My experience as an Asian American on campus isn’t clear — to others or even myself. Perhaps that derives from the amorphous Asian American community on campus, but more likely it derives from my personal sense of identity. Identity politics have never been important to me. To me, identity politics seemed to separate, while I wished to find commonality — humanity among humans. A month ago, when a friend approached me with the proposition of joining a committee to plan the first Asian American dinner, my first thought was: why me? She explained that she was looking for nothing more than man-power to make this dinner happen, so it was like recruiting troops. I would just be one within a brigade recruited to make an idea an actuality. That was fine; it wouldn’t challenge the boundaries of my sense of self, which I perceived to have separate needs from the exigencies of a community.
So I joined in, ignorant and naïve, happy to be a part of something while still remaining apart from it.
During the planning process, I became more and more involved, more integrated, more active…. However, the motivation for organizing the dinner— the idea of building an Asian American community — still didn’t catch on for me. Like I said: I was just there to mobilize…and yet I found myself neglecting homework, other responsibilities, and people in order to plan tasks. My connection to these people was strong, it was tangible. My connection to my friends was real -I suddenly felt political for the first time in my life! The “mobilization” committee formed for this dinner was a group of seniors; we were friends who had forged friendships through classes, living together, eating together, just being together, or having seen each other variously around campus for three years. We were also all Asian Americans, but it seemed to me, that at that moment, our identity came after our friendship. We were scattered friends, friends brought together as a community under the context of planning for this dinner — that was our narrative. The dinner highlighted our commonality as Asian Americans, but didn’t define it.
We realized that ’community’, whether Asian American or otherwise, isn’t consciously built, but naturally collects and forms. Just as planning for the dinner gave form to our friendships, the Asian American dinner itself gave form to a larger network of friendships. A network not limited by identity (Asian American), but extended by friendships of all nationalities and colors. A community derives meaning from interaction, relationships, and friendships, and builds along similar foundations. The Asian American community at Wes may not be clearly defined — which may also be a good thing, but we have a foundation. So if Saturday’s dinner was evidence of anything to me, it’s that this community is larger and more diverse than I’d imagined, and that such contexts for connectivity need to happen more.
If any of this resonated with you, or if an Asian American community at Wesleyan is important to you in whatever form, then come talk with three members of the Board of Trustees, Tom Wu, Leo Au, and Daphne Kwok, who are interested in hearing from Asian American Pacific Islanders students concerning on-campus issues, this Thursday, Thursday, Nov 15 from 9:30 pm to 10:30 pm, location TBA. Email Dean Teraguchi at dt********@******an.edu if you’re interested.
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