The history of Asians at Yale College begins with Yung Wing, a Chinese student who graduated from Yale in 1854. He has the distinction of being both the first Asian graduate from Yale and the first Chinese to graduate from a U.S. college.
"There was a feeling of isolation, of being marginalized. The mainstream of Yale life was not in any way committed to diversity or multiculturalism In the fall of 1969, I was inspired to start a group for Asian Americans Over the course of 35 years, I have seen the group as being very strong and also barely surviving." - Don Nakanishi (Class of 1971), founder of AASA
The history of the Asian American Cultural Center (AACC) is intimately tied in spirit with that of the Asian American Student Association. Don Nakanishi (Class of 1971) established the first Asian American Students Association in 1969. At the time, this organization was the first student group on campus to raise consciousness about Asian Americans in the Yale undergraduate community regarding immediate political and long-term social issues. It was later renamed the Asian American Students Alliance (AASA), the name which it is known today.
The Asian American community at Yale witnessed many key milestones in the next decade due to AASA's student activism. In 1970, the first newsletter dealing with Asian American studies, the Amerasia Journal, was founded at Yale and is now a major publication in the field. Meanwhile, Don Nakanishi proposed a "floating counselor system" for students of color, which eventually resulted in the beginning of Yale College's Ethnic Counselor Program in 1972.
In 1973, Yale College started a pilot program designed to acclimatize Puerto Rican students to Yale life which was called the Puerto Rican Orientation Program (PROP). As the idea of PROP expanded as a resource for more students of color, including Asian Americans, this program was renamed into the Pre-Registration Orientation Program and finally just shortened to Cultural Connections since 1999.
In 1977, student leaders from major universities along the American East Coast, including Yale, to found what would later be known as the East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) conference. ECAASU's mission was to further the Asian American cause by encouraging intercollegiate dialogue on issues relevant to today's Asian American student leaders. ECAASU conferences have been held once every year since 1978, and Yale University has been the host for ECAASU conferences three times in 1994, 2000, and 2007.
One cannot recall the Yale experience of the 1970's without remembering the sociopolitical developments characteristic of that decade. Yale itself was swept up in an era of change, and after Yale College opened its doors to women in 1969, undergraduate Asian American women entered a politically charged environment that would color their experiences. More information on the AACC Women's History Project will be coming soon.
"Asians were much less diverse than we are now on campus, primarily Chinese, Japanese, and Korean American We had been hoping to get a larger facility for AASA than the two small rooms in the Bingham Basement that we had." - Grant Din, BR '79, former AASA member
The founding members of AASA had always envisioned a shared community space for Asian Americans on Yale's campus. Though AASA was given rooms in the basement of Bingham and Durfee since the early 1970's, the Yale undergraduate Asian American community continued to look for a larger space for their activities. In 1978, Nick Chen '79 was able to rally enough support among the Asian American community at Yale that his efforts led to talks with Bart Giamatti, who was just beginning his term as President of Yale University (1978-1986).
Through these talks, with the cooperation of other students on campus, the shared space that would be known as the Chicano and Asian American Cultural Center was finally established in 1981. It was to be housed with support from the administration on the former grounds of Yale's Psychology Department on 295 Crown Street. Jack Hasegawa, the general secretary of Dwight Hall at Yale at the time, became the unofficial director of Asian American affairs for the first years of the center's existence (1981-1985).
"Once the Cultural Center was in place, subgroups flourished in the Asian American community at Yale, or maybe they were more visible because the Center brought them together." - Martha Chavez, unofficial advisor for Asian American students in the late 1970s
After Jack Hasegawa retired from his position as unofficial advisor for the Asian American community at Yale in 1985, Yale College Assistant Dean Joyce Baker became the first dean to oversee Asian American affairs. Joyce Baker stayed on until 1991 and set the precedent for how the house would be directed in the future. Since Joyce Baker, two assistant deans have overseen the affairs at the center: Mary Li Hsu (1992-1999) and Saveena Dhall (2000-present).
Under Mary Li Hsu, the house saw two major administrative changes. In 1993, Native American students joined the house and established a presence that would come to be known as the Native American Cultural Center (NACC). In the summer of 1999, the Chicano students moved next door to 301 Crown Street in the newly established house of their own, La Casa Cultural.
Under the current director Dean Dhall, the house saw a major change in the administration of the Native American Cultural Center (NACC). The first director of the NACC and Native American Affairs, Shelley Lowe, was appointed Yale College Assistant Dean in the summer of 2007. Currently, Theodore can Alst serves as the director of the NACC. Today, the NACC continues to share its location with the AACC at 295 Crown Street.
Today the AACC continues to support and provide space for the activities of its over 40 affiliated Asian and Asian American groups on Yale's campus. The AACC, however, also provides its own programming on issues relevant to Asian and Asian American life to the general Yale community during the academic year, through talks, performances, movie nights, and social events.
