On Friday, April 7th, I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Association for Asian American Studies 2023 Annual Conference in Long Beach, California, as a first-time attendee and presenter representing and sharing about Generating and Reclaiming our Wisdoms (GROW): A Collection of AAPI Stories at University of California, San Diego. Chaired by UC San Diego Professor Simeon Man and alongside fellow scholars Jin Chang from University of Iowa, Woohee Kim from Harvard University, and Justine Thuy Tien Trinh from UC Irvine, we presented our work on “Living Archives, Oral History, and Storytelling: Documenting the Struggles for Asian American Studies” at our respective institutions, contributing new research, insights, and energy to this year’s theme of Sustainable Publics. The projects we represented include the following:

• Jin Chang, PhD student of Education Policy and Leadership Studies at University of Iowa: Asian American Oral History Project
• Woohee Kim, PhD Student in Education at Harvard University: “In Our Own Words” Project at Harvard University
• Justine Thuy Tien Trinh, PhD Student in Literary Studies, “The Beginnings of Activism for the Department of Asian American Studies (BADAAS)” at UC Irvine
• Dephny Duan, BA/MIA student at UC San Diego: Generating and Reclaiming our Wisdoms (GROW): A Collection of AAPI Stories at University of California, San Diego

See my full presentation at the following link (and without speaker notes below): GROW in “Living Archives, Oral History, and Storytelling: Documenting the Struggles for Asian American Studies”

Following our short presentations, we opened up the session to engage with the audience and their questions. I was immensely moved by the enthusiasm and support of the audience from across the U.S. who overfilled our room, some of whom were also undergraduates leading similar initiatives and engaging in advocacy for Asian American Studies at their universities! In addition, one of Woohee’s friends, who attended the session to support, took beautiful notes capturing our session visually. Altogether, our presenting group felt extremely excited and grateful to have been able to share our work and engage with the larger community. We look forward to staying connected and exploring ways we can help build a network to connect similar efforts at different universities to support and uplift one another.

Outside of the session, I am incredibly grateful to have spent the weekend learning from and being surrounded by Asian American scholars, activists, and community leaders whom I aspire to be like, some of whom GROW has invited to speak in our classes and whose stories we hope to preserve in our collection. Much gratitude to the GROW team, UC San Diego Library, and AAPI Studies for making this experience a reality for me!