"Leading the Way to the 21st Century" is the theme of the upcoming 20th Anniversary East Coast Asian Student Union (ECASU) Conference, which Cornell will host Friday, Feb. 20, through Sunday, Feb. 22.
The group's stated goals include: fortifying Asian and Asian Pacific American student organizations; fighting for social, cultural, economic, educational and political equality; building alliances between Asians and other minority groups; and advancing unity among Asians.
"Asian-American groups at Cornell could be more unified," said Noelle Dong, public relations chair for ECASU '98. "Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asian people here tend to be separated from one another. This conference will be a good way of bringing them together."
More than 500 students from colleges and universities in the eastern United States are expected to attend the conference, which will feature workshops, speakers, performances, a coffeehouse, a movie and a dance. This is the second time the conference has been held at Cornell, the first having been the 10th anniversary meeting in 1988.
A highlight of Saturday's program is a panel discussion on "Bridging the Gap Between College and Community Activism" at 1:15 p.m. in Kennedy Auditorium. The day's other workshop topics include: leadership and activism in the Asian Pacific American community; financial, labor and health issues; and Asian-American fraternities and sororities.
Among the speakers at those events are: Jane Sung-ee Bai, executive director of the New York-based Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence; Ti-Hua Chang, Emmy award-winning reporter for WNBC in New York; Julie Chon '98, Cornell student-elected trustee; Gary Okihiro, professor of history and director of Cornell's Asian-American Studies Program; Vijay Prashad, associate professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., who taught several courses at Cornell in the past; and Renee Tajima-Pena, a documentary filmmaker, whose film "My America ... or honk if you love Buddha" will be screened Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Willard Straight Hall.
Registration begins at 5 p.m. Friday in Robert Purcell Community Center. For more information, including event times and locations, call the Asian American Studies Program office at 255-3320 or visit the conference's web site at <www.aasp.cornell.edu/ecasu98>.
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