One of the most transformative experiences I have had as an undergraduate and Library student employee has been participating in GROW over the past three years. Generating and Reclaiming Our Wisdoms: A Collection of AAPI Community Stories at UC San Diego is a collaboration between undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff and librarians with a collective sense of urgency and passion in preserving the legacy of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) activism at UC San Diego.
In summer 2020, the university’s AAPI Studies Program had just launched, and the Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern Desi American (APIMEDA) Programs and Services was preparing to celebrate its fifth anniversary. This was also around the time when I stumbled across archival material in the Library’s Special Collections & Archives about UC San Diego’s first Asian American Studies course in the 1980s, so there was much excitement around capturing untold stories of activism.
The development of GROW —which connects decades-long efforts with present-day struggles and activism —was supported by Professor Simeon Man, Inaugural Director of the AAPI Studies Program; Windi Sasaki, Associate Director of APIMEDA Programs and Services; Cristela Garcia-Spitz, Digital Initiatives Librarian at
UC San Diego Library; and myself, one of the first students in the new AAPI Studies Program.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and online learning, the first group of students from various social science, humanities and STEM studies across undergraduate and graduate programs gathered over Zoom in winter 2021. Over the next few academic quarters, first virtually and then slowly in a hybrid mode, we found ourselves deeply immersed in collective learning. We shared reactions to archival documents, ranging from excitement and pride to heartbreak and anger.
We invited alumni and important figures from across the decades—such as student activist Jonathan Burgos ’98 and Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Jim Lin, who taught the first Asian American Studies course—and listened to their stories of AAPI community activism during their time at UC San Diego and beyond. We conducted more than 10 oral histories to capture the voices and experiences of community members, such as Ethnic Studies Professor Wayne Yang and scholar-activist Joseph Allen Ruanto-Ramirez ’08. Together, not only did we seek to foster a sense of connection to the past and bridge it with present and future movements, but we also found ourselves feeling deeply empowered and connected to the movements on a personal and collective level.
For me, this community project is a unique learning opportunity that organically cultivated meaningful relationships and experiences that challenged the barriers of time and space at the university. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of pursuing community-led research to amplify voices, uplift efforts and empower others through the visibility and accessibility of knowledge. Moreover, it provided first-hand experience of the power that libraries can have by providing access to critical information and supporting community-led research.
As my relationship with GROW and its collaborators deepened, I found myself being a part of the history of student activism that I had been so inspired by as a first-year student in 2020 while also discovering a love for research, community archives and library science. I helped develop GROW’s website to share the stories we captured. I also organized events drawing audience interest from across the West Coast and spoke as a guest in a variety of classes — Introduction to Asian American Studies, Asian American College Students and Racial Justice, and Asian American Social Movements—and at local community events, such as the Japanese American Citizens League’s monthly dialogue series.
More recently, in April 2023, I was supported by the Library to attend the Association for Asian American Studies Conference and present about GROW at the roundtable panel “Living Archives, Oral History, Storytelling: Documenting the Struggles for Asian American Studies.” The panel included students from similar initiatives at UC Irvine, Harvard University and the University of Iowa.
Through it all, GROW allowed me to find my community and sense of belonging at UC San Diego. It continues to be a labor of love to engage in, document and uplift activism—by the community, for the community. I encourage you to explore GROW’s digital archive, view the interactive timeline and listen to the oral histories by visiting knit.ucsd.edu/grow.
The article above originally appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of Explore magazine, the Library’s signature publication. Read the full issue online here.