When Vivek Renjen Bald, the keynote speaker at this weekend's East Coast Asian Student Union (ECASU) conference, was 18, his truck was stolen, setting off a chain of events that had a strong impact upon his perception of racial and ethnic issues.
Bald said that the thief led the police on a high-speed chase that ended when the thief parked the truck back in its original parking place and fled. The police knocked on Bald's door, and according to Bald, he "found [himself] with a flashlight shining in my face, and a police officer said, 'That's the guy."'
Bald attributed his incarceration to his status as a minority, saying he was an easy target for the police because he seemed like "a criminalized, racialized other with a name that is hard to pronounce." He served three months in jail until his trial.
Before the trial, Bald's lawyer told him to get a haircut and showed the jury Bald's excellent academic record. The lawyer "presented me as an all-American boy," Bald said, and the jury found him innocent.
Bald's address to a packed audience in Altschul Auditorium was part of the ECASU's annual conference held at Columbia this year, the largest in the organization's 24-year existence.
ECASU is an organization that seeks to "build and strengthen Asian and Asian-Pacific-American student organizations to serve the social, political, and educational needs of Asian and Asian-American students," according to its website.
At this year's conference, over 900 students from mostly east coast universities, among them approximately 150 Columbia students, met to confront issues affecting Asian-Americans and provide an opportunity for Asian-American students to share their experiences.
"This is one of the only opportunities that Asian Americans have to come together for intercollegiate dialogue," said LinYee Yuan, CC '02, co-chair of ECASU 2001 at Columbia and political vice chair of the Asian-American Alliance.
"ECASU is more about spreading awareness and information that it is a discussion on the major issues of Asian Americans," said Fred Cheng, SEAS '04.
Olivia Huang, BC '04, a member of several committees that helped make ECASU possible, said that the conference "was about making our voices heard and building friendships and contacts."
Yuan said that the conference was not exclusively an Asian-American event, saying that "A lot of non-Asians came and were involved in the planning process."
"[The conference] allows us to see the distance we need to cover and to feel unity with people who have similar struggles, such as fighting for more ethnic studies programs," said Mark Chen Keenan, a junior at Skidmore College.
Throughout Saturday, the one full day of the conference, students participated in a variety of workshops.
Workshop titles included "De-colonizing the Butterfly: Oriental dreams, desires, and Asian American women" and "Fighting from the margins: Constitutional Challenges of Asian Americans." Workshops were also held to tackle issues such as hate crimes, United States militarism in Asia, the Asian sex industry, sweatshops, and interracial dating.
One rapper said that after he performed to a predominantly black audience, people approached him and said, "Yo! I didn't know Asians could rap--y'all are tight!"
In a workshop entitled "Chinks, Niggers, and Spics Give the Best Head: A Crash Course on Stereotypes and the Concept of Race," moderators Jeannie Wong and Richard Wright explained the different reaction stages that people of color go through when they first experience racism.
The conference also included a performance of spoken word poetry and an Asian-Pacific-American arts showcase.
Although Cheng said the conference was limited by the short time span and large number of attendees, he found the conference informative on an "introductory level."
"It made me want to look into Asian Americans as a minority," Cheng said.