Category Archives: Coming Soon!

I have to admit to feeling some hometown pride right now since our local university, GO UMASS AMHERST, is home for this year’s ECAASU Conference, coming up February 18th and 19th. (That’s the East Coast Asian American Student Union for those of you who didn’t know.)

This year’s theme is B.R.E.A.K.: Bridge, Revitalize, Equality, Action, Knowledge: Bridging the past and present by revitalizing the APIA political movement to demonstrate equality for all; actions across color-lines, and sharing knowledge to promote a collective community. (via)

Conference topics are varied and the workshops include things like: Calling All Young Activists-You’re the next generation of the labor movement; The Asian American Literary Review; When Hate Hits You-Responding to Anti-Asian Sentiment; Secret Identities-The Asian American Comics Revolution, and much more.

The session I am least qualified to attend? Breakdancing 101.

As great as the conference sounds, I also have to admit some hesitancy. What is up with the sponsorships? Heavy, heavy, heavy on the military and related agencies.

There’s also this: U.S. Navy STEM Mixer
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Let me make myself clear. My feeling is that it is vital to have a wide variety of sponsors that represent a number of different avenues for people. For this conference, the overwhelming number of heavily promoted sponsors leans in a particular direction and perhaps unintentionally warns of a political leaning in the conference as a whole. Looking at the variety of workshops that are available, I think they are as varied as the Asian American population and I would hate for the sponsorships to undermine that reality.

Was this the only set of options for sponsorship? If so, that’s kind of sad and there has got to be more. (And-Ahem-no one asked Japanistic!)