Appreciation: Conferences & Crying
The first time I attended an Asian American conference was in the fall of 1997 when I was a sophomore in college. It was a small conference, hosted by Smith College. We drove out to western Massachusetts with two cars of students from my school’s Asian Students’ Alliance.
What I remember most about that conference wasn’t about the speakers or workshop or the people. What I remember most is sitting outside in the rain on a rock, just sobbing. I remember a relatively new friend of mine just being completely dumbfounded, not knowing what to do, or why I was crying.
It had something to do with the fact that suddenly, I felt lost in a crowd of Asian American college students. Somehow, in the midst of this conference, it occurred to me that maybe I was perceived as just being Asian, not as being the unique individual that I am. All of a sudden, I started to question myself - maybe I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was - maybe my teachers just assumed I was smart. Maybe I didn’t really deserve to be at my college. Maybe I shouldn’t be taking the math classes I was taking.
It felt like the ground had fallen out from under me, and I had know idea why or what to do next. After a good cry, and a good talk, I felt a little better. But nothing seemed the same after that. Suddenly, my college experience became about more than just my classes and my major. I tried to be conscientious about my actions, my choices, how I used my voice. I chose to get more involved, to take on leadership positions, even though that felt completely out of my character.
Since that conference, I went on to attend many more conferences, including ECAASU, the East Coast Asian American Student Union conference. Looking back, ten years after I first stepped into this mini-world of student conferences, I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to attend many of these conferences. Growing up in white suburban Massachusetts and attending a small college in New York, I didn’t have much of an opportunity to come in to contact with Asian American anything. These conferences were where I first saw Peeling the Banana, I was Born with Two Tongues, Helen Zia. It was so empowering to finally find role models, to hear my experiences echoed. (This is not to say that I am these conferences are perfect and debauchery-free. Or that everyone attends from noble purposes. But anyway.)
So, as ECAASU season rolls around again, I’m excited at the possibility of being able to help create similar experiences for a, ahem, new generation of college students. The first ECAASU I attended was at Cornell, who is hosting again this February 15-17, 2008. It’s like coming full circle. A ten year freaking me out that I was there ten years ago I’m that old circle.
On a tangentally related musical note, I dug up this compilation CD that I got from one of these conferences while I was in college. I’m thrilled that for once, never throwing anything out has worked out for me. It’s this AsianAvenue.com produced CD with tracks from the Visionaries, Two Tongues, 5th Platoon, Kai, and some others.. But I’ll save that for another post.
Here’s the official press release on ECAASU 2008.
ECAASU 2008: Push Forward to be held at Cornell University
New Haven, Conn. — The East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) will hold its annual conference this year at Cornell University. From February 15 to 17, more than eight hundred students will come to Ithaca to participate in the conference, titled “Push Forward.” This will be the thirty-first conference held since the founding of ECAASU. Among the keynote speakers include Survivor contestants Yul Kwon and Becky Lee.
ECAASU 2008’s mission is divided into three parts: reflections on the history of ECAASU and the intents of its founders, discussions on the progress that have been made in the past three decades, and future opportunities for Asian-American students.
For two days, students will partake in a series of workshops, trainings and networking opportunities and will also be treated to a diverse range of Asian-American entertainment acts such as D’Lo, a Tamil Sri Lankan-American, political theatre artist/writer and music producer, the poet and emcee collective iLL-Literacy, and Blue Scholars, a hip-hop duo hailing from the Pacific Northwest.
Yul Kwon, the winner of Survivor: Cook Islands, graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Symbolic Systems, then went on to attend Yale Law School. Kwon had always been interested in the intersection between law and technology, having clerked on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and served as a legislative aide to Senator Joseph Lieberman. Several years ago, Kwon transitioned into the business sector, working for McKinsey and then Google.
Becky Lee, a fellow Survivor contestant, was born in Flushing, New York but raised in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She attended the University of Michigan and then continued on to receive her JD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Over the past eight years, she worked as a policy associate and attorney on issues concerning domestic violence survivors. In November 2006, Lee founded the Becky’s Fund, which is dedicated to help both batter women and other organizations that fight domestic violence continue their work.
Cornell has hosted two prior ECAASU conferences, in 1988 and 1998. The late registration deadline for ECAASU 2008: Push Forward is February 8, 2008. For more information regarding the conference, please see www.ecaasu2008.org.
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Tags: Appreciation, ECAASU.