More than 100 students gathered Saturday at the Triangle-Area Asian Student Conference to discuss Asian American identity and emerging perceptions of the Asian American community.
Facilitated by the Asian Students Association, TAASCON featured an entire day of activities intended to facilitate productive discourse and allow students to interact with others concerned with Asian-American issues. The program featured workshop sessions, keynote speakers and networking sessions attended by students in the Triangle area.
“This makes all the issues we’re talking about accessible,” said senior Ting-Ting Zhou, president of ASA and executive director of TAASCON. “Those discussions we’re having here, in the workshops, in the keynotes that we’re able to hear—it’s all at the forefront for students. This should happen a lot more often.”
Workshop topics ranged from broad activist topics such as “North Korea: Human Rights Activism Abroad and in the U.S,” to personal empowerment and reflection sessions including “Ain’t Nobody Got Time fo’ Dat: A Workshop on Giving a F—k,” and “Asian American by Choice: Overcoming Bamboo Ceilings.”
In the latter session, Cyndy Yu-Robinson and Hector Javier, leaders within the National Association of Asian American Professionals, led a discussion on overcoming cultural barriers—commonly referred to as the “bamboo ceiling”—and how an Asian American background can provide a distinct perspective in the community and workplace.
“Often you can’t break the bamboo ceiling because people don’t know who you are,” Javier said. “You have the responsibility to show who you are and what you bring to the table that is unique.”
Sophomore Charlotte Ke, who attended the seminar, noted the importance of receiving inspiration from professionals such as Javier, an information technology project manager at Cisco Systems, Inc. and Yu-Robinson, an enviromental scientist and public involvement specialist at URS Corporation.
“It’s encouraging to see there are so many people interested in Asian American issues,” she said. “It’s great to see professionals and an older generation who have been able to embrace their identity and use it to their advantage.”
Educating the public on Asian American issues is important to combatting indifference, Ke noted.
“There is a massive gray area of people who don’t care because they are not aware,” Ke said. “It’s frustrating for me when my friends don’t care, when there’s so much apathy [about the topic].”
Senior Emily Ngan noted the significance of having several arts-related events at the conference, including a workshop taught by keynote speaker and spoken word poet Kelly Tsai. The workshop, titled, “Revelation/Revolution: Spoken Word Poetry, AAPI Movement Making, & You” presented a way to use slam poetry and creative exercises as a vehicle for expressing passion about issues.
“[Art is] taken as something in addition to what you always do in order to be well-rounded [for Asian Americans],” Ngan said.
The second keynote speech of the day—given by actor Dante Basco, famous for his work as a voice artist in the animated television shows “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “Jake Long: American Dragon”—also highlighted the arts. Basco spoke about his experiences as an Asian American artist and ways to approach issues facing Asian American students, such as breaking from traditional speech to rap or recite poetry.
Zhou noted that Saturday’s event was the first time TAASCON—launched in 2011—took place on Duke’s campus. Last year, the University hosted the East Coast Asian American Student Union Conference, a similar but better-attended event with 1,000 student participants. Zhou, who is graduating in May, said it is possible but uncertain whether another Asian American oriented conference will occur in the future.
“We’ll see who steps up and continues it,” she said.
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