In recent weeks, this paper and the campus have seen an exchange of opinion over the relevance and need for an Asian American Studies minor on campus. Well considered, if somewhat verbose, arguments have been made on both sides. Credit must go to all parties involved that discussion has remained within the boundaries of civility and reason and avoided the political rhetoric that often plagues issues involving diversity.
Personally, I am skeptical about the need for a dedicated Asian American Studies program at Dartmouth. In structuring their argument, the proponents of AAS have carefully avoided any mention of the real costs and logistics of having such a program. This new initiative must be considered within the larger arena of competing demands on the College as we enter a period of dramatic change.
In a column for this paper ("On Asian American Studies," The Dartmouth, Feb. 6), Morna Ha '04 and Derrick Chu '04 reported that over 40 colleges and universities offer AAS programs, thus making it a "legitimate academic field." These statistics only offer a grain of truth. Being the skeptic that I am, I went digging for concrete evidence. The reality is far less convincing. While there are indeed over 40 institutions offering AAS, nearly half of them are located in California -- I hesitate to speculate why. Clearly, AAS programs lack the national scope that was implied in Ha and Chu's statement.
The idea of Asian American Studies also needs definition. Are we just concerned about the experiences of Asian-Americans in history and their impact on arts and culture? Should a course in Chinese history or Japanese language be part of an AAS program? A glance at some of the offerings in other schools would suggest that the notion of AAS is still very much a "work in progress." By combining traditional Asian courses together with other courses identifiable as part of an ethnic studies tradition, some schools have quite impressively expanded their selection of "AAS" courses. The intellectual merit of doing so is, however, questionable.
Advocates of an AAS program at Dartmouth have stated that all they are asking for is a minor consisting of just five to seven courses. Again, this statement oversimplifies the issue. Five to seven courses do not a department make. A sustainable academic program must offer choice to its students. The education department, for example, has 10 faculty members and nearly 20 courses (excluding teacher education) listed in the ORC. Starting from a baseline of four non-permanent courses and two untenured professors, establishing an AAS program would thus require a substantial investment on the part of the College, something that demands serious justification.
Nonetheless, the intellectual arguments that Ha and Chu, and Shirley Lin '02 and Swati Rana '02 ("Correcting a Few Assumptions," The Dartmouth, Feb. 7) make for a shift in thinking about ethnicity in America demand closer examination. They make valid points about the black-white dichotomy in race relations. The place of ethnic minorities (not just Asians) in this country's history should also be recognized. The question, therefore, is: how should we effect this change?
To establish different academic programs to accommodate each ethnic group is not the answer. To do so is likely to increase the divisions on campus and waste precious resources on unnecessary duplication of efforts. A glance at the ORC would suggest that the existing ethnic studies programs are operating in somewhat isolation from each other. The African-American, Latin American and Native American studies programs do not share a single cross-listed course. Cross-listings with departments such as English, history and women's studies are common, but there is not a single course where students from these ethnic studies departments can come together to earn major credit.
Are the experiences of ethnic minorities in America so diverse that they must become separate fields of study? As a non-American, I am not qualified to suggest an answer. Perhaps race relations are not so much structured around a black-white dichotomy but a multi-colored polychotomy. Perhaps the only way to add knowledge to ethnic studies is to add new branches separate and distinct from existing ones. Perhaps these divisions are only natural.
Or perhaps the current arrangement, born out of an outdated black-white dichotomy, is similarly in need of change. Perhaps the divisions between ethnic studies programs are not natural but artificially constructed. Would a common ethnic studies program be more suited to these changing circumstances? Here lies the place of Asian American Studies at Dartmouth, not as a separate program, but a sub-field (of about seven to 10 courses, building up as the discipline matures) within the framework of a much larger, more inclusive ethnic studies department.
Lin and Rana asserted that the "struggle" for Asian American Studies has only begun. Perhaps they too should re-examine their own assumptions about the place and role of AAS on campus. A struggle of a much greater scale than they first conceived could be beginning.
