May 05, 2021
We held an open floor in our March general body meeting to discuss growing AAPI hate. We wanted to show support and solidarity for our Asian and Asian American communities, and make it known that we are and will continue advocating for them. When we sent the first email, that was also our objective. In hindsight, we should have done better. It was not the best idea to conflate our message of support with geopolitical events, and we regret that decision. We recognize the hurt that our first email caused to many students by an implication we had not foreseen—to some it read as a justification of racism against subsets of the Asian population. We are sorry, as noted in our followup email, and understand that the way we grouped those two topics could appear to justify racism.
As a body with a proud tradition of standing up for the most vulnerable amongst us, pushing for changes and influencing policy at the local, state, and national legislatures, we reserve the right to comment on these issues, as they do affect our graduate students. We stand by our concerns about potential trauma caused to CMU students by troubling events here and elsewhere. For many years, we have stood up for our international students, including recently when the Trump administration came up with xenophobic proclamations targeting Chinese students, as well as discriminatory visa policies that prevent Chinese and Indian students from receiving green cards for decades after graduation—policy positions that have often resulted in attacks levied by white nationalists and anti-immigrant hate groups against some GSA Vice Presidents. We do not share this list to excuse the hurt caused by the statement, but to note that we have high expectations for our work on your behalf and we hope you will continue to have high expectations for us.
We are eager to have productive conversations on engagement with more groups of students and identify ways in which GSA can broaden its reach, and we hope we all can continue that discussion in a respectful and collaborative manner. We have met twice with the group of petition organizers to discuss ways GSA can become more accessible to all students and could improve our communication process for the future. Additionally, we have met with Uyghur constituents who expressed support for the original statement and felt that their experiences were recognized for the first time at CMU. Events abroad can and do cause harm to community members with connections and history in those places. Representing all graduate students, we are fully committed to respectfully engaging with all perspectives on this and other issues to support all within our diverse CMU community. And as we actively strive for an anti-racist campus, we hope that our work going forward helps ensure no room for hate in our communities. We will work hard to be better leaders and we hope that amidst everything happening around us, we—and the campus community at large—don’t soon forget Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, and too many other lives we have lost to the hate in our communities.
Previous statements on Anti-Asian Racism: https://www.cmu.edu/stugov/gsa/communications/2020-2021/03-08-21-statement-on-rising-anti-asian-hate-crimes--resources.html
Moving Forward Together Against Anti-Asian Racism
Moving Forward Together Against Anti-Asian Racism
By GSA Executive Committee, AY 2020-2021
As a body with a proud tradition of standing up for the most vulnerable amongst us, pushing for changes and influencing policy at the local, state, and national legislatures, we reserve the right to comment on these issues, as they do affect our graduate students. We stand by our concerns about potential trauma caused to CMU students by troubling events here and elsewhere. For many years, we have stood up for our international students, including recently when the Trump administration came up with xenophobic proclamations targeting Chinese students, as well as discriminatory visa policies that prevent Chinese and Indian students from receiving green cards for decades after graduation—policy positions that have often resulted in attacks levied by white nationalists and anti-immigrant hate groups against some GSA Vice Presidents. We do not share this list to excuse the hurt caused by the statement, but to note that we have high expectations for our work on your behalf and we hope you will continue to have high expectations for us.
We are eager to have productive conversations on engagement with more groups of students and identify ways in which GSA can broaden its reach, and we hope we all can continue that discussion in a respectful and collaborative manner. We have met twice with the group of petition organizers to discuss ways GSA can become more accessible to all students and could improve our communication process for the future. Additionally, we have met with Uyghur constituents who expressed support for the original statement and felt that their experiences were recognized for the first time at CMU. Events abroad can and do cause harm to community members with connections and history in those places. Representing all graduate students, we are fully committed to respectfully engaging with all perspectives on this and other issues to support all within our diverse CMU community. And as we actively strive for an anti-racist campus, we hope that our work going forward helps ensure no room for hate in our communities. We will work hard to be better leaders and we hope that amidst everything happening around us, we—and the campus community at large—don’t soon forget Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, and too many other lives we have lost to the hate in our communities.
Previous statements on Anti-Asian Racism: https://www.cmu.edu/stugov/gsa/communications/2020-2021/03-08-21-statement-on-rising-anti-asian-hate-crimes--resources.html