At Northwestern, student activism is everywhere. We saw it last quarter with the NU Divest movement, and we see it every year when the school comes together to vote on its ASG members. But just 20 years ago, a piece of significant and extreme student activism occurred on campus that is rarely remembered or acknowledged.
In 1995, a group of students went on a 23-day hunger strike. This act of student activism was an attempt to persuade the University to establish an Asian American Studies Program, a minor that would educate students on the history, culture and politics of Asians in the United States. The minor was finally created in 1999.
Student interest in establishing an AAS program began in 1991 with student lobbying. Students from the Asian American Advisory Board (AAAB) as well as others with an interest in the cause worked together on a proposal for the program. According to professor Ji-Yeon Yuh, they had really done their research.
“They’d gone out and composed a list of other universities with Asian American studies programs, a list of their courses, as well as syllabi and a list of the curriculums of other Asian American studies programs,” Yuh said. “This was a growing field and other universities already had it on their campuses.”
Apparently Northwestern wasn’t as responsive. But when the administration declined their request to establish a program, the students didn’t give up.
The first programs were founded in the late 1960s at two universities in California, by a coalition of students who were pushing for ethnic studies programs, according to Yuh. The students took over their school’s offices and campus squares during the protests.
In 1995, other universities also had protests for ethnic studies programs that same year, including Columbia University and Princeton University. But no other protests were hunger strikes.
“It takes a lot to go on a hunger strike – even if you only go on a strike for one day,” Yuh said. “It really testifies to the depth of commitment to those students and how strongly they felt. I think it also testifies to the students’ perception that the opposition from the Northwestern administration was so strong that they had to do a hunger strike to prove their point.”
Professor Yuh was hired when the program was first established to help form it. She said Eric Sundquist, then the dean of Weinberg, was very supportive.
“Because students were voicing their desires for the program and their desire to see the program grow, the things the administration had promised in terms of program budget, program staff and additional program faculty were the things that all the students were keen on wishing for,” Yuh said. “So it just wasn’t possible for the administration to backtrack and not do those things. It was good to have that constant (student) support.”
Weinberg junior Kevin Luong is currently pursuing a minor in the Asian American Studies program. He said he enjoys the benefits of studying within a small department, and getting significant attention and support from the professors. Luong said that although he witnesses a lot of student activism around campus, nothing has been as extreme as a hunger strike.
“I think it’s great to just continually revisit this history and see how the Asian American Studies department here at Northwestern was founded on activism,” Luong said. “I think we should continue practicing this activism not only academically, but also whenever the need comes.”
