AACC

Illinois has one of the largest and most vibrant Asian American university communities in the Midwest and was listed as one of the best colleges for Asian American students. Our campus has 6000 Asian American students and 7200 Asian international students, and over 1000 Asian American faculty/staff. Asian Americans have a strong presence on campus and a long history of student activism since the late 1970s. Over the past two decades, we have developed many resources to address the needs and interests of Asian Americans and those interested in Asian American issues. Opened in fall 2005, the Asian American Cultural Center provides the University of Illinois community with space to gather and share the diverse and rich cultures that are a part of the Asian American experience.

AACC STAFF David Chih Kenneth Importante Mai-Lin Poon JoAnne Ramirez

Director|Assistant Dean of Students Assistant Director Assistant Director Office Support Specialist

Fall 2012 Interns Kenny Chan Outreach Intern Carmen Cheung Hermia Soo Intern Michelle Chhong Communications Intern Michelle Francisco Programming Intern Rebecca Lu Communications Intern Jennifer Mendez Programming Intern Mary Nguyen Office Specialist Anish Patel Office Specialist Simaren Sandh Office Specialist Kelly Uchima Programming Intern Ariel Wang Outreach Intern

Hours during the Academic Year Monday - Thursday: 9:00AM - 9:00PM Friday: 9:00AM - 5:00PM Closed on Holidays Summer & Winter Hours Monday - Friday: 9:00AM - 5:00PM Closed on Holidays facebook.com/aaccillinois @aacc_illinois

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Asian American Cultural Center 1210 West Nevada Street, MC-149 Urbana, Illinois 61801 Contact us at aacc@illinois.edu or (217) 333-9300 youtube.com/aaccillinois Asian American Cultural Center

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

Each new year at the AACC brings new challenges and opportunities for our students and staff. We were so pleased to welcome a new assistant director to our full-time staff in June 2012, Mai-Lin Poon, who trained at Indiana University’s Asian Culture Center. Mai-Lin has been leading our expanded programming for international outreach and experimenting with new forms of social media (we hope you visit our Facebook page). Our internship training program continues to grow, with 18 students participating in the spring, summer, or fall this year. We hope this experience helps them to explore their own identities while they learn about the Asian American community, and that they all will continue to be connected to their Asian American communities beyond college. We very much appreciate the generosity of local piano teacher and artist, Hermia Soo, in support of our internship program. This past spring Joy Lin and this fall Carmen Cheung were our first two Hermia Soo interns at the AACC. We also are pleased to welcome the new UI Asian American Alumni Network Board of Directors led by Ning Zulauf.

They have many events in store for the upcoming year that you don’t want to miss!

Our staff presented 75 programs this year, including our Food for Thought weekly Tuesday lunchtime discussion series. This program draws a racially-diverse audience (55% of whom are non-Asian) averaging over 100 people each week. CHAI Time is a new weekly Monday night AACC program that is co-sponsored by RSOs. CHAI Time events range from cultural celebrations to cooking demonstrations, and can be as formal as an awareness workshop.

Our center is a thriving community center with over 45 affiliated groups. This year we hosted 1000 meetings and events and had over 28,000 visitors. Our building capacity pushes its limits for meeting and programming space. Many weeks there are 50 programs/meetings, and most weekends have more than a dozen events occurring here. This past spring, UI students hosted the Midwest Asian American Student Union (MAASU) spring conference for over 1000 students, and this fall, our Philippine Students Association hosted over 1300 people for their annual Filipino Americans Coming Together (FACT) conference.

We could not possibly have had all these programs without the generosity of many students, friends, and donors. In 2012, we received substantial grant support for our lunar new year celebration (UI public engagement grant), AAPI heritage month celebration (City of Urbana public festivals grant), international students’ workshop series (Student Affairs strategic initiatives grant, with the Counseling Center), and multi-racial student programming (Student Affairs strategic initiative grant, with OIIR, University Housing and Illini Union Board). Additionally, we thank the two dozen financial donors and the hundreds of student volunteers for their time in support of our mission.

We hope you enjoy reading this year-end newsletter that captures some of the highlights of 2012. On behalf of the entire AACC team, we wish you a happy new year!

David W. Chih, Ph.D.

Director, Asian American Cultural Center Assistant Dean of Students

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 20 YUKI LLEWELLYN OUTSTANDING STUDENT ORGANIZATION AWARD

The AACC was happy to award the Asian American Association and Kappa Phi Lambda Sorority, Inc. as winners of the Yuki Llewellyn Award for Outstanding Asian American Student Organizations. This award is given to student organizations who have developed and implemented activities, programs, and services that promote greater cultural, social, or political awareness of Asian American issues.

This past year, the Asian American Association celebrated its 25th anniversary with a beautiful banquet with many alums, former officers and members, and other student organizations in attendance.

One of their main goals this year was to promote AAPI unity not only on campus, but in the Midwest. Over half of their officer board served on the Midwest Asian American Students Union (MAASU) Spring Conference committee. The MAASU Spring Conference is a regional conference that had over 1000 student leaders from all over the Midwest in attendance! This year the theme was Breaking H.A.B.I.T.S. Hostility. Adversity.

Boundaries. Ignorance. Tension. Stereotypes. Along with MAASU, AAA helped develop an alternative spring break trip with Habitat for Humanity. They have also supported sister organizations across the Midwest, for example Purdue University’s AAA, by providing outreach and encouragement.

Kappa Phi Lambda Sorority, Inc.’s main mission is to promote pan-Asian awareness and female empowerment.

Their philanthropy is the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), whose mission is to advance social justice and human rights for AAPI women. Together they organized a monthly series of programs that focused on these issues. These topics range from human trafficking in Southeast Asia to sexual and domestic violence among AAPI women. They also hosted the Mr. Asian UIUC Pageant and the Asiaworld Expo in coordination with I am Asian American Week. Kappa Phi Lambda provides over 400 service hours for a variety of organizations in the Champaign-Urbana area, including the Asian American Cultural Center, Meals for Hope, and Champaign Nursing Home.

These amazing student organizations were just two of the many affiliated groups that are doing great work in campus and in the Champaign-Urbana area.

OUTSTANDING ALUMNI AWARD

This year we honored Ho Chie Tsai with the Outstanding Asian American Alumni Award in recognition of his outstanding dedication and long-time support of the Asian American community and interests. This award is determined by a committee of students, faculty, staff and alumni that reviewed nominations based on several criteria: (1) outstanding contributions to the Asian American community, (2) exceptional success in their professional career, and (3) meritorious service supporting the mission of the University. Ho Chie Tsai is a pediatrician, community organizer, motivational speaker, activist, creator of the website TaiwaneseAmerican. org., and founder and active member of the Taiwanese American Professionals in San Francisco. During his undergraduate years at Illinois, he was pivotal in the movement for an Asian American Cultural Center and Asian American Studies program. He still remains active in the Illinois community with his presentations at the Asian American Cultural Center Fifth Anniversary Celebration and FACT Conferences. His long history of leadership roles in various Asian American organizations is a testament to his commitment to the Asian American community.

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012 LEADERSHIP AWARDS AACC COMMUNITY BUILDER AWARD

This past year we recognized Hermia Soo’s outstanding dedication and long-time support of the AACC and the Asian American community with the Community Builder Award. The AACC Community Builder Award recognizes significant and sustained commitment to building a stronger Asian American campus-community in partnership with the AACC. We wanted to honor her decades of service to the community as a teacher, an artist, a mentor, and an advocate for youth and the Chinese American community in Champaign-Urbana. Her generous gift in support of student development through the Hermia Soo Internship will help students learn about service to the Asian American community for years to come. Her work in building a stronger AAPI community serves as an inspiration to us all.

ADDITIONAL AWARD WINNERS INCLUDE: Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award MAY XIONG Outstanding Student Leader Award BRIAN CHIN PEI-LYNN JUANG LORRAINE PANG Susan Yung Maul Award for Outstanding Event FILIPINO AMERICANS COMING TOGETHER (FACT) I AM ASIAN AMERICAN WEEK MIDWEST ASIAN AMERICAN STUDENTS UNION CONFERENCE ILLINOIS FAST-A-THON

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UPCOMING EVENTS Book Club “The Choke Artist” by David Yoo

*This book may not be appropriate for children* Public Reading: January 29, 2013 12 pm

The Vibrant Colors of Lunar New Year Art Exhibit February 1 - April 5, 2013 Art Reception: February 11, 2013 6 pm

Lunar New Year Celebration

February 16, 2013 Champaign Public Library 1 - 3 pm

Boneyard Arts Festival Many Cultures, One Community April 5 - May 31, 2013 Art Reception: April 11 6 pm

Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Asiafest Celebration May 4, 2013 Japan House 1 - 3 pm

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ALUMNI REFLECTIONS CHRISTINE ASIDAO B.S. ‘94, Ph.D. ‘02

I am very grateful for UI’s Asian American community.

My experiences during my years as the Graduate Assistant for Asian Pacific American Student Outreach at the Counseling Center were extremely valuable.

I enjoyed connecting with students and providing presentations, workshops and mentoring on a host of topics salient to APA students. Not only was I able to better understand the diverse worldviews of our students, but I was also able to explore my own multiple social identities and how they intersect with my being 2nd generation Filipina-American. These experiences have shaped me as a person and a professional and helped me get my first job at the University of Michigan Counseling and Psychological Services. My focus during my first few years as a psychologist at the UM was to not only provide clinical and training services, but to also provide outreach to Asian Pacific American students. These experiences helped shape my leadership abilities and in 2006 I became the Assistant Director of Outreach & Education. This role provided me with an even greater opportunity to connect with the overall student population and to help shape our prevention, awareness and education programs and specifically address mental health stigma. My passion for outreach has continued and I am also now the Chair of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Outreach. In this role, I helped build a national association for counseling center professionals from across the country who are passionate about outreach and provide opportunities for networking, knowledge and professional support. I thank UI and the APA community for giving me the foundation on which I have built my career.

“These experiences have shaped me as a person and a professional”

JOY LIN B.S. ‘12

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In my four years of college, I lived with at least 13 different roommates and suitemates, not counting my host family from my semester abroad. I’ve never lived in the same place, or with the same people, for more than two semesters. In a comforting way the AACC was my home away from home during my time at UI. I started working at the AACC just

as an evening monitor and then during my senior year was awarded the honor of being the Hermia Soo intern.

What began as a part time job became an experience of professional and personal development. During my time there, I learned so much about not only student affairs but also about Asian American perspectives that I had never considered before. I developed communication and major event planning skills as my own Asian American identity matured. However, what I value the most from my internship experience was the relationships that I had with fellow interns and AACC staff. I am now working as a high school Spanish teacher in southern Arkansas with Teach For America, an organization whose mission is to close the achievement gap in our country. Although my work with the AACC may not seem relevant to what I do as a Spanish teacher, my experiences at the AACC have carried over to the present.

The internship program and people I met at the center significantly shaped who I am today and has helped me deal with many personal and professional challenges that I have encountered. From the mildly surprised looks I get when I tell people I teach Spanish, to students loudly yelling in the middle of my lesson, “Ms. Lin! What ARE you?” to administrators asking “how long have you been in the state?” All of these things are just a little easier to face because of what I learned during my time at the AACC. I count on my internship experience to continue to influence my everyday decisions. I am proud to have been an intern at the Asian American Cultural Center.

“ I am proud to have been an intern at the Asian American Cultural Center”

SANTANU RAHMAN

B.A. ‘95, M.Ed. ‘00

My main involvement with the UI Asian American community was when I became a Graduate Assistant for APA Affairs in the Office of the Dean of Students. The programmatic work and advising we did for the APA community really required me to understand the issues facing the Asian American community, and what it means to be Asian American. My experience with the APA community at UIUC helped me thread together all of my varied interests, such as teaching martial arts, composing and performing original music, radio broadcasting, freelance writing, and mentoring high

“It has given me a greater purpose to all of my endeavors”

THANK YOU

school/college students. It gave me a much better sense of how my being South Asian American and all of my involvements are ways I break stereotypes facing Asian Americans. It has given me a greater purpose to all of my endeavors, knowing very well that no matter what I do, people will always see a brown-skinned man first. I am currently the Director of Austin Kung-Fu Academy in Texas. It is quite possible that I am the only commercial martial arts school owner who identifies as South Asian American in the entire state!

FARAZ QAISAR B.S. ‘12

It’s hard to explain how grateful I am to have worked at the AACC. When I started I was a transfer to the school, therefore fairly new to the environment both socially and academically.

The AACC introduced me to the social aspect of the University in a great way. I interacted with many different RSOs and the people in them. I was able to broaden my horizons and perspectives on a range of issues that I was unfamiliar with before starting at the AACC. Now I work as an auditor for a public accounting firm, and there are many things that I retained from my experiences at the AACC. I have become a better communicator, a better leader, less passive, and more proactive. I attained and worked on these skills in the many different tasks I performed at the AACC. Along with those things, there are skills I learned that cannot be measured, such as creating working relationships, getting acquainted with a professional working environment, and gaining an understanding on how processes are performed and accomplished. The AACC internship was an experience that is very fulfilling and one that pays dividends for years to come.

We would like to thank our donors for their generosity and support to the AACC. Whatever size or type of support you have given, you have helped make 2012 a success. With your donations you have: • Supported the continuation of our mission of helping students become leaders and professionals • Created a better understanding and cultural experiences that prepare students to be citizens of an ever changing, global community • Helped Asian American students maintain a strong presence on campus with a long history of student involvement.

• Continued the legacy and of civic engagement with diverse communities

2012 DONORS

SHANE CARLIN & ANNIE SIT JAKE CHEN SUE FENG SIVLING HENG JENNIE LY THERESA PHAN EMILY SETO SHERRY X. TENG JACK WANG We would also like to thank our volunteers for their generous gift of their time and skills. Without you programs such as Lunar New Year, Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month, and Service Days would not be possible.

“I was able to broaden my horizons and perspectives on a range of issues”

If you would like to discuss the possibility of making a gift to the Asian American Cultural Center, please contact us at aacc@illinois.edu. You can also make a gift online by visiting our website.

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1210 West Nevada Street, MC-149 Urbana, Illinois 61801