In the midst of a global pandemic, our country has seen a disturbingly sharp rise in anti-Asian attacks, harassment, and rhetoric. As President Karol V. Mason pointed out in her letter to the John Jay community, “Hate is deadly and we cannot be silent when we see it. Instead, we must stand together and confront the rising anti-Asian racism our country is witnessing.” In support of our Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, we recently brought together a group of AAPI students and faculty to express their feelings, thoughts, and concerns in a safe space. With their permission, our “Stop Asian Hate” article series reflects elements of that gathering in an effort to educate the entire John Jay community about AAPI culture, experiences, and history. We hope that their pride in their heritage, and their determination to fight hatred and bigotry, inspires us all to confront anti-Asian racism.

Political Science Associate Professor Susan Kang Ph.D. happily joined our AAPI gathering, not knowing fully what to expect. What she found was an overwhelming sense of pride as she listened to the students answer the question, “What makes you proud of your heritage?” As the students each explained how they embraced specific elements of their Chinese, Filipino, and Bangladeshi heritage, Kang was visibly touched. When it was her turn to share, she told the group that she had been at John Jay since 2008, and that her family came to the United States from South Korea in the ’70s, but that she was born in California. “Not only are my parents immigrants, my family kept moving when I was growing up, so I never really felt like I belonged anywhere,” she explained. “I feel like when I was growing up, we weren’t really proud of our culture. It wasn’t cool to be Asian. It makes me really happy to see how young people experience this differently,” she explained, wiping away tears. “It makes me happy for my kids, but it wasn’t like that for me. We were just kung-fu artists. There was one person who was a news anchor, but we were just invisible. So to see the kind of pride that young people take in their communities and their culture, it’s very beautiful, and I’m so happy to see it.”

She shared with the group a family story that showed how a deep sense of pride in Asian culture could be instilled at a very young age. Watching her four-year-old son have lunch with his playmate deftly proved the point. “My son was eating kimchi. Which you might know as that stinky Korean pickled cabbage. His little friend was not Asian, she was Jewish and Cuban, and she was like, ‘Your food smells bad.’ Without blinking my son said, ‘Well, it’s Korean and I’m Korean too. This is what we eat,’” she recalled, noting his sweet, youthful form of braveness. “I don’t think I ever said anything like that as a kid. Young people are showing us how it’s done.”

Recent horrific acts of anti-Asian violence have been deeply disturbing and traumatic for people to face—particularly for the AAPI community. What feelings, thoughts, or concerns would you like to share about these events?
One of the things that comes to mind is that without the foundation of the Black Lives Matter movement this past summer, we wouldn’t have seen the solidarity and the expressions of support. There were events that came about, like Black Lives for Asian Lives, that emerged immediately.

You do question if it’s safe to go out, and I worry about that with my children. It’s not great, but what’s different is that people are saying, “This is not okay.” That to me is very important. I was not able to go to any of the events. I knew I was going to be too emotional.

As a member of John Jay’s faculty, how do you process these events? What do you think faculty members need to learn or incorporate into their work?
John Jay College, and throughout CUNY, has a very diverse workforce. Yes, it tends to be more white, but it’s not as white as it would be in a different school. There are loads of East Asian and other Asian faculty members who are a part of our community.

I feel like we’re all learning how to deal with this, and professors have to learn how to provide support, because the thing is, when we train to become professors, we are not trained on how to support students. We are trained to be academics. We end up learning about supporting students on the job—and some of us know how to do it better than others. Soon, we’re going to be having a training about racial inclusive pedagogy, but from our students’ perspectives, it’s taking a long time.

When faculty members go to get their Ph.D.’s, they don’t tell us how to handle this type of trauma. They tell us how to get published. They teach us academic materials. In my opinion, one of the things that faculties can do, is learn from the students about what kind of support we can offer. We do anti-racism training, but to me that’s not as important as giving us really concrete steps that we can take during times of trauma and crisis—like being a little flexible with due dates. I have given up due dates during the pandemic. I’m a mom with young kids at home, so I can’t give people responses as quickly as I want to; so I figure students don’t have the time to hand things in right away, too.

Who do you look up to in the AAPI community to give you hope and inspiration? Why is this person such a powerful figure for you?
I don’t want to get too political, but there is an assembly person from Flushing named Ron Kim, and I have known Ron now for a couple of years and he’s great. He’s probably one of the first Korean-Americans, maybe the first Korean-American, to get elected to office here in New York City. It’s a statewide office. What is amazing about him is not just that he’s representing Flushing, but that he goes against the conservative cultural elements in the community by standing up for police reform. I helped him work on a letter about a woman, who was a sex worker, who basically jumped off of a roof when she was being raided by vice. He made that a really important reason for why he is a big supporter for police reform, and also decriminalizing sex work.

There’s also a stereotype that Asians are very docile and well-behaved—which I think is something people do because they come to a country where they don’t speak the language and they don’t want to get in trouble. Ron Kim bravely spoke up and said that what Cuomo did with the nursing homes was not okay. He went on national television, he talked to the New York Times, and this broke a dam. This gave women the courage to step up and speak out. Ron Kim took a huge political risk to stand up for what he thought was right. As an Asian man, who was probably stereotyped as someone who would be meek, he’s breaking that stereotype. To me, that is really encouraging and it demonstrates how strong AAPI people really are. We’re not meek and well behaved. We are strong and we break barriers.

What do you want people to know about the AAPI community?
The reason why we are here is because of the history of the American empire, and Asian-Americans have been contributing to American history since Chinese laborers came and built the railroads. Then they were kicked out. Chinese people contributed to culture all over the western hemisphere. My family is here because of the Korean War. The Philippines was literally a colony of the United States. Western countries tried to take over and dominate China economically. We are here because of imperialism and colonialism. We are not here because we asked to be here. We’re here because of historical forces that brought us here, and we are part of America. We are part of American history. We make the United States interesting, tasty, and spicy. We are as important to the United States as any other community.

To protect and support our AAPI communities, use these resources as a guide to help #StopAsianHate.