On this page, you can explore the experiences of people who have impacted the program in different ways. From speaking to the undergraduate college experience, to >finding graduate student community, each person highlighted here comments on the diversity of MSU’s APIDA/A community and even on how the Midwest has shaped their experiences. The final section highlights directors over the history of the APA Studies program. Click through the videos and documents below to learn about their stories!
Undergraduate Student Stories
Anna Lin
Anna Lin, a Spring 2020 MSU graduate from James Madison College with a BA in International Relations who is now a Coordinator for OCAT Student Success Initiatives who also is serving on Asian Pacific American Student Organization’s (APASO) board, talks about the transformative power of APA Studies and APAGA on her, as well as the positive impact she had witnessed that the program had on the APIDA community. She believes that ethnic studies is something that all students at MSU should take because it gives an understanding of different communities and struggles. For APIDA identifying students, Anna thought APA studies is more than history, it is personal, and it opened her eyes to how APIDA experiences is more than immigrants and refugees. The APIDA experience for her now includes transnational adoptions and many other empowering background knowledge about APIDA experiences particularly relevant to the Mid-West.
One of the impactful projects that Anna mentions for her from her time in APA Studies was the Oral History project. The Oral History project begins with a narrator sketch where students choose a potential person interview in order to record their oral histories. The interview is conducted, and then an analysis is written. Below are two examples of excellent Oral History work conducted by Aditi Kulkarni and Mary Carthew.
Aditi Kulkarni
Aditi Kulkarni on ABCD: The Overlooked Truths to Being an American Bred Confused Desi
This was how Aditi's Oral History Report based on an interview with Aman Thamminana began:
"Growing up in America as the child of immigrants can do quite a bit to one’s on-going identity crisis. No matter the culture, most diaspora kids can understand the tumultuous pressure to ‘choose’ an identity, as if there is a wrong and right answer. One such cultural group includes Desi Americans. Broadly speaking, being Desi means being of South Asian descent, and more contemporarily, being Desi also means feeling oneself to be South Asian. Cultural identity is no longer based on genetic heritage but includes the acceptance and appreciation of being one with the cultural community. Thus, Desi Americans face an internal conflict to not just be South Asian, but to be proud of it too. This paper will look at the oral history of Aman Dhruva Thamminana, a college student at Michigan State University, as he explores his chronological adaptation to the United States from India. Aman is considered, in this paper, as an ABCD – American Bred Confused Desi. This terminology refers to the varying crises of understanding and accepting one's personal ‘desi-ness’ in America. Aman’s subjective experiences are important to understanding the generalizable effects of diasporic identity on Desi Americans and serve as an example that being an ABCD follows no guiding definition."
Read the rest of the analysis (pdf file)
Read the transcript of the interview (pdf file)
Mary Carthew
Mary Carthew on Colonization and Resistance through Generations: An Analysis
This was how Mary's Oral History Report based on an interview with Dr. Divya Victor began:
"Throughout the history of the United States, the Asian American immigrant experience has been defined by discrimination, colonialism, restriction, and standardization. These historical complexities can be broken down through the dissection of individual experiences. For my oral narrator, I chose Dr. Divya Victor, who currently teaches creative non-fiction at Michigan State University. Originally from India, she immigrated to Singapore as a young child and then to the United States as an adult. To dissect Divya Victor’s oral history narration, I approached our interview with multiple objectives. One was to explore the influence of colonization on her and her family in different contexts. The first context is the United Kingdom’s colonization of India and its lasting effects on education and the internalization of racism. The second context is the United States’ involvement in aiding India to prove its racial liberalism and push its “Cold War Orientalism” ambitions. During this period, Asia became a special focus of the US military, economic, and political power in its global superpower stalemate with the Soviet Union.
My next objective was to take this theme of colonization and analyze the intersections at a generational and individual level to explore how Divya’s identity has formed. To do this, I began with questions about her childhood and family. Another goal was to center on communication and visibility from a child immigrant’s perspective. I wanted to examine whether she viewed her experiences differently as an adult, and whether she was biased as an English professor whose work often focuses on her story as an immigrant. My final objective was to gauge her experience or resistance to the model minority myth, and subsequently, what methods she used in her resistance. To do this, I prompted the ending questions to discuss if it is possible to exercise agency in institutions and analyze writing as a catalyst and outlet."
Read the rest of the analysis (pdf file)
Read the transcript of the interview (pdf file)