East Asian Studies Program Needs Reform

Senior Memories

Design by Wiley Smith, This Week Editor

With graduation on the horizon, many seniors are looking back fondly on the past four years. We asked graduating seniors to share some of their favorite memories at Oberlin. Here’s what they said!

“After being sent home during the pandemic, I finally got to go on the spring break trip to Niagara Falls that I was looking forward to [since] sophomore year.” Eric Schank, Environmental Studies major “My ultimate frisbee team going to nationals!!!!” Christy Chen, Cinema Studies major “Hanging out on the first nice day of the spring with my two best friends :)” Sylvie Weinstein, Psychology major

“It was so unhinged of Oberlin College to have us stay on campus last summer, but it was also such a magical time! We were all living in our own houses for the first time, there was so much fresh food, we were all finally 21, and I think this picture really encapsulates the energy of that semester.” Taylor Hoefer, Environmental Studies major “This is a photo of my first concert as a member of Oberlin College Taiko! I have made many precious memories ever since then with OCT, and it was pretty hard to choose just one photo. I consider this the start of many happy times!” Sarah Wong, Musical Studies, Law and Society major with an Education Studies concentration

“A summer evening walk into town with my roommates :)” Olivia Gregory, Environmental Studies major “This is a pic of the tennis team [in spring 2019] before we competed in our first match at the conference championship my freshman year! I won both my doubles and my singles matches that day for the first time all season, lending us two of our five points to win :)” Hannah Keidan, Economics major

“Before the pandemic hit in March 2020 and before it felt like the world turned upside down, I lived with two of my favorite people in the world. This photo is actually a screenshot of a video I took one night in our little quad in South Hall. After we were sent home, I would spend hours looking at this photo and trying to transport myself back to the before times. The look in Kush’s eye when I panned the camera to his face was how I knew I loved him.” Gigi Ewing, English and Politics major

“A special night in Finney Chapel with great friends :)” Jocelyn Blockinger, Cinema Studies major “Oberlin Smash! I’ve been involved with the College’s Smash scene since 2017 and spent the last three semesters as the head tournament organizer. This photo is from sometime in the spring of 2020 before we were all sent home so abruptly … I made so many memories with these people.” James Dryden, Theater major “It was super fun dressing up for this toga party with my friends Derek and Wiley!” Amanda Bloom, Psychology major

“In this photo Gigi Ewing, my favorite human [who] I met in Oberlin, is having a moment with a snowperson. I love the winters in Ohio; the quiet and gray features are melancholy, meditative. Gigi and I went on a long walk down the bike path, and it felt like we were the only people in the world. We had a moment with a couple of deer too, but I didn’t capture that on camera.” Kush Bulmer, Environmental Studies major

OPINIONSOPINIONS

May 20, 2022 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 22

East Asian Studies Program Needs Reform

Kayla Kim

Production Editor

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is underway, and I’ve taken some time to reflect on what it means to be Asian-American at Oberlin. There have been some wonderful events on campus, such as the Japanese Student Association’s banquet and Asian Night Market, but academically, I realized there are not many places for Asian Americans to thrive. While there were many issues I identified in my conversations with different people, it all boiled down to one damning realization: the East Asian Studies department does not support all Asian-American students.

While there are plenty of student organizations on campus, such as the Asian-American Alliance and the Asian Diaspora Coalition, affinity spaces for Asian-American students are still limited. Third World House, a safe space for students of color, is at risk of closing for next year, and the Multicultural Resource Center has been facing staffing shortages for years. Additionally, Asia House, the only identity-based housing option specifically for Asian students, is open to any student interested in Asian culture, even if they aren’t Asian themselves.

In light of the lack of designated spaces for Asian Americans on campus, and the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, learning about Asian history and culture matters now more than ever for Asian Americans. However, many have felt unsupported in their endeavors.

Almost half of the professors in the East Asian Studies department are white, and there are many white students who are majoring or planning to major in East Asian Studies. I want to make it clear that I respect their scholarship, passion, and dedication. However, simply showing an interest in East Asian Studies is not the same as having a cultural connection to Asian-American culture and history. It seems like that has not been acknowledged by everyone, as actions from white students and professors have caused harm to Asian students. For instance, someone I spoke to praised the East Asian Studies department and professors, but felt frustrated by the number of times they had to censor themself because of white students taking up too much space in their class

College third-year Kaylyn Ready, an East Asian Studies and Dance major, shared a specific incident. She spoke about a time when a white professor used a slur in her class, and the reaction she and other students had afterward.

“The other Asian students in the class went, ‘What the hell just happened? What the hell?’” Ready said. “And then after I talked to a bunch of white students in that class, they went, ‘I didn’t even notice.’ I worked at an [Asian] grocery store and got harassed with that word that this teacher said with no tact. It hurt. And it still does hurt. If you are a white person taking up space in this department, you at least have to acknowledge that you are teaching something that is not yours. You may think it’s yours after all the time you spent in Japan and after all the Japanese people that have sung your praises in Japan, but … there are separate standards to being Asian in America.”

See Lack, page 12

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Looking Back at Oberlin Students’ Campus Activism One Year Later

Julian Mitchell-Israel, OC ’21

It has been almost one year since I graduated from Oberlin. The Memorial Arch in Tappan Square still looms in my mind, as do the words of many of my professors. The Oberlin mindset of aspirational compassion and a commitment to challenging the status quo, as well as our institution’s quixotic failures, continue to inform my work and life every day.

Since graduating, I have had the immense pleasure of working with the Amazon Labor Union to build a true, worker-led movement and achieve unionization at a United States Amazon facility for the first time in history. It took stepping outside of Oberlin, having countless conversations with Amazon workers, and many conversations with current Oberlin students for me to finally understand what I had really wanted to say to my fellow Obies when I was a student. It was never about critiquing Oberlin or trying to make people feel bad about their behavior. Rather, it has always been about pointing out ways that Oberlin students have power they are unaware of. If they do not use that power, Oberlin is at risk of losing its spirit.

Shortly before graduating from Oberlin last year, I wrote a piece on the hypocrisy of Oberlin’s progressivism, and much of what I wrote then I still hold to be true. Our school administration espouses a commitment to workers, students, equality, and radicalism and then turns around and acts without reserve to crush efforts to actually empower these people. Likewise, the students at Oberlin often care more that their arguments are couched in the right words than that the content is consistent with our values. We prefer to discuss the way capitalism beats down our world instead of doing anything about it. I spent two years trying to build and rebuild a movement at our school that would connect with the Lorain County community and create real change. Yet, at every turn I was met with resistance from the administration, ideological pushback from those I thought were on the same page, and what I can only describe as laziness from the students who could have fueled the movement. At the end of the day, Oberlin students often find it more fulfilling to critique the sociological implications of potential actions than to take action. Perhaps most importantly, we fail to hold kindness as a consistent source of decision making.

Oberlin students often consider activism to be staging a protest in Tappan Square, writing a zine, reading some Marx in a dimly lit room, and posting on social media. While these activities are forms of activism, they are not forms of organizing by themselves. Organizing must come from relationship building and engaging people in service of a communal goal. You must spend time critically analyzing the problem you are facing, identify points of weakness in the institutional structures that govern the outcome, and find ways to put pressure on key players. Oberlin students must not forget that they have an immense amount of influence. You make Oberlin run. Student workers provide a huge service to the College and community that, if halted, would put economic pressure on those in power. You pay the tuition that keeps the College afloat. You do not have to cooperate with any request the College administration makes. Students have the ability to take truly disruptive collective action. Remember, the power you have is in provoking a reaction from the College and town, then choosing how and where to escalate from that reaction. Take the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association as an example. The College is and has been threatening its existence for years, but OSCA’s existence is not up to them. If students organize well enough internally, they will have the power to control almost every aspect of the co-ops on campus and ensure their continued existence. Occupations, refusals to cooperate, and refusals to pay are only three of many options on the table.

So many of the tacit rules we teach ourselves to follow at Oberlin are based in kindness: we should use whatever pronouns people wish us to, “take space/ make space,” create institutions to protect and empower those on the periphery of current society, challenge institutions of exploitation, and center marginalized voices. If we acknowledge that universal kindness is the basis of these claims, it should be easy to see that we must not isolate ourselves in our efforts to bring about a better world. We must bring those who at first disagree with us into the conversation and center their voices so that we do not alienate them further. We must make forgiveness a priority and selfless education a custom. Do not write off those with whom you are seemingly at odds. This is a plea for you to see beyond the divide that benefits those in power. There is no political correctness in a true working-class movement. Prioritize kindness, and you will never lose your way.

You have the power, and you know the stakes. Oberlin has the potential to be a truly radical institution. I feel that my work, as well as that of many other alumni, is a testament to the consistency with which Oberlin produces graduates ready to serve as counterweights to the institutional forces in the larger world. This is one of the things that makes it really hard to understand the issues with Oberlin when you’re inside it: Oberlin teaches us how to be the people capable of critiquing it. We are left with a conflicting loyalty. We must not fall prey to the easy way out. We must not allow ourselves to give Oberlin a pass because it opened our eyes. If we wish to preserve Oberlin as a force for radicalism in this country, we must create a renewed commitment and intensity within the student body that will force our school to explore new models of community, resist the creeping influence of globalized neoliberalism on liberal arts education, and preserve the pre-revolutionary thought that lies at the core of Oberlin’s appeal.