Many students have spent these past few days in the library studying for midterms and writing papers, and although I shall now be joining them in doing so as well, I’ve spent these past few days at the East Coast Asian-American Student Union’s 2010 Conference and have come out with a greater understanding of what it means to be an Asian-American, of America, of the place of APIA’s in America, and of humanity as a whole.

The East Coast Asian-American Student Union’s 2010 Conference [http://www.ecaasu2010.org/], hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, was the largest gathering of Asian-American students in history, attended by over 1,600 people. I attended the conference on a generous scholarship from APIA Vote’s Youth Census Advocacy Project (here’s a shout out to all my fellow YCAP’ers!). The core themes of the conference were “impression,” or how APIA’s are portrayed today, “introspection,” or to understand what it means to be an APIA, and “innovation,” or the future of the APIA movement. The conference included everything from the opening ceremonies that featured famous names such as activist Helen Zia, entertainers such as Project D, AJ Rafael, numerous dance groups, to figures such as Mike Honda and many others to the countless workshops bringing in hard-working activists from across the country.

At the beginning of the convention, the ECAASU National Board emphasized that the conference would mean something different to everyone, and that certainly proved true. To me, the convention emphasized three important issues; the role of APIA’s in the political process, current stereotyping, discrimination, and hate crimes against APIA’s, and also a reminder about humanity as a whole.

APIA’s and the Political Process

The workshops at the convention were absolutely amazing. There were over a hundred workshops available and I definitely wish I could have gone to more of time given the time. One of the big issues talked about at APIA Vote’s “Census and Elections: Upping the Ante on Political Empowerment” workshop was the disconnect currently between APIA’s and the political process, whether through voter turnout rates or public office.

That message reminded me of a previous convention I went to this past month. During the first weekend of February I had attended the College Democrats of America’s Winter Conference at the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting, as currently I serve as both the Vice-President of the Maryland Federation of College Democrats and the Communications Director of the College Democrats of America’s APIA Caucus. At the conference I attended the DNC AAPI Caucus’s meeting, where figures such as Tim Kaine, Kal Penn, Mike Honda, and others spoke about the need to engage Asian-Americans more in the political process. For, as they emphasized, if Asian-Americans aren’t engaged, how can they push for their rights and interests?

The workshops at the convention held by APIA Vote emphasized how Asian-Americans need to get more involved in politics through voting, activism, and public office. A current issue closely linked to this is the upcoming 2010 United States Census. In the past, APIA’s have been significantly undercounted in the country due to language barriers, lack of knowledge about the census, and many other reasons. To ensure that we are given proper consideration for everything from neighborhood funding to electoral consideration, we need to show that Asian-Americans are here in America, and we can do that through ensuring that everyone fills out their census, which takes less than ten minutes to do.

As a whole, in order for APIA’s to truly gain a voice in America, we need to get more involved in politics and government at all levels.

APIA’s and Stereotyping, Discrimination, and Hate Crimes

I also attended the workshop “When Hate Hits You: Responding to Anti-Asian Sentiment” hosted by the Japanese Americans Citizen League (JACL). During the workshop the presenters went through the history of hate crimes and hate culture against Asian-Americans in the United States that reaches much further back than most people realize, the present day hate-crimes, and what APIA’s can do about it.

As likely many of us know, Anti-Asian sentiment in America goes back to the very earliest days of Asian-immigration and it’s been a treacherous and hard road since.

We can never forget the massacres of Rock Springs in 1885 and Los Angeles in 1871, the Japanese-American internment camps, the Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Immigration Act of 1924, the laws preventing interracial marriage, the court case of "People v. Hall" among countless other incidents and cases, but we also cannot forget how much progress we've made and that our ancestors wouldn’t believe the respect and tolerance of the nation we live in today. However, there is still much to be done. Every so often one still hears about Asian-Americans either being killed or beaten because of their race among other hate crimes, along with levels of discrimination and stereotyping that still exist. We must be ever vigilant and send the message that hate is not acceptable in this day and age.

The Overall Goal

The convention also emphasized to me another more subtle idea. In our quest for APIA issues, we must never forget what the end goal of what we are fighting for is, even though it likely will not happen in our lifetimes. There are two old Chinese phrases; “一天下”, meaning “All Under Heaven” and “大家”, directly translated as the “Great/Big Family”, used in modern language as meaning “everyone”. These two meanings convey what our ends goals are: for all humans, irrespective of race or culture, to understand and accept each other; to recognize our differences while embracing our common humanity. Decades ago for some of us while centuries ago for others, our ancestors came to America for their various reasons, whether as refugees or for economic reasons, but let us not forget that even further and further back, all humanity originated from an original small group of humans in East Africa. In our modern day and time many of us have forgotten this while others choose to ignore it. Until the day when the awareness of the world rises up to a level so that all people can embrace this fact, we must continue working towards the goal of building a more tolerant and unified society while embracing our diversity. 

Conclusion:

Not only did I come to a greater understanding of what it means to be APIA and our place in this country, but also got to meet tons of interesting and passionate people from both across the East Coast and across the country. APIA’s from all different ethnicities were there - Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Hmong, Khmer, Filipino, Indian, Pakistani, and more. We were all united there to learn about our both diverse heritage and common future.

The conference was in total a marvelous experience and I wholeheartedly believe that every APIA college student should go to ECAASU!

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Erich Nanxing Reimer is a current student at Johns Hopkins University.