FAQ

Yes! We welcome all folks into our community, but especially South Asian and Southeast Asian folks. Asian American spaces (our house included) have and still do not represent experiences of many outside the "norm" (South and Southeast Asian, LGBTQ+, low-income, mixed-race folks). We seek to change that by uplifting these voices and doing our best to be inclusive and supportive of all who identify as Asian American. Okada also realizes it has made mistakes in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future-- all who have helped us realize our faults and improve ourselves are very much appreciated.

We also acknowledge that often, the Pacific Islander community and the Asian American community are grouped together as if they are the same in many different places (like the US census), disregarding the vastly different challenges and struggles of each group. In the past, we branded ourselves as a Pacific Islander space, but recently felt that we were being dishonest in trying to claim that identifier if we were not being good representatives of the PI experience. We wholeheartedly welcome Pacific Islander folks into Okada and invite them to share their experiences and lives with us, but also want to say that if you identify as PI and feel as if Muwekma-Tah-Ruk (the Native/Indigenous house) resonates with you more, we also support your decision. Basically, wherever you want to go, go! And we'll figure out how to best be a support for you, either in this house or in other forums.

Asian American is an identity that was coined by UCLA Professor Yuji Ichioka in the 1960's during the height of the Asian American movement, which also drew on the Civil Rights movement, anti-war movement, and black power movement. It was meant to be a way to unite ethnic groups that faced similar experiences in the US while also asserting self-identity against pre-existing labels like "Oriental" and "Asiatics" and create a space in between wholly Asian and wholly American.

This term, however, faces a lot of contention. Who is included in this term, who isn't included, who is most visible, and who is rendered invisible. What makes the distinction between Asian, American, and Asian American? Is it race, ethnicity, nationality, place of residence or place of birth? Are the experiences truly similar enough to have this group label? These are all questions that we're wrestling with.

Yes! We welcome all who are interested in our community and interested in learning and considering Asian American life and activism, whether it's your first time wrestling with some of these issues, or you're a seasoned ally. In addition, "Asian American" was a term coined in the 1960’s during the height of Asian American political activism as a term counter to other offensive names for Asians like “Orientals” and “Celestials.” If you don't identify with the term or have issue with some of its connotations-- you're exactly who we want to have in our community so we can talk about it :) All we ask is that you're willing to listen and engage in good faith.

Okada is a four-class dorm, meaning that we have residents ranging from frosh to senior (and sometimes beyond). After your frosh year, you can apply to for pre-assignment into Okada.

Check out the Home Page for some info about this.

Additionally:

The Asian American ethnic theme house was originally placed in the dorm named Junipero. Students voted to rename it in 1979 after John Okada, the first Asian American novelist, who wrote the book No-No Boy based on his personal experiences in a Japanese American internment camp.

Throughout time, Asian and Asian American students have experienced discrimination in campus-provided residences; one of the striking cases was in 1916, when a student of Chinese descent was violently dragged out of his residence in Encina Hall by a group of white students, and prevented from continuing to reside there. Chinese and Japanese students would have to purchase homes off campus to live in because they feared for their safety. Even now, we see hate crimes towards Asian Americans on campus: students violently pushed off bikes and attacked with hateful slurs. Okada was founded to be a safe and inclusive space for Asian American students, while also being a space that could explore and celebrate the diversity of Asian American peoples, cultures, and languages.

The Asian American community at Stanford has grown dramatically since Okada’s establishment, and the house continues to evolve to suit the community's changing needs.

There are lots of problematic beliefs about Asian Americans, including lots that the community itself perpetrates-- we're a model minority, we are not in solidarity with other marginalized communities, we are a monolith of experiences and cultures. This space exists to facilitate conversation and start breaking those beliefs down into a more compassionate, more nuanced view of ourselves and our connections to the world around us.

Check out "Why does Okada exist?" above.

Regarding the Ethnic Theme Dorms are self-segregating bit: this has been asked since our inception, and it doesn't really go away. Here, we'll just link all the responses that others before us have written. (A particularly good quote from Jim Gaughran: "The criticism of theme houses...stems from an apparently uniquely white idea that equality must mean assimilation, that no subcultures can coexist within the larger one, in short, that to treat all people as equal means to treat them as white.")

Why we need an Asian American dorm specifically: Asian Americans make up 22% of the undergraduate population-- at the same time, even the term "Asian American" masks so many different cultures, ethnicities, and races that are thrown into this pan-Asian monolith in the typical American consciousness. We exist to celebrate those in the community who are so often overlooked in light of the narrative: that Asian Americans are all the same, that Asian Americans are all doctors and lawyers and engineers, that Asian American means Japanese-Chinese-Korean-American. We exist to provide a space where Asian Americans can explore and share their whole selves with others, in a space where we have a shared understanding of what it means to be Asian American in a country that really only ever sees the "Asian" part of that.

Okada has a really incredible community of upperclass residents, some of whom apply to live in the house and engage in the theme really closely (they're known as pre-assigns). They're great at giving advice, providing help, and generally linking you to parts of campus you might not be familiar with yet. Some of the best stuff you'll learn will come from conversations with people who've done it all before.

We have three additional student staff members, and their role as Ethnic Theme Associates is to facilitate conversations and learning about Asian American history, culture, and activism. They're very well connected to other Asian American spaces on campus and can speak on a variety of topics, but they also understand what it's like to be engaging with this theme and with your identity for the first time, as well as considering intersectionality between different identifiers.

We do have a typically smaller incoming frosh-class (around 34 compared to frosh dorms with about 80-90 frosh), but around 44 upperclass residents, so the house is just as big.

Nothing's quite the same across every single frosh living space, every single year, but here are a few of the things that are widely considered part of the frosh experience that you'll find in Okada as well as in all-frosh houses:

• New Student Orientation

• Winter Trip

• Screw your Roo

• Scavenger Hunt

• House meetings

• Good community :)

• Making friends with other frosh (we're in the middle of Wilbur, which has 7 other dorms, and we're near Stern, which has Casa Zapata and more dorms)

Check out the "More About Okada" page for examples of all the work they do/assist in.

From the "Staff Members" page:

"The ETAs are the ones who focus on creating and encouraging conversation about the Asian American identity in the house. They do this through facilitating discussions, creating events and panels, and by overseeing our pre-assign program (which includes trips to cool places and people, weekly presentations, and projects!)."