohit Kataria (1:12:09)
Yeah. So, in the process for advocating for Asian American Studies at Vanderbilt, Angela and I got to talk to Vanderbilt alumni who ended up working at other universities. I think the three universities were Stanford, University of Utah, and the University of Maryland. And getting to talk to those alumni, and how Asian American Studies worked at their universities was so incredibly amazing and useful to helping us better understand how we were going to move forward at Vanderbilt and give us confidence in what we were doing. And when Vanderbilt announced the major and minor in January of 2023, we had folks reach out to us from Duke, from Chapel Hill, and Dartmouth. And hearing people want to hear our stories was something that lit a light bulb in me and I said, "Oh, my gosh, I've learned so much from this. I don't necessarily feel like I have the only expertise in this area. But I bet if we put all of these minds together, something really, really cool would happen." And so I dreamt up this idea of a platform to connect Asian American Studies advocates across the country, to simply learn from each other, to share a platform for passion, to share a platform for venting. And I have learned so much about what a national-scale organization building looks like.

So through the Asian Americans Advancing Justice award ceremony, I got to meet amazing folks who have helped give me input on how I can make this organization better, who have connected me with folks. Specifically, Ruth Youn at AAJC connected me with this person named JR, who started the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies, which I'm proud to say that Asian American Studies Collaborative is an official member of. It has opened the door for us to help present at conferences, at the East Coast Asian American Student Union and the Association for Asian American Studies, to meet folks who are doing similar work, who are very passionate about this work, as well. And so we have gotten to expand our outreach to have people who have engaged with our work from universities up and down the East Coast. At the University of Denver, University of Kansas, I think one person at the University of Hawaii, several from California schools. And so I forget when it was, but we officially hit representation from all four contiguous U.S. time zones. And that was something that was really encouraging. But right now our model is sort of, we have developed resources through countless interviews with Asian American Studies professors across the country about the history of Asian American Studies development nationwide, and through countless -- not necessarily interviews -- but just conversations with students who have advocated for Asian American Studies at their institutions. We got to put together, I think it's like a 14-page strategy guide of like everything we've been able to think of. Of what you can do and why it might be helpful at your institution. So those are available, I guess on our website, once that officially launches. But right now our goal is to help build more resources like that to share to people, to help develop a workshop that allows people to come in and learn when they need, and to ultimately, continue building our outreach. And that is something that is amplified by knowing people who are in places with really strong connections.

Divya Aikat (1:15:33)
That's incredible. I think that's a lot of what Christina and I, on our end, doing these oral histories and collecting these stories, have really been talking about. That there is such a community and there are so many repeated stories of like if x then y, at a university. And so that's really awesome that you're making a platform to share that and connect everyone. I wanted to do a time check. So, we have about 15 minutes left. And before I ask my final wrap up question, I wanted to check if there was anything else that you wanted to add or elaborate on.

Rohit Kataria (1:16:20)
Yeah, I think just one thing that I wanted to share, not necessarily related to Asian American Studies, but it was something that was really valuable for me to learn. But I think it was one of the most important lessons to share with other people. I think, for a lot of folks, and maybe that's a generalization, but I'll say at least for me. As someone who is left-leaning politically and tends towards progressive politics, being a part of the spaces that are sort of "social justice spaces," and doing things that serve the public good, I think there is a pressure to join it because it's the right thing to do, in that the big picture of it is the right thing to do. And for me, I started to get a little caught up in what these platforms could give me personally. And it started to erode my trust in my own decisions. And I could sense that in how I was making decisions. And so for me, looking in and thinking about that, and realizing that I need to start refocusing on what the right thing to do in each circumstance, was something that deeply influenced the way I've continued on this work. Every time I used to ask myself about a decision, I'd say, "What should I do? What should the next step be?" And when I think like that, I often thought about things that maybe weren't the most important. And I started shifting that question to, "What would be the right thing to do in this situation? What would be the right step forward from this? How would I want my future self to look back and see how I acted? What values really are the most important to me? And are those values courage, honesty, justice? How are they coming into my work, and do they need to be coming into my work stronger?"

And specifically, with the Asian American Studies Collaborative, I got so caught up in building these resources that I was paying much less attention than I needed to on making sure these resources reached people. If I developed all of these things in isolation and no one knew about them, it wasn't gonna do anything for anyone. And so, now making a concerted effort to say, "Hey, helping people learn about our work, is 10 times, a bajillion times more impactful than developing these tools in isolation, because when people learn about this, they might go around and share it with someone else." And so for me, if anyone else is struggling with similar feelings, you're definitely not alone. That even in these types of spaces, even when you think you've gotten to a certain point of like, I'm a good person, because these are the things I'm doing, it's important to remember that being a good person means waking up every day and re-deciding that these are the values that are important to me and I want that to show in the actions that I do and how I treat people and how I run the organizations or perform my community roles that are important to me. That every day, no matter what yesterday was, whether it was good or bad. You get to re-decide every morning that justice, courage, truth, are things that are important to you and ones that you want to center in your life.

Divya Aikat (1:19:57)
That's really beautiful. I think that's advice I need to take too. I think focusing on internal values and what rings true to you as a person is something that we should be centering. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing. For our final question I wanted to ask: Zooming out, thinking about this big picture, what does it mean to you to be a part of this Asian American Studies movement as a whole?

Rohit Kataria (1:20:32)
I haven't thought too much about that question. So I think a lot of the answer that I provide here will be sort of created on the spot. Through The Asian American Advocacy Project at Vanderbilt, I got to co-organize a panel with the historic legendary activist Helen Zia. And it was so incredible to meet her and get a picture with her and Angela. And we talked to Helen Zia and we told her that she inspired us, and that the work she was doing was incredible. And it was just amazing to get to see that she was like a contemporary of ours. We said that we can only hope to be the type of person that she is one day. And she told us that we are already doing that kind of work. And that was something that I still think about. And I wonder if people who are like that, like Helen Zia, like Yuri Kochiyama, like Norman Y Mineta... If they think about how the world perceives them, or if they, shake off both the critics and the supporters, and just focus on what they believe is the right thing to do. And the more I get deeper into this work, I realize that focusing on that internal, like you mentioned, is the most important thing. And when I start thinking about how other people view me, or how history might view me, it only lets the anxiety creep in. Even if it might be like good things, I think it makes the spotlight that doesn't even exist feel like it's a lot bigger than it even is. And I feel like it's a pressure to do certain things that are perceived as good, rather than necessarily the things that I believe might be the right thing to do at any given moment.

Even you know, in moments where I got an email from someone at Ohio State who heard about the work that I was doing, and I sat down, and I had a conversation with them, and it was really amazing to get to talk to them. A part of me was like, "What? People know about this, several 100 miles away?" Or finding the email in my inbox in June of 2023, letting me know that I was the recipient of the 2023 Norman Y Mineta Spirit Award, finding out that it wasn't a prank, that I was actually flown out, and I got to give a speech, and they wrote a Medium article about me. And, seeing that happen is still baffling and I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I hope I never do.

But what I'm trying to say is I am deeply inspired by the folks who I look up to. And I hope to leave an impact on the world that I would be proud of. And ultimately, to always have that North star of my role models, of what I want to be like, to always know that no matter where I go in life, no matter how many lives I change, or how many programs I help create, that I'm not necessarily aiming for a life that achieved as much as they did, but to live a life that was lived as deeply as they did, and with as strong and intense of values in their everyday lives as they did. That looking back, I hope more than anything, the Asian American Studies movement or the world, that when I die, that they don't necessarily remember what I did. I mean, I hope they remember that. But I hope that they remember and that the words that they use to describe me were that, "In everything that he did, he really was an advocate for justice. That he really cared about the things that he did and he put his money where his mouth is. That he made people feel better because of his presence. That he left places, people, communities, and programs better than the way he found them." I hope that those types of things are the legacy that I leave behind.

Divya Aikat (1:25:14)
Thank you. That is just, that's a stunning note to end on. I think that's beautiful. And yeah, I wanted to thank you so much for giving your oral history and for meeting with me. This was wonderful.

Rohit Kataria (1:25:30)
Thank you so much, Divya. I had a great time. And thank you for the amazing work that you all are doing through SAADA.