On October 1, 2025, CALA NE, APALA NE, and NYPL AANHPI Resource Group members visited the Hunter College Leon and Toby Cooperman Library to learn more about the Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies (CRAASH) at Hunter College by visiting the library’s exhibition, CRAASH in Focus: Revitalizing Asian American Studies and the Archives & Special Collections. The collections highlighted AANHPI student activism, community, scholarship, and student life at Hunter College. 

The visit began with an overview of the CRAASH in Focus exhibit’s history, where the items came from, the steps taken by the curators, Lily Susman (Collections and Acquisitions Librarian), Dorian Onifer (Research Services Librarian), Mee-Len Hom (Reference/Instruction Librarian), and Allison Ransom (Metadata & Discovery Librarian). Many of the items in the exhibition were generously donated by former CRAASH student organizers, Linda Luu and Kevin Park. Through this exhibition, it demonstrates student advocacy for the Asian American Studies program through social media campaigns (i.e., Facebook), petitions, protests, events, and their solidarity efforts with other Hunter College student organizations. 

As we looked at the CRAASH exhibit, on view at the Leon & Toby Cooperman Library, 3rd Floor, we learned that the Asian American Studies Program at CUNY Hunter College was founded in 1993 and was amongst the first of its kind on the East Coast. The CRAASH exhibition showcased the foundation years in the 1980s and early 1990s to the revitalization of the Asian American Studies Program in the 2000s and the 2010s. The exhibit documents the ongoing influence CRAASH has on Hunter College today. The exhibit includes many flyers used throughout the years, a photo of a button that was created for CRAASH, letters, photos of students at the East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECASU) conference, a campaign sheet, CRAASH’s timeline, a chant sheet with a QR code to a YouTube video of the chants, highlights of major movements, a CRAASH t-shirt, and much more. 

As Hunter College looks ahead, the Asian Student Affinity Space in the Thomas Hunter Building opened in Spring 2025 and Professor Charles Tien announced that a major in Asian American Studies is on the horizon for 2026. 

You can see more photos of the visit in our photo gallery.