07/25/2014
Hey ya'll! ^-^ My name is Rothana Oun. I'm a senior at GA State University and past President of the Asian Studies Club at GSU. Currently doin an internship with OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates and NQAPIA (National Q***r Asian Pacific Islander Alliance) in DC. As part of my internship, I'm required to do an exit Capstone Project on my home campus. And for this, I plan to help initiate the creation of an Asian Pacific Islander Student Alliance (APISA) on my campus!
Currently, there are only a few Asian (No Pacific Islander) groups on our campus, and they are all separated by ethnicity and/or nation-state. I've noticed personally that many of our groups tend to function on a very social and entertainment level (i.e., food events, movie nights, festivals, etc.). I have no intention of shaming; I have coordinated and participated in such events as well. However, I wish to see a bit of change in this process of consumption. That is, I believe that GSU folks would benefit greatly from an expanded process of engagement of our API communities.
That is, rather than providing a platform for peeps within our GSU community to merely consume our cultures in a very rudimentary, colonialist/fetishistic way, might we better involve our campus in more politically dynamic approaches such as API/POC (people of color) leadership, activist, and social justice engagement in conjunction with all the yummy foods, eclectic cinema, and fun festivities.
Ohhhhhh, I know. I said the "P" word (political). Believe me, I know, feel, and understand the uncomfortabilities of this word, this taboo consciousness. My own family are survivors of the Cambodian Genocide. I hail from a story, place, and understanding of a past where politicality can get you killed. But what is death when one is unable to assert oneself, to doubt, resist, and/or question one's place and power in relation to that of others as well as the institutions (family, government, academia, religion, etc.) that inform our relationships as well as the dynamics which hinder/subordinate and/or empower others
As relayed through a discussion with my friend and colleague, Thano Maceo Paris, we Asians and Pacific Islanders (API) are all distinct, dynamic, and have our specificities; however, being API, othered, colored in America, we often confront a very similar set of racist stereotypes-and are often seen as "the same" or "all Chinese" or smart and mathematical and perpetually foreign and exotic (Where are you from?---No, where are you really from?). API women and q***r folks for one, are often festishized as hypersexualized and submissive, subordinate.
API men, minus the current trend of K-pop lovers and Japanophiles, are often seen as not fully masculine or totally emasculated-despite Bruce Lee movies, Jackie Chan-but more cerebral and technically inclined and always sexually frustrated, neutral, or reserved. Some of this has implications for university environments insofar as API's are seen as a "model minority" not experiencing the kinds of socioeconomic challenges around access to resources such as education as our fellow colored communities specified as Blacks and Latinos. (Ever notice that at GSU there is a specific administration to support Black and Latino enrollment and achievement but not one about API students?)
Part of my point is that whether you are Cambodian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chamorro, Samoan, or Laotian, you are likely to confront these stereotypes. Insofar as there are specific stereotypes about say Filipinas being mail order brides or Japanese or Chinese "taking our jobs and wrecking the US economy," as an Asian Pacific Islander, you are still likely to be confronted with similar stereotypes because cultural ignorance prevents people from distinguishing between specific nationalities and ethnicities among South Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, and East Asian descent.
It's important to state that the majority of Asian Pacific Islanders come from nations that have been very much impacted by US imperialism. Some of the stereotypes I've mentioned here have relationships with that history.
For me what this all means concretely is that: (1) Asian Pacific Islander students have a basis in an educational environment to join together to resist racist cultural stereotypes which they face together: (1A) Part of this means challenging the wrongly held class perception that Asian Pacific Islanders are a "model minority" and don't need the kind of support (financial aid, scholarships, affirmative action, tutoring & peer support) that our fellow colored communities (Blacks and Latinos) do; (1B) Another part of this is not just doing education around these issues generally but fighting for Asian Pacific American/Asian Pacific Islander studies classes and programs that can act as an institutional force to promote this kind of awareness; (2) Taking steps to develop an anti-imperialist and perhaps a culturally API non-hetero-normative consciousness-I think these are some of the most difficult points that we as an Asian Pacific Islander Community must come to address. (Thanks, Thano )
To relate my own story, I am 2nd Generation Southeast Asian, Cambodian/Chinese/Thai, Khmerican. I grew up in communities of color, and specifically in my earlier years--within a somewhat hidden Southeast Asian community/immigrant experience in College Park, GA, just south of Atlanta, right by Hartsfield International Airport (voted as the busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic, which has no doubt influenced GA's position as either the worst or one of the worst places for sex-trafficking in America)...I digress...As a predominantly Cambodian-identified person of color in the United States of America, I am classified statistically within one of the lowest performing ethnicities within the API American community. That said, we as API's are dynamic, we belong to different communities with specific needs, and each one of our specific communities receive unequal access to resources in contrast to America's imagined and racist assumption of all of us being the same and needing the same kinds of support; however, because of this assumed sameness, we often experience very similar oppressions. In short: this is why I believe in the necessity of an APISA on our campus: to celebrate our colored, API distinctions, and embrace our commonalities and lived experiences.
Formation of GSU Asian Pacific Islander Student Alliance (APISA): Interested Parties - Google Sheets
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03/22/2016
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07/25/2014