Founded in 1972, the Asian American Alliance has served as a space for students to learn about and make history surrounding the Asian American experience at Oberlin. Members began to build an Asian American Resource Center by collecting literature in the form of magazines, books, newspapers, and other media. These important pieces of history, sourced from coast to coast, lined the shelves of Peters Hall 5B, which was the designated office for the Asian American Counselor Coordinator at the time.

Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, the AAA was bustling with activity, pioneering movements and connecting with historical figures, such as singer Chris Ijima and civil rights activist Helena Zia. Since then, AAA has suffered a significant decline in membership and the AARC has gone through changes that have minimized its once-prominent presence. In order to fight back, alumni and students have engaged in conversation, figuring out the best path forward. Grant Din, who held the Asian American Counselor Coordinator position from 1979–82, described the direction that AAA was headed at the time.

“There wasn’t an Asian American Studies class, so the goals of AAA were to build awareness and then work in conjunction with other groups of color,” Din said. “I worked with the students to bring people to campus who could talk about the Asian American experience — people from New York, Chinatown, the West Coast, and all around the country. I also taught an Asian American Studies course in the Experimental College each spring.”

The push for Asian American Studies was a movement emerging during the ’60s and ’70s as a protest against Eurocentric curricula present in academic institutions nationwide. AAA’s goals included advocating for this movement. Tommy Woon, who came to the College in 1982 as the AACC after Din and later became the first in the U.S. to hold the title of assistant dean/director of Asian American affairs in 1987, recalled how AAA was of personal significance.

“I’m a product of this Asian American movement,” Woon said. “A lot of these stories start because there’s a real personal resonance with the historical moment. The Asian American Studies movement and the [Third World Liberation Front] strikes spoke to me in ways I didn’t expect. When I first heard an activist speak about Asian American identity and history and politics, I had no interest in any of that, and I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I resonated with what he was saying.”

Throughout the years, the tense political climate made AAA a tremendous resource for Asian Americans learning about their history and finding belonging within a predominantly white space. Barbara Chang, OC ’82, described AAA’s impact on her Oberlin experience.

“AAA and AARC helped me to find my identity as an Asian American woman,” Chang said. “I came from a pretty sheltered life as a kid. … [It was] only through AAA that I learned about racism. Of course, I said, ‘What is racism?’ We didn’t talk about it in high school, and my parents didn’t talk about it [either]. All I heard was that you have to be twice as good as other kids in your studies so that one day they won’t pick on you.”

Chang continued to describe the significance that AAA and AARC had on her journey of getting to know her Asian American identity. She emphasized the distinction between Asian and Asian American, as well as how AAA helped her realize this.

“Members of AAA gave me a book called Roots: An Asian American Reader,” she said. “It was a collection of essays, poetry, interviews, and self-reflections by Asian Americans. … I read that with fascination, … and it gave me the opportunity to think about [myself as a] Chinese American rather than a Chinese girl. My Chinese relatives don’t think of me as Chinese; I’m American.”

When Woon resigned from his position, he asked that the AARC be moved to the library, and the collection was reorganized in Mudd Center 315. Since then, the collection has gone through two more moves, and it is currently stored in the receiving room in the basement of Mudd. East Asian Studies Librarian Yilin La is currently working with College fourth-year Yuji Kono, a board member of AAA, to organize and digitize the materials.

“There were repeated efforts to reorganize and maintain materials,” La said. “For example, between 1995 and 2007, AAA students barcoded the majority of AARC materials and added brief bibliographical records in the library system. I was able to track AARC materials through these records and saw that a small portion circulated through the library system.”

Kono further explained the motivation behind the shift from having a physical space for the AARC in Mudd 315 to having the collection locked away in the receiving room, where only librarians are able to access it.

“There were a lot of students who thought [Mudd 315] was a safe space, and there was a conflict in the past because students put up signs [indicating that the room was specifically a POC space],” Kono said. “AAA would book rooms there, so it functionally was a space where they held meetings, and there’s a gap between that and what the agreement officially said the room was for.”

Many alumni, including Marianne Tassone, OC ’07, were saddened by this change.

“To us, the concern was the loss of the physical space … and the notion that the collection would be broken up into pieces and not all together was also disheartening,” Tassone said. “[The AARC] has been amassed over several decades, and it was in response to a specific lack of curriculum and education that was offered at Oberlin at the time.”

Peggy Chan, OC ’76, shared a similar sentiment.

“I would want to see [the AARC] treated as a whole because I think there’s so much value in the whole interdisciplinary and historical context of this collection,” Chan said. “The value of it is in keeping it whole. [Splitting the collection up] is like splitting up Monet paintings. You see so much more when they’re all together.”

The AARC has always been overseen by the AACC and AAA. Due to the recent decline in AAA membership, La and Kono are currently the only ones involved in the AARC’s reorganization. Although the AAA board is prioritizing restarting the organization as a whole, progress with finding a space for the AARC continues. On April 5, AAA students decided to move forward with splitting the collection for preservation, and La is in the process of confirming a space to host materials that do not stay in the main library. College third-year Sayanth Shajith, AAA Chair, spoke about its current goals. 

“I’m really passionate about keeping this alive, but the way I’m approaching it is: one, there are certain non-negotiable goals that I want to achieve with regards to this, and that’s primarily oriented toward preserving institutional memory and setting up the capacity of AAA as an [organization] to be rooted in its history, along with the access to the archives that we have as an [organization] to set the baseline of what the [organization] is,” Shajith said.

Kono is also working on digitizing the AARC materials and creating a LibGuide to make the resources accessible to students. Azariah S. Root Director of Libraries and Professor of English and Book Studies Valerie Hotchkiss commented on this project.

“I’m excited about it,” Hotchkiss said. “It’s good that we’ll have this online resource that you can go to so that students are aware that we still collect in this area. The AAA might have been important for making sure the libraries collected better in that area way back in the ’70s and the ’80s. The library rose to the occasion some time ago and started collecting in that area. … I’m glad that we’re working with the students because the current students should have a say on what happens here.”

With support from alumni and students, it is clear that AAA has and will continue to serve as an invaluable resource for the Asian American community. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences David Kamitsuka, who was the advisor to AAA in the mid-’90s, expressed his appreciation and hope for the organization.

“AAA has been a wonderful educational venue for students to examine the misunderstandings and conflicts among Asians in Asia, which don’t necessarily go away just because people are transported to the United States,” Kamitsuka said. “AAA was an alliance that had to work out inter-group differences too, and this experience has been very meaningful for many students over the years. I trust that AAA was transformative for [students and alumni], and it is a deeply important legacy for Oberlin.”