Asian American Studies

I'm writing to correct two things Thomas Burkman, director of the Asian Studies program, mentioned in Andrew Hyzy's article in The Spectrum's Oct. 17 issue.

First, Dr. Burkman said, "The difference between Asian studies and Asian American studies is that where Asian-American studies looks at the spread of Asian culture to America, Asian studies has a focus on Asia itself."

His definition of Asian American studies is not correct. Asian American studies started in 1960s as one of the achievements of the Civil Rights movement. Asian American studies share a lot of common features with other ethnic studies such as African American studies, Latino American studies and Native American studies. They are all about American experiences of a specific ethnic group.

The program is about Americans of Asian ancestry. More specifically, it explores the hitherto neglected aspects of the cultural, political and historical experience of Americans with Asian ethnicity in the United States. It is also about social, educational equality, leadership building in community and political empowerment in Americans of Asian ancestry along with other minority groups. Asian American studies is about American experiences not "the spread of Asian culture."

Secondly, The English department in the College of Arts and Sciences is hiring an Asian/American specialist next fall not an "Asian studies expert." Why does the English department want to hire an Asian studies expert? What is the English department looking for? I believe it will hire an Americanist whose academic focus is on Asian American literature. If you want to double check, contact Sooyoung Kang who is a member of the hiring committee for Asian/American specialist in the English department at sookang@buffalo.edu.

As a doctoral candidate in English department and instructor of Asian Americans & Visual Media for this semester, I could not just overlook a situation in which wrong information is circulating in UB community.