AASP ASAP: A Student’s Journey Through Social Justice Activism at IC

            The moment I learned that Ithaca College did not have an Asian American Studies minor program, I knew that things had to change. I felt compelled to change IC’s curriculum not only because I am among the minority population of Asian American students at this school, but because there was supposed to be a program when the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity was established at IC in 1999. I grew increasingly frustrated over the invisibility of Asian America in society, in the media, and now in my curriculum. I wanted to change the narrative society told about Asian America by first challenging the one told by my local community. In order to do this, IC needed to recognize and integrate Asian America in their curriculum, but how was I, a mere student, going to change institutional policy? It was as simple as signing up for a class.
           
            In the spring semester of my sophomore year, I took a class called “Collaborating the Visual: Ethnographic Research and Filmmaking”, a complicated title for what I eventually referred to as my “documentary class.” It was in this class that I teamed up with two students, Kristy Zhen and Kaitlin Hibbs, both of whom shared my strong convictions for an AASP. Although none of us were film majors, we came up with a short documentary called “MIH: Missing in History.” The documentary follows our four-month long journey to establish the AASP at IC. We conducted in-depth interviews with IC students and faculty members, started a petition, began a campaign called AASP ASAP, collaborated with supportive faculty, and presented our mission to the IC community. Although our amateur hands translate into practically every frame of MIH, the beauty of the film derives from the honest voices and stories of the students we interviewed during those four long months. And so, when we spoke with administrators, we were armed with not only a program proposal, but with 15 minutes and 25 interviews worth of reasons.
 
The lesson I cherish most from my experience as a student activist is the great deal of power I possess as an individual to enact social change. I attribute a lot of this to my status as a college student. Everyday, college students are immersed in a stream of opportunities: professors, classes, libraries, ideas, social media, and even our peers. My experience has taught me that my peers and I must take advantage of our youth, idealism, education, and access to a multitude of resources in order to create such a force that can transform society. No, the AASP was not immediately established after my sophomore year, and it still has not been into the end of my junior year, but the push and pull of the students has irrevocably placed the issue on the map, and with persistence, I have no doubt that Asian America will forge its place in IC’s curriculum. Although the film is done, a group of students (including myself) have formed the Committee for Inclusive Education, which is devoted to educating the IC community on why inclusive education and an Asian American studies program matters. So, college students, do not imprison yourselves in the academic ivory tower, do not accept the world you live in if you know it could be better – find an issue you care about and convert your knowledge, resources, and passion for social change into action.
 

The Spark Notes Guide to Inciting Social Change:
 
1) Identify an issue (social, environmental, etc) that you want to change
2) Take inventory of all of your resources
3) Join or enlist a group of equally passionate individuals
4) Initiate a plan for change
5) Remember that social change is not always a simple and linear path
6) and Persist!
 
The Committee for Inclusive Education will be hosting it’s first event of the semester on Thursday March 1^st. For more info and regular updates, like our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/AASP.ASAP.