Last Thursday an unlikely group of students gathered in Wilson 301 at 8 p.m. The Brown Democrats and the Asian American Students Association held a joint general body meeting also attended by representatives from Students for Hillary and Students for Barack Obama.
Gabe Kussin '09, president of the Brown Democrats, said he could not recall any comparable meeting in the past.
The meeting - sweetened with some cookies from the Meeting Street Cafe - opened with a viewing of two YouTube videos about Asian-American participation in politics.
"We must leave politics to politicians, and politicians are white," said a Korean-American girl in a DeclareYourself.com video about Asian and Pacific Islander Americans. "Thank you for not voting."
It was followed by a video clip from a CNN special that examined Asian Americans' overwhelming preference for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who beat Sen. Barack Obama, D-Il., by an almost 3-1 ratio among Asian Americans in the Feb. 5 California primary.
The discussion that followed touched on such topics as what values Asian-American voters hold and how gender and race are perceived in Asian and Asian-American culture.
The AASA approached the Brown Democrats, Students for Hillary, Students for Barack Obama and the Brown College Republicans and proposed a meeting to discuss Asian Americans and politics, said Hee Kyung Chung '09, co-chair of the AASA. Chung said the Brown College Republicans did not respond to the requests for a meeting. Marc Frank '09, president of the Brown Republicans, said he was not aware of any communication from the AASA.
"We thought it would be a timely topic," Chung said. She added that she thought discussions about race and politics tended to focus on the black vote, especially because of Obama, this election season.
"I feel like Asian Americans are often excluded from this discourse," she said.
"I'm excited about how this can go forward," Kussin said. He said he is interested in coordinating more events with other cultural groups on campus as the election draws nearer.
