Weinberg senior Vishal Vaid said he has been working to create an Asian-American studies program since the day he stepped on campus. His efforts will be repaid June 10 when he graduates with one of Northwestern’s first two Asian-American studies minors.
Vaid and Weinberg senior Tammy Leung will be the first students to graduate with the minor, which administrators created Fall Quarter. Twenty-two students have signed up for it since then.
Vaid and Leung came to NU before any Asian-American studies professors had been hired. Now the two are leaving just as NU is further expanding the program by searching for a third professor and an Asian-American outreach coordinator.
Ziehyun Huh, program assistant for the Asian-American studies program, said she is glad Vaid and Leung will be able to graduate with the minor since they had worked to get it started.
“They signed up for the minor to support it, not just to be able to preregister for classes,” Huh said.
Jock McLane, chairman of the Asian-American studies program, said the students’ accomplishments show the fledgling program’s success.
“It’s definitely a positive, but it’s much more impressive that 20 others will be graduating in future,” he said.
Vaid and Leung both are involved in the local Asian-American community. Vaid is a member of the Asian-American Task Force and the Asian American Advisory Board and is the former president of the South Asian Students Alliance. Leung also belongs to AAAB and works with children at the Chinese Municipal Aid Association on Argyle Street.
Purvi Shah, who took over SASA’s presidency after Vaid, said she was glad to see Vaid’s efforts for the minor pay off while he was still in school.
“It’s the perfect story, because he’s been the one who’s been so passionate about improving Asian-American studies on campus,” Shah said. “It’s been a constant fight for him, and it’s great that he is going to be graduating with the minor because that’s what he wanted to see when he left.”
Vaid went through his four years at NU with determination to study Asian-American culture, he said. Whenever he saw an opening for a class in the program, he said, he immediately would drop whatever he was taking and sign up.
“I wanted the classes, that was the most important part,” he said. “And I knew my attendance in those classes – would make them more recognized. It was part of a larger effort to establish a minor and program on campus.”
Vaid said his interest in Asian-American studies was piqued by a desire to gain a more thorough understanding of the world.
“Growing up a minority, you don’t really feel as though you’re 100 percent part of the social fabric, and you don’t know why until you start taking the classes,” he said. “Then you find you have a place – a profound place – in American history and the social fabric. It really sets your head straight and gives a source of identity and a power behind it, and that’s something everyone should have.”
Leung said her interest in the program stemmed from a desire to gain insight into how people outside the mainstream live. Some of the classes she took for the minor were in African-American studies.
She said the classes have made her more aware of the Asian-American community around her and prompted her to work at the CMAA, where she takes care of Asian-American children in the afternoon in a day care environment.
“I’ve been exposed to a lot of Asian-American issues and have learned a lot of really cool things as a result of working there,” she said. “And I wouldn’t be working there had I not taken those classes.”
To graduate with the minor, Vaid and Leung needed to complete the seven-class requirement: a class on race and equality, one in Asian studies and five Asian-American studies classes.
Students have sought an Asian-American studies program since 1991, when AAAB members asked administrators for a coordinator who would establish the program. The proposal was rejected, and the issue lay dormant for four years.
In April 1995 students renewed their demands for an Asian-American studies program, punctuating their proposal with a 23-day hunger strike in front of The Rock. NU pledged to offer four Asian-American studies classes a year.
In fall 1999 Ji-Yeon Yuh, an assistant history professor, was hired as the first Asian-American studies faculty member. Her hiring was spurred by a spring 1998 rally that Vaid, then the political outreach coordinator for SASA, helped plan.
Vaid said that although Yuh’s hiring – and the de facto birth of the program – was spurred by student activism, the passion of the group dimmed after the spring rally. Attendance at events and teach-ins after the rally dropped noticeably after students who were freshmen during the hunger strike graduated in 1998.
The continued growth of the program – a second professor, Dorothy Wang, was hired and began teaching Fall Quarter 2000, and the minor started this year – is based more on the strength of the program’s classes than on activism.
Leung takes a more pessimistic view on administrators’ eventual support of the program, saying they realized they had to offer the program or Asian-American students would be reluctant to donate money as alumni.
“(Administrators) had to appease us because there are so many Asian-American students, and some of them were starting to say, ‘I’m not going to give money to NU because they didn’t offer this program,'” she said.
Vaid said when he was a freshman, he never expected the minor to be offered while he was still a student.
“I’m really pleased with the progress that was made on every end,” he said. “Without good interaction between students, administrators and faculty, we would definitely not be where we are now.”
Now that the program has started rolling, Vaid doesn’t think it will stop.
“If you continue to increase the classes and the faculty, the program will speak for itself,” he said. “Everything else will fall into place.”
