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VM: Well, let's actually talk more about Karen, because I'd really love to hear more about this first Asian American Women class that was taught and that you actually also co-taught with Karen. Could you tell us about that?

AU: Well, gee. Now I'm wondering if I'm getting my classes confused. I believe she taught a class with May Chen, that was the first class. The one I was involved in was the second class Karen co-taught. Karen and I submitted the proposal for it, but really, we were representing and entire collective of women that had been studying together. People like Vivian Matsushige, who was on staff at the Study Center. And so our whole little collective taught the class, tried to teach the class. So that was kind of interesting because, you know, you're dealing with not just one or two instructors but with this whole group of people that wants to have a say-so on what's going to happen in class.

VM: Can you remember some of the particular important issues that arose, or what it was like being an instructor at that time?

AU: I don't remember what it was like being an instructor, but the issues for us were always triple jeopardy. As Asian American women, we felt we needed to talk about racism, sexism and economic exploitation. And I'm trying to think. It might have been in the Women's Studies class, but I remember being in a class where we were really hard on some of the white male students in the class, there were a couple, and I think we came down really hard on them. [Laughs] In those days, right, we were so, "This is what we want to say."

VM: I'm sure it was an eye-opening experience.

AU: For them, yeah.

VM: So what did, how did you put together materials? I mean, being a teacher is so hard now, trying to figure out what materials would work, but I can't imagine back then when there were so few things. How did you come up with stuff to use in class?

AU: I think we did what a lot of those early classes were using. We used Gidra. Gidra was a huge source. The Berkeley women under Emma Gee had put out Asian Women, so we used that book, too. And then, of course, we used books like Sisterhood is Powerful, was out at that time. And then you just kind of scrounge around for anything you can find that might relate to your topic. It's so different now, huh?

VM: It must have been very energizing for the students. Do you remember how they responded?

AU: No, I don't remember.

VM: Was it a positive experience for you teaching this class?

AU: Yeah, it was positive. It was definitely positive. Though it was also complicated, because in those days, a lot of us were affected by Marxist-Leninist thinking. We were reading, also our study group was reading works by Lenin about women, and so I think we were pretty hard on ourselves. We would do self evaluation at the end of the course, and this was true in a lot of the organizations, too, you always do criticism/self-criticism. And I do kind of remember that, that we'd really, kind of like, okay, what did we do right, what did we do wrong? And I'm not sure if there's that kind of emphasis nowadays by instructors, I don't know. Is there? Do you do that kind of self-evaluation?

VM: Our students evaluate us. They let us know what they think at the end of every quarter. So you also mentioned these other classes or these other things that were going on simultaneously when you were involved with the Asian American Studies Center that was beginning. And you mentioned your involvement with the Asian American Student Alliance. Could you tell us about that?

AU: Yeah. We organized, I think as our own campus group fighting the war in Vietnam. And so we were called AASA. We put out a newsletter. I think we had some big event at the Sunset Center with, gee, I think we got someone pretty major, like maybe Chris and Joanne, or someone pretty big at that time. But it was mainly, AASA, mainly we did a lot of studying. We were studying capitalism, anti-imperialism kind of works, discussing them.

VM: And is this -- oh, go ahead.

AU: No, no. I was also thinking that some of us had connections, like I was working at the center, and some of our other members would hang around the center a lot. So there was a lot of crossover between what was going on at the study center and AASA.

VM: That's what I was going to ask, so thank you.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.