Letter from AAPI Faculty and Staff

The following letter was written by the CU Denver AAPI Faculty and Staff Group. It has been endorsed by the Anti-racist Advocacy and Action Group along with many other groups. We encourage all members of our community to read it!

April 2, 2021

Dear CU Denver Leadership,

On Tuesday, March 16, eight people were shot dead in Atlanta. Six of those killed were Asian women. The gunman specifically targeted Asian-owned spas though claimed to have not been motivated by racial bias. This act of anti-Asian, misogynist violence has a long history in the United States, a history not widely known. Asian immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to violence due to their racialization as being lewd, immoral, and sexually available. After the white male perpetrator was apprehended, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s department’s public statements characterized the killer as having a “bad day” and dismissed evidence that the motive was related to the victims’ race. This echoes a long history of police showing empathy toward and individualizing white perpetrators of racial violence against BIPoC individuals, while also failing to recognize the intersectionality of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and other forms of oppression that caused this crime.v

We have found the responses of CU Denver to fall well below many stronger, informed, and more heartfelt statements that have contextualized the killings in Atlanta with its connection to US militarized violence in Asia, within the history of anti-Asian violence in the United States, and with how Asian women have been racialized as exotic, sexual, and passive.1 We believe this is due to, among other things: a glaring lack of Asian and Asian American representation in university leadership positions; the underfunding and understaffing of Asian American Student Services, the Center for Identity and Inclusion, and Ethnic Studies; and a dearth of faculty positions dedicated to Asian and Asian American histories and politics. We urge CU Denver to address these issues, to better support Asian and Asian American communities on campus and beyond during this traumatic time, and to better support BIPoC and other marginalized communities when future acts of violence and discrimination occur.

In Colorado’s history there are two contrasting moments of treatment of Asians/Asian Americans that both offer insight into how we can build a supportive community where Asians/Asian Americans are recognized, feel safe, and feel welcome. Both occurred at times of heightened xenophobia against Asians in the United States. On October 31, 1880, amidst nation-wide animosity against Chinese immigrants who were stereotyped by politicians and media as uncivilized others stealing “American” jobs, a fight in a bar in downtown Denver’s Chinatown led to a race riot. Three thousand people descended on Chinatown, killing one, injuring many, and causing such significant damage to Chinatown that it never fully recovered. In the aftermath of this event, Chinatown residents sought help: they filed $30,000 in damage claims, but never received any compensation or other forms of support in their recovery. They continued to be racial scapegoats while Chinatown faded from standard narratives of local history.

During WWII, anti-Japanese sentiment was widespread in the United States, culminating in the internment of all individuals of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, regardless of citizenship status. Colorado’s governor at the time, Governor Ralph Carr, publicly defended Japanese Americans. He opposed internment, insisted that the US Constitution protected all citizens including Japanese Americans, and acknowledged Japanese American loyalty to the United States. His public stance against popular public opinion ended his political career, but after internment was over, a significant number of Japanese Americans chose to make Colorado their home.

CU Denver can go the way of silence, denial, tepid gestures, and rote statements or the way of bold action that truly secures justice for Asian and Asian American peoples and fosters radical inclusivity. It must learn from these lessons as we work to become a truly anti-racist, just, equitable, inclusive community where diverse people can thrive. History tells us that this will be difficult unless privileged allies speak out and act, especially when it requires humbling oneself to listen and empathize. Learning from our generations of trauma, we urge the University take the following actions to create a culture of empathy, safety, care, and support for our Asian/Asian American community.2 This list is not comprehensive. It is meant to outline important first steps toward a just, equitable, and radically inclusive campus:

Individual contributions in the creation of a campus culture of respect, care, and safety

1) Acknowledging the harms of anti-Asian racism in public space: In the aftermath of a tragedy like the Atlanta shootings, if you are holding meetings or classes on the day of or shortly thereafter, acknowledge that people are hurting: observe a moment of silence, provide a brief email or statement with resources; offer flexibility on assignments and deadlines...anything. Be proactive in reaching out to your colleagues and students potentially affected by the incident. If you are a supervisor, proactively offer your supervisees time off during the workday for their own mental health. Please do not ignore what happened and proceed as usual.

2) Intervening in racial microaggressions (examples):

a) If you hear mispronunciations of Asian/Asian American colleagues or students’ names, correct the speaker’s mistake so that it is not repeated in the future. Do not ask your colleagues for a “nick name” or their “real name.”

b) If the names of your Asian/Asian American colleagues or students are misspelled in an email or a document, let the writer/sender know, so that the mistake is corrected and not repeated.

c) If you witness someone compliment your Asian/Asian American colleague’s or student’s English fluency and/or their “lack of accent,” inform the speaker that this is a form of microaggression and ask them to reflect whether they would do the same to a person of European descent. At the same time, do not tolerate disparaging reactions to or impatience with non-native English speakers, including Asian/Asian Americans who speak with a non-standard accent. If you want to be inclusive and welcoming, listen patiently and generously.

d) Relatedly, do not question where your Asian American colleagues or students’ places of origin. For example, if they mention they were born in Chicago, an inappropriate reaction would be “but where are you really from?” This response invalidates the Asian American identity.

e) If you hear your colleagues talking dismissively about “Chinese students” as a monolithic group, which often trends in a racist construction of all Asian/Asian American students, point that out. To address the real issues that international students from China and other countries face, please talk to the students and ask the university for more support and resources, instead of disparaging the students or making assumptions about their needs and challenges.

A committed group of faculty and staff members is leading the effort to apply for CU Denver the desgination of Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). If successful, CU Denver will be the only AANAPISI in Colorado and the Mountain States. The stated goal of the AANAPISI program is to provide “grants and related assistance to AANAPISIs to enable such institutions to improve and expand their capacity to serve Asian Americans and Native American Pacific Islanders and low- income individuals.”3 A path for CU Denver to become a true AANAPISI should include:

1) Commit Institutional Resources to Asian/Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Studies: Offer a space for the intellectual community centering on the lives of Asians and AAPI, with respect to research and teaching. Encourage students to learn about the histories and lives of Asian and AAPI people, and the discrimination these groups experience. Educate our students on the relationship between the recent violence in the US and imperialist and colonialist global history. Provide spaces for students, especially of Asian and AAPI descent, to delve deeper into their studies of these issues, histories, and connections. Support such programs as Ethnic Studies, International Studies, Chinese Studies, the Middle Eastern Politics Certificate, as well as units throughout the university that offer courses in Asian and AAPI Studies; recognize the important intellectual spaces these courses create and support their further development with appropriate resources and faculty lines. Along with support, CU Denver must also retain faculty whose research and teaching focus on Asian Studies and AAPI Studies by incentivizing departmental and college leadership to successfully guide those faculty through tenure and promotion.

2) Maintaining the nuances of the category of “Asian”: At the department and the university level, disaggregate the category of “Asian” when you analyze faculty and student composition. The category of “Asian” does not do justice to the heterogeneities of Asian/Asian American communities, in terms of cultures, social class, migrant pathways, and other unique barriers they may experience (i.e., colorism).4 Once you disaggregate you are likely to find significant underrepresentation, especially when compared to the racial and ethnic composition of our student body, city, state, or the country, etc. Please do not let this underrepresentation go unnoticed. Address this disparity as part of equity and diversity efforts, whether it is designated funding, cluster hires, retention efforts, admissions, scholarships, etc.

3) Include Asian/AAPI representation in DEI work and university leadership: Although Asians and AAPIs are frequently tokenized in representations of diversity, there is an imbalance of their representation in higher education and the issues affecting them in DEI efforts. Asians and AAPI communities are sometimes overlooked in discussions of equity and inclusion because of the ostensibly strong representation of certain Asian ethnic groups in certain industries, such as higher education; however, the distribution of such representation is heavily skewed toward STEM fields and less so the social sciences, arts, and humanities. The representation of Asians/AAPIs is also imbalanced within individual institutions. At CU Denver, Asians/AAPIs make up 8% of the instructional faculty (by comparison: Black 2% and Hispanic 6%) and yet, they are scantly found in mid-level leadership and non-existent in senior leadership positions. Our institution should be attentive to these nuances and examine the data critically when developing equity and diversity initiatives as they pertain to university staff, faculty, and leadership.

4) Increase support, resources, and funding for the Office of Asian American Student Services (AASS): In the days after the Atlanta shootings, the Office of Asian American student services.

5) Increase support, resources, and funding for international faculty, particularly those of Asian descent: The university does not recognize the added burdens that international faculty face, especially those who lack passport privilege. Costly visa applications are not considered in the calculation of grants and travel allowances, which results in international faculty being limited in where they can travel for research and academic conferences. International faculty also navigate a time-consuming and complex process of applying for and renewing visas without adequate institutional support. This is time taken away from their job responsibilities.

6) Supporting Asian/Asian American Student Success: Asian/AAPI students made clear that they felt unsupported and invisible during the increased violence targeting their communities this past year. This lack of support hinders their ability to focus on academics and excel. Faculty training should be developed so classroom environments can support Asian/AAPI students. Resources should be made available for multilingual learners. Research and mentoring with AAPI faculty and staff organized and hosted several healing spaces, a university-wide town hall on anti-Asian hate and disseminated resources on how faculty and staff could be supportive to Asian/AAPI students during this time. It is evident that more resources are needed to help the director of this program support our students. Asian/AAPI students reported feeling invisible and abandoned after the Atlanta shootings and this office stepped up to create those supports. Instead of overtaxing this office and AAPI faculty and staff in times when an emergency response is needed to support Asian/AAPI students, this office and the other offices in the Center for Identity and Inclusion need additional staff and funding to create a culture of support on campus that can adequately support students during times of racial violence opportunities should be provided for AAPI students to enhance their academic and professional growth.

7) Provide mental health resources to Asian/AAPI (and other BIPoC) members: Psychological stressors are particularly acute among marginalized communities as they face unique mental health risks. Racism has been highlighted as a public health crisis underlying the disproportionate impact of COVID 19 and of longstanding racialized violence, oppression and dehumanization of minoritized communities, including the Asian/AAPI community. This has contributed to intensified psychiatric illness including primary, secondary and intergenerational trauma, as well as depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety spiked among minoritized communities (with 34% of AAPI and 41% of Black Americans screening positive). The Chancellor has pledged $1 million towards DEI efforts. We urge that the University devote funds to the University Counseling Center and the Psychology Clinic to develop a stronger mental health infrastructure in which to provide accessible psychological counseling for our BIPoC students, staff and faculty. This may include free services during times of acute crisis, as well as services that are culturally responsive and (ideally) provided by providers of color.

Asian/AAPIs are often represented as a model minority whose successes disprove ongoing, systemic racial inequality in the United States. Though many perceive the model minority to be “positive stereotyping,” it is not. In fact, the term “model minority” became popular during the Civil Rights Movement to further oppress African Americans, not to uplift Asian Americans.5 This stereotype is harmful because it ignores the diversity of all those categorized as Asian/AAPIs and because it serves to drive a wedge between AAPIs and other BIPoC groups in order to maintain the status quo. We refuse to be rendered invisible and racially triangulated. In making these requests, we stand in solidarity with other BIPoC at CU Denver in imagining, creating, and demanding an anti-racist university community that recognizes and values our histories, our experiences, and our humanity.

Respectfully,

Asian and AAPI Faculty and Staff Group

Endorsements

Antiracist Advocacy and Action

Asian American InterVarsity Club

Asian Student Association

ASPIRE to Teach Alternative Licensure Program, SEHD

BIPOC Faculty Community of Practice, CU Denver and Anschutz

BIPOC Faculty and Staff Group

Black Faculty and Staff Affinity Group

Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Center for Faculty Development

Center for Identity and Inclusion

Chemistry Department, CLAS

CLAS Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

CLAS Faculty Council

Colorado School of Public Health Inclusive Excellence Committee Communications Department, CLAS

Council of Asian Student Leaders

Counseling Programs, SEHD

CU Anschutz Women in STEM

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education Program, SEHD Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of the SEHD

Early Childhood Education Program, SEHD

English Department, CLAS

Environmental Stewardship of Indigenous Lands Certificate Program Ethnic Studies Program, CLAS

Facility for Advanced Spatial Technology

Faculty Assembly Ethnic Diversity Committee

Faculty Assembly Committee on the Status of Women

Fourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Laws and Politics Health and Behavioral Sciences, CLAS

Health Equity Council, CU Anschutz Department of Epidemiology History Department, CLAS

Hmong Student Association

Integrative Biology Department, CLAS

International Studies Program, CLAS

Korean Student Association

LatinX Staff/Faculty Affinity Group

Learning Design and Technology, SEHD

Members of the Philosophy Department, CLAS

Modern Languages Department, CLAS

National Organization of Minority Architects-Students, CU Denver chapter Office of Black Students Services

Postdoctoral Association, CU Anschutz

Public Health Equity Group, CU Anschutz

Psychology Department DEI Committee, CLAS

Research and Evaluation Methodology Program, SEHD

School of Education and Human Development

School of Public Affairs Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee School Psychology Program, SEHD

Sibol: Filipino American Student Club

Student and Community Counseling Center

STEM Education Program, SEHD

ThinqStudio

University of Colorado Denver Association of Lecturers and Instructors Urban and Regional Planning Department, CAP

Vietnamese Student Association

Visual Arts Department, CAM

Women and Gender Studies Program, CLAS

*additional endorsements added after April 2, 2021

Anthropology Department, CLAS

The Business School

CU Denver Institute for International Business

The Evaluation Center, SEHD

15 members of the Mathematics and Statistics Department, CLAS

1 The Association of Asian American Studies webpage links to several statements providing historical and political context for understanding these murders: https://aaastudies.org/

2 A number of these demands are adapted from “After the Statement: How to Counter Anti-Asian Racism in the University, 7 Suggestions” by Dr. Hae Yeon Choo, University of Toronto

3 https://www.aanapisi.net/about_aanapisis

4 For more information, see https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/technology/personaltech/asian-american-wealth- gap.html

5 See “The real reasons the U.S. became less racist toward Asian Americans.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-real-reason-americans-stopped-spitting-on-asian- americans-and-started-praising-them/