Our Beginnings:
by Justine Trinh:
In the past academic school year 2016-2017, Asian American Studies celebrated its 25th anniversary. But with this momentous milestone, there was the realization that many people did not know about the history behind the creation of Asian American Studies on campus. I had heard whispers of what happened from one of my professors a few years ago that a hunger strike took place in order to get the major, but other than that nothing. It was not until the 2016-2017 academic school year when footage of the 1993 protest, a protest only known to few, was graciously donated to the UCI Libraries and was shown in classes. Still, many questions arose such as who were those people in the video, how did they organize a large protest, what were the order of events. The chair of the department, Dr. Judy Wu, along with Dr. Thuy Vo Dang, director of the Southeast Asian Archive assembled a group, now called The Beginnings of Activism for the Department of Asian American Studies at UCI (BADAAS@UCI) of research interns to set out to answer those questions and more.
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OC&SEAA Center/Asian-American Studies Students Take Washington, D.C.:
by Justine Trinh
UCI Asian-American Studies students have been working under the direction of Professor Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Chair of Asian-American Studies, and Dr. Thuy Vo Dang, Curator for the Southeast Asian Archive, on a project that is now called the “Beginnings of Activism” for the department of Asian-American Studies at UCI (BADAAS@UCI). This team has been researching how Asian-American Studies was established on campus. In 2016-2017 academic year, Asian-American Studies celebrated its 25th anniversary, so this research is timely and an important means through which we can learn about the significant role that student activism played in the formation of an ethnic studies program at UCI. Every week the team met in the OC&SEAA Center to discuss their discoveries and progress.
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By Justine Trinh
After twenty-five years, Darryl Mar came back to UCI to be part of the Beginnings of Activism for the Department of Asian American Studies at UCI (BADAAS@UCI). Our research group has wanted to interview Darryl Mar from the start of this project in Winter 2017. His mural is hanging in HG 3008, a conference room in the Asian American Studies Department office. After months of rigorous searching and contact inquiries, we were finally able to get his contact information to get in touch with him.
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Meeting a Legend: Mitsuye Yamada
By Justine Trinh
This week, Maribel Comparan and I met with Mitsuye Yamada to interview her for Beginnings of Activism for the Department of Asian American Studies at UCI (BADAAS@UCI). Ms. Yamada was appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in Asian American Studies at UCI in 1997, but her history with UCI went back a bit further.