Person Talking, HH:MM:SS
Miriam, 00:00:01
Alright. So if you could start by just telling us a bit about yourself and about your role at Duke.
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:00:10
Sure about myself, so I'm, my, my parents immigrated to the US for graduate school. My mom's family is like four or five generations from Taiwan. They're ethnically Hukka. They've been living in Taiwan for a while. My dad's family. He grew up around Shanghai. But the family left China in 1949, around, you know, when the civil war and revolution happened, so they left to Taiwan, they both grew up in Taiwan and moved to the US for graduate school, in the Midwest, in, met in graduate school, and then moved to New York, after graduate school, they moved to the East Coast, New York. And I was born in Albany, New York, and grew up in upstate New York, in the suburbs. So I'm from like, a predominantly, like over I would predominantly is an understatement. I'm from an overwhelmingly white suburban community. That's where I grew up for the first 18 years of my life. Went to a public school system. I don't know, there were, I know, we had like a graduating class of maybe 250. There were maybe 20 or 30 people of color in that class, I would say. Yeah, and then after that, came out to California to Stanford for undergrad. I got, as an undergrad is when I first got involved in activism and also when I first even I think, probably when I first heard the idea of Asian Americans. In, in high school, I think I used the term “oriental” to describe East Asians. Yeah. And I actually remember like using that term, once what like a summer camp. The parent of a summer camp friend asked me, like, I think about how diverse my high school was, or something like that. And I said, like, “Oh, there's not many Orientals,” and they were like, “Isn't, isn’t, aren't we not supposed to use that term anymore?” They're like, “Isn't that an outdated term?” So I had no idea about that, while I was through high school. So I came to California. I got involved in political activism my third year of college, which was shortly after, shortly after September 11. And I got involved in anti-war and peace and justice activism. And that was probably what I mainly did as a student activist for my third and fourth year of college. I was also involved a little bit in the in labor, student labor. Like student labor work, which which meant students supporting non-student workers on campus, it wasn't about student workers, but. And then some of my friends, I think, in my third year, one of my really good friends, Owen, who had taken Asian American Studies at Stanford and, and been, part of kind of the Asian American Studies community there. After I started getting involved in politics, he said that I should take an Asian American studies course. And so I ended up taking one I, in my third year of college I believe, yeah, my third year, which was just like, kind of, it was called like Asian Pacific Cultures or something like that with David Palumbo Liu. He would, and he would end up being my kind of undergraduate thesis director I wrote, I guess, really influenced by that course. I wrote an undergraduate thesis on kind of the complicated politics of language and literature in Hawaii. And that and was starting to in that was a project kind of about settler colonialism and Native Hawaiian sovereignty and how the politics of land which fit into that. But I never did, I never, I never did, I would say actually Asian American centered activism. So after college, I did labor organizing, I worked at hotel for four years, I organized a union at my hotel, I worked at the front desk, and I worked in the restaurant as a busser and then as a server, selling steaks and wine. And then after that, I worked for the for the hotel workers union. After four years at the hotel, I worked with workers union for about seven years, doing worker organizing and community coalition work, and things like that. And mainly working with Latinx and Filipina meant, like our membership was mainly Latinx, there were a bunch of Filipinos and other immigrant groups and some African American and white members as well. But I didn't do, I didn't do kind of like Asian American identity-based organizing at all. Even though a bunch of my friends did. So then I went to graduate school. After however many years not being in school, and I did I go in? I Okay, so I went into graduate school, I think wanting to do something around, I think Asian Americans, race, and class. I think I was mainly thinking about kind of how do we think about race and class? How do we understand race and class? And I had by then I had, even though I wasn't doing, I was doing some mainly labor stuff and other kinds of activism, I had developed a bunch of mentors who were part of the Asian American movement of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. They had done labor stuff, they had done, they had also fought for Asian American studies, they had done all this activism, and work. So I went into I think, I went into graduate schools, like what I put on my application was that I wanted to understand their political ideas from that time period of these people that you know, of these Asian American activists, I wanted to understand it better. And it was in graduate school that I really then. I don't know, I don't know if it was a conscious decision or unconscious decision or what, but like I decided, at some point, I was like, doing like Asian American history became what I was doing. Asian American History and Culture as my central focus, even though I studied, you know, other stuff also. Yeah. So seven years in graduate school, ended up doing my dissertation about the history of Asian American Studies, and in particular how Asian American Studies professors thought about the place of Asian Americans in the US racial lands, kind of complicated US racial landscape, how that changed over time. And then, in 2021, is when Duke, or actually 2020, the end of 2020 is when the Duke cluster hire was announced, and I applied and then got hired in 2021. And ended up here at Duke. So at Duke, I am my home base, kind of I got hired by the History Department, the History Department’s my home base, I mainly teach, so I have, I would say, half of what I teach is Asian American history. And the other half of what I teach is kind of contemporary US history. And then I'm also a core faculty of the Asian American and Diaspora Studies program. So I do, committee, you know, I serve on the curriculum, I served on the curriculum committee, I served on some search committees for the program. And generally try to support the programming, you know, the events and stuff at the program. And generally try to be supportive of the students in the program and in AASWG. Yeah. So happy to answer more questions about any of that if you want.
Lauren, 00:09:47
Yeah, actually, in terms of the hiring process, can you tell us a little bit about that process that brought you to Duke?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:09:54
Yeah, so end of, I forget when, but at the end of 2020, Duke announced a cluster hire, which as you know is they wanted to hire more than one person on the same kind of area. So the first step of that was just sending in a job application, which I don't know how much detail you want you like write a cover letter, you send in a writing sample, you get letters of recommendation, what else like, obviously, your kind of resume. And then, so then I got an email from Nancy McLean, who's a historian, and was chair of the historians search committee, which functioned under the umbrella, Asian American Studies search committee. So there was kind of the Asian American Studies search committee overseeing everything, and then each department that participated in the search have their own kind of search committee also. So the history search committee, contacted me and said, “Send us as much of your dissertation as you have, everything that you've written, and anything else that you wants to see.” So I sent so I had to scramble. And they were like, do this in three days, or something like this. Maybe it was maybe I had a week, I can't remember. I think it was, I think it might have been three days, I think it was like, I got the email on Friday. And they were like, send us this by Monday. So I did not have an introduction to my dissertation written. So I had to, I spent the entire weekend like writing an introduction to my dissertation. That was fun. I and I sent in that I sent in like the academic articles I had. And then I also decided to send in non-academic political writing that I had done, which I had not even listed on my resumé. But my advisor actually said, “Hey, they like they might be interested in this. You know, maybe 30 years ago, but they would not have wanted anyone that does left politics, but maybe today, it's different.” So I sent in that stuff. That was in November, I believe. I then got scheduled for an interview also in I want to say November, it may have been early December, interview with the history historian history search committee, which was Nancy, Prasenjit Duara, who's a historian of China, and Sucheta Mazumdar, who's also actually has, who's a historian of China as well, but also has played an important role in the history of Asian American Studies. And so I interviewed with them, and then I waited. Then after that was a long time, it was not until Jan, I want to say not until January, that I that they were that they said, “Okay, like you're one of the finalists so we're gonna do a campus visit with you. And that was because I believe what happened after so they history interviewed a bunch of candidates, then the History Department had to decide on which, I don't know, one, two, or three or four, I think one, two or three people, they are going to send to the Asian American Studies umbrella committee, then the umbrella committee had to decide of the, like, 15 names that we have, in total from all these departments, which, which six people so I five, six, seven, I don't know the exact number of people, that we're going to bring to campus virtually, to, to be finalists. So I didn't hear back until January, then the, who was it that invited me for the for the, I think Nancy still I think it was Nancy still, that was my point of contact. So then Nancy set up my kind of finalist interview, my like, you know, campus virtual campus and job talk. And, and that consists of, if you have any desire of knowing this, that consisted of like 20 hours of Zoom meeting, so in two days, maybe it was a 18, it was somewhere between 16 and 20 hours of zoom meetings over two days. You give, you give a talk about your research, you meet with a bunch of people. I met with the history the historian search committee, I met with the Asian American Studies search committee, I met with the AASWG students, which I think I mean, Shania it was Shania and I think Celine? I don't, Miriam, I don't know. Do you know who? You weren't in that. I'm pretty sure.
Miriam, 00:15:07
I was not. I don't remember who it was off the top of my head. But it's in, it's in the AASWG drive somewhere.
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:15:15
Yeah. Yeah. Shania was there. Celine was there. I'm pretty sure. And I think it may have been David, I'm not sure. Yeah. And I don't remember. I don't remember too much from my interaction with them. I do remember at one point Shania asked, “What are you going to what would you do to support AASWG or support students?” And the first thing I the first thing that went through my head, which I didn't say was, “I don't have tenure, and I have a kid. So I don't think I can get arrested.” That was like, my first thing was like, “Oh, they like probably want me to get arrested, like, protesting the University. And I don't think I can do that.” But I for some reason, I didn't say that. That’s just what went through my head. Yeah, that's what I remember for me anyway, select students. I think in the interview, Shania was like, “We,” I remember, Shania saying like like, No, we, well, okay. So I remember Shania saying no, like, “We just we haven't been able to do a lot of direct actions. Like it's been hard. We've tried, but it's hard.” So I think my fear of being asked to get arrested was overblown. The other thing that Shania said, which I which I distinctly remember was, Shania said that there's a racist, there’s like a racist hate incident every month. I like distinctly remember, Shania saying something like that. Those are like the two things that I remember from meeting, meeting the AASWG students. Yeah.
Miriam, 00:16:51
So how so how do you feel like or do you feel like talking to AASWG and hearing about, like, all the all these racist incidents that happen on campus and about the experiences, challenges, triumphs in some in some senses of student activists? Do you feel like that shapes your perception of Duke at all?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:17:14
Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, I knew about a bunch of this stuff. I mean, certainly, before I talked to Shania, I think before I, I think that I'm trying to remember, like, when I first heard about Asia Prime. When I got when I applied to the job, I did a bunch of research and like, certainly by then, I had like a sense of like that this was a long campaign and all of that stuff. I didn't realize, I mean, the the sense that there was like a racist incident every month was like, pretty intense and hard to wrap my head around even coming from Stanford, where there's a long history of racist incidents that galvanize activists of color and is the history of like ethnic studies, like, is linked to that history of like, students doing tons of racist stuff? I think, you know, I think what, you know, and I listened to the I also, I listened to the basement podcasts, I think before my campus visits, I don't know if you've heard them, kind of, there's like, one where I think the activists interview each other, there's one where they interview Aimee Kwon. I. I think the thing, one thing, I would say, like, you know, because I advised Shania’s thesis also, when Shania was, was writing it. And I think the thing that struck me from reading organized research was just how long it took to get Asian American Studies and despite all of these incidents, and stuff like that, yeah. So I will say, like, you know, I, even though I heard that stuff from Shania, and I, you know, interact with all of you all the time, everyday, you know, but we don't actually have a chance to talk that much about what life at Duke is like, so I actually don't have, I would say, a really good sense of what your experience is at Duke as an Asian American student. Yeah, whether it's still this kind of sense of like, you know, we're under attack all the time, or if it's something different or yeah, so yeah, I don't know if the answer is a question but like I did I remember Shania saying that because I was like, oh, wow. Like that is like, that is what life is like, you know, as a student of color at Duke, like, you just have to you just are have to deal with this stuff all the time or or else like it becomes normal to you, which is also terrible.
Lauren, 00:20:20
Yeah. Now understanding that context, right of kind of being a student of color at Duke, this is the first year that Asian American Diaspora Studies minor has been offered at Duke, because, you know, can you share with us what it feels like for you to be at school with this program?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:20:39
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's great I, oh, to be so, yeah, the program pre-existed the minor. I mean, I wouldn't be at Duke if the program didn't exist, because there are very few. So one thing I mean, for me, like the context is like, there are very few history departments that would hire somebody that specializes in Asian American history, apart from some broader Asian American Studies initiative. So for me, the context is that Asian American Studies jobs exist, you know, because of the context of student activism. I think I forgot your question. What was your question again? Like seeing what's the context, you're
Lauren, 00:21:33
Considering the context that you just told us that which Shania was telling you about being a student of color at Duke, how does it feel to be at this school with the fact that this is the first year with the Asian American Diaspora Studies minor but then also have that preceding program?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:21:48
Yeah, I guess how does it feel? I mean, I am. It's amazing. I mean, in some, like, I don't really take for granted the fact that we have so many students that want to learn this stuff like it's it's. At Stanford, my advisor taught in Asian American, like, an Asian American history, it was an upper division, Asian American history course, it’s very similar to actually what my took the community history class that I'm taking, that I'm teaching, in that we did a bunch of reading for the first half of the quarter, then we did research projects for the second half. But there were only five students in that course. And I was, like, two of them are graduates, I think, maybe there were six students, being two graduate students and four undergrads. So it's, I think it's just, I don't take for granted that I'm at Duke at a moment where there's a bunch of interest in this that comes out of people's experience, being students of color at Duke and being Asian Americans in the US more generally. And, yeah, I don't, I don't take it for granted. Like I, I think it's really special that people are taking their experiences. And I don't want to generalize about people's experiences, but it's feelings of being marginalized or having just lived through the COVID thing, and, or whatever else in their lives and are like trying to figure out what, yeah, figuring out something about kind of their place in US history, or US society or the world, which is what I, what I've, which is one of like the, one of the one of the main things of Asian American and Diaspora Studies does, obviously, it's not only for Asian American students, and I'm very fortunate to have students who are not Asian American in all my classes, all my Asian American history classes. But yeah, I think it's like a very, is a very special moment that people are kind of taking the, students are taking their experience and turning that into wanting to figure something out about the world. Whereas, or, I mean, it could easily just be like I said, you know, students not, you know, it's just kind of part of their life and normal and it doesn't become any kind of desire to learn about Asian American history, or culture or anything. Yeah.
Miriam, 00:24:48
Do you think that, do you think that the enthusiasm at Duke, I know you mentioned that the class that your Asian American history class in California was only five people. Do you think that there are other factors to that? Or do you think that it's primarily, it being such a new program and minor at Duke. How do you feel about that?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:25:11
Well, I think the main, well, I would say the main thing is it's coming shortly after this kind of campaign for, for it, there's been a bunch of student energy. I mean, it would be totally different if faculty just decided on their own, “Hey, we want to offer these courses.” I think that the other main thing is that there's that it's been that students have been so involved in fighting for it, I mean. Yeah, it's just, it's totally, it's just a totally different context for what the courses then mean, I think for for students to have this as a choice. Yeah. Because it's something that students fought for. Right. And won, you know.
Miriam, 00:26:00
Definitely. So your course in the spring of last year, Intro to Asian American History, that was sort of the first course that counted as I guess, like an intro or gateway into the AADS minor. Is that right?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:26:17
I, I'm I don't know for sure. Cuz, I mean, it's, a, I guess so. I don't know if intubated American Studies has been taught before. Do you know that?
Miriam, 00:26:32
I don't believe it has, no. I think the first time it was taught was when Dr. Choudhury did it this fall.
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:26:38
Oh, really? Okay. I didn't know that. That's, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, in a certain sense, I assume. Yeah. Okay. Let's just say yes. I'm an historian. So like, I'm like, I don't know, I don't have any documents to like, support my claim, but show us to say yes.
Miriam, 00:26:59
Right. Right. So I guess keeping in mind that you didn't even realize that this was sort of like the first intro type course? What was that experience like for you?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:27:13
Um, I mean, mainly, I was I had never taught intro to Asian American, I'd never taught a class before. So this was the first class that I taught, literally, because I think my seminar that I was teaching at the same time was like, a day after. So first class I ever taught. I mean, my experience was just like, how do I teach this class? I need to figure this out. Mainly, so I was like, yeah, I did. It was just a lot of work to like, find all the primary sources and figure out how to assemble them and put a syllabus together for the first time, really. But the actual and then also, I'm, like, weird, and even in a lecture class, I structured around a small group discussion, so, yeah, so that was an interesting experiment. It was like, great. I mean, generally great. I mean, I would say, you know, the vibe in that class is a little bit different than my seminar class that you're both in because in the seminar, we do pair share, and then whole group discussion, you're all sitting in a circle. In that class, it was much more extended kind of small group discussion. And then we tried to have large group discussion, but the, like, physical setup of the room wasn't great for that, people weren't in a circle. But what was similar about both those that experience and this experience was that a lot of stuff comes up in the group discussion, which I don't expect, and helps me. And that's just I always find that to be kind of magical, that like, there are these ideas that come up. They're really exciting. I have to like, kind of figure out on the spot, how to respond to those ideas, students ideas, kind of intellectually, and like, figure out what I think about that. So that to me, as an educator, that is just exciting. So I'll give you an example. We were we were reading the testimonies that given at a congressional hearing right before right before the internment of Japanese Americans. They have these like hearings across the country, like about whether they like should incarcerate Japanese Americans. And so we were reading like different Japanese American testimony at these hearings and like, people staked out different position than some people were like, as the dominant sentiment was like, “We're patriotic Americans, if the military says that like for military reasons we need to be incarcerated, then we'll agree. We don't think that's the right decision. Like, here's the reasons why we don't think that's the right decision, because we're loyal Americans and all this stuff. But if that's the decision, we'll go along with it.” And then then there was like, certainly James Omura, maybe a few other people that were like, “No, like that. Just just unqualified, that is the wrong thing to do. And if you do that, it will actually damage efforts to make Japanese Americans more patriotic.” And I just remember the discussion. The, I mean, like, what came up in discussion, which I don't think I don't think I anticipated, was like, does it make a difference to protest? Like, all of these people got incarcerated, right. James Omura got incarcerated, but he may have moved to the, I'm trying to remember. He may have, he either got incarcerated or he had, like, moved to Colorado or something to avoid it. You know, but like, just, you know, everyone gets like, you could Hirabayashi, who is the protest case gets incarcerated. Korematsu is another protest case, get incarcerated, and those cases lose at the Supreme Court and like, like, like, people were just like, what does it mean that like, it doesn't make a difference? Right. And I just I, that was such an interesting idea to bounce off of. And I remember closing the class, which with asking, yeah, like, it didn't. It didn't make a difference at that time. Like, all these like, it didn't matter if you're Hirabayashi or Korematsu or if you're protesting or not, or what you said at the hearing, like the government was just gonna lock you up. But does it make a difference for us looking back now, to have this record of people that stood up and said, no, right? And is that enough or not enough? So, like, to me, that was like an entirely new thought about it. Like, I'd never thought about history in that way. So that was really exciting. And I think part of that is just from to get back to kind of the spirit of your question, like, I think part of that just from like, engaging with students who are looking at these sources for the first time, and like, just react, like having kind of really fresh reactions to them. You know, having? Yeah, just like, the first time people are looking at Philippine-American War, political cartoons, the first time that people are reading the actual words of Japanese Americans on the eve of incarceration, like the first time, people are looking at, you know, all these primary sources, and I'm having really just, I think, fresh and honest reactions to them. It's just, it was exciting. Yeah.
Lauren, 00:33:31
You discuss your relationship a bit with your students, particularly to activists and organizers. How would you say that you held yourself accountable to student demands and visions for this program? Considering?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:33:42
Yeah it was interesting, because Thang mentioned this question to me beforehand. And I was like, honestly, I've read Shania’s thesis probably like three times, and I don't think I could tell you what the student demands. And I like, yeah, so like, I spoke at them. So all of us, I mean, Esther, Anna, and myself, we all spoke at the MAST rally. I know you weren't here yet, Lauren, but this was like a rally at the beginning of do you know about it already? It's like a rally at the beginning of 20 fall 2021. With student demands, and those demands were primarily I want to say around space. I could be wrong, but primarily around like, like the, like having a space for students. So I spoke at that and I recognize these and I honestly do not know like, what our current student demands or even like what the specific demands in the establishment of the program were, because most of my, so most of my, I would say, the most of my discussions with Shania and other AASWG folks, since getting hired have all been about AASWG trying to figure out whether it wants to engage with Duke as an institution at all. And, and not about what, like what specific demands are and whether those demands are being met. So I have, I would say, I have not been accountable to student demands in any way, because I don't know what they are. I don't know. I would be fine to like if students wanted to, I guess the general, you know, generally, I think, like, it would be great to have a sense of yeah, what students’ vision for the program is, and to have a conversation about it and to like, feel like that, feel accountable to that. Yeah. So but, sorry, I know that probably disappointing answer. But like, that's, that's my experience right now. at least. Yeah.
Miriam, 00:35:55
Yeah, there's no wrong or right answer. I guess I guess, my question going off of that, is, how do you is sort of, how do you understand AADS and your and your position as, at least at least, or at least partially in AADS, and also in history? How do you understand sort of your position within the context of like a history, a history of student activism, and the 20 year, roughly, push for Asian American Studies at Duke, or I guess, do you see yourself within that history?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:36:39
Well, I mean, certainly, like I said before, that my job is a result of student activism. And I would say like, so the, to the Duke student activism, I mean, because it happens in the early 2000s is very different from like the late 60s, student activism. When like, SF State and UC Berkeley, when they fought for Asian American Studies, they were like, we're gonna create this thing, and students are going to run it. And it's going to be like, highly anti traditional academics. Like, it's going to be all about kind of being relevant to the community, and training people to serve the serve the community. And the kind of 2000s wave of activism, including Duke, I mean, happens after the institutionalization of all these Asian American Studies programs across the country, Asian American Studies as like an academic field. And so the demand for students in many ways was for, like, at least in my reading of it, I think Shania agrees, but I probably want to ask them again, you know, it's like, we want to have, we want to kind of be reflected in like, we think the curriculum should also include us. We think this academic curriculum should also like, include our lives and histories. So it's, it's, it's, it's different in the sense that it's a more of a demand within the framework of like, established academic units, programs, departments. And the focus has been on creating kind of academic curriculum that includes the experiences of, of Asian American folks. So, you know, I tried on the one hand, as I understand, like, I, you know, that's something that I definitely tried to do. So that's like, as I understand it, like that's part of what I am here to do. The other thing is like, I presume part of the reason why students, I have no idea like what students said after I met with them, or like what they thought about my work or stuff, but you know, like I, I teach a class called Theorizing Liberation, because I try to teach something that is relevant, that I hope will be relevant for student activists. Right. So questions about what's racial oppression? What is how do we end racial oppression? What is intersectionality? Like, what is critical race theory? How do we think about Asian settler colonialism? How do we think about multiracial politics like in, like, both coalition and conflict? How do we think about capitalism and race? Those are questions that I know I think activists care about and like that’s also something that I tried to like specifically my Theorizing Liberation class, like, what we that's, those are the questions that guide the class. Yeah, so, and then I also so so I would say as an as an educator, that's kind of how I see what I do fitting into the larger context of student activism. And I would just say, like, I try not to say no, when AASWG or students asked me to do stuff. The only, you know, like, the, like, the things I can't do, or like when I have to do childcare in the evenings and stuff like that. But otherwise, I try very hard not to say no. Even though there's, there's, you know, pretty, you know, I think all junior faculty without tenure, their department chairs are saying, like, “You need to do less stuff so you can write your book and focus on your research. Like, that's what junior faculty like you, you shouldn't do a million things like you really need to, like, put your research at the center of your own agenda.” And so it's tough to balance. I think that but that's just, uh, you know, again, given the context of my position and student activism, like that's just a decision that I've tried to stay true to.
Lauren, 00:41:31
Yeah, considering your kind of role in shaping the AADS minor, and also what you were just saying about junior faculty, how do you think the administration responded to the creation of the AADS program for, the AADS minor, faculty from other departments, and why do you think you might have responded that way?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:41:50
I, you know, I don't have a real sense of the administration. Well, I would I don't have a real sense of how the administration responded, also, the administration is like, there's lots of different people with different interests. And like, yeah, so there's deans there's like the Dean of Social Science and Dean of Humanities, there's the Dean of Trinity, who's above them, there's a provost, there’s a president. It. Yeah. So you're asking how do they respond to the creation? So let me say, I mean, other faculty, I would say, other faculty in history and in the university more generally, have been way more receptive and supportive, than would have been conceivable 30 years ago, or something like that. So let's see my advisor, Gordon H. Chang got hired at Stanford, early 90s. David Palumbo Liu got hired early 90s. Neither of them, the books that got them tenure, neither of them were about Asian Americans. So Gordon, Gordon's first book was about US foreign policy relations with China and the Soviet Union. And David's first book was about Tang Dynasty poetry. And I am, I mean, that was what their graduate school scholarship was about. But I think Gordon made it, I think Gordon made a choice. Well, I think that sense was like Asian American Studies wasn't respected and you couldn't get tenure, if you were going to do Asian American history, or Asian American literature, or whatever. And that has like a deep history in the academy. Like I interviewed Elaine Kim, who's like the first Asian American literary scholar, and she was like, she went to Berkeley for her PhD and like, had to leave the English department because she wanted to do Asian American literature and no one would support her. So she ended, so her PhD is in the education departments. I was doing archival research in, I think, Ronald Takaki papers, and like there's a whole there's a letter from Ronald Takaki started at UCLA. He didn't get tenure there. He was an African American historian, but he pushed for ethnic studies at UCLA. And there's a letter from two of his colleagues, famous, I guess, historians saying, Asian American history and Native American history are not viable fields, like they don't exist. And we should not hire people to do this research. So concerning so my colleagues have been, like, very supportive, very interested in my work in history. That's been, I think, a really pleasant surprise. I would say, the administration, like I have less knowledge about I know that there's been certainly financial resources, whether there's been other kinds of resources is a more open question. Other kinds of support is a more open question and and we're at the end of our kind of first cycle of hiring. So me and Anna got hired, and then now we're hiring a senior scholar and like, that's it in terms of what's been planned for hiring into this program. And so, we will see if the next director after Esther demands more faculty, like, I don't know, how the how the administration will respond. That's an open question.
Miriam, 00:45:52
Right, definitely. So I think you've, you've talked a little bit about sort of what you've seen in the creation of the, or in the creation of the minor and obviously, and obviously, the creation of the program sort of predates all of us, I guess, because it predates me barely. I guess, can you sort of talk a little bit about your experience and like feelings as as the creation of the minor was underway?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:46:22
Yeah, well, it happened really fast. My first year. So and Esther did like all the work on that, you know, I think for us. I would say the big question, and you know, we were going to do a certificate first, right? So all of these decisions happened, like really fast. It was like, we were going to do a certificate. And then, and we were, like, waiting for Duke to lift its moratorium on new certificate programs they like weren't for several years, they weren't introducing any new certificate programs. And then all of a sudden, we decided we wanted to do a minor, I think, based on, I think, based on Esther's sense that the minor, it's just an easier thing. Like it's an easier lift for students. You don't have to do like a capstone project, I think. And it's one, maybe one fewer course. And then, and then, and then the other big question was where we, where we would house it. And we actually had like, a bunch of debate over housing in AMES. Because I think, you know, there's this whole history about kind of, like, how does Asian American Studies relate to Asian Studies, and we're in a different place now than we were in the in this, let's say, the 70s? Where I say, the 80s, where people were like, no, we're not the same at all. So so we had a whole kind of internal discussion and debate about that question. And I think I remember, Esther reached out to students also to like, try to see how students would respond to that idea. Before we agreed that it should, you know, we needed to have it somewhere. So we should do it in AMES. I, yeah. I mean, it's great to have, I think it hasn't fully sunk in yet. I mean, it's just great to have like, here's a curriculum, like, here's an actual curriculum that you can do and have like some, you know, I think, a good education in Asian American Studies, you know, if you take your intro class, and four more classes, like that's a pretty significant chunk of your Duke education. And it's great to be able to offer that. Yeah, I would say like, I think, for myself, also, I mean, everything that I say is, like, framed by having done lots of research on like, the history of these questions in Asian American history. So like, like, when Asian American Studies started, there's like, a whole, like, a lot of debate over like, are we trying? Like, are we really trying to get lots of students to major in this? Are we trying to get lots of students to minor in this or do we just want to get students in our courses? And yeah, I go back and forth on like, the minor program is, is amazing, obviously, Miriam, you're getting the minor and a few other folks but also we have, you know, it's also great also, to also just have students who aren't minoring like filling these courses. That's great, too. Yeah.
Lauren, 00:49:47
And on that note about, you know, students interacting with AADS and courses in AADS, some students see AADS as diverting from students’ visions and demands in 2002 and you discussed kind of knowledge about those times. But how are you holding space for the differences in personal opinions and framing of student activists.
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:50:06
Yeah, so I mean, I don't think we have I mean, we had like one lunch with AASWG folks earlier in the year. And I think we're, I don't I don't know if it's gonna happen or not. I know, we wanted to have another follow up thing to that. But I think we've just all we it's been hard to have capacity to schedule that. Yeah. So I mean, I don't think we've actually had a space where people say like, “This is our vision.” Like, “Here's where we differ from your vision,” or something like that. So that space doesn't exist. I don't know if yeah, it doesn't I, we could we could talk about like, who should take the initiative in creating that space or what, but I don't think that space exists.
Miriam, 00:51:00
I guess my I guess my question to that is, why, do you have any, do you have any thoughts on why that space might not exist? I know, you spoke a little bit about capacity, which definitely plays a role. Are there other factors that come to mind for you?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:51:15
Oh, no, I mean, I think I don't have a great sense of internal dynamics in AASWG. But, again, my sense has been like, does AASWG want to have anything to do with like, Duke as it? I don't know how I think my sense is AASWG has itself been trying to figure out what its relationship to, what it wants its relationship to the program to be. So. So I don't know if if there needs to be internal unity in AASWG on that question before it makes sense to have a discussion with faculty? Maybe not, maybe it doesn't need to, or if there is internally like I, so I don't know if there's internal unity, and AASWG around that or if there needs to be. Or if that's a priority. I think, for fact, I mean, I would say for faculty, like, like, it's a capacity. And then the fact is, like, we're, students and faculty are in a different position. So faculty don't, I mean, as a matter of, just because of our position relative to students, like we don't feel a pressure to have that space to open that space, right. You could call it privilege, or, or power or whatever, but like, we are doing our jobs, we're just going about our days or whatever, teaching classes. And we keep, we'll keep doing that, regardless of whether there is a sense, like students, like have some disagreements or not, you know, as long as if, like, if it got to the point where students were really pissed and stopped enrolling in our courses, that would be like, a real thing for us. But yeah, so I think just for from, like, from faculties perspective, like, there isn't that pressure to open up that space necessarily on its own unless, yeah, unless, you know, one of us is like, hey, we really need to do this let's prioritize it. Yeah, we're pretty low. I would say like, yeah, capacity is like a real issue. Because, you know, we're not our own we are our own program. We're not our own department. I, you know, don't get any less. I don't, I'm expected to do as much work for the History Department as any other History Department faculty person. And Anna is likewise, for, for GSF. So, I, I ended up doing probably double the amount of departmental like, community service type, we call it like service work as like a typical history faculty person. Because I'm also in AADS, you know. I guess a lot of other history faculty are in other programs, too, but like, we don't get it, you know, so, capacity is like a really, really big issue, I would say for faculty. Yeah.
Lauren, 00:54:33
Considering that those limitations that you just mentioned, of the AADS program, what are your your aspirations, visions, and/or hopes for this program?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:54:40
Yeah, I mean, I would say, I mean, like, we need, like me and Anna need to get tenure, so that like the program has stability, because otherwise you'd be going back ten years, like it would be like losing seven years. And then you know, I think that the what we don't, and we need to hire more like, so we need to hire faculty that do critical refugee studies. I think particularly, we need to figure out how we get our core faculty, who does South Asian studies into a tenure track, tenured position. I feel like that's important for the stability of the program. And then, you know, I would say like, the, you know, the other thing that's kind of like, not in our that, like, we just, it probably needs to be after Anna and I get tenure, but like, we haven't figured out that kind of critical, you can call like, critical service learning, but just like, community-centered curriculum, so like, we don't have students like going out and organizing, or whatever, doing community arts or whatever, as part of our AADS courses. Yeah, that's like, something that we'll have to tackle at some point, I think, if we want to, I think, keep what I understand to be at least kind of the like, what AASWG kind of had envisioned for the program.
Miriam, 00:56:39
How, what is your sort of vision for, or I guess, have you or AADS a whole sort of thought through sort of what the roadmap is to get, to get towards that vision? Or is this just your personal vision? Shared vision?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:56:57
No, we haven't talked about this, this issue. Yeah. It's my, you know, it's my own, I would say like my own stuff, obviously, the history of Asian American Studies, like I've done a bunch of research about, like, if you look at the Berk, like, who like, what UC Berkeley was, like, in 1970, or ‘71, or ‘72, they just hired students to do community organizing, and they call them fieldwork assistants. So I had like, 23, they hired like, 23 students, the students just did community organizing, like full-time. And they were like, this is part of our Asian American Studies, they actually called it Asian Studies and didn’t call it Asian American Studies at the time. And they're like, this is part of our Asian Studies program. And they're like, they had like a huge battle with faculty and the university over with primarily the university over that. And they lost. So that doesn't exist anymore. But at Stanford also which I did a bunch of research in the history of the program at Stanford, they did a bunch of they instituted what called critical service learning, similar thing with just had a bunch of courses really, that were centered on doing community work, you know, painting a community mural, organizing for the domestic workers Bill of Rights. That was a class that they ran like four times, because a bill got vetoed three times, I think, in California, before it passed. Yeah. So that's more based on my own kind of understanding of the history of Ethnic Studies, more than like discussions that we've had in the program. Yeah.
Lauren, 00:58:40
Yeah, kind of shifting a little bit. How has your perspective, or how has your perspective on holding the institution accountable from within shifted since being hired? If so, how, if not, what?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:58:52
Say the question again.
Lauren, 00:58:54
Sorry. How has your perspective on holding the institution accountable from within shifted since being hired? If so, how?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 00:59:01
Um, well, I would say, I mean, because, you know, as a grad student, we did, like some organizing. It was just like, issue demands, do action, stuff like that. I would say from the faculty, like, I'm, I am not sure how the institution works. Like, I just don't know, I asked this like, every time I've run into people with administrative experience, like, how do administrators make decisions like how do they decide like, like, who they're gonna give faculty hires to, how did they decide like this how and it still seems like really complicated and I don't really understand it that much. And like, so I am still trying to figure out how you move an agenda in at Duke. I don't, I could not tell you like how I as a faculty person, like if I wanted to get something to happen and like, how, what would the steps be? How would that relate? How would like inside strategy relate to like a student pressure campaign, for instance, like and like, how do those pieces come together? I just don't understand it right now. But like, yeah, and like, there's been things where I have been trying to figure things out like Trinity’s going through a big curriculum reform. And I, like, started talking to a bunch of people about like, should we have a diversity requirement? Or like, do you have to take an Ethnic Studies course or Gender Studies course? And if if we wanted to do that, like, how do we, how do we make that happen? Because there's like, on the one hand, this like big faculty committee that's doing curriculum reform, and like, how do you like, yeah. And then there's also Deans that would make a decision about this stuff, just how does how do all those pieces fit together? And how do you like, yeah, do you go to all the directors of the different programs? Like? Get everyone to sign a letter send it in? Or what? Like, how do you actually approach it? So I'm still, I would say, I don't know how to hold an institution accountable from the inside yet, or even to move a program? And I think I, it will take me a little bit of time to figure it out.
Miriam, 01:01:29

What, what do you think are? What do you think are some of the challenges? Or what do you think are some of the challenges of sort of figuring that out? Do you think the institutional complications of Duke are unique? Or is this something that happens everywhere? What are your thoughts?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 01:01:50
Well, I would say like, you know, it's very different from things that I'm used to think about. So you are a corporation, you're the executive of a corporation, you are mainly worried about profit. And so if you're a union organizer, you're putting pressure, like, you're worried about profit, and you're worried about, like, how you just run the business every day, and you're also a human being. So as a union organizer, you've got to like, try to put a punch, you gotta like, disrupt how they run business, make their lives a little difficult. Ultimately, your power comes from being able to threaten their ability to make a profit. And you got to do that without like, making them personally pissed at you, like making it personal, so that they just decide, they don't want to, they don't want to settle a fight with you, because it's personal. If you're in politics, I mean, that, that like kind of human factor, still stands, you, you. But like you, politicians generally care about their future careers, they want to be able to win elected office, again, that depends on votes, and that depends on being able to get money to campaign. And that depends on like, what your public image is, and stuff like that. And there's like, I think, really clear ways to like, think about how you pressure elected officials. I just, I don't know what factors university administrations care about, in the absence of like, if you've got a student movement that's going to turn the university upside down, like we had in the late 60s, that's easy. You turn the university upside down, and then you win some things. And like the faculty vote, to approve your Ethnic Studies program, because they like that, because you because like, they don't want the university to like fall apart. That's not like the situation that we're in right now. And so you've got to think about, like, what do these people care about? So that, you know, how you yeah, like, how you align what they care about with, like, you're trying, like, the agenda that you have. And I just, I don't know, what these people care about. Like I just don't like because they're not it's not like, I mean, we talked about universities as corporations and like, that's kind of true, but it's not the same, like you don't like, you know, because you're making like a, like, so much of it's just like, the return on your endowment, which like we have no control over. It's not like they make a profit mainly by exploiting students as workers or something or it's just, you know, there's some things that like alumni donations, yes, that's like an important thing. Like, maybe these people want to go on to pursue careers in higher administrative offices in other universities. That's something to think about. But, you know, I just, I don't have a real good sense of like, how people with decision-making power, make their decisions. And you've got to understand that if you're going to think about how you win, how you win what you want to win. I don't know if that makes sense or not.
Lauren, 01:05:25
Yeah, it's a lot of sense. And if you could, looking forward, if you could send along a message to the student activists and organizers who fought for, are currently in, and will be joining this program, what would you say?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 01:05:40
Wow, I don't know what I would say. No, I mean, obviously, I have immense gratitude for all the work that people put into fight for Asian American Studies, both as a formal program, but also like, in house courses and stuff that students do to educate each other. And like, just basically trying to yeah, trying to make sense of like, struggling to make sense of the world. And because they know that, like, what they're being told about the world does not make sense. And I would say the struggle that struggle like so there's that the, all the effort that goes into educating ourselves and fighting for an education that matters. And then there's a whole ‘nother set of questions. And the out what the purp, like, what else besides academic content is there to fight for? And I would say that stuff is not settled. I mean, there was a vision from the late 60s and 70s. That vision, certainly it didn't, may have been right or wrong. It certainly didn't get realized. People are trying to figure that out still. And I think it's worthwhile to try to keep figuring that out and keep trying to struggle for what your vision is, of Asian American Studies inside and beyond the classroom.
Miriam, 01:07:52
Thank you. I guess, I guess we want to just leave a couple minutes at the end. Is there anything that you might have wanted to touch on that we didn't ask about or anything that you want to sort of add anywhere?
Dr. Cheung-Miaw, 01:08:09
I don't think so. No, yeah. You asked a lot of great questions. Very grateful for the chance to share this with you. Yeah.
Miriam, 01:08:22
Thank you so much. Alright. I guess we can go ahead and stop this.