The unveiling of the Asian Students in Alliance, or ASIA, kicked off Asian American History Week at NC State. ASIA was introduced in Talley Monday at 6 p.m. Board members and others who identify as Asian- American Pacific Islanders were present for support and discussion.
“With Asian Students in Alliance, I hope that we’ll engage all the student organizations on campus and hopefully bring awareness to our campus community about the experiences and issues that our AAPI community faces,” said Jennifer Nguyen, the president of ASIA and senior studying human biology. So it unifies all of us as one and we can display that to the outside through all of our events—culturally, identically, things like that.”
ASIA also just launched its group Facebook page “ASIA NCSU” to reach out to other identifying AAPI students and anyone who wants to learn about AAPI people and support the group.
Nina Ondona, a board member of ASIA and junior studying mechanical engineering, discussed how there is a lot of stress placed on Asian-American students, and not as many Asian-Americans are going into higher education compared to what test scores and population growth suggest.
Ondona said AAPI students only make up 5 percent of the population at NC State, and this can make AAPI students feel isolated without others with a similar cultural background or experiences.
According to other board members, the group’s goals include addressing the issue of stereotypes that put pressure on AAPI students, such as certain expectations to be good at math, chemistry, and to be overachievers. He states that these expectations are detrimental and stigmatizing, particularly for those students who need additional help.
“One of the reasons why we created ASIA was to promote awareness of the experiences and issues that we face as a community,” Jennifer Nguyen said. “So we want to unite all of us under one umbrella and be that voice for us on campus and to show the campus that ‘hey, we’re here’ and if there’s something we’re striving for, we have an organization to speak for us.”
She said that another benefit for AAPI students is to be connected in a network so they can find resources for internships and jobs as well as mentorships and maybe workshops in the future.
“As far as Asian-Americans as whole, we cover around 4.5 to 5.2 percent over the years if you look at the enrollment data, and that’s Asian-Americans. So really we’re the second-highest underrepresented group right behind African-Americans and right ahead of Hispanic and Latinos,” said Natalie Nguyen, the assistant director for the GLBT Center, who is not related to Jennifer Nguyen.
NC State does not offer any courses that pertain to Asian-American studies.
“I think because we’re such a large campus, we’re very fragmented, and because Asian-American student groups are not used to having a full-time administrator and not having somebody who’s there doing outreach and actively tries to engage, it’s really difficult for some of these student groups to know what resources they need or to know what they don’t know or ask for help. A lot of these students didn’t know that if they had an active and involved student advisor they could advocate for funding, they could go to conferences, and they could get more resources,” said Natalie Nguyen.
ASIA is a group that was just newly unveiled, but members hope that it will grow to become a resource to students in the future.
Ondona said she hopes ASIA will grow as big as other student groups.
“I hope that eventually we do have kind of a space hopefully in the student center to call our own, that we’re able to provide financial support, academic support and advisors—maybe like a mentorship program,” Ondona said. “So that’s kind of my hope where we’re headed. If it doesn’t happen in my time at State, I still hope that I can be part of laying the groundwork for it.”
