Northwestern’s two pan-Asian groups have merged into one, members of the unified group’s executive board said Sunday.
Asian American Students United joined forces with the Asian Pacific American Coalition under the name APAC.
“By merging we can provide a stronger, more unified voice for the Asian American community here,” said Weinberg sophomore Yaejoon Kwon, co-vice president of APAC. “We can combine our strengths to put on better programming.”
Sunny Xiang, a Weinberg sophomore and Daily staffer, said the unified pan-Asian group will accomplish other goals, as well. She hopes the group will prevent confusion about which group to join.
“If you’re going to have a truly pan-Asian group, you shouldn’t have to have students pick between one or the other to get their needs met,” said Xiang, director of communications for AASU and education chairwoman for the new APAC.
Weinberg junior Sarah Yun, president of the new APAC, added that although the promotion of the Asian American studies program was not a central reason for the merger, the combined group will be able to fortify the program more effectively than two separate organizations.
Associated Student Government Senate passed a bill in late April calling for more funds to strengthen the Asian American studies program, despite a small but passionate dissenting faction. AASU President Howard Lien has been championing the ongoing struggle to gain more resources to expand the program, which now includes a minor that covers three disciplines: history, sociology and English.
Discussion of how to organize the groups’ separate executive board elections was a natural point in time for the two bodies to take stock of their situations, Kwon said, and the idea of a merger arose from this reflection.
In Spring Quarter 2003, the Asian American Advisory Board, a 13-year-old umbrella organization for several Asian student groups, became APAC. AAAB had centered its operations around serving student groups, while APAC changed this focus to serving the Asian American community as whole, Yun said.
Later in the same quarter, AASU emerged in response to a lack of smaller-group oriented programs from APAC. While APAC regularly sponsored programming catering to larger audiences, AASU tried to provide activities for smaller groups, said Rosa Nguyen, former vice president of AASU and political action co-chairwoman of the new APAC.
Both groups had the goals of raising awareness of Asian American issues on campus, helping Asian American students find their identity and unifying Asian Americans regardless of ethnicity.
“We had similar goals but slightly dissimilar methods,” said Nguyen, a Weinberg sophomore.
Nguyen added that neither group’s programming philosophy will be lost as a result of the merger.
“We still have the same mission, the same general goal,” Nguyen said. “Now we have a stronger repertoire of programming to achieve those same goals that we’ve always had. No one group is actually disappearing, we’re just all coming together.”
The original APAC, an ASG-funded group, sponsored prominent Asian American speakers, such as music video director Joseph Kahn, and projects such as Career Night, a program featuring Asian American NU alumni discussing their jobs. AASU, funded through academic programs and departments, sponsored fewer high-profile speakers and in-depth discussions of Asian American issues, such as the depiction of Asian Americans in the media.
The new APAC will be a collaboration of both groups’ resources to provide both types of programming, leaders said.
The group will receive funding through both ASG and AASU’s sources.
The groups’ executive boards also will merge to include 14 members. Members of the new APAC board hope general membership, now small and in its infancy for both groups, will increase in light of the merger.
Yun, the president of APAC, said she also hopes the more unified Asian American group will create a more active Asian American community at NU.
“We want to show that Asian Americans are here on campus,” Yun said. “We are 17 percent of the (NU) population. We deserve the recognition.”
