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Interview: Allison Yorita '10, Co-Programmer of Asian American History Month

By Kavita Kumar '00

From Japanese American internment to international adoption to identity politics, Asian American History Month at Brown was packed with special speakers, panel discussions, film screenings, food, games, and parties. This year, juniors Britta Han '10 and Allison Yorita '10 were the co-programmers of the month that takes place on campus every November. Allison took a couple of minutes out of her busy schedule to do a Q&A with A4 about the month. She talks about everything from the opening convocation with Chinese American composer Jon Jang to how they incorporated the U.S. Presidential election into the month to how she coped with sleep deprivation during the month.

Q: The theme for the month was "Interwoven Stories: A Collage of Our Histories, a Picture of Our Identities." Can you tell me a little bit about why you chose this theme? What were your goals for the month?

A: Well, we were with our steering committee, throwing around ideas, and one image that kept coming up was the idea of a collage. With Asian Americans at Brown coming from widely different backgrounds, everyone thought it was interesting that there are so many students coming together to create this image of an "Asian American" community at Brown. Britta and I hoped that with this month, we could inspire students to focus on the individual, and how the many identities of an individual can shape their being Asian American.

Q: What were some of the highlights of the month? Were there certain lectures, forums, or events that really stuck out?

A: For our opening convocation, we invited Jon Jang, a Chinese American composer and pianist from San Francisco. He gave a great talk about musically representing the experiences of Chinese Americans – such as their involvement with building the Transcontinental Railroad. We also had an Asian Street Bazaar, where a bunch of Asian student groups came together and set up stands that sold food or had games. Asian performance groups also had sets at the bazaar, and at one point we had a Chinese lion (from the Chinese lion dance group on campus) walk around and interact with the visitors to the Bazaar. All the proceeds went towards a nonprofit Southeast Asian youth support group in Providence.

Q: What were some of the more controversial or emotional topics that came up during the month?

A: I don't know how "controversial" this is, but one of the aspects we really wanted to work on for the month was focusing on all Asian Americans. Typically, the first thought that comes to mind for "Asian Americans" usually translates into "East Asian." What we wanted to do this month was emphasize that there are also South Asians and Southeast Asians that enrich the meaning of being an Asian American. For example, our closing convocation this month was planned by not only myself and Britta, but also by Rohini Muralidharan (the South Asian Identity Week programmer) and Alex Vang and VyVy Trinh (the Southeast Asian Heritage Week programmers). We planned a panel about activism, and brought in panelists with a wide variety of backgrounds to share their experiences.

Q: Election Day, of course, was in November, too. Did you hear a lot of conversation about this historic election in the context of what it means to the Asian American community?

A: We actually did a table slipping campaign (we printed out mini flyers that we distributed on tables in the Ratty) that included various facts about Asian American voting. We wanted to get the word out about how Asian Americans really do have voting power, since stereotypes tend to portray Asian Americans as not active in politics.

Q: When did you begin planning for Asian American History month?

A: We started looking for speakers over the summer, but things didn't really kick into gear until we got back to school in September. Which kind of kicked us in the butt later on, but we managed to pull through and plan a great month.

Q: Have you gotten much sleep this month (in November)?

A: I think the best way to answer this is that I bought myself a coffeemaker towards the beginning of November because I was using a lot of my meal plan towards buying coffee.

Click here to see a list of all of the events that took place during Asian American History Month.

Allison Yorita '10 is from Irvine, California and is a concentrator in chemical engineering. In addition to her involvement with the Third World Center, she is also a Meiklejohn peer advisor and enjoys playing with the Brown Taiko drumming group. When not doing any of the above, she also enjoys snacking on frozen yogurt, playing piano and talking on her webcam to her two dogs back at home.