ASU Merge Promotes Unity Among Asians
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HE FOREMOST PURPOSE OF THE ASIAN ORGANIZATIONS ON THIS CAMPUS IS TO EDUCATE THE POPULOUS ON OUR CULTURES, thus helping to relieve any discrimination or segregation that stems from ignorance. In addition, these organizations address the cultural, educational, and recreational needs of Asian students. We also strive to educate ourselves as well as non-Asians about the Asian identity. Since the Chinese American Student Union was founded in 1971, five other Asian organizations have been established: the Korean Student Association, the Asian Student Union, China Night, and two additional Chinese graduate organizations. Due to lack of funds and a lack of unifying goals, these organizations never attained their highest potential and moreover, could not keep the majority of their members interested. They were caught in a vicious cycle. Because their budgets were so small, they could not afford to sponsor quality events, such as the Dith Pran lecture. Since the members had to settle for lower-quality programming, they gradually lost interest and stopped coming to the events. In order to prevent this, the Asian organizations needed a substantial increase in their budgets, but never received it. Each year, the Student Association would allot a small increase towards their existing budgets because it was felt that since the events were not wellattended, why should more money be given to sponsor them? Furthermore, the SA saw that these groups were not very strong because they were not united and few members were actively involved. Consequently, the same thing happened year after year. Low budgets sponsored low-quality programs, causing the members to become disinterested. As a result, the budgets remained low and
12 ASIAN OUTLOOK
the groups remained weak. Last year, the executive boards of CASU, KSA, and ASU decided to implement some changes in order to strengthen the Asian organizations and to get out of that vicious cycle. At the beginning of the year, they urged their members to run for the position of “SA representative” for their dorms. Since there was very little Asian representation in the Student Assembly, this was vital to raising the budget of the Asian organizations. Later on, near the end of the semester, CASU persuaded the two graduate organizations, the Chinese Student Association and the Student Association of the People’s Republic of China, to give up their SA charters and merge with CASU. In exchange, 7.5 percent of CASU’s funding would go towards co-sponsorship with CSA and 15 percent would go towards co-sponsorship with SAPRC because these groups still had their graduate charters. Soon after, the executive boards of CASU, KSA, and ASU decided to join forces and fight for a larger increase of the ASU budget. Members of the three groups went to their SA dorm reps to discuss the Asian organizations’ predicament and tried to persuade them to vote in our favor. At the meeting, the room was full of Asians who came to show their support for the effort to increase the ASU budget to the amount that the other minority groups were receiving. After ASU’s request, one of the SA reps motioned for an increase of $6,000, which was met with heavy opposition. A heated two and a half hour debate concerning the size of the increase followed, but in the end, the motion was passed and ASU got their long-awaited and well deserved increase in funds. The executive boards and other members met a week later to discuss merging CASU, KSA, China Night and
