The Vassar Playground Stories from the Asian-identifying Alumni of Vassar College
Written by: Alex Kim Edited by: Kaylee Chow Designed by: Sharon Nahm
As a graduating senior, I have been trying to spend more time reflecting upon my four years at Vassar and appreciating different kinds of opportunities Vassar has offered me—an opportunity to try out new activities, step out of my comfort, and to walk away with ample lessons despite the results of the attempts. In many ways, Vassar was a playground where I was encouraged to experiment, explore and make mistakes. For this issue, I asked the members of the Asian Pacific Alumnae/i of Vassar College (APAVC) how Vassar served as their playground while they were students here. I welcome everyone to walk down the memory lane with Vassar alumni.
Question: How did Vassar serve as your playground? Tell us in what ways Vassar has helped you get to where you are today. There were always new things and opportunities to try out. I remember when I came in a first-year and thought that I’d never join any of the extracurriculars or try classes outside of STEM, but I was wrong. Vassar always proves you wrong. I met people who were non-judgmental and they gave me the space to be who I am. I’m really grateful for that experience—if not for developing good friendships and trying out new classes. Things weren’t always great, but the experience at Vassar taught me to be resilient and how to understand academic failure and how to keep going. To me, classes were hard and I’m not a playful person—but to have a modern dance class while you were taking biology, just made things that much more interesting and playful.
In 1994, Vassar’s campus was literally my playground as I experimented with psilocybin during these formative learning years. The formidable buildings, especially Thompson Library, was like entering church where the books became toy soldiers, helping me fight through procrastination to study. The trees, the trees, the trees. Surely, the trees speak for themselves. Meandering along the back campus from Blodgett Hall, through the Shakespeare Gardens, along the lake, through the woods by the golf course, traipsing to the Maria Mitchell Observatory...this was my bucolic and beaming path to experience my childhood and budding adulthood as a Japanese American female student. Vassar allowed me to wake up, scrape my ego and knees, fall many times, and get back up with more grit. The confidence I feel as an adult emerged The ALANA Center was my playground; it was also a refuge. from these “recess” experiences between classes, and between It was a place where I could bring my whole self and see it moments of questioning and learning so much. This may sound reflected in my friends from all across the world. It was an controversial to even admit to, but now that I am nearing 50 empowering place for me as I became more comfortable with as a psychotherapist studying psychedelic-assisted therapy in my identity. As ASA president, I got to show a different side of Portland, Oregon, it feels important to openly discuss the lasting the AAPI community as a mixed Native Hawaiian, exploring my benefits of these transformative and beautiful experiences to the own vulnerabilities as well. And although I took not one drama public. Thank you Vassar for letting me climb your trees and or theater course, my playground was my stage and set me up swing from lofty branches of magnificent splendor. for life as an actor, a life where I could stand firmly in my truth - Mariko Ono and show my pain to the world. - Wayne Coito
