The Movement for Asian American Studies Begins!

The Movement for Asian American Studies (MAAS) was a student-organized initiative whose primary purpose was to establish an Asian & Pacific Islander American (APIA) studies program at William and Mary. The movement was led by Maximillian “Max” Nikoolkan '14 and Pricilla Lin '14.

Max came to William & Mary intending to major in East Asian Studies. However, he quickly realized that the East Asian Studies program was not what he expected. 

Max stated, “East Asian Studies bored the living bleep out of me, because it was always like…what people think I am, and not what I really am, if that makes sense…

“I'm Thai myself so I'm Southeast Asian, [so] by studying a part of what Asia is like, I [thought I] would get an idea of where I'm from, or what my culture is, but really, the more I did it, more I realized this is totally what people think of me. This is not what I really am. I grew up with different stories, different circumstances, different ideas.”

In an East Asian Studies class called Japanophilia, Max realized that the missing component was the Asian American experience. 

“I taken a semester with a professor on the course [which] was called, like Japanophilia. And I was going through different things and different research topics. And I was being like, why don't I choose an Asian American topic? And I'm like, what does it mean to be like Japanese in America like? 

“And I asked my professor and she said, ‘Oh, why don't you go talk to [Professor] Francis [Tanglao-Aguas] and then go from there, maybe he'll have some resources and better ideas.’ 

“Because a lot of the faculty at the college at that time were pretty much focused on just East Asian Studies, like the Global Studies component, which is hemorrhaged into just one sphere. So I talked to Francis and then you know, the ball just rolls from there.

“I loved researching about what Japanese Americans felt like in internment camps and their thoughts and feelings and culture, media…I just got hooked on that. I'd be like, ‘Oh, wow. So…these people in the past are how I felt now.’ Like, they're their identities, and their stories match my story. And, so that was pretty much the catalyst for it.”

The Movement for Asian American Studies petitioned President Taylor Reveley, Provost Michael R. Halleran, Vice Provost Kathleen F. Slevin, the Associate Dean, and the Deputy Dean to support a sustainable program in Asian American studies at William & Mary on February 13, 2014, and on February 23, 2014. 

In addition, the organization compiled a 15-page document containing possible Asian American studies courses, a list of faculty and administration members who either demonstrated academic or initiative-based dedication to marginalized communities on campus at the time and a master document about their intentions for the movement.

The Movement for Asian American Studies was primarily Max Nikoolkan’s project, so, after he and Pricilla Lin graduated, the movement later became carried on by the Asian American Student Initiative (previously called the Asian American Student Union).

Max Nikoolkan graduated in 2014. Despite his efforts, the Asian American Studies major and minor program still had years before becoming established at W&M.

In 2019, an Asian & Pacific Islander American (APIA) studies major and minor were officially offered. Previously, there was only an official minor, which was created in 2016. Therefore, students interested in majoring in APIA studies had to self-design their major.

According to Pallavi Rudraraju '17, Jin Hyuk Ho played a critical role in establishing APIA studies at W&M by organizing meetings with the W&M administration at the time. 

Pallavi states, “[Jin Hyuk Ho] was a big reason why we're able to really like kick off APIA studies because Jin had the initiative to send emails to all of this administration going like, ‘here's a group of Asian American students that really wants to talk to you about issues that we've been experiencing on campus and also our need to develop Asian American Studies.’ 

“And then from there, he was able to successfully get a lot of meetings. And we were able to, like show up in forces.”

However, the meetings were emotionally exhausting for the students involved, as the administration initially stood as a barrier to progress.

Pallavi recalls, “…I think the first meeting we had was with [President Taylor Reveley], and in that meeting like there was definitely like a lot of like gaslighting…But some listening that was happening, and then Reveley was like, ‘okay, like I hear you all.’

“…And then, after the meeting with him, we had the meeting with the Dean's of Arts and Sciences [Schwartz and Conley]…that was like extremely condescending, where like, we were…crying and like pouring our hearts out to them…[and] one of them was giving us just like, really hostile looks. 

“The other one, I think, was hearing us and spoke to Francis afterward. Then we also had a meeting with the provost later that year. And that was a ridiculous meeting, where we kind of did the same thing where we like sharing our stories talked about why APIA studies was important. And then the provost told us like…‘so now the next step is for you to raise three to $5 million for a professorship.’ and I was like, ‘how are these like, 18 to 21-year-olds gonna raise three to $5 million for you?’”

However, the tides started to turn in our favor for APIA studies when professors and students figured out that they didn’t need to hire more faculty members in order to establish an APIA studies program at W&M. Rather, there were already professors that taught interdisciplinary courses related to APIA studies. Therefore, the only thing left to do was create the administrative infrastructure to cross-list courses with APIA studies and create an APIA studies major/minor program with professors who are already teaching APIA studies related topics at W&M.

Pallavi explains how they were able to pull faculty from various departments and programs to create an APIA studies program, “…that's when we really started to rely on the faculty to talk about how, like, you do not need to technically hire another professor at the moment, if that's really what's holding you back…

“We already are offering all of these courses, these professors already teach them for other departments, it's just a matter of cross-listing them for Asian American Studies…you literally don't need to pay any more money, you can just like create the system and the structure for this. So I think that was really important also in convincing them.”

According to Max Nikoolkan, he recalls persuading the administration from a business perspective, stating that establishing an APIA studies program would give W&M a competitive advantage against other Virginia schools.

Max explains, “I basically looked at and analyzed demographic data of Asian American students…between like the 1970s and now and the trends behind it.

“...I talked about different factors in the growing Asian American population in [Northern Virginia]...more and more students are applying [to colleges] everywhere in Virginia and a lot of them are Asian American. [So] if you ignore this subgroup of people, then you're going to ignore people that you could otherwise attract [to William & Mary] right? Like…if William & Mary had an Asian American studies program, you will attract more civic-minded Asian American people and which builds a more diverse and better campus…Like this is where we were, this is where we are, and these are the needs that the college will have to meet now and in the future.”