The Formation of the Asian Culture Center at Indiana University

Adrianne D. Sarreal, 2017

• Table of Contents
• How Asian Americans in the United States Responded to Discrimination
• Asian American Experiences at IUB from 1980-1995
• Creation of the Asian Culture Center from 1996-1998
• Conclusion
• References

The experiences of Asian American college students have generally been unacknowledged within the higher education system. Although Asian Americans’ experiences are unacknowledged, they suffer similar academic, cultural, and social barriers as other diverse student populations. However, Asian Americans’ history within the United States has contributed to distinctive, yet divisive beliefs about this population. One of these beliefs is that Asian Americans are still foreigners in the United States even though their histories date back hundreds of years (Nguyen, 1991). Another prominent belief is the concept known as the model minority myth where Asian Americans are achieving success in different areas of society from economics to education (Hevel, 2017). These stereotypes have influenced society to discriminate against the Asian American population. This discrimination has led to unwelcoming and unsupportive college campus environments for Asian American college students.

In order to combat these stereotypes, Asian American college students have mobilized campus communities to identify resources and create spaces on college campuses for Asian Americans. During the 1990s, Asian American college students at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) continued these efforts by establishing the first Asian Culture Center (ACC) at a Midwest university (Goh, 1999). Thus, the focus of this paper is to answer the following questions: How were Asian American college students treated at IUB and within the United States before the opening of the ACC at IUB? What factors contributed to the establishment of the ACC in the 1990s? This paper will examine how the stereotypes about Asian Americans influenced their experiences within the United States higher education system. The experiences of Asian American students at IUB will be the primary case studied to understand the treatment these students felt on campus and what led them to establish the ACC at IUB. The paper concludes with an analysis of the effects an Asian culture center has on college and university campuses, such as IUB.

How Asian Americans in the United States Responded to Discrimination

Asian populations, such as Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Asian Indians, arrived in the United States during what was considered the first wave of immigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They experienced extensive discrimination even though they contributed to the economy by becoming laborers and small business owners (as cited in Hune, 2002). Similarly, to other racial minorities, they were discriminated against due to their race and received limited legal and immigrant rights and were economically exploited (Hune, 2002). World politics contributed to some of these discriminatory practices throughout the century as the Philippines fought the United States for its independence and the United States was involved with trade wars with Japan (Greene, 1987; Hevel, 2017). These foreign politics enhanced the belief that Asians were foreigners and grew Anti-Asian sentiments.

As society shifted in the post-World War II era, a new stereotype was created for Asian Americans. The 1965 Immigration Act can be seen as a factor that contributed to the model minority myth prior to the term being coined. The law allowed professional, highly educated, and affluent workers from Asia to enter the United States (Hune, 2002; Wu, 2013). This act also included the opportunity for unskilled workers to enter the United States to also support in the labor shortage. However, the increase of unskilled workers was unrecognized once the term, ‘model minority,’ arose in 1966 in a New York Times article (as cited in Hevel, 2017). Since many conservatives were concerned with the potential shift of wealth and power during the Civil Rights era as African Americans fought for equality, conservatives used the change of the Asian American demographics and success stories of Japanese and Chinese Americans after World War II to create a racial divide. For example, Japanese Americans who attended college after being in internment camps were largely successful at that time even though they were discriminated against (Hevel, 2017). This success created the belief that Asian Americans were “examples of advancement in spite of the persistent color line and because of their racial (often coded as cultural) differences” to create racial tension among other racial groups, particularly to challenge African Americans’ push for change (as cited in Wu, 2013, p. 6; Hevel, 2017). Moreover, this concept also caused “obscure differences within the diverse Asian American community [and] minimized the struggles of Asian Americans” (Hevel, 2017, p. 468).

Thus, these stereotypes have contributed to Asian Americans’ negative experiences and discriminatory practices in the United States especially in higher education. As a result of these issues, Asian Americans have fought for power on college campuses to dispel these stereotypes and discriminatory treatment. During the 1960s, the term Asian American arose as a panethnic identity for Americans of Asian descent to be a form of solidarity for the “similar treatment as minority group members and as a strategy to form political coalitions for equity and empowerment” (as cited in Hune, 2002, p. 11). Thus, this term was adopted by many student activists as a way to validate their experiences. Furthermore, the term Asian American has been used in the same context for the purposes of this paper.

During this time of creating solidarity for Asian Americans, the San Francisco State college student strike from November 1968 to April 1969 was a significant event that helped push for Asian American student movements (Hevel, 2017). The students were a larger coalition of historically oppressed racial groups of African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos, Latinos and Native Americans who fought for improvements in the curriculum, faculty, and admissions policies (Umemoto, 1989). The results of the strike led to the first ethnic studies program in the nation and improved admission policies for students of color (Hevel, 2017). Additionally, the strike demonstrated how racial groups desired campuses to support the needs of their diverse student populations (Umemoto, 1989).

This student activism continued as Asian American students across the nation experienced discriminatory treatment. A catalyst to the activism within the 1980s was the death of Vincent Chin. Chin was a Chinese American beaten to death by a white automobile worker from Detroit (Greene, 1987). The murderer was upset with the fact that Japan was exporting automobiles to the United States (USCCR, 1992). Due to this heinous crime, many Asian Americans realized they could no longer be silent about the racism they experienced and became more involved in Asian American student groups across campus. Throughout the 1980s, there was a steady increase of participants in various conferences and organizations to find support and understand their issues as Asian Americans (Greene, 1987).

As a result, the mobilizing of student groups within college campuses was necessary because the harassment of Asian Americans was also seen in colleges and universities in the late 1980s through 1990s (Osajima, 1995; Greene, 1987). For example, The Ohio State University “argued that the persistence of stereotypes, combined with a general lack of understanding about Asian Americans, contributed to a harsh campus climate for Asian American students” (as cited in Osajima, 1995, p. 38). These issues of harassment were seen on- and off-campus. Campuses across the nation built task forces for minority programs to support these Asian American students, but students identified that more institutional support was needed (as cited in Liu, Cuyet, & Lee, 2011). Asian American courses and cultural centers were recommended for college campuses in order to create awareness of the experiences and identities of Asian Americans and in order to reduce discrimination (as cited Osajima, 1995).

Beyond harassment Asian Americans endured, students fought against the model minority myth. During the late 1980s, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Director and Asian American Studies Professor Don Nakanishi fought to receive tenure with the support of student protests (Rojas, 2016). Dr. Nakanishi’s fight for tenure connects to the larger issue within the model minority myth that minimizes the experiences of Asian Americans (Hevel, 2017). Without Asian American tenure track faculty, Asian American students have less support on campus who can help challenge the perceptions of Asian Americans on campus that other faculty and administrators may have (Liu et al., 2011; Osajima, 1995).

Asian American Experiences at IUB from 1980-1995

Unfortunately, Indiana University was not isolated from the national issues and student movements occurring during the 1980s and 1990s. Asian Americans on campus faced similar struggles due to the model minority myth and racial discrimination. During this period, the lack of institutional support on campus perpetuated the model minority myth. With the help of the 1965 Immigration Act, there was a drastic increase of Asian Americans attending colleges and universities in the 1990s (Hune, 2002, Wu, 2013). Consequently, the model minority myth and discrimination as a racial minority worked in unison to limit that increase. In the mid-1980s, the Asian American Task Force on University Admissions discovered that some of the top universities were purposefully admitting Asian American applicants at lower rates because they were considered “overrepresented” and wanted to provide more opportunity to white applicants to be admitted (as cited in Wu, 2013). This deliberate prejudice shows the lack of understanding administrators had of the potentially issues impacting Asian American students although they were admitted. For instance, Asian Americans who entered the university may not be a model minority because their family was supporting multiple family members so a large salary for a family may not depict the true financial struggle a family may have (Nguyen, 1991). This example shows the complexity of the discrimination they faced because they were assumed to be a model minority but still seen as inferior to white students, which demonstrates the inequity in the admissions process.

While it is not clear if IUB was one of those top universities that executed their admissions in this manner, the complexity of being seen as a ‘non-under represented minority’ was experienced by the Asian Americans at IUB as they echoed the notion (Nguyen, 1991). A student, Phil Nguyen (1991), wrote an Asian American Agenda identifying the issues Asian Americans were experiencing at the university and solutions for these issues to the administration. In this agenda, he states that Asian Americans are “neither a minority nor a majority in the eyes of the American people” (Nguyen, 1991, p. 4). This policy entailed that Asian Americans were not considered an underrepresented minority because their population at IUB was larger than the state percentage of the state population of Asian Americans (CIC, 2000; Nguyen, 1991, May 18; BFC, 1989, February 7). So, the university defined Asian Americans as “over-represented” (BFC, 1989, February 7). This institutionalized policy of discrimination reverberated into the lack of institutionalized support for Asian Americans at IUB as it promoted the belief that they did not need any support services (Liu et al., 2011).

Moreover, this continued to instill the purpose of why the model minority myth was created. As seen with other universities in the Midwest, these practices among the university pitted minority groups against one another through the variety of support services per minority population. For example, all other racial minority groups at IU and at other Midwest institutions had advocacy deans and cultural centers to acknowledge, understand, and advocate for their needs as racial and ethnic minorities (Nguyen, 1991; AAA, 1996b). For instance, the La Casa, Latino Cultural Center at IUB began in 1973 (La Casa, n.d.). In 1991, the Asian American population had an increase in enrollment with a population increase that mirrored the African American population and was larger than the Latino population. Additionally, the Asian American population almost reached the same population size of the African American population at IUB (Nguyen, 1991, May 18; UFA, 1992). Rather than looking at this increase in Asian American numbers as justification for services for this population, others may see it as a validation that the community is succeeding. Outside of advocacy deans and culture centers, Asian Americans did not receive the same access to resources, such as the Minority Achievers Program, to support the students academically and financially (BFC, 1989).

This issue of being considered an over-represented minority also impacted the Asian American faculty at IUB. The Bloomington Faculty Council (BFC) are elected members of faculty, staff, administrators, and students, who are responsible for addressing faculty issues and policies at IUB (BFC, 2017). During 1989, the BFC discussed a priority of the council to diversify the faculty by recruiting minority faculty of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native American faculty. Due to the over-represented status, the BFC did not recognize the hiring of Asian American faculty as a part of this recruitment efforts (BFC, 1989). Without Asian American faculty, Asian American students would have less faculty to help in their development to explore their Asian identities (as cited in Liu et al., 2011). A lack of Asian American faculty also meant less advocates to validate the students’ concerns and support students in their efforts to get services on campus (Liu et al., 2011; Osajima, 1995).

From 1990-1995, there were zero to three Asian American faculty attaining tenure each year (FAC, 1997). This was half of the amount of tenured faculty for African Americans during that same period even though Asian Americans had a comparable student population size to African American students (UFA, 1992). The lack of recruitment efforts for Asian American faculty could be a factor to this disparity. Moreover, the lack of the BFC inclusion about the status of Asian American faculty demonstrated how they did not see Asian American faculty providing additional value to the diversity efforts of the university. This could be seen as counterproductive as “some institutions were encouraged to ‘multiculturalize’ the curriculum in the 1990s” (as cited in Lee, 2009, p. 249).

Beyond the lack of representation and support services for Asian American students on campus to cause many to feel excluded and isolated on campus, several racial incidents on campus also made it a hostile experience for the Asian American community. Racial profiling occurred when a woman was assaulted in student housing and identified her attacker to be an Asian male in February of 1990; this is known as the Redbud Apartment Incident (Asian Rights, 1990, March 8; Nguyen, 1991). With many students feeling these male students’ rights were violated with how Indiana University Police Department (IUPD) conducted their search, representatives from twelve student organizations, eight of which were identified as Asian-specific student organizations, met campus representatives to discuss the incident. Another incident that occurred was when an IUB student was attacked with a knife by two teenagers while being called racial slurs without knowing his specific ethnicity (AAA et al., 1996a). These two examples are indicative of the more hostile incidents as there were risks of physical harm, but they echoed the violence Asian Americans, such as the death of Vincent Chin, experienced on a national level to cause alarm and motivate students to organize.

Verbal attacks were also visible on campus that created an unwelcoming campus for students. For example, a 1995 Indiana University Student Association (IUSA) congress meeting had a member of the congress accuse three different Asian organizations of conspiring to maximize their funding opportunity when each organization was requesting funding for different reasons (AAA et al., 1996a). These several examples of racism and overt discrimination against Asian American students by students and staff of the university were a pattern of concern. Thus, documents, such as Nguyen’s (1991) Asian American Agenda and the meeting about the Redbud Apartment Incident, demonstrates students’ initiation for change at IUB as they called for the university to implement ways to combat the stereotypes and racism these students felt on campus. This call-to-action towards the university was necessary since the students still had a lack of institutional support at the time. Due to these incidents and documented concerns by Asian American students, the Affirmative Action Committee of the BFC recommended the students to submit a proposal regarding the concerns and demands (AAC, 1991).

Unfortunately, it is unknown why that proposal was not created until a few years later in 1996, but Asian American students continued to make the campus more welcoming for themselves. They were able to do this through various Asian-specific student organizations. With IUB as a school in the Midwest, it was challenging to explore the concepts of race as the region has been historically less diverse than the east or west coasts especially for Asian Americans (Lee, 2009). Thus, the Asian American Association was founded in 1987 to be a more expansive organization to promote Asian cultures, “enhancing campus awareness of Asian-American issues such as stereotyping, discrimination and exploitation,” and has led campus initiatives to promote change for Asian American students on IUB’s campus (AAA, ca. 2000).

While Asian Americans embraced this panethnic identity to mobilize their communities against their mistreatment they faced, it was also necessary for these groups to have ethnic-specific spaces to explore and embrace their cultures. Students at IUB established Asian American organizations, such as the Korean American Association and Vietnamese Student Association (Asian Rights, 1990). Some aspects of these organizations explored the experiences as Americans from Asian descent. Other organizations, such as the Burmese Student Association, catered more towards international students from those countries (BSA, 1996). Thus, many of these organizations created events to create cultural awareness for the IUB community to understand their ethnic identities “because racism and prejudice arise from ignorance, misconception, and isolation” (VSA, 1994, p. 3). While these Asian-related student organizations had different approaches, a common thread was to explore the cultures of different Asian Americans to dispel the stereotypes they experienced to have a more engaging campus experience.

Consequently, the Asian Student Union (ASU) was created in 1995 with the goal to create unity among eighteen Asian student groups (Carothers, 1996). ASU chairman, Kai Truong stated that the organization will ensure that IUB’s Asian community will have a “unified voice to inform administrators about emerging cultural concerns” as each student group receives two votes to make union decisions (Carothers, 1996, p. 1). This union enabled the student groups to not “lose their identities” and still be included within conversations regarding Asian issues on campus (Carothers, 1996). This new form of collaboration and unity had organizations find value in coming together as they felt ignored and wanted to create collective support for their issues so they created events such as the Asian Unity Night (Fabi, 1995; Carothers, 1996).

Creation of the Asian Culture Center from 1996-1998

By 1996, the student organizations’ cultural awareness efforts, communications to administration, and meetings with campus members were still not enough to create support spaces for Asian American students. Finally, the proposal that the Affirmative Action Committee of the BFC recommended the students file in 1991 was revisited. Like with many student movements, such as the San Francisco State student strike in 1968-1969, the support of additional student groups was crucial to initiate change. The support of additional student groups was crucial especially as events leading to the opening of the ACC found it necessary for students to organize together for a common cause. In April 1996, various student organizations banded together to form a coalition in order to address needs for minority students’ experiences at IUB. During this time, they made their support for one another visible on the campus community by holding press conferences to share their list of demands. They identified they would submit multiple proposals to the Strategic Directions Committee (Slaughter, 1996). This committee would evaluate the proposals in the fall 1996 semester. This sign of solidarity among minority groups and the creation of the Asian Student Union in 1995 greatly supported the initiatives of the AAA and Asian American community on campus as its first proposal for an Asian American Advocacy Dean and ACC was denied in 1990 (AAA et al., 1996b).

With a rise of student activism, there was momentum for this proposal for an Asian American Advocacy Dean and an Asian Culture Center, which was submitted in July 1996 (Slaughter, 1996; AAA et al., 1996b). The proposal led by the AAA and their president, Joon Park, was sponsored by several student organizations, such as the Asian Student Union, racial minority student groups, and student activist groups. In addition, the proposal was supported by each of the Advocacy Offices of Latino Affairs, Women’s Affairs, and the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Support Center. These sponsors and supports showed the unity across minority groups that saw the value for Asian American students on campus (AAA et al., 1996b). In this proposal they justified the request because of the continued growth and experiences of the population nationally and specifically at IUB. This proposal shared accounts of several incidences, such as the Redbud Apartment Incident and the IUSA congress meeting in 1995, to demonstrate that these occurrences were “not isolated events [and] are the cause of ignorance and misguided education about a racial group that consists of several different ethnicities, although commonly associated as a single and stereotyped identity” (AAA et al., 1996b, p. 5).

They demanded that the IUB administration create an inclusive environment that enabled all students at IUB to be educated on racial identities. Thus, an Asian American Cultural Center would create that institutionalized space to provide the following: educate the campus and Bloomington community about the histories and cultures of Asian Americans, support and help educate Asian Americans on their identities, address issues of racism against Asian Americans, help unite the Asian American community on campus, and help build relationships with the Asian American community and other people of color (AAA et al., 1996b). The advocacy dean within this proposal would then oversee the center as well as address all of the needs for the Asian American students, faculty, and staff of Indiana University. These sentiments and demands mirrored the national and regional Asian American movements. For example, the Midwest schools of Northwestern and Michigan University established Asian American support programs on their campuses (AAA et al., 1996b). And so, these campus initiatives was a part contributed to AAA’s justification for a program on their campus.

In addition, the purpose of the center emphasized the importance of how centers can be used to facilitate learning and support across communities, particularly with racial/ethnic cultural centers (Liu et al., 2011). Unfortunately, this need to facilitate learning and support was especially needed for minority groups during this time. While the proposals from various student groups from the broad student coalition was submitted and under review during the fall of 1996, the coalition continued to keep their demands visible. The coalition demanded for a stronger commitment from the IUB administration in regards to issues of diversity on campus (Vertner, ca. 1997). To support their demands, the coalition protested on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1997. Within a part of their demands was still the creation of the ACC. Moreover, this showed the commitment of the Asian American community of their desire to stay engaged with campus politics to make change on campus.

Although the protests were meant to understand the needs of the different student groups involved, racism still continued to surface for Asian Americans and other minority groups during this time. After the protest on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Asian American Association received a series of hate emails over the course of the months of January and February of 1997 by anonymous senders to the AAA distribution list (Fabi, 1997a). The various emails continued the racial slurs that have been experienced throughout the decades. Some of these racial slurs said, “foreigners get out of the country” and that Asian Americans are not Americans and should be deported (Fabi, 1997a, p. 1; Young, 1997). Unfortunately, as similar patterns in the past, these occurrences at IUB were similar to those experiences of other Asian Americans within the United States at the time. A few months prior, there was national attention for federal hate crime charges against Richard Machado, a student from University of California, Irvine, who sent over sixty threatening emails to Asian students from UCI (Fabi, 1997b). This series of hate emails at IU also gained national coverage in the New York Times that highlights the impact it had on campus and the nation (New York Times, 1997). This perpetual assumption that Asian Americans are foreigners continues to plague higher education institutions.

The impact of these emails caused the AAA to continue its efforts to educate the campus community while they waited for the university to act and respond to these incidents and respond to their proposal for an Asian Culture Center. Consequently, AAA decided to move their Asian American Heritage Month to February instead of March of that same year because of the “escalating racial incidents and cultural ignorance towards Asian Americans at IU” (Fabi, 1997c, para. 2). Upset, they stated that IUB administrators needed to be aware of Asian American issues (Fabi, 1997c). These comments demonstrate the lack of support the students continued to feel from the administrators. As a result of these incidents, students continued to argue for a need of diversity initiatives. Park (1997a) questioned how effective educational institutions can be if they do not address what causes the issues of racism as there continues to be a lack of understanding of different communities. In particular, citizens should acknowledge the diversity of the United States including the histories of Asian Americans as they are included in this American history and shape our society (Park, 1997a). Thus, the approval of the ACC was more necessary than it was before as IUB did not address the racism that impacted the Asian American community. Fortunately, the university finally respond to the Asian American community on campus by approving the proposal for ACC on April 4, 1997 and acknowledged the need for the campus to “encourag[e] a campus climate supportive of its Asian-American population” (IUB, ca. 1997). Remarkably, out of hundreds of applicants from faculty, staff, and students from all eight IU campuses, this was the only student proposal approved (Gros Luis, 1998 p. 2). Furthermore, “that speaks a lot about the quality of the proposal, about the people who worked together to endorse it, about the vision behind it, and about the plan for implementation” (Gros Luis, 1998, p. 2-3). This approval provides some validation for the lack of acknowledgement for this community and finally showed that their needs matter. Through these advocacy efforts, the students were awarded $50,000.00 from the Strategic Directions Charter with Chancellor Gros Louis agreeing to fund the establishment and operational costs for the center (Walker and Palmer, 1997).

Unfortunately, while the ACC was approved, the position of the Asian American advocacy dean who would oversee the center was not approved. Unfortunately, the BFC that leads the faculty issues had to initiate the conversation to see if they would approve a dean position as faculty (BFC, 1997). This dean, as with many other faculty, as Park describes, would have been integral in propelling continued efforts for the Asian American community on campus, like an Asian American studies program (Williams, ca. 1997). The AAA along with the Student Coalition continuously met with administrators to talk about this position. Regrettably, in the fall of 1997, the Budgetary Affairs Committee of the BFC did not approve the plan for the Asian American Advocacy Dean. This shows how the campus climate and power continued to shift as they no longer felt the effectiveness of the advocacy deans (Fabi, 1998). The current Deans of Afro-American Affairs and Latino Affairs agreed with that notion as many did not actually have as much authority as students wanted and continued to experience a lack of respect within the institution (Fabi, 1998).

Since the request for an advocacy dean failed, the ACC approval was an opportunity to redefine, build support, and create power for the Asian American community. Building the center was still an extensive process as Joon Park and other students headed the creation of the center from determining the location to hiring its director (BFC, 1997). While the previous intention was to establish the center within four years, the revised timeline scheduled the center to open in two years (Park, 1997b). While emails between Park and Catherine Smith do not acknowledge the reason for this change, racial incidents in that same semester could indicate the need for an expeditated opening time as the racial tension in the university continued to escalate (Park, 1997b).

Massive protests, including 300 students, faculty and community members, at Sample Gates erupted, in October of 1997 as pledges of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at IU were arrested for theft after a fraternity scavenger hunt (Rose, 1997). During the investigation, the scavenger hunt list was found to have racial and sexually derogatory remarks for their searches. This list offended many of the minority organizations, including the Asian American Association, and minority program offices (Emily, 1997; Okeon, 1997; Russell, ca. 1997). The Student Coalition at IUB of more than 30 student organizations demanded for the immediate expulsion of the fraternity (Okeon, 1997). Within two weeks of protests, the fraternity was indefinitely expelled (Zolt, 1997). This incident was considered to be the peak of student activism at the time as it became evident that “racism divides this campus” (Zolt, 1997, p 8). The leader of the Student Coalition, Ryan Vertner, emphasized that the purpose of the protests were not to get a fraternity expelled, but that racism was the issue and it needs to end (Zolt, 1997). While racism is difficult to end as we have seen through the decades of issues even at IU alone, the efforts of the students were to break down racism as much as possible.

Through the efforts of countless Asian American students and campus community allies, their efforts to establish the physical space of the ACC was one step towards progress to ending racism on IUB’s campus; the location would serve as a “symbol of psychological and institutionalized commitment to campus diversity” (as cited in Liu et al., 2011, p. 37). As a result, Joon Park stated that it was essential for the center to be at a central campus location (Gollinger, 1998). Kenneth Rogers, associate dean and director of International Services at IUB, expanded on the importance of the location as he saw “the center as playing an important role in building understanding and awareness” and being a “facilitator of change” (as cited in Gollinger, 1998). In order to facilitate this change and understanding, visibility can help to engage more people on campus to understand not just the needs of the Asian American community that have been invisible on the campus, but also support IUB’s efforts in increasing awareness of diverse populations on campus. In this history of IUB, this change was needed more than ever.

Beyond IUB’s campus, this was also an accomplishment for the national Asian American movement. In email correspondences between Joon Park and Catherine Smith about the building progress of the center, Park describes how it was already a facilitator of change for the Asian American community across the nation (Park, 1997b). With the nation seeing the possibilities for change, it began to bridge “together faculty members within departments and also faculty and students” (Park, 1997b). Moreover, other Midwest universities saw IUB as a “phenomenon of student activism within such a diminutive minority population” (Park, 1997b). The voices and experiences of this invisible minority were finally visible to the community. This was a testament to the decades of activists that made this change possible to not only benefit the IUB campus, but the nation. By October 3, 1998, the years of work was celebrated through the official opening of the Asian Culture Center (IUB, 2008).

Conclusion

The experiences of Asian American college students at Indiana University Bloomington from the 1980s until the 1990s provide a valuable understanding to the nation and the IUB community for years to come. In order to best understand the experiences of the Asian American college students at Indiana University, it was important to provide the historical context of the United States as “university and college campuses mirror the larger society with regard to politics and race” (Liu et al., 2011, p. 33). Unfortunately, the stereotypes, such as the model minority myth and the belief that Asian Americans are foreigners within this country, have continued to contribute to the mistreatment Asian Americans have faced within the United States for the past centuries. This environment has given higher education institutions opportunities to continue and justify Asian American mistreatment.

With this national context, this mistreatment of the Asian American community has similarly continued on the IUB campus. This particularly caused concern and outrage by the Asian American students at IUB in the 1980s and 1990s. Although these same issues prevailed at IUB, Asian Americans were able to rally on campus as student activism significantly increased within the latter half of the 1990s as racism magnified on the IUB campus (Vertner, 1997). This activism encouraged students of color to come together to demand changes at IUB and encouraged Asian American students on other campuses to also demand for rights and support on their campuses. However, the continued racism seen on IUB’s campus between the approval of the Asian Culture Center at IUB to the formation of the physical space of the Asian Culture Center in 1998 reiterates the importance of having a physical space on campus where Asian American students can have a space on campus where they are welcomed and supported. Moreover, the ACC was a place to reduce the prejudice against Asian Americans by educating the entire campus and Bloomington community about Asian and Asian American cultures (Goh, 1999; Liu et al., 2011).

Furthermore, the approval and implementation of the ACC by IUB was one of the necessary actions the university took to show their commitment to addressing issues of diverse populations and respond to the student activists in the 1990s. The creation of the ACC could also suggest that the university was beginning to acknowledge and willing to address the needs of the Asian American community on campus after years of feeling isolated and excluded by the university’s practices. While these university practices and societal beliefs could not change overnight, the ACC was not just the students’ but also the institution’s step towards progress.

Since then, the institutionalization of the ACC only strengthened the Asian American community at IUB as more services and resources were created for Asian Americans. These services and change at IUB were informed by the activism and experiences of the Asian American students in the 1990s. These students understood the changing demographics of the Asian American population and the experiences of discrimination they felt would continue and need to be addressed (AAA et al., 1996b). Through these students’ foresight, IUB’s Asian population has grown to be over 2000 students on campus today (ACC, 2017). This population is comparable to the size of the entire minority population in 1999 (UFA, 1992). Thus, this is one reason to justify the continued need for the ACC as more students on this campus need support services to process experiences regarding racism against Asian American students at IUB.

Although the Asian American advocacy dean was not approved in the 1990s, the Asian Culture Center has been able to be an advocate for the Asian American community on campus. For example, with continued racial issues, the university has been able to respond in more culturally sensitive ways regarding issues on campus through the Asian Culture Center (Goh, 1999). Vice President for Student Development, Charlie Nelms, also identifies ways that the center has “play[ed] [an] important role in building a cohesive community at IU through programs and activities” on an administrative level (Goh, 1999, p. 8). This shows how the ACC has been able to create a more inclusive campus for many students.

More importantly, the center also engages and collaborates with student leaders on issues of Asian American needs on campus and provides a space for Asian student organizations (Liu et al., 2011). The ACC in collaboration with student groups has been able to lead initiatives to get additional services for the Asian American community at IUB. The ACC has been instrumental in the creation of the Asian American Studies Program and the efforts to include Asian Americans into campus services, such as the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program (IUB, 2008). The experiences of the students in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated the desire and need for Asian Americans to be more visible on the IUB campus as Asian American students today continue to experience challenges. Thus, the Asian Culture Center continues to be a place where students can explore their own and other identities, combat stereotypes, engage with other diverse populations, and embody the spirit and actions of the student activists that helped establish the ACC so generations of Asian American students can come to IUB with a possibility of a more inclusive environment and opportunities for the Asian American community.