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.

The ALANA Center was my playground; it was also a refuge. It was a place where I could bring my whole self and see it reflected in my friends from all across the world. It was an empowering place for me as I became more comfortable with my identity. As ASA president, I got to show a different side of the AAPI community as a mixed Native Hawaiian, exploring my own vulnerabilities as well. And although I took not one drama or theater course, my playground was my stage and set me up for life as an actor, a life where I could stand firmly in my truth and show my pain to the world. - Wayne Coito 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 from these “recess” experiences between classes, and between moments of questioning and learning so much. This may sound controversial to even admit to, but now that I am nearing 50 as a psychotherapist studying psychedelic-assisted therapy in Portland, Oregon, it feels important to openly discuss the lasting benefits of these transformative and beautiful experiences to the public. Thank you Vassar for letting me climb your trees and swing from lofty branches of magnificent splendor. - Mariko Ono

Vassar taught me how to think. The environment said that you can do anything and twice as good as any man, just go out and do it. I graduated in the last class of all women with 40 transfer men. I would not have become a lawyer but for Vassar; I would not have gone to Japan and reconciled my identity. It was in Japan that I realized that no matter where I am in the world, I would numerically be in the minority and I can either choose to feel good about that or bad, and I chose to feel good. It was at Vassar that I was sent to DC for the anti-war protest; where I became an East Asian Studies major; where I learned to take action. Since then, I went to law school, was the lead attorney for Minoru Yasui, reopening his World War II case and got his conviction vacated; led the effort to get a Presidential Medal of Freedom for Yasui (2015, President Obama), then in 2016 helped pass legislation in the Oregon legislature for a permanent Minoru Yasui Day. Realized then, that Yasui is the only Oregonian who has received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. I have spoken out and done a lot of community work, leadership development for AAPI women through the Center for Asian Pacific American Women; and other work with corporate/global clients. The foundation and messages I received at Vassar were instrumental in my growth, leadership and being an agent of change. - Peggy Nagae

In so many ways.... from when I first started which was 10 days before 9/11 and then the unfolding activities to make us feel safe on campus as int’l students, to deciding to pursue a double major in CS & Art that led to the creation of a 300 level course in partnership with another student and my advisors... course is still being taught today! My entire career has basically followed this theme of oscillating between left & right brain, a very uncommon trait in the career world still—I help translate complex ideas to the creatives & business savvy folks, while helping take what business needs to produce so they can accordingly plan to build the right solution. I spent more time than I can think in play, and in a safe and comfy environment. Then there was, of course, all the various on campus jobs that provided international students housing options for the shorter vacations while all the others left to go home and get their laundry done. Those breaks were absolute playgrounds—empty campus, empty art studios—so much space to wander, think, and explore. I am still in touch with so many folks and most recently (well 6yrs ago) was invited to iterate on the sophomore career connections with Willa and team to figure out how best to give Vassar students and alumni a place to meet, talk, and explore the future. In the end, nothing really matters and making the most of the time at Vassar in a safe & comfy space, to play, take risks, be guided but not told, have options & diverse choices not the same 1-2 paths, and coming into our own skin is what it’s all about! - Vivek Mahapatra Vassar enabled me to access a side of my personality that I had not prior. Coming from a small suburban town where there was a large Asian population, I felt invisible. Vassar helped me access the parts of my personality that were worthy of visibility and celebrating. I made deep friendships and connections that still hold true. The mindset that I accessed at Vassar through courses, relationships, and experiences still allows me to expand my mind on a regular basis. I understood the inner tools I have access to exercise creativity and introspection. Vassar has helped me get to where I am right now by instilling in an unshakeable inner trust. I learned how valuable my thoughts were, and that translates today into integrity. I feel that I am on the exact right path meant for me, which is an extraordinary path, because of Vassar. - Stephanie Z.

Vassar was where I learned about social movement histories, which I was denied in my prior education. It is where I developed as a student organizer and learned to disrupt, speak truth to power, build coalitions and cross-racial solidarity, and build collective power. At the time, I was one of many students of color who built a campaign for “Ethnic Studies @ Vassar Now,” and since then I have connected with current Asian American students who would continue the fight for Asian American Studies. There were many mistakes and lessons I learned about political struggle on a smaller scale that I still draw on. In addition, my exposure to Critical Race Theory would lead me to UCLA School of Law, where I completed a specialization in Critical Race Studies, and to the work I do today as a civil legal services attorney fighting for racial and economic justice in New York City. - Jason Wu ’07

I was able to be curious at Vassar and pursue interests simply because I would learn something, not necessarily because they had a guaranteed outcome. I also relished the work hard / play hard atmosphere, where dancing on tables in the Mug late on a Tuesday night didn’t mean you weren’t also an intellectually rigorous thinker who could switch into that gear by the next morning. I’ve turned my curiosity-first, results-later attitude into a career as an investigative journalist. - Maya Lau

I’d prefer to think of Vassar as “Camp Vassar’’ rather than a playground. As a full-need student who came from San Francisco’s Chinatown, the College was a place that was both physically beautiful (the Coronado window cinched it for me), and where my only responsibility was to study and take advantage of all the opportunities available to me. I had a campus work study job to earn pocket money, but all my needs were met. I deeply appreciate the friendship that I made and continue to have two decades later. However, like any stay away camp, the program ends at a prescribed time. After 4 years, I was ready to move onto the next phase of my life. I am grateful to Vassar and hold its communities in high esteem and affection. - Marie Hew Marie Hew

Vassar was the most encouraging space I have ever occupied, both in terms of the resources available and the attitude of my (Lathrop!) community with which I dormed. I chose classes I genuinely wanted to take, and as a Psychology major, found it easy to fulfill the requirements and still go outside of my academic comfort zone. I even joined Women’s Rugby in my freshman year, something my NYC high school PE classes could not prepare me for. Although I did not “excel” in everything I chose to do at Vassar, the playful attitude I fostered helped me become a more open-minded person and have the confidence to keep going after what I want. I continue to look back and reflect on the growth I experienced as an undergrad. - Claire Ashley Claire Ashley

Before Vassar, I had a particularly tough time, both academically and socially, as one of only a handful of minority students on a full-scholarship at a private school in NYC. Being a sociallyinept, uncoordinated dweeb didn’t help at all. As far as I can now recall, when I arrived at Vassar there was literally no one else from my high school there, or my entire universe for that matter. I was offered a blank slate and took that opportunity, after a long period of anger, frustration, fear, and self-doubt, to try and recreate myself into the person I wanted to be. I ended up diving into the Asian-American community at Vassar. Coming from a place where I was a tagalong in an already marginalized group trying to discover its voice and rub two pennies together to one that, even as a numerical minority, was an organized, wellfunded, social and political powerhouse—hosting “must attend” TA/TH parties to holding VSA board positions was eye-opening and invigorating. I became more competent with each eventfilled ASA Week and evolved with each reflective & thoughtprovoking ASA Conference. And each exhausting, but epic, ASA Party we pulled off just added to ever expanding notion of what could be possible. By the end of my four years at Vassar I would find out that there were people there that were connected to my life before college (of course), but by that point the only Ken Wong they knew was the socially-inept, uncoordinated dweeb who was now just comfortable being one. - Kenneth Wong ’00 Kenneth Wong ’00 I studied politics and Asian studies at Vassar and did a junior semester abroad in India. I learned kuchipudi, a form of Indian classical dance and also became conversant in Hindi then too. After graduating in ‘91 I did a Master’s and then PhD which built on my Vassar experience of regional focus on South Asia (though I studied Mandarin at Vassar while also independent study in Hindi in my senior year too). While at Vassar I had the chance to experiment with ideas which helped to imagine a world not centred in the West or its vision of the world. The experiences and exposure that Vassar gave me to non-Eurocentric knowledge and thinking has stayed with me throughout my further studies and now in my career as a Professor at SOAS University of London. - Navtej (Tej) Purewal Navtej (Tej) Purewal

Vassar was literally a playground for a city girl like myself. I grew up in New York City, in the concrete jungle, between early childhood Chinatown in Manhattan, adolescence in Brooklyn and going to school on the upper East Side. So when I arrived at Vassar with the vast farmland, carefully landscaped lawns, gardens and surrounded by nature, it was an environmental and cultural shift. I looked up and could actually see stars in the sky (not smog) and relished developing strong bonds over a walk around Sunset Lake. While I stretched academically, the greatest stretches I made were exposure to and learning from students from other communities, and all across the globe. I’m grateful that I had a work study campus job, under the guidance of Ed Pittman (who I still consider a mentor 20+ years later), at what was then called the Intercultural Center, later the ALANA Center. It was a privilege to get paid to spend time in a safe space for students of color and to bring programming to the Center, which I probably would have done anyway. I also tested, failed plenty and learned just as much from some of the most demanding of leadership opportunities through my work with ASA, Asian Quilt, and other campus organizations. In my last year at Vassar, I was also a student teaching full time, writing my senior thesis, attending senior seminar, holding down a campus job, leading student organizations and sleeping just two hours a day—I learned what I was capable of and how far I could push myself. When I think back to the relationships I built with the President of the College, professors, faculty and other students, it’s amazing to me that I did all of that in four short years. - Anna Yu ’00 Anna Yu ’00