Strangers in America
by Joanna K. Lui, Editor-in-Chief

On February 22nd, I found myself getting on a plane and heading surprisingly south. I had never been down south before, the farthest I had ever gone was Washington DC on one of the many summer forays on those Chinese tour buses that my parents often took us on. Why would I ever need to go south? The south had bad connotations, as thoughts of its long history of racism played themselves in my mind. But the strangest thing wasn't that I was going south, but that I was going south to attend an Asian American collegiate conference, ECASU 2002. I was on my way to Raleigh, North Carolina, a place I had only heard referred to maybe twice in my entire life, but then again, I'm just a Yankee from up North.

---

"The political growth of Asian Pacific Americans in the South is symbolic of the expanding political wave in APA communities across the nations."

---

This year's East Coast Asian Students Union was held at Duke University, in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was co-hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The theme this year was "Strangers in America" but when I got there, I didn't feel like a stranger. Duke and the UNC actually have relatively large Asian American student populations with 12.4% and 5.2% respectively. In addition, not only was there a warm reception from the Asian American student population, but the rest of the student population seemed just as friendly, with many non-Asians hosting visiting students attending the conference. More so, the warm reception was surprising since it was only in April of 2001 that APA students at Duke mobilized due to the lack of sufficient response from the administration regarding two bias hate crimes. On a positive note, the campus has gone a long way since then, and this conference is a sign of more tolerant and understanding times. The message from the 2002 Executive Board for ECASU was equally positive and full of promise for the future:

Marking only the conference's second trip to the South in 25 years, ECASU 2002 signifies the growing political presence of the southern Asian Pacific American community. It is here, where the model minority myth is widely believed even by the Asian Pacific community, where song-and-dance characterize our signature events, and where alternative lifestyles are still taboo. But in spite of these obstacles, the Asian Pacific community in North Carolina has struggles, matured and seen tremendous growth … The political growth of Asian Pacific Americans in the South is symbolic of the expanding political wave in APA communities across the nations.

This encouraging message was reiterated in Helen Zia's inspiring keynote speech in which she spoke about America's history of denying Asians their place and their rights. Helen Zia has been involved with APA politics for over a decade, earning particular fame for her involvement in the Vincent Chin murder and the subsequent landmark civil-rights suit. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People and more recently, My Country Versus Me, the story of Dr. Wen Ho Lee. She spoke about the need to be pro-active, or more specifically how "we need to stop being so fucking polite!" drawing lots of laughs. She told us about her own search for her destiny, about how she wasted two years in medical school trying to be someone she wasn't and then subsequently dropping out and trying to explain to her parents that she wanted to be in public affairs. She didn't know from the start that she would be involved in the APA community or that she would rocket to fame not as a doctor but as a woman who dared to speak out against injustice.

next ~>