Karen Garcia |
Although it’s still in the process of being declared an official club, the newly formed Asian Student Union (ASU) looks to create an environment where people of all Asian ethnicities can unite and feel represented.
Even though the club won’t officially contribute to Diversity Dialogues Week, founding members of ASU will attend events throughout the week to share their points of view as Asian-American students.
At ASU’s first meeting on Feb. 18, students discussed the vision for what the ASU’s mission could be.
“We are separate individuals who just so happen to be Asian,” junior Danielle Villanueva, one of the ASU’s founders, said. “We all have all different opinions about UP’s community, about social justice issues, and you can’t really have a successful club that’s homogenized.”
According to Institutional Research, 11.8 percent of the 3,608 undergraduate students at UP identify as Asian or Pacific Islander.
Villanueva said that although the University’s Filipino Club, Hawaii Club, and Guam Club have provided a communities for some students, there is a need for an all-encompassing Asian culture club that addresses the larger issue of being an Asian student at UP.
Junior Jill Pham, who first came up with the idea of establishing ASU, wants the new club to honor Asian-American student voices on campus.
“As an Asian-American, I don’t feel valued on this campus. I feel like I’m used as a token, perhaps,” Pham said. “Professors assume we don’t need help because we’re the “model minority,” and our perspectives as Asian students often get swept under the rug.”
Pham also looks forward to ASU starting a discussion about what diversity on campus means, and noted that racial discussions often make diversity a literally black and white topic of discussion.
“I don’t think people realize the extent to which other communities of color have been marginalized by dominant society,” Pham said. “Focusing on black vs. white relations doesn’t invite others to the conversation.”
One of Pham’s main goals for the club is to encourage Asian-American students to talk about their experiences in campus where they are minorities. Pham said that discussing these subjects within the Asian-American community is complicated, because Asian-Americans are traditionally one of the least politically active minority groups.
As a social work major, Pham’s main intention is to make the ASU a platform from which to address social justice issues such as racial oppression and mental illness within the Asian-American community.
Freshman Christina Kim first came to UP hoping to find an Asian-American community larger than that in her hometown of Hillsboro, Oregon. Kim decided to attend ASU’s first meeting in order to get more involved on campus, but doubts whether the club will be able to make students unite or raise awareness of issues.
“It’s a really cool and interesting idea,” Kim said. “But I think that a lot of the problems are too deeply ingrained to be solved, and that a lot of the unfortunate experiences I’ve had have taught me to be stronger.”
Villanueva believes that above all, ASU should serve as a place for students’ input to be heard, whatever it may be.
“If we are trying to attempt social justice within UP or anywhere else, we have to start with understanding ourselves,” Villanueva said. “I want to see other outlooks, I feed off of that. I can’t wait to see how dynamic we can be.”
Karen Garcia is a reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at garciaka17@up.edu.
