APAC's Perspectives to "Report: UT not meeting needs of Asian-Americans" by Daily Texan Christene Wang

APAC's Perspectives to
"Opinion: APAC Co-opts Asian Voice" By Daily Texan Ken Tran

Quotes from the Daily Texan APAC's Perspectives

An administrator complains to an Asian-American student about her English... I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone attending a public university in the United States to have a perfunctory command of the predominant language of the country. The administrator does not merely "complain" to an Asian American student about her English, the admin ostracized her, spoke to her slowly and in a condescending manner, as if she did not know English, when in fact she did. The administrator bought into the perpetual foreigner stereotype about Asian Americans and discriminated against her accordingly. This admin needs to be held accountable for his racist actions.

APAC's refusal to provide specifics about these reports does little to support their credibility. Many, such as Yiheng Feng, who wrote a Firing Line criticizing the report last week, have been put off by this evasive argumentation. Is APAC really "protecting identities" here or glossing over inconsistencies? We cannot give information about specifics, but the Dean of Students have confirmed that these incidents did take place.
"Last spring, students reported an unusually high number of race-related incidents to the Dean of Students' office, Brett said.
"What I would say is that there seemed to be a cluster of things happening in the spring semester," she said. "It's not statistical analysis. It's really anecdotal, but it just seemed to us that we had seen a number of things happen in the spring semester related to Asian-Pacific-Americans." Brett also pointed out that Asian-Americans are a diverse group. It includes students from backgrounds as varied as Japanese, Pakistani and Indian.
It is likely that the students who came forth were only a portion of those who had been victimized, Brett said.
"It made us wonder whether there were other things happening that we had not heard of. Because when you hear from students, that typically means they aren't the only ones who experienced it," she said.

APAC bemoans the loss of Asian-American counselor Vagdevi Meunier from CMHC staff, and the failure to replace her with another Asian-American. But token representation isn't going to improve the state of Asian students' mental health. I'm offended that APAC is suggesting that "it takes one to know one," instead of accepting the training and expertise of professional counselors, regardless of their race. APAC asked for a counselor with Asian American experience and it was actually the CMHC staff who racially tokenized it's own Asian Americans on staff who did not counsel. In our letter to meet with the CMHC, we asked questions about diversity training within the staff to see if knowledge about APA issues are taught, but the CMHC has yet to answer our questions.

Of the 14 demands APAC has made in the report, two are for personal apologies from Drum and CMHC staff for being rude to them over the course of negotiations. This petty grudge-holding isn't an Asian-American affair. Why is it then included as a major demand in a report whose goal is to "shed light on and address the needs of Asian -American students?" APAC has misrepresented their self-interested politics as an issue for all Asian -American students, and I resent being "spoken for" on issues that don't involve me at all. We are "speaking" for those who can't or are afraid to. Those who are paying out of their pocket to see a counselor familiar with Asian American issues because their university isn't providing them with one, even though they still pay for it with their student fees.
We are asking for an apology for the way we have been treated during this process by the admins at CMHC.What does it say when such a large constituency, 14% of the school, is asking to talk about how their student fees are paying for a service that is not available to them, only to be told that they are rude, that they went about it the wrong way, to have their adviser speculated and gossiped about? Would other groups be treated the same way? If a women's group on campus were asking why aren't there any female counselors available in the center, would they get the same response?

APAC's complaint against Academic Enrichment Services is the supposedly exclusionary nature of its Welcome Program. In the past, Asian-Americans have not been sufficiently included in these programs, which are designed to reach out to minority students. This complaint is on the right track, but APAC takes the wrong approach to correcting it. They take issue with the program's "Steps to Success" show, arguing that Asian-Americans don't feel comfortable stepping, a form of dance, or don't know how to step.
Why not take the initiative and learn? Participating in the step show would be a display of good faith on the part of Asian-American organizations, and would go far in addressing APAC's concern that the sole Asian-American student involved in the program was marginalized and dismissed for having contrary opinions to the traditional modus operandi.
Programs like "Steps to Success" is a part of The Welcome Program during orientation. It is the only program about and for people of color and underrepresented groups. In it's 20+ years history, Asian Americans were not asked to be part of this program until the Dean of Students, where the WP is housed, was held accountable for their past discrimination against Asian American students. To seem more inclusive, Asian American student coordinators were brought in halfway through the program. Yet there was no effort of including actual Asian American events or people in it. When the student staff member pointed this out, she was treated like a deviant. The program tokenized its Asian American student staff. Merely having an Asian student staff member, but not allowing for Asian American presence or culture is not being inclusive. But this program is supposed to have various programs done for and by Latino, African American, and Asian American students, yet it has no Asian American presence or influence.
Why should Asian Americans have to learn to step to be in a program that is supposed to include them in the first place? The Welcome Program is supposed to expose people to the students of color populations at school, and your solution for fixing Asian discrimination and under-representation is asking Asians to learn to step? Why can't Asian American organizations be given the space to do their own performances in a program that is meant for that?

Have comments? Email ut.apac@gmail.com

Quotes from the Daily Texan	APAC's Perspectives
An administrator complains to an Asian-American student about her English... I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone attending a public university in the United States to have a perfunctory command of the predominant language of the country.	The administrator does not merely "complain" to an Asian American student about her English, the admin ostracized her, spoke to her slowly and in a condescending manner, as if she did not know English, when in fact she did. The administrator bought into the perpetual foreigner stereotype about Asian Americans and discriminated against her accordingly. This admin needs to be held accountable for his racist actions.
APAC's refusal to provide specifics about these reports does little to support their credibility. Many, such as Yiheng Feng, who wrote a Firing Line criticizing the report last week, have been put off by this evasive argumentation. Is APAC really "protecting identities" here or glossing over inconsistencies?	We cannot give information about specifics, but the Dean of Students have confirmed that these incidents did take place. "Last spring, students reported an unusually high number of race-related incidents to the Dean of Students' office, Brett said. "What I would say is that there seemed to be a cluster of things happening in the spring semester," she said. "It's not statistical analysis. It's really anecdotal, but it just seemed to us that we had seen a number of things happen in the spring semester related to Asian-Pacific-Americans." Brett also pointed out that Asian-Americans are a diverse group. It includes students from backgrounds as varied as Japanese, Pakistani and Indian. It is likely that the students who came forth were only a portion of those who had been victimized, Brett said. "It made us wonder whether there were other things happening that we had not heard of. Because when you hear from students, that typically means they aren't the only ones who experienced it," she said.
APAC bemoans the loss of Asian-American counselor Vagdevi Meunier from CMHC staff, and the failure to replace her with another Asian-American. But token representation isn't going to improve the state of Asian students' mental health. I'm offended that APAC is suggesting that "it takes one to know one," instead of accepting the training and expertise of professional counselors, regardless of their race.	APAC asked for a counselor with Asian American experience and it was actually the CMHC staff who racially tokenized it's own Asian Americans on staff who did not counsel. In our letter to meet with the CMHC, we asked questions about diversity training within the staff to see if knowledge about APA issues are taught, but the CMHC has yet to answer our questions.
Of the 14 demands APAC has made in the report, two are for personal apologies from Drum and CMHC staff for being rude to them over the course of negotiations. This petty grudge-holding isn't an Asian-American affair. Why is it then included as a major demand in a report whose goal is to "shed light on and address the needs of Asian -American students?" APAC has misrepresented their self-interested politics as an issue for all Asian -American students, and I resent being "spoken for" on issues that don't involve me at all.	We are "speaking" for those who can't or are afraid to. Those who are paying out of their pocket to see a counselor familiar with Asian American issues because their university isn't providing them with one, even though they still pay for it with their student fees. We are asking for an apology for the way we have been treated during this process by the admins at CMHC.What does it say when such a large constituency, 14% of the school, is asking to talk about how their student fees are paying for a service that is not available to them, only to be told that they are rude, that they went about it the wrong way, to have their adviser speculated and gossiped about? Would other groups be treated the same way? If a women's group on campus were asking why aren't there any female counselors available in the center, would they get the same response?
APAC's complaint against Academic Enrichment Services is the supposedly exclusionary nature of its Welcome Program. In the past, Asian-Americans have not been sufficiently included in these programs, which are designed to reach out to minority students. This complaint is on the right track, but APAC takes the wrong approach to correcting it. They take issue with the program's "Steps to Success" show, arguing that Asian-Americans don't feel comfortable stepping, a form of dance, or don't know how to step. Why not take the initiative and learn? Participating in the step show would be a display of good faith on the part of Asian-American organizations, and would go far in addressing APAC's concern that the sole Asian-American student involved in the program was marginalized and dismissed for having contrary opinions to the traditional modus operandi.	Programs like "Steps to Success" is a part of The Welcome Program during orientation. It is the only program about and for people of color and underrepresented groups. In it's 20+ years history, Asian Americans were not asked to be part of this program until the Dean of Students, where the WP is housed, was held accountable for their past discrimination against Asian American students. To seem more inclusive, Asian American student coordinators were brought in halfway through the program. Yet there was no effort of including actual Asian American events or people in it. When the student staff member pointed this out, she was treated like a deviant. The program tokenized its Asian American student staff. Merely having an Asian student staff member, but not allowing for Asian American presence or culture is not being inclusive. But this program is supposed to have various programs done for and by Latino, African American, and Asian American students, yet it has no Asian American presence or influence. Why should Asian Americans have to learn to step to be in a program that is supposed to include them in the first place? The Welcome Program is supposed to expose people to the students of color populations at school, and your solution for fixing Asian discrimination and under-representation is asking Asians to learn to step? Why can't Asian American organizations be given the space to do their own performances in a program that is meant for that?