Person Speaking, HH:MM:SS

Thang, 00:00:02

All right. Thank you so much for interviewing with us today, Dr. Lee. Could you please start off by introducing yourself and your role at Duke University?

Dr. Lee, 00:00:09

Okay, so yes, my name is Esther Kim Lee, and I'm professor of Theatre Studies, International Comparative Studies, and History. And I'm the director of Asian American and Diaspora Studies.

Thang, 00:00:23

Could you share with us a little bit about what your research is?

Dr. Lee, 00:00:26

My research? So I'm a theatre historian. I work on Asian American theatre. My most recent book, Made-Up Asians: Yellowface during the Exclusion Era that came out last year looks at the history of yellowface in which non-Asian actors put on makeup to look Asian and East Asian particularly. And so I traced the history from about like 1860 to 1940. I looked at a lot of archives, lot of images of actors, tracing how yellowface functioned during the Exclusion Era, and I argue that it was a technology of exclusion, in which, when you have absence of actual Asian actors, and you have white actor playing Asian roles, it's basically underscoring the fact that Asians are not there. So I look at, so the title Made Up Asians means both like makeup, but completely fictional Asians. But it was also a time when the concept of Asia was also being made up. So I look at that particular era right before World War Two. And but before that, I worked on Asian American theatre history. So I interviewed a bunch of Asian, you know, you took my class, Asian American theatre artists and and I'm still working on, you know, contemporary Asian American theatre, usually, in short, shorter pieces. My book projects are longer historical projects. And the shorter pieces are usually contemporary, like articles, in which I go see Asian American play. And I interpret them the way that I think should be interpreted from Asian American perspective, because usually, what you see are reviews in the New York Times from very white, male-centric point of view, which—they don't get the point. So I tend to correct that by responding to them with with articles now. That's my field. So yeah, I'll keep it short. But if you want to like, follow up,

Alice, 00:02:20

Yeah.

Thang, 00:02:22

Yeah yeah yeah. To actually follow up on that, what prompted you to conduct this research? Was there any moment that you were like, “Oh, my goodness, like, I need to do this research.”

Dr. Lee, 00:02:31

The yellowface one, the most recent one?

Thang, 00:02:32

Mhm, the yellowface one.

Dr. Lee, 00:02:34

Yeah, this one. Um, so I… So when I was writing my first book on Asian American theatre artists, that came out in 2006, its title is, A History of Asian American Theatre. So as I said, I interviewed like, 70 people, 70 plus people to write this book. And everyone that I talked to, mentioned yellowface as a reason for getting into theatre. So especially actors, especially older generation actors, who say “I did theatre, in protest of yellowface, I want to get rid of yellowface, I strongly believe that Asian roles should be played by Asian actors…” So there's this kind of, like, I want to say, maybe like an origin story for Asian American theatre was yellowface. And in many ways, still responding to yellowface, many plays are about representation, stereotypes, what Asians should look like on stage, how they should be perceived. So I thought that yellowface is a is really the background, but in a really—kind of in a way that has lingered on. And whenever there's a controversy on yellowface, you know, the latest.. I mean, there's always something on yellowface, right? There's protests against it saying it’s racist and the people who are proponents of yellowface saying, you know, it's a tradition, right, all of these arguments going back and forth. And I found that if both sides were very tautological, they're talking in circles, because we really don't know the history of yellowface. Like without knowing the history. Yeah, you're only looking at one part of the entire issue. So yeah, so I decided that I should write this book. I think one moment if you’re looking for one moment is I went to a conference in, in Oregon 2016. And there was a playwright who was also mired in his own version of yellowface. And he was on a panel to talk about yellowface, and he said, I actually don't want to talk about yellowface. I'm a playwright. I want to write plays. So I said, Oh, well, yeah, that's right. Artists should do their art. I'm a theatre historian, so I should write the book on yellowface. So that's when I started to really push through, start the research. Yeah.

Alice, 00:04:58

Okay. Thank you for sharing. We wanted to ask a little bit more about some of your personal life away from academics. And so we were curious to know about a little bit about your life, where you grew up, kind of the experiences that shaped your personal growth and values and like where you are today.

Dr. Lee, 00:05:16

So I was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. And at the age of 11, my dad decided to go back to graduate school. And he chose Santa Barbara, California, UC Santa Barbara, for his graduate program, he wanted to study philosophy. So he became a philosophy professor later on. So I went from Seoul, Korea, where I was very happy and finished my elementary school and went to Goleta, California, which is a little bit north of Santa Barbara, where UC Santa Barbara is located. So I grew up there. I went to middle school, high school there, I was very much part of the Korean international student scene. Everyone that we hung out were all international graduate students. And I remember I was one of the older kids. So I would be the primary babysitter for these children of Korean international students. My parents are very active in church. So it was a current Korean Protestant church. So I think they they were like one of the founders of the Korean church there in Santa Barbara. It’s still there. I played the piano at the church. (light laughter) I was a pianist. (laughter) So I grew up in a very Christian household. I laugh now because I don't go to church anymore. (Thang laughter) And then so and then I went to UC Santa Barbara there for undergrad. I got my BA in Computer Science there. And then yeah, and then I decided to change my major and do a Masters in Dramatic Arts that's also at Santa Barbara. So that takes me to age 25. (group laughter)

Thang, 00:07:09

Why did you decide to change your major from Computer Science to Dramatic Arts?

Dr. Lee, 00:07:13

Where you there when I told that story to the class? I don’t know…

Thang, 00:07:16

I don’t remember.

Dr. Lee, 00:07:17

Oh okay. So it was my last term, there was a quarter systems, my last quarter my senior year at UCSB. And my advisor counselor told me that I needed one more general education class to be able to graduate. And it turned out to be like an arts class. And, and all of those so-called easy classes are all closed. So like, Introduction to Dance, like those popular classes are all closed. (laughter) So I ended up taking like a sophomore level class for majors, it was called Dramatic Structure. And it's a theory class. It’s about.. It’s a dramatic theory class. So I thought, oh, you know, I was like, you know, pass the class, who cares, doesn't affect my GPA. And I'm sitting there. And, you know, this is Santa Barbara. So they don't take attendance. (Alice laughter) And there's a beach right there. Whenever there's sun, I mean, there's always sun out, but whenever particularly sunny day, half the class is not there. And no one really cares. That's that culture of you know, so I just like sat in the back of the class and listen to the lecture. And I saw myself really gradually getting into the lecture. And then one day, the professor was talking about structural drama, in terms of like beginning middle end like climax and all that stuff. And then structure of the human brain, we think, because he was also specialist in Dream Studies and Narrative Studies. So how we create narratives, why like dreams don’t have narratives like that. So he's talking about the structure of that narrative and how our brain structured, and he was and he was talking about computer science, structure of computer science, and he’s actually kind of talking about AI stuff at this point, right? We didn't read it that way. And light bulb went off in my head, and I said, “Oh, I want to do what he does.” It was fascinating so I went to his office hour and told him, I wanna do what you do. So so after graduating with a with a BA in computer science, I went back to school and I went applied for the the master's program in dramatic arts and did my masters with him, and he turned out to be a very, very famous theatre theorist, Bert States, a legendary figure, he's passed away now a legendary figure, and very, very fortunate to have worked with him. So that's how I changed my major. So you never know you don't. Even after you graduate,

Thang, 00:09:33

Mmm. What was the reaction like from your family?

Dr. Lee, 00:09:35

Well, again, my dad was a philosopher. He's still alive, so he's a philosopher. So he, he wanted me to major in philosophy. (group laughter) He’s like take a philosophy class. And I took some philosophy classes. And I thought they were so boring, so dense, talking about abstract things. And I say you know, I need examples. So theatre is an example. I mean, you could talk about philosophy but theatre provides concrete example of how we behave and what life, you know, meaning of life is on stage. So, yeah, my dad was very supportive. And my mom, she, you know, like a typical immigrant mom, she wanted me to go to med school, pre-law all that stuff. Until I got my first job, she continued to say you could still turn to law school, it’s pretty... Now she doesn't she's, she's very proud. But I think, you know, I think my parents are okay. I think one thing about my parents. They are very atypical Korean parents, they really let me do what I want to do. I think they trusted me, they really left me alone. Which is, I think, a really a good thing for parent to do. Just leave the kid alone, like they could figure it out. Right. And then I think, you know, looking back, I think, I think a lot of hesitancy came from me being anxious of like, let's say, the job market. But at that time, even with a Computer Science degree, I couldn’t get a job because there was a recession in California. If I had, like, waited another three, four years, I think I could have been part of the Silicon Valley wave, and I would be really rich and not here right now. But who knows um, yeah, but but I think I've always been a humanities person. So it feels like I kind of returned to the work that I was supposed to be doing.

Alice, 00:11:26

Do you know of a certain moment in time during that like career trajectory where you wanted to integrate like the Asian American Studies side of the dramatic arts and theatre? Or was it kind of a natural, intertwining would you say?

Dr. Lee, 00:11:44

Well, when I was at UC Santa Barbara, this is ‘92 ‘93, 1992 1993. The first Asian American Studies Department had been created in the country. And Sucheng Chan was a well known historian was there. And at the time, it was a big deal, but I really didn't have my, like, interest in the area or I, you know, I think the focus there was a lot of it was history and social sciences. So it wasn't something I was interested in. I was leaving the program, I mean, the university anyway, and I, my master's thesis was about like two European playwrights, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett, you know, one British one Irish playwright. And I’m still very interested in those very kind of modern, postmodern plays. But my turn to Asian American Studies Asian American theatre occurred when I went to Ohio State for my PhD. So I told my professor at Santa Barbara, like, I want to do what you do, literally, I want to be here and he said, No, we don't hire our own student, you should, it would be good for you to get out of Santa Barbara, you could see the world, and go get, go do your PhD with my friend over there. You know, he's he's a good, you know, mentor. So I went to Ohio State to study with a theatre historian his name is was Thomas Postlewait and he was a great mentor and I learned to be a theatre historian. So I got the theory part from Dr. Bert States and then theatre history from Dr. Tom Postlewait. And when I was preparing for my doctoral exam, you know, a doctoral exam we call comprehensive exam. So it's like three-day exam on everything on theatre history, it's kind of like study everything. It's a very, very like intensive exam. But to prepare for it I was looking at all these books on theatre history, and I couldn't find anything on Asian American theatre, I went to the library, looked through all the shelves. I found some on African American theatre, Chicano theatre, but nothing on Asian American theatre. I think there was one book on Asian American dramatic literature from a literary perspective or anthropology. And I was surprised and angry. I thought, why isn't there a book on Asian American theatre? Like, right? It was like, this kind of absence was just, it didn't make any sense. So I took a tape recorder. And, and I interviewed people, I started interview, and I thought initially, I would do maybe five interviews with five major playwrights and I’ll be done. But then it just one person led to another it grew and grew. So I interviewed people all over the country. LA, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, DC, I mean, like all of our kind of major cities. And so I wrote a version of of that study as a dissertation, and that became kind of a first draft to my book. So I finished that dissertation in 2000, in July 2000, and I started my first job in August 2000 at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, so it happened quite quickly cuz I think I decided to do Asian American theatre, probably like ‘98 or so. So within two years, I, you know, I got it done and and then yeah, so yeah, I'll pause there. But that's how I got into Asian American Studies.

Thang, 00:15:18

Yeah. Could you talk to us more about… so this is around like 2000. And I wanted to learn more about your hiring process leading up to you being here at Duke.

Dr. Lee, 00:15:31

So 2000 to 2018? Yeah. So yeah, University of Illinois, at that time, Urbana Champaign in 2000, when I was hired, had a cluster hire that’s a truly a cluster hire because it had six new professors. Hiring, um, a cluster hire should be more than two, right? It should be, like six. So they had like historian, English, anthropology, sociology, psychology. And then, so of course, then they could give one to the arts, right? So I was, so I was hired as their theatre person. I was there for 12 years. So I saw that program go from basically nothing to a department with a major. It’s one of the most successful Asian American Studies departments, especially in the Midwest. So I was part of the team that grew that department into something that is really meaningful now in the field. So I feel fortunate that I was able to kind of participate. And that was when lot of Midwestern universities were forming Asian American studies programs like Indiana, Minneapolis. Yeah. Northwestern, I think was a little bit ahead. So from there, I then moved to University of Maryland in 2012, 2013. That year, and I was happy at Illinois, but my husband and I were commuting at the time. Well, he was commuting, we kind of had a long distance marriage and we had two kids. So when he got a job in DC, you know, and then I got an offer from Maryland, it was like, okay, we can finally live in the same house. So yeah, so we moved there. And yeah, and I was happy there too. And Asian American Studies there is not as strong as Illinois. They have a minor, they still have a minor. I know there's right now fighting for major at Maryland right now. But I was pretty much really in theatre at that time, because I was like associate director of the school and it was can be really busy. So I didn't have a lot to do Asian American Studies at Maryland. And, and then there are Yeah, right before I came here, I actually was contacted by the department to apply for the for this job. What I learned was later I learned was that I had not initially applied for this job. There was a job open for theatre history is theatre historian. And that was right when students were protesting here for an Asian Americanist faculty member to be hired. And this is something you need to verify with others. But this is what I heard was that the dean at the time Dean Ashby, Valerie Ashby, went to the student group and said, I promise you that… I don’t know if that was her word but basically, I will do my best to hire a new faculty member in Asian American Studies. Interestingly, instead of like having an open call, or like a job announcement in Asian American studies, I think what she ended up doing was to go to these pre-approved searches are already going on, and told them to hire Asian Americanist and said, basically said if you find an Asian Americanist, we could give you two lines or something like that. I think that's kind of that's the version I heard. So I was asked to apply after the deadline. And things went really fast from there, I remember. I applied like in November, came for a campus interview in January, and then got an offer, like, it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, right. And I remember when I interviewed in January, it was actually interesting that they had me come before classes began. So there's nobody here. No students, like “I actually meet, I want to meet students,” there were no students. And I remember giving a job talk at the Smith warehouse, the FHI building, and this group of Asian American students, I'm still trying to figure out who they are, but I think they’re seniors, so I think. A group of Asian American students, like all walked in, I want to say they're like maybe four or five of them. And they all sat in the front row. They're all sat in the front row, and listened to my talk and asked questions and all these things. And then later, someone said that they did that intentionally to show the search committee and the university that they were there, that they needed to see that, they wanted to be seen so this a kind of performative act they did. And then I mean, for them to show up before classes began, like, I don't know how they were already on campus. So they showed up. So it was such a powerful act. So I think that's why I have the job. They were visibly there to support my candidacy. Because the other ones in theatre, you know, were not Asian Americanists. So that's how I ended up here. So thanks to them. So if you could find out who they are, you know, I'd love to say thank you… to those students.

Thang, 00:20:55

That would be wonderful.

Dr. Lee, 00:20:56

Yeah.

Thang, 00:20:57

Yeah. What were what were your feelings like at the time? What do you remember?

Dr. Lee, 00:21:01

Oh, gosh, I think I was surprised to see that ‘cause I was told that there were no students. And just to like, ‘cause usually when you go to a talk, everybody wants to, like, they'll all sit in the back. So for them to actually come to and fill up fill up the front row. So and they're, like, all like bright-eyed and like, pay attention, interested. So yeah, so that's because I had heard about the protest, I read about it, right. So I thought, oh, activism is very, very, you know, live here. It's just great. This is what you want to see. Because on many campuses, Asian American Studies is taken for granted. So I realized that, oh, this is not gonna happen. And I actually gave a talk on the Miss Saigon controversy, the topic that we studied. So I think it was relevant, very contemporary. And, the revival of Miss Saigon, had just like, was on Broadway at the time. And it was very relevant topic. So I was very impressed with Duke students, I’ll put it that way.

Thang, 00:22:02

So this was right around 2000...

Dr. Lee, 00:22:05

January 2018

Thang, 00:22:06

2018, yeah. What were your hopes? Or what did you hope to see in this at Duke? Specifically, like as you, How did you envision yourself being part of this institution when you were applying for this job, and after you got it?

Dr. Lee, 00:22:21

Well, so, again, like in Maryland, I was really in theatre, I was like 99% in theatre. So I, my mind really wasn't—although I was like, teaching Asian American theatre, most of my students in that class were not Asian American. So it was a very different environment. And so when I decided to come to Duke, and I’m being hired in theatre, so theatre department at the time was, had lost a lot of faculty members, it was very small and having some challenges. So I was also focused on that. And good thing is that they hired another theatre historian with me, who's now a department chair and he’s wonderful, so that that took lot of kind of, like, potential responsibility that could have had, and then he's taking that. So when I was signing the contract, you know, there was language in the contract that said, like, I'll be the, so they would have me come in. And they're counting my years at Maryland, ‘cause I was due for a sabbatical that they would give me a two years sabbatical, I mean, pff, I wish, two semesters sabbatical, and then my third year will be when I would become the director of Asian American Studies, because that's the, at the time, Dr. Aimee Kwon was a director and her term was to be like, only two years, because she was not a full professor yet. And because I'm coming in as full professor, like, the expectation was that I would start in my third year. And it was, it was kind of sold to me as something like that, really not a big deal. Like this is like really minimal work. Initially, then they did not give me any kind of like, what we call course release, which is like, a lot of people like when faculty members become department chairs or teams, they get course release, which is like you teach less courses so you have time to do these other things. Initially, it wasn't, there was no course release. There's like small amount of stipend and it was it was like why would I do that for like that small of like, support like, wha—. So I was able to negotiate like one course release and little bit more extra work but that was kinda sold to me as something really minimal. Like there's really nothing to happen. We might just do more hires, but it's really really like minimal, nothing’s really happening. And and the upper administration, I think they were also very unclear about what this program was to be because it was brand new. And Aimee was already, still fi- figuring out what was going to happen. So no one really knew what it was. So I knew I took a chance by saying yes, I would do, but at that time I looked at the the faculty profiles, and there was no one who would be considered an Asian Americanist, whose primary research is in Asian American studies. In many ways, my primary research is really not, not Asian American studies, I’m a theatre historian, but I was like the closest you could get to an Asian Americanist. Even Dr. Aimee Kwon is not an Asian Americanist, her research area. So just think about that, like a big school like Duke has no one who's doing Asian American Studies as their primary research. So when I looked at that, again, I kind of got angry. I was like okay, like, somebody's got to do, I got to do it. Right. So I, so I agreed to do it. So yeah, and then it was, again, a very kind of a big question mark, what this program was to be, what students wanted. That was also not very clear. I think there were there was demand for students demanding for courses to be to be taught and for faculty to hired but beyond that, there was nothing really long-term vision to be discussed. But… should I just keep talking?

Alice, 00:26:15

Sure.

Dr. Lee, 00:26:16

Yeah, okay, so so. So the my first year, and then my second year, I took a sabbatical, that's when I wrote my book on yellowface. And then the third year, my second, in the middle of my second year was Spring 2020. So that's basically COVID era. And then the following year was COVID. So I just asked Aimee to just continue her directorship for one more year, ‘cause I didn't want to do the transition in the middle of it. And also, we had to do the hiring of the cluster hire, which was created right after I got here. It was—that's a whole ‘nother story that could tell, like how that just that search came about. So she continued for another year. And Amy, and you have to ask her, but was given basically like a pot of money to run this program. But very little in terms of infrastructure, infrastructure support, meaning like staff, space, even things like HR issues, finance, all those things, Aimee had to figure out, and the program coordinator that she worked with quit in middle of COVID. So it was very very challenging time. I mean, really, and then they had a hiring freeze during COVID. So she couldn't find anyone to hire. So this is why she was so burnt out towards the end, because it was really alone doing this. And at the time, as was very much events-centric. So a lot of events, programming, bringing artists and things like that. So without a program, a program coordinator, that's just impossible to do. So that was a very difficult time. And then, when I then agreed to be the Director, so this is my second year. So last year, I stipulated a few things for my contract. So one was, we need to, we were at Bryan Center. I don't know if you guys remember, or I don't know. We were actually part of the BASE. We had one office, part of BASE. So an academic program to be in student center, and when that space is already teeny tiny and small, I needed to get out and a lot of people are confused because—even CMA staff were confused ‘cause they didn't know what AADS was. They thought it was part of Student Affairs because it's, from students perspective, things might not be too obvious. From from faculty perspective, there's Academic Affairs and there’s Student Affairs. And the two really, really rarely communicate at the faculty level. From student perspective, it’s probably much easier to navigate. But Academic Affairs are like classes, majors, right, all the advising all that stuff. Student Affairs are student groups, food, whatever like student events, all the fun stuff, the social things you do. Those two are very separate if you look at like line of report reporting like the that flowchart, then you see (incomprehensible) complete, like the deans are at the front right? So for an academic unit to be in a space, in a space sense, in BASE was not right. So I said we need to get out and we need to be in an academic building. So one of the first things and it really it took… Aimee did it, tried to do it for three years and no one listened to her. No one, people like “Why? You should be here. You should be in BASE. Why would you want to get out?” But I had to, I had to like I remember like having a Zoom meeting with the two Deans and really explaining. And then the Dean went, finally went “Oh,” like she finally got it. Like that. “Okay. It makes sense. You're talking about like, classes and degrees and…” Yes, (laughs) that’s what we’re talking about. Right. So, so that's one of the demands I had, that we had. So they gave us a temporary space, Friedl. And now we’re getting like our final semi-permanent space. It’s literally being painted and shampooed right now. So 120 Friedl, and hope to, we hope to try to make that into Asian American Studies reading room. So we'll have like books and like, please hang out and meet people. It's not big, it's probably like this small. But still, we have something. So that was space was one big thing that I asked for. And, and then by that time, we had already hired Dr. Anna Storti and Dr. Calvin Cheung-Miaw. So I asked for a senior hire. And that search is literally going on right now. And are you meeting with the third candidate?

Thang, 00:31:03

Yeah.

Dr. Lee, 00:31:04

Yeah. So that's, so this senior hire search someone who will be the director after me ‘cause I agreed to do it only for three years, I have one more year, and I'm not gonna do it again. So senior hire to be the next director, someone who can come with a big vision. That and then, and then I wanted to create a degree program. And at that time, we were talking about certificate program. Because Latinx Studies has certificate program, and everybody thought that was the way to go. But I did some research, I interviewed some students, I talked to a whole bunch of people. And I came to realization that certificate program is meant to be temporary. And it's only for five years or so. It has to be reviewed and renewed. And it's a special case like computer science, entrepreneurship, like that kind of thing. But Asian American Studies as a, it's an, like a legitimate academic field that has PhD programs and conferences and journals. I mean, it's not a one time special thing, right? So I wanted to have, create a degree program that could eventually become major, maybe become a department if there's a consensus around it. So minor was the program that I wanted to go with. And so once that was decided, and I also found that, like AASWG students, for example, wanted certificate program because that had a capstone element, it's much more intensive. So for those students, I think the certificate program could have been better. But for other students, what I learned was that the minor was easier. And I knew that numbers really matter on this campus. Because when I talked to Latinx people, they only have three certificate students. I mean, as of this morning, we have nine minors in AADS, and the minor’s only, you know, a little better than a year old. So then I knew that numbers will matter a lot. So I wanted to have high numbers of people who are doing our degree program. So that was one reason I went in with a minor. So when we, once we did created a minor, I came across a challenge that I didn't expect, which is that Duke does not allow a new minor to be created in a unit without having the major first. So which is like, almost structurally, you're supposed to follow the traditional models, you can't create something brand new out of nothing, which was not the case in Illinois. You could have had a minor in Asian American Studies and then grow in the department. But all minors are literally the mini-majors. So so I talked to Dean William Johnson and we agreed that AMES would be the best partner in this regard, ‘cause we had to align ourselves with any, any department, could have been English, it could be Cultural Anthropology, but because of Dr. Aimee Kwon and others who are already in AMES, and so we wanted to go with the AMES alignment. And so I had to talk to the Chair of AMES, I had to write a whole draft, I drafted a whole proposal, sent it to him. And I know that ultimately AMES faculty voted for the minor to be created. But I know there, you know, a number of people who were not for it, primarily because of the lack of language requirement. Because AMES has language requirements, and I did not want to have language requirement in AADS. So but still, there are, you know, enough people in AMES, gratefully, that voted for it. It went through, and we made it go through the Academic Council, the Arts and Sciences, which is a faculty representative from all departments voting on curricular changes. And they approved it unanimously. I had to do a presentation on Zoom on why this minor is needed… And it went through. That was February last year. Yeah, I'll pause there. Yeah, been talking a lot.

Thang, 00:35:28

Thank you for sharing. So I wanted to retrace our steps back to the cluster hire that you were talking about. Could you talk more about even before then, like, as you were stepping into this role of being the director? What was your vision for AADS at that moment?

Dr. Lee, 00:35:46

Well, the cluster hire search, I think there are two separate things: my vision and cluster. So cluster hire search, so the money came from Duke Endowment. So it's not affiliated with Duke University. It's called Duke Endowment, but they gave a lot of money to Duke for various different causes. And so at the time, Dean Valerie Ashby, and she deserves a lot of credit for what she's done, because she's the first dean to say yes to students. Yes. You know, I think she said, Your work’s been done, you're done, you're done. Like, it's my turn to do this, right. So she actually kept her word and, and in order for them to ask for cluster hire. The reason it’s called cluster hire is because it's not just AADS cluster hire, ‘cause we only got two, because it was packaged with needs in Latinx Studies, American Indian Studies, and at the time, African Studies, like African Studies, usually faculty who are Black Africans. And so it was kind of lumped together. There's all these Chronicle articles, you could go dig up, and I think it was like Global Studies, or globalization, something global. So they need to grow the global something something at Duke, I forget the exact language, but that's how it was sold to Duke Endowment, or proposed to Duke Endowment, I should say so. And, and they approved it. And so I think it was like, six to eight faculty members, they gave enough money, endowment money, to be hired. And so so AADS got two. So that's how that cluster, that's why it's cluster, cluster hire. But yeah it was interesting to see Asian American Studies kind of lumped together with like African Studies and that kind of, all these, you know. You could make the case, but, yeah, (laughter) global mean can anything. So, yeah, I think as for my vision, at that time, I think, you know, for me, like whenever you do something, you want it, you wanna do your best, and you want to, you want to create something that's really worth your time, like, I want to do something that's worth my time, something that's really meaningful. And I was very interested in how—when and where we are, when and where AADS is at, which is 2018 2022 around like the 2020s and the US South. And I thought that, you know, there's something that's kind of aligning here, that I need to really think about. Asian American Studies began on the West Coast, 60s and 70s. And you, we saw what we call East of California, Asian American Studies in the late 90s, and 2000s. So now we're seeing like, third wave of Asian American Studies. So I really thought that Duke could be a leader in the new wave of Asian American studies. And both Dr. Calvin Cheung-Miaw and Dr. Anna Storti talked about this in their interviews too, especially Dr. Cheung-Miaw. He said, you know, the US South, wherever the US South goes, the US goes. This was, whatever is happening in the US South right now is gonna determine the future of the, the entire country. And I think that's completely right. So I think we can be the center of new kind of Asian American Studies in like, the most exciting, most innovative, most cutting-edge way. And I've always said, you know, I, if I'm going to do something, I want to make the make it the best Asian American Studies program in the country. We may not be the biggest, but we could be the most exciting intellectually and in terms of curriculum. So I think we're doing it already. We hired two exciting professors, and we’re gonna hire another really exciting professor and our classes are amazing, aren't they? Like, you know, so I think we're already on that trajectory. So, that was that was like dream big. You know, if you’re gonna do it, do it big. (laughter) Yeah.

Dr. Lee, 00:40:14

Where are you in your questioning? How many questions do you have?

Alice, 00:40:17

Yeah, we have quite a lot.

Thang, 00:40:18

We have quite a lot, but truthfully, I've been going off script. Yeah. (laughter)

I wanted to learn more about what you were specifically looking for in the cluster hires, like, who are you talking to like to fit into your bigger, grander vision of like making AADS the best in the American South, but also understanding that Asian American Studies is not anywhere near where it was back then. It shouldn't be, it's moved on, it's evolved, right. And so given that context, what was your, how did you go about doing the cluster hire?

Dr. Lee, 00:40:51

Yeah, best not just in the South but in the country. Yeah. Cluster hire. I, you know, I had witnessed what—how things happened in Illinois, which is they hire, I think all junior faculty at the time, junior faculty means like entry-level professors who are just coming out of graduate school, not people who are tenured, who's been teaching for 10 years and such. So I knew how exciting that was. So I was, I was drawn a lot more to junior, the people who are just coming out of graduate school, who were doing really new things, new, new topics. And we had, I think we had, I forget the exact number, but we had over 200 applications for the cluster hire. I may be wrong on the number but but in the hundreds, right. And it was a very complicated process, because we had multiple departments looking at multiple files, and it was such a competitive pool. And we interviewed a number of people, and including really big names of famous people. But again, I think we have, I kept returning to “Is this person doing work that is signaling a new direction in the field? Is this person, the person may not be a superstar, so-called, now, but will this person become a superstar in the future?” Meaning that they’re gonna be leading scholars in the field. So looking at the potential. And another thing is, I took student feedback very seriously. I don’t know before, were you here, when but yeah, so David and others, they all came to everything. It was all on Zoom, so it was easier, but they had meetings and like Shania was very active in that. And they interviewed the candidates rigorously. They are so impressed with student-led questions. And, and they gave us their list, ranking, and their thoughts. And yeah, the folks we hired were in the top. Top ranked. Yeah. So I and then fortunately aligned with what I was thinking too. So yeah, I think it worked out really well. I think we had actually of all the different units that did a cluster hire, we were the most successful one. I know that like African search is still not done. The American Indians not done. It’s still like lot of like delays and we've been the most successful. I've read about the like, yeah, most efficient. Yeah.

Alice, 00:43:51

You briefly talked about some of the feedback, at least with Dean Ashby and kind of the administrative response. So I'm curious to dig a little bit more deeper into that. And so what do you think was the overall response from other like, administrators? And was there backlash? If there was, how did y'all respond to that? Yeah, just overall administrative response during this process.

Dr. Lee, 00:44:15 So I mean, I think you should talk to Aimee, Dr. Aimee Kwon about this. I'm sure she was really at the center of it all. I think I came in after she's kind of laid the ground, lot of the groundwork was already done when I came in. So I, I'm taking the benefit of that, but I think at Duke—it’s still the case now, but there was a lot of educating that needed to be done. Lot of educating people on what Asian American Studies actually is. That it's not Asian Studies. Right? That's number one. I mean, I remember going to like almost every meeting and having to say that, it's not Asian Studies. And, and then taking student voice seriously, there's just just three, two, three points, I always had to like, repeat every every meeting I would go to. There is a some narrative I drafted for the Deans. I'm not sure if I could share the whole thing, but I may be able to share like passages from that, it’s like four page, single-spaced document I send to the deans, just to explain what we're doing. So, so there's that educating I had to do. And I don't know how much that circulated. But it was important, and I didn't want to go in go in thinking like, being critical. Like, why don't they know Asian American…? I didn't want to do that. That's not helpful, right? I mean, this is where Duke has been, and that's not productive at all. And as a teacher, I could teach my colleagues you know, and and the cluster hire was also very much of a teaching opportunity. Many departments found out that Asian American Studies is a thriving field with amazing people, they identified major scholars. So in the kind of immediate, my immediate interaction with the deans, Dean of Humanities, particularly, Dean Johnson, I think he understood pretty quickly what Asian American Studies is. And he's the one who came to our conference in September, remember, he gave kind of our opening, so you could even tell like that he knows what we're doing. And then, so it wasn't really at the Deans level, I think the Deans actually understood what we were doing, they get it. I think it was mostly like other colleagues on campus, who some of them are like downright against Asian American Studies, I’m gonna say you don't need Asian American Studies, you just have to expand Asian Studies. Like there was also a lot of kind of, I would say, like, almost like class-based discrimination. I think, Asian Studies tends to be a very, kind of elite, cosmopolitan, oh let’s study film made by this really famous Chinese wri—, like that there's a little bit of elitism in traditional Asian Studies. That’s what we call Oriental Studies, right? I mean, it's still there. But Asian American Studies is very much about like, struggle from the bottom up, right? We're talking about laborers and we're talking about, you know, Refugee Studies. We're talking about people who are coming to, you know 19th century, to be sojourners, to be workers, you know, like, there's various different kinds of history that tends to be read as, like, not academic enough, or like, there's a little bit of that kind of bias that that I could detect. And I don't know if that was part of anything that came from AMES, but I don't think so. I think I think there's wide recognition now, especially, that Asian American Studies, in many ways, I think, Asian American Studies is changing Asian Studies, like we're coming from the margins, changing the center, which is, which is something I love to see. But that's there's that kind of old feeling in that regard. There are some, some things to be worked out in the kind of social science, social sciences at Duke. Because there's, as a field, the Asian American Studies very much humanities and the arts, but there's increasing need for social scientists, like political scientists, so sociologists, psychology, public policy, like econ. And they're not that many of them out there. And even those fields are very split. So there's like quantitative and qualitative. Like our Keohane lecturer, Dr. Pawan Dhingra is a qualitative, right. I didn't get that much support from quantitative faculty from social sciences. So that's that's Duke. Duke is very, very much data-driven type of studies, especially social sciences. So that's, that's a challenge I think that needs to be dealt with going forward that that's the culture of Duke. There's, it's not gonna change overnight. But in the future, I would like to have a social scientist, in AADS faculty, so we offer Social Science course for students. So I'm still educating, there's some challenges. But yeah, to be continued. Yeah.

Thang, 00:49:24

Well, so you said that this is going to be, this upcoming year, is going to be your third and final year. Right. And so looking back, what is the kind of legacy that you want to leave behind?

Dr. Lee, 00:49:39

The legacy would be that I moved the needle enough in Asian American Studies at Duke that they cannot take it away anymore. It will not be able to go back. Because I've seen programs created from top down with lot of money, lot of faculty, but then it disappears because money goes away and they all disappear. So I focus my attention on things that they can not take away or be very difficult to take away. Like, if you do big event, big conference, big stuff, that’s that’s flashy and that's great, but then those are the easiest thing to get away, get get rid of. Those are those are just on the surface. I wanted to do things that are under the surface, like build it underground, which will be like, like our course code, or program code AADS in the course catalog. Like, like I emailed people and registrar's office said, we need to have this. And they said, we don't have a degree yet. We can't. I said, no, we're gonna have a degree, it's gonna happen. And then it got added. And I was so happy the first time I saw it in the course catalog. Oh, we have our course code there now. Those things, like those are difficult to take away once it's once it's part of the bureaucracy, once it’s part of the infrastructure, you cannot take it away. So that's one. Faculty hires, like having faculty tenure track faculty hires, those are, those are not, especially when they get tenured, you have to all make sure that these are amazing faculty get tenured. So if they can get, they’re permanent, so they're not going to be taking away our degree program, my minor, our space, once you're there, you're gonna squat, we're not gonna go anywhere right. So, so I hope to create Asian American Studies in a way that is, it's easier to identify as something permanent, something that is difficult to get rid of. So that's been kind of like my hidden agenda. (laughter) My hidden agenda. Yeah.

Thang, 00:51:58

Root it deep enough and they can't uproot it.

Dr. Lee, 00:52:01

Yeah. Root it yeah. It’s the root. Like let AADS find its roots. Once once you do that, then then yeah. It's, you have to think about when you have to program build you have to think about what's easy to get rid of, what's not easy to get rid of. So find something that is going to be permanent, and once it takes root, then it could it could grow. So it's not that it's not going to go away, but it's actually the only thing that will allow growth.

Thang, 00:52:28

You talked about the bureaucracy of Duke and embedding it so deeply into that. Perhaps like one pushback against that from students might be that once a program becomes institutionalized enough, then it kind of like loses its luster. Right? It kind of loses what made it so appealing to students who actively fought for and struggled for it?

Dr. Lee, 00:52:52

Yeah.

Thang, 00:52:53

And so how might you respond to students who might have those feelings of being fearful or perhaps being nervous about the institutionalization of a program like AADS, that's so rooted in community history?

Dr. Lee, 00:53:05

Yeah, no, I completely understand that anxiety. I'm very pragmatic. And I'm also very optimistic is that institutions like Duke can change and has changed. And we must change it. So yes, there are still elements of old Duke. Yes, it’s there. It’s probably gonna be there for a long time. But we have to believe that we we can change institutions like Duke, and that we are part of that change. And yeah, we should always be suspicious. That's very true. But it's one thing to be institutionalized, where you're assimilated into the cultural institution in a problematic way. But one other way is to be institutionalized, is where the, like I said, margin change the center, where the margin change that—that's the goal, I have. The margin, Asian American studies can change the culture of Duke at the core. I think I think it's already doing that. Right. Because because we are now so integral part of especially Trinity curriculum. We are already kind of exercising that decolonizing university, kind of, you know, goals of that effort. So yes, I'm both optimistic and pragmatic, in that sense. So I think what students have to do is to be on the alert and let the faculty know if we are assimilating instead of being transformative. I think that's your role, to be like watchdogs, in many sense. But, but, but I think the effort to really change the institution is the long term goal. I think I mean, that that's why we are here. I mean, it's if if Duke stays the way it’s kind of, this long reputation, whatever Duke has been like, it’s not going to be an like a leading elite university. And it knows that, I mean it leaders know that well. And I think I'm, I think I'm happy with the leadership at Duke. From President and we have a new provost coming in. I think it will be a thing we’re we're doing better than other elite schools. But I am also aware, I'm not naive enough to think that it's going to continue forever. I mean, we've got a new president, new, whatever, it could change overnight like that. But again, that's why I think I wanted to do things that they cannot change, cannot take away. But at the same time, you need to… yeah, you need to believe that things can things can change. People can change. And institutions can change. Yeah, I don’t know. I'm curious about what students think about that. If I if I would respond like that, what would they say? Am I sounding too naive? (laughter)

Thang, 00:56:07

I think whatever you're providing is what is coming from the heart. And so I think, even if students and faculty may not align on their perspectives, I think that the key thing is to have a conversation about it. And to build that kind of power together to be able to do the transformative work that you're describing.

Dr. Lee 00:56:27

Yeah, exactly.

Thang, 00:56:29

I also wanted to ask, now that you're going to your last last and final year,

Dr. Lee, 00:56:33

Hopefully. It depends on how fast this search moves. (laughter) Might have to do it for another year. (laughter)

Thang, 00:56:39

What are what are you looking forward to? What are what are some things that you're really looking forward to or perhaps dreaming of at this moment?

Dr. Lee, 00:56:49

Yeah, for my last year, you know, I last—so this this year, I guess this year, we couldn't do a lot of programming that we wanted to do because of the Keohane lectureship and we kind of had to put everything on hold. So next year, I'm working on right now, I'm already working on another September conference, like the one last September with Dr. Heidi Kim at UNC, to have a follow up to that conference. And we're going to have it on the US South, the topic US South and work with people in EOC, East of California. So there's already kind of movement in that. So we're going to be more more like networking even more and then have probably more of a national splash, I think. I think our identity will be like, like a lot more visible. And the goal that I want Duke to become a center of Asian American Studies in the US South, that and then we have some exciting courses that we're developing. Our classes are doing so well. You guys know, they fill up right away. Amazing courses. We just, it just like coincidentally, we have two new faculty members that, it’s not part of our hire, but it came through. We have someone in cultural anthropology, who works in disability studies. And her work is going to be on and they're both they're like both Emily's. We’ll have three Emily’s, it’s going to be so confusing. (laughter) On disability studies and her second project is going to be on Asian American Studies. I mean it's just really exciting things happening in cultural anthropology. And also in the law school, we have a law professor who’s coming in who works on Asian American immigration law and stuff. So just like, I feel like the kind of level of awareness of Asian American Studies is just kind of risen because of all of our efforts. And other departments are just volunteering hiring people. So it's just great, it's great. So I'm hoping to just make some more connections with other other departments. Growing our minor. My goal is to have students who don't identify as Asian Americans also take the minor, like, that's the goal. I if I had my magic wand, I would require an Asian American Studies course for all Duke students, right, to make it part of their education. So grow it in a way that you know, like Poli Sci majors would take our minor like, Public Policy like those, even those types of students would take or engineers right. That would that would be great if I could work towards that. And I think just programming theme, this is not confirmed yet, I think programming theme. We had talked about, like using like, I think the title was like “Sensing Asian America” or something like that, like sensory things: hearing, watching, tasting, you know, feeling, moving. So we might have a lineup of events and lectures around that theme, which should be exciting. Right?

Thang 00:59:51

Sounds very exciting.

Alice 00:59:52

Sounds fun.

Dr. Lee, 00:59:52

Yeah sounds fun huh. So I think I think that I'm really looking forward to after everything. Maybe next month. I'll start really programming that. I'm working on that. Yeah. And then I love the Undergraduate Research Symposium we did. That was really great. So I think to figure out how to do it in a way that just kind of scheduling wise, it just works for students, because it's just, it's hard to like, think about what you're doing in middle of the semester, even this kind of project, it'd be great if you could present it next year, something like that. I'm also working on creating some student awards. So we're going to have some research awards so that if you have research projects you want to do, you get some money to do it. We have travel awards, we are going to give a whole bunch of awards at our graduating dinner. I don’t know if you guys are coming, you're all invited. And we’re going to be you know, giving out awards to those students, like you know, service awards and all that stuff. We, I’ve been also another thing I’ve been working on is fundraising. And, and next year I’m going to really jump into it, like grant writing and fundraising, raising funds. There are some alums who have been just randomly sending us money. And I'm using that money towards, you know, for students. So all the student research fund will come from that that pot. And I want to hopefully work with some alums to maybe do even bigger fundraising maybe we could have like have endowed chair or much bigger, you know, stuff we can do. So like, money is another, is on my to do list. (laughter) Get money for the program. Yeah, so major grant writing that. I mean, I don't know if I could do it. But like a great, some some research projects, large scale research projects, maybe we can do. Maybe something on the US South. But yeah, it depends on how much time I have. Probably too many already. Yeah, that'll be exciting.

Thang, 01:01:54

That does sound very, very exciting.

Dr. Lee, 01:01:56

Yeah, yeah, that's a lot.

Thang, 01:01:59

That's a lot. (laughter)

Alice, 01:02:01

Lots of moving parts.

Thang, 01:02:05

Yeah, which seems to be like the case. After hearing your stories. It's just been moving a lot of different parts, trying to puzzle them, piece them together in ways that make the better the most sense for you.

Dr. Lee, 01:02:15

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is I also don't take this for granted. I know that there's waves in these programs. Right now there's a lot of interest in Asian American Studies but I’ve always also seen the downturns. So, I need to take advantage of advantage of this momentum at Duke. And so yeah, definitely.

Thang, 01:02:40

Any follow up?

Alice 01:02:42

I don’t think so.

Thang, 1:02:46

I guess we can, we're nearing the end. But I also wanted to ask you, about your reflections having been a part of Duke having been part of this whole entire, this whole movement and organizing for Asian American Studies to be at Duke, and what reflections if any, do you have that you'd like to impart on students, faculty, anyone who might listen back to this, and want to hear this story?

Dr. Lee, 01:03:10

Yeah. So I think, so I guess you're kind of asking, like, what I get out of it. Like how I respond to just it personally.

Thang, 01:03:22

Yeah, personally.

Dr. Lee, 01:03:23

Personally, yeah. I reflect back. Um, I think it comes really comes back to for me, students. I know, this sounds so cliche, but it's true. It's it comes back to students, because if, for example, I taught a student a couple years ago, it was on Zoom, and the student was from like, middle of Colorado, and went to all-white high school. And he, like, for the first time encountered Asian American issues and topics, and was surprised that his experience was already dramatized in a play. Like, it wasn't just singular, you know, isolated incident, but it was something that was valid and something that was already acknowledged. And it transformed him, right. I mean, made him more aware of himself, but also hopefully, more, like he could accept himself. Right, he could see himself better. So I thought that was such a—I mean, those moments are really powerful to me, like, I live for those moments. (laughter) So like, and students here at Duke are just so so hungry for Asian American Studies. And they're not like that on the West Coast. If you go to UCLA, it's all taken for granted. Right? And it's it's something very different. But there's something very viscerally like, like, like needed, like it's something that is desperately needed, I should put it that way, really desperately needed and and I'm I'm glad that I could help students, you know, find something in themselves through Asian American Studies. So I think that’s how I kind of reflect back like, whenever I have a tough day or you know, I think, I go yeah, I mean you're doing for students. It literally transforms you so right? So that's kind of like… I’m not crying (laughter) so that's that's how I do yeah.

Thang, 01:05:30

That's a beautiful way to end it. Thank you so so much.

Alice, 01:05:33

Yeah. Thank you so much for your thoughts.

Dr. Lee, 01:05:36

Yeah, I cry really easily so don’t think, don’t think much of it.