DAVID LEE: One by one we shine.
But together we flourish.
We Flourish celebrates the stories
of Asian and Asian American Princeton alumni,
while also highlighting the power of coming together
as a community.
Hello, I'm David Lee, Provost of Princeton University.
The Asian community has a longstanding history
at Princeton, beginning with Hikoichi Orita from Japan,
who graduated in 1876.
There are so many individual stories from all regions.
By sharing our Princeton experiences,
we further strengthen our Princeton ties.
Today, Asian and Asian American students
make up nearly a quarter of the student body.
With family roots that reach all across Asia,
our students pursue their passions
in areas such as literature, sciences, music, and the arts.
Princeton is, and should be, a place where students
can discover and celebrate the richness of diverse cultures,
including their own.
YOUNGSUK Y.S. CHI: I grew up all over the world.
SPEAKER 1: From Hong Kong originally, but I
moved to Sydney some 30 years--
FRANKLIN ODO: So I grew up in Honolulu.
I was born there in 1939.
SPEAKER 2: Hanoi.
PAULA CHOW: I'm from Shanghai, China.
REGINA LEE: So I'm Chinese American.
On my mother's side of the family--
RAJ VINNAKOTA: I was actually born in Lausanne, Switzerland.
CAILIN HONG: Second generation born here.
CHRIS LOH: I was born in Taiwan.
EVAN KRATZER: I'm personally half Japanese
and half a variety of Western European countries
mixed together.
KANWAL MATHARU: Born and raised in New Orleans.
I'm a Cajun baby.
RISHI JAITLY: I grew up in New York.
SPEAKER 3: China and Hong Kong.
SPEAKER 4: I grew up thinking I was Italian American.
SPEAKER 5: From the Philippines.
EVA LERNER-LAM: One day it was November.
It was dusk and it was snowing.
And we were waiting to make a right onto Nassau Street.
FRANKLIN ODO: The alternative to working on the farm
was to find a way to justify to your parents
ways you could avoid being there.
So I did Boy Scouts, 4H Club.
I played every sport I could find.
EVA LERNER-LAM: I looked up there, and my mom was driving.
And I said, Mom, what's that?
And she said, that's Princeton University.
And I said, wow.
I want to go there.
FRANKLIN ODO: I didn't know at the time, and nobody told me,
this was the way you craft a resume
to get invited to join an Ivy.
EVA LERNER-LAM: And my mom pulled the car over
to the side.
She put it in park.
She looked at me and she said, Eva, in this world
not everything is fair.
You'll never be able to go to Princeton
because Princeton doesn't take girls.
And I looked back in the window and I looked at my mom,
and I said, I'll figure out a way.
I have to go there.
FRANKLIN ODO: It was a great honor.
And it made me a local hero.
EVA LERNER-LAM: And then nine years later, provost Bill Bowen
somehow managed to get our fine university to be coeducational.
And I was able to apply, and I got in, and I came.
YOUNGSUK Y.S. CHI: I was a foreign student when
I came to Princeton from Korea.
And so my identity was really as a foreigner first.
RAJ VINNAKOTA: So I had what one would consider
to be a fairly stereotypical Asian family upbringing
when it came to education.
YOUNGSUK Y.S. CHI: My habits, my way of thinking,
my expectations were shaped by where I came from, by my mother
and father and my relatives.
RAJ VINNAKOTA: Our parents pushed
us to make sure that we did as much as possible
in as many ways as possible.
REGINA LEE: We were few in number.
I think my class had about 50 Asian/Asian American students.
TIMOTHY WU: I was a foreign Asian student coming
from Singapore, and I spent my first couple weeks on campus
walking around going, what's lacrosse?
What's an a cappella singing group?
YOUNGSUK Y.S. CHI: We were also not very much understood
by the rest, because they didn't come to Princeton already
having been exposed to the variety of students
that Princeton was trying to educate.
TEDDY ZHOU: I was the first undergraduate
from China, mainland China, to say, since 1949.
Princeton admission was my ticket to the free world.
So I'm very, very grateful.
MARY YEE: My own socioeconomic background
is very different from the mainstream
Princetonian at that time.
DANILO JOA: At the time, we feel like maybe fish out of water.
Maybe we didn't belong.
Maybe was a big fluke.
But I got in.
And I'm very glad to see the Princeton of today
is much more diverse and open to students of all colors
and creeds.
SANJEEV KULKARNI: And I think diversity
is an important part of the university mission, that
is, the teaching and research mission to really fully carry
that mission out.
I think we have to be educating a diverse group of students
at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
Second, diversity actually impacts
the quality of the research and teaching that we do.
I think by having a different diverse set of students,
faculty, staff, we get the best ideas out on the table
make the most progress in those realms.
But third, it actually impacts the quality
of the experience, the educational experience of all
the students that are here by giving them an opportunity
to experience the other.
CAILIN HONG: We really see a very multicultural, wide range
of individuals represented here at Princeton.
And it's really great to be able to see that mixing pot here.
KANWAL MATHARU: To be able to say yes, there
are a lot of Asian students.
Yes, there are communities here.
Yes, we're building, we're growing, we're moving,
we're shaping, we're integrated into the fabric
of the university.
I think that is useful.
GARY PAI: I feel that if you follow your passions,
do what you are really strong and enjoy doing,
you will end up in a place and in a career
that you'll find far more fulfilling than what you
thought you were going to do.
RAJ VINNAKOTA: I'm a huge believer in a liberal arts
education.
I didn't realize it at that time,
but even more so today, what you need
is a grounding in how to think, in how
to approach problems, in how to look at history
and apply it to the present.
Cary LIU: It turns out that Princeton
has one of the strongest collections
of Chinese art in the nation.
And one of the things about Princeton's education
in the graduate program, and even in the undergraduate,
is that the students are brought in to work with the collection.
EUNJEONG CHI: I chose art history as my major.
And the courses that mattered to me the most
were definitely the ones that I took with my eventual thesis
advisor.
And he focused on Chinese art and architecture.
SOOJEONG CHI: I actually think my Chinese language courses
were my favorite classes, just because they're
really-- I know.
You're laughing because I probably complained about it
all the time.
At the time, it's so rigorous that you're
kind of just blinded by it.
It's so much work.
it's good, because you're learning anything more quickly
than everybody else.
But they're small, really focused classes.
CHRIS LOH: I felt very comfortable interacting
in the mainstream community, as well as
in the Asian American community.
YOUNGSUK Y.S. CHI: I felt very much supported
by the university.
We had the Office of International Students,
and the unforgettable Paula Chow.
I mean, she was our mother to all of us.
PAULA CHOW: Welcome back.
We are in Beijing, China, where Gregory
is giving a few lectures.
We want to send you our love and our best wishes
for your continuous success.
GREGORY CHOW: Today I wouldn't be here
if I weren't the husband of Paula Chow.
PAULA CHOW: That is absolutely not true.
But I do want to say one thing.
Because of my work with the University League,
I got involved with Louise Sayen,
and then we called ourselves the International Center.
And then it became something a little bit well-known,
and then slowly well-known until four years later.
We were invited to move into--
GREGORY CHOW: Murray-Dodge?
PAULA CHOW: To Murray-Dodge, yes.
RISHI JAITLY: For me, Princeton was a place
to discover my heritage.
I candidly, growing up, coming into Princeton,
didn't really connect with my Asian heritage.
I felt very American.
And I said, you know, I ought to be intentional about this.
So I joined a South Asian theater group.
I joined Naacho, the Indian dance group,
which I think is still around.
And then I created and produced some of my own events.
So for me, my journey at Princeton
was coming in very unaware of, really, my background.
And I left quite aware.
NICHOLAS WU: Personally, I consider the United States
to be my home country.
I mean, I was born, I was raised here.
I consider myself to be American.
But it was definitely very good to have this experience,
to go back and explore the culture and the language
of my ancestors.
ELLA CHENG: Luckily, Princeton has given me, actually,
more opportunities than even my own family
to explore my Chinese side and my Asian American side because
of the clubs here and the people here,
but also because I was able to attend programs like Princeton
at Beijing, where I went back to China for the first time,
actually, in my life, and was able to learn the language
and really immerse myself in the culture there
in a different way.
So yeah, it's been a great place for me
to grow my identity as well.
APRIL CHOU: Over the years, one of the topics
that I got very involved with was
that of Asian American studies.
FRANKLIN ODO: So I taught a seminar
on Asian American History Spring of 1995.
There were 20 kids in the class.
APRIL CHOU: I remember, at the time,
doing a fair bit of research just
to understand the history and context of these issues
at that time.
It included admissions, included ethnic studies,
it included faculty hiring.
FRANKLIN ODO: As we got towards the end of the semester
and we were studying what we called the Asian American
Movement, beginning where I had participated in 1969, 1970,
in sit-ins, demonstrations, hunger strikes, and so on.
APRIL CHOU: Ultimately, after several years of,
I think, working through the appropriate channels
and having a lot of conversations,
we ultimately decided to do a sit-in, in part
in peaceful protest, but to really
elevate the level of attention and commitment
around these issues.
FRANKLIN ODO: The students were extremely principled.
They never let on that they were planning this,
because they must have been planning it
in the course of the semester.
APRIL CHOU: This is actually inside the sit-in.
We sang a lot of hymns, a lot of hymns
from the Civil Rights movement.
FRANKLIN ODO: And you know, some of them
were first generation college students,
and they had a lot to lose, because if the University
had applied sanctions, including expulsion, that was insane.
APRIL CHOU: This is me the night after we came out.
This was, I think, a moment of great celebration and relief
that our voices had been heard, and that there
were some changes to come.
I view it all as a very long-term path,
and that we're really trying to have an impact on the things
that are not just for when we're students or alums here,
but for the generations to come.
SHERYL WUDUNN: I think this is really important,
this conference, because it's not
to say that we need to have a solidarity movement.
It's really just that we want to be-- we feel that we really
have comrades, friends that we can feel comfortable sharing
experiences with, especially as they relate to Princeton.
I think this conference is very important
to instill that sense of spirit among all of us.
Now I'm a trustee, one of seven Asian or Asian
American trustees, out of about 40 trustees.
That's a really large minority.
That's a significant presence.
And it makes me really proud.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
APRIL CHOU: One of the things that
has been such a blessing about being involved with A4P
is really getting to know and work with Princetonians
across different generations that I otherwise, I think,
may not have had an opportunity to meet.
And I really feel like today we're
standing on the shoulders of several giants
who were each trailblazers in their own right.
And in particular, I had the great privilege
of working with Kelly Kuwayama, who was Class of 1940.
And as you can imagine, his experiences here at Princeton
were very different from those that I experienced,
and those that students today are probably experiencing.
He had a way of listening and taking things in.
But when he spoke, people really listened.
I also really wanted to honor Sue-Jean Lee Suettinger, who
was Class of '70.
She really was such a powerful and quiet leader.
And yet this conference, We Flourish, was her dream.
The other person I really wanted to speak of
is Dora Lee, who was Class of '76.
She was such a believer in bringing people back together,
and was one of these people that held her orange and black so
closely.
So I really wanted to honor the three of them,
and to acknowledge that I think many of us
wouldn't be here at this conference,
or working together, had it not been for their contributions
and their leadership.
CHRISTOPHER EISGRUBER: What a pleasure
it is to welcome Princeton's Asian and Asian
American alumni to the We Flourish Conference.
These alumni conferences have become a wonderful vehicle
for this university to reach out and embrace its alumni
community, and to bring back groups that
are important to this university,
and allow you to interact with the campus,
with your classmates, and with our current students.
We're delighted to have you here for this conference,
and I look forward to interacting with all of you
I hope you have a wonderful time.