In December of 2007 we wrote about Richard Aoki - radical activist and Black Panther Field Marshal. This weekend, he passed away at 70 due to complications from medical conditions.

From the documentary of Aoki by Ben Wang and Mike Cheng, Aoki was said to have had an "I don't give a fuck" type of attitude (in addition to supplying arms for the Panthers.) Really, those shades didn't give that away?

Via Angry Asian Man

Asian American University of Maryland Students Mobilize To Save Asian American Studies

(COLLEGE PARK, MD) -- Students at the University of Maryland are stepping up to demand Asian Americans are included in the future of the University. The current draft of the University "Strategic Plan" – a document which governs future resource allocation and academic affairs policy for the next 5 to 10 years – completely ignores Asian American Studies and does nothing to address meeting the needs of Maryland's growing Asian American student population.

Outrage has been vented at several recent meetings of Asian American student organizations and activist groups. Given forecasted fiscal shortfalls for the state of Maryland, many students fear Asian American Studies, as well as other academic programs dedicated to the study of race, gender, sexual orientation and issues of identity, face elimination or severe cut backs in the case of a budget crisis.

"Without inclusion in the Strategic Plan, you don't exist," lamented Pi Delta Psi President Scottie Siu.

As the deadline nears for community input, several Asian American groups are preparing to lobby and write letters demanding that the Provost add provisions to ensure that Asian American Studies be protected and promoted one day into a Major. Other demands include that there should be more needs based assessment surveys so counseling services can be improved, and that there should be a space on campus for Asian American cultural events.

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Lee Fang (301) 318-7351 Lhfang at gmail dot com

April 19, 2008

This can be considered a live blog - Gary Okihiro just gave us this link to a petition decrying the proposed budgets cuts of Asian American Studies at University of Pennsylvania. These budget cuts are university-wide, but disproportionally affects smaller departments and programs - thus, threatening to effectively shut down the Asian American Studies program. So take a look, read the petition, and sign it!

The petition at www.petitiononline.com/saveasam

To: The University of Pennsylvania

We, the students, faculty, staff and alumni of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as other interested members, believe the 25% budget decrease by the School of Arts and Sciences to Asian American Studies is outrageous. Asian American Studies, and more broadly Ethnic Studies, are integral components to a college curriculum and should not be viewed as simply supplementary knowledge. We DISAPPROVE of the School of Arts and Sciencefs decision to cut funding for Asian American Studies. We URGE the administration to reverse the decision and fully recognize Asian American Studies as an essential component of campus diversity.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Recently, the University announced that the Asian American Studies program will receive a 25% decrease in their budget. Because the program is already so poorly funded, these additional cuts would ultimately terminate Asian American Studies at Penn.

If this University is indeed committed to diversity, it must display that passion through sufficient funding and support of Asian American Studies.

In an effort to address this issue to administration, the Asian Pacific Student Coalition and the ASAM Undergraduate Advisory Board have started a petition to document the student and faculty interest in Asian American Studies.

Petitions will be available in PAACH (3601 Locust Walk) as well as at the Asian American Studies Office (166 McNeil Building).

PLEASE STOP BY AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT BY SIGNING OUR PETITION!

HELP US SAVE ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES AT PENN!

The Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter (CRAASH) is underway in a campaign to strengthen the school's AAS program; they're also helping Columbia and NYU to plan the 2nd annual New York City Asian American Student Conference (NYCAASC). Our best wishes go out to CRAASH and their efforts. In solidarity!

"They [Asian students] don't genetically have a knowledge of the subject matter." - Gary Okihiro in Intro to Asian American Studies

Here's a sampling of the Asian American Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies courses offered this semester, for those of you looking to fill up that last hour of your week with something worthwhile.

ASAM W1010y Introduction To Asian American Studies 3 pts. Not offered in 2007-2008. Call number: 76780

Interdisciplinary, intercultural introduction to the field of Asian American Studies. Major themes include methodological and theoretical formulations central to the field (e.g. racial, gender, and sexual formations, modes and relations of production and class, nation and transnation, oral history, and communities research), history and comtemporary issues of identitites, family, immigration, labor, education and anti-Asianisms.

ASAM W3933y South Asians in the U.S. 4 pts. Call number: 80942

The interdisciplinary course survey course explores the history and experience of South Asians in the United States. The course is divided into thematic sections. Section I provides background information on the South Asian American community. Section II will broaden the picture by considering issues of the class, the model minority myth, family lives, and patterns of acculturation. Section I and II set the stage for further examine how South Asian Americans negotiate new forms of identity. Section III explores popular culture among second generation youth, religious maintenance and adaptation, gender and sexuality, and culture politics.

Explores selected texts written by Asian American women from diverse backgrounds, focusing on issues such as identity, gender, generation, race, class, religion, and language.

CSER W1012y History of Racialization in the United States 3 pts. Call number: 14285

The History of Racialization in the United States examines the development of race and racism through the study of significant historical circumstances that define the institutional structure of American Empire and of the resulting interactions among its peoples. Race is not static. Consequently, it is not an ahistorical object, nor a predetermined identity, nor a uniform category of analysis. Traditionally, the history of American race relations is the contact between racially defined groups over time and space of the effort required to maintain social and economic differences among them. Racialization, then, refers to the process by which one population group or many are "placed" in distinct racial categories.

CSER W3940x Comparative Study of Constitutional Challenges Affecting African, Latino and Asian American Communities 4 pts. Call number: 83648

This course will examine how American legal system decided constitutional challenges affecting the empowerment of African, Latino, and Asian American communities from the 19th century to the present. Focus will be on the role that race, citizenship, capitalism/labor, property and ownership played in the court decision in the context of the historical, social and political conditions existing at the time. Topics include the denial of citizenship and naturalization to slaves and immigrants, goverment sanctioned segregation, the struggle for reparations for descendants of slavery and Japanese Americans during World War II.

Luckily, I generally have the ability to enter periods of deep thought during finals crunchtime. Unfortunately, it's never really about the finals themselves. This time, it's about my thesis and the reclamation of an Asian American radical history based on theoretical conceptions of, and community actions around, race, nation, class, empire, and society.

I found this video on YouTube, a preview for a documentary on Richard Aoki, a longtime Japanese American radical from Oakland, CA:



This looks legit, featuring the likes of Yuri Kochiyama, Bobby Seale, and Prof. Diane C. Fujino, who penned Yuri's biography and is currently working on a bio of Aoki himself. But to backtrack for a moment, and give a brief description of who this guy is.

Aoki, a third-generation Japanese American, was born in San Leandro, CA in 1938; at the age of 4 he and his family were evacuated and relocated in the forced movement of 110,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast during WWII. After returning from the Topaz, Utah relocation center in 1945, his family returned to the Bay Area, where he would eventually encounter fellow Oakland residents Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, co-founders of the revolutionary nationalist Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Aoki, credited as a "radical Japanese cat" in Seale's autobiography, Seize the Time, provided the inchoate Panthers with their first firearms in their now-legendary method of patrolling Oakland cops, or "policing the police."

A relatively unsung figure in the BPP (Newton makes no mention of Aoki in his biography, Revolutionary Suicide), and often marginalized (he was, for a while, the sole member of the BPP's Berkeley chapter), Aoki was nevertheless a significant player in the Panthers' activities, one of six Field Marshals. He also enrolled at UC Berkeley in the late 1960's, was a co-architect in the campus' Asian American Political Alliance (one of the first organizations to proclaim themselves "Asian American"), and an organizer in the Third World Liberation Front, the coalition of color whose campus protests in 1969 led to the formation of one of the nation's first Ethnic Studies programs. As he says in the vid, "I do believe in mass action."


Aoki--like fellow Japanese American Panthers Guy Kurose and Mike Tagawa in the Seattle chapter--is part of a hidden history of Asian American activism that, while perhaps no longer so well-figured in a racial consciousness that has been radically altered by the changing face of Asian America since the 1960's, is nevertheless crucial in an understanding of what previous generations have contributed to our lives. Aoki's organizing--bridging campus and community, uniting different peoples of color, challenging the very structural base of state and society--has profound implications for current and future generations of Asian Americans, students or not, activists or not, and provides a space for legacies that must be remembered, kept alive, and cherished.

I'm gonna work on tracking down this documentary. In the meantime (and I think I'll do these from time to time), next up will be Chris Kando Iijima and his mother, Kazu. Now back to studying...

A message of solidarity from AAA to AAA.

A Harvard Crimson article describes the ways that campaigns for Asian American Studies at Harvard University have over 20+ years risen and fallen, while actual programs in AAS at other schools such as University of Pennsylvania and Cornell have thrived. (UPenn is even bringing in Kal Penn as a visiting professor in the spring of '08. Damn, that's impressive.)

While we hope that Harvard comes around soon concerning what should be an anachronism in the lack of ethnic studies (or in this case Asian American) course offerings, we support fully the progressive endeavors that students there (including their AAA, the Asian American Association) are taking to instate such a program/department.

Whether or not students there are ready to undertake such activist measures such as hunger strikes (as we did in '96 for both Latino and Asian American Studies following similar successes at schools all across the country), the AAA of Columbia is willing to aid this and all campaigns for Asian American Studies in all ways possible. (With two of our senior advisers as chairs of NAASCon and more of our members and constituents as activists in this cause, we're more than happy to offer help! Just let us know...)

And for all students wishing to bring about Asian American Studies at their respective institutions, take a look at this NAASCon student advocate's guide to campaigning for Asian American Studies.

P.S. Whooa, history professor Mae Ngai apparently turned down Harvard for our ethnic studies program... We're eternally grateful, 'cause I hear she's a kickass (and hardcore) teacher.

What is Asian American Studies?
Why do we need AAS when we have EALAC & MEALAC?
How does it relate to life beyond college?

Join us for a teach-in on Asian American Studies, tonight 8pm in Lerner E569! Come meet some of our most beloved professors like Mae Ngai and Gary Okihiro. I would leave it there, but our writer Nhu-Y wrote too many hilarious things onto the Facebook event.

Other serious questions of inquiry:
Why is it so interdisciplinaryly sexy?
How does it transcend the hotness of other fields?
Is AAS so hot that it intimidates you?
Why does AAS drop it like its hot all the time?
Can AAS really walk it out?
Will my biology major get jealous if I want to do AAS too?

Get academically crunk. MMM ACADEMIA.

After seeing this I had to ask... Was Nhu-Y done? No.

Why does it combine history & sociology & other fields to make such hot babies?
Too nervous to approach AAS? Well, now you can in a low-key environment. Don't worry if you can't perform... AAS is hot, but so many people don't hit on it because they're afraid of being rejected... well, AAS is waiting.

(Nhu-Y: i really was going to make a bunch of rap song references but i was like hmm... appropriate?)

And oh right, ... free food! Be there!

OK, more like the Chinatown bus.

Most of the Blaaag staff (though Mar and David are the only consistent Blaaagers...*is ashamed*) will be in Boston this weekend for Boston BASIC. In fact, Christina and Ryan are holding their own NAASCon workshop on Asian American Studies!

Hopefully, when we return, Columbia will still be here.