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It's that time of the year again! Our MAASU Executive Coordinating Committee applications are out! Applications are due April 4th at 11:59pm CST but don't wait until then to apply! Apply now to become an Executive Coordinating Committee Board Member through this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdK8QxlRd4XmrlOAOBYMukIj9y9zOkt6L9MFzot3S-3GBL6Hg/viewform

Application/Position descriptions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g8ClWcFiCpmnNYgi4vsSkjTzWxMLz9oSaxk4OVNnlCU/edit

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Early Spring Conference Registration!

The Spring Conference Planning Committee at THE Ohio State University has been working extremely hard to bring to you, the 2018 Spring Conference. We are excited to unveil what we have been working on for the past year, and this wouldn't have been possible without the amazing people and team at OSU. ***Early Registration opens in 4 DAYS!*** https://youtu.be/KbqFgoIRQi8

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Do YOU have what it takes to be a workshop facilitator? Want to see the next generation of leaders rise up? There's less than 1 week left on Workshop Facilitator applications! Have questions about the conference? Don't be afraid to message us or email osu.maasu@gmail.com! Forms closes on November 27th at midnight EST!  APPLY HERE: https://goo.gl/Erb2Ff  

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Do YOU have what it takes to be a workshop Facilitator? Are YOU ready to lead the next generation of leaders and advocates? Apply by November 20th to become part of the conference! Have any questions? Contact our workshop chair @Nathan Liu maaasu18workshops@gmail.com or the Conference Director @Jessica Lee osu.maasu@gmail.com! APPLY HERE: https://goo.gl/Erb2Ff Deadline is Nov 27 @ 12AM EST -Who is the Midwest Asian American Students - The Midwest Asian American Students Union (MAASU) is an organization dedicated to providing education and leadership opportunities for students on multiple campuses across the Midwest. The Spring Conference is designed to bring together 1000 students from over 50 campuses to talk about Asian American issues, cultural identity, and advocacy. -About "Overcome"- Overcome is a word filled with a personal sacrifice that tells the stories and experiences of millions. As Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, we are no different. Within overcome, we hold the stories of our own experiences, our parent’s experiences, and our culture’s experiences. Overcome is the metaphysical manifestation of our courage, our tenacity and our persistence at the obstacles that we face in our lives. It is the perseverance of self on which our survival is dependent. To each of us, overcome has a different meaning and a different a feeling, but it is a singular word that resonates deep within us. When we overcome, we are united. When we overcome, we begin thriving.

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MAASU Leadership Summit 2017

"It’s that time of the year! MAASU Leadership Summit is finally here! This year, the summit is taking place at the University of Missouri from Oct. 27-18.

This year’s theme for our 2017 MAASU Leadership Summit is Timeless! What does Timeless mean? Thanks for asking! Grace Lee Boggs once said, “You don't choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be, and you do choose how you want to think.” We have integrated that idea into our conference this year by talking about leadership in the past, present and the future. Acts of leadership will always be Timeless. What will your act be?

Keep an eye out for the registration date, and we hope to see you there!"

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Open Letter From Asian American & Pacific Islander Students

"For over three decades, Asian American & Pacific Islander leaders, researchers, educators, and students have called for detailed data collection to better serve Asian American populations in need."

Data disaggression is vital for detailed and accurate data that can help aid the A/PIA community by identifying specific needs.

To support collecting detail data, please fill the form below: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSeT-qoBIcK6uA34Kb…/viewform

To view the Open Letter, please click here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w6vs…/openletter-aapi-students.pdf

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This year’s theme for our 2017 MAASU Leadership Summit is Timeless! What does Timeless mean? Thanks for asking! Grace Lee Boggs once said, “You don't choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be, and you do choose how you want to think.” We have integrated that idea into our conference this year by talking about leadership in the past, present and the future. Acts of leadership will always be Timeless. What will your act be?

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Want to inspire the next generation of leaders by hosting a workshop for a MAASU conference? MAASU Leadership Summit 2017 will be at Mizzou on Oct. 27-28, and we’d love for you to come share your knowledge! Last day to submit forms will be Sunday, Aug. 6.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HCw8F2Bx6w1tLhy-CkwSXcbU62GSD5ldbG1XwM5S9oo/viewform?edit_requested=true

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APIAVote Youth & Ambassadors

APIAVote is seeking passionate student groups to participate in our 2017-2018 Student Ambassador Organization Program. We are looking for student organizations at U.S. colleges and universities to amplify the message of civic engagement and political participation, to educate their peers about the APIA narrative, and engage their peers in building power for their community. APIAVote will work with our Ambassadors to develop and implement a voter engagement program on their campus and in their community. We will also be offering a $1000 stipend to each Ambassador Organization participating in the program.

Apply now! Click this link to apply: http://www.apiavote.org/youth

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MAASU Leadership Summit Workshop Applications

Workshop applications are now being accepted for MAASU Leadership Summit 2017! If you are interested in hosting a workshop, please fill out the form linked below! Forms will be considered on a rolling basis. The last day to submit will be August 1st 😊

 https://docs.google.com/a/maasu.org/forms/d/1HCw8F2Bx6w1tLhy-CkwSXcbU62GSD5ldbG1XwM5S9oo/viewform?edit_requested=true

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“I believe ‘reclaim’ is recognizing your cultural background and furthering your knowledge."

Tiffany Nguyen is president of Asian Cultural Organization and serves as one of our Public Relations Co Chairs. Thank you for participating in the Reclaim Photo Campaign!

Although APAHM has ended, the campaign will still accept and post submissions! Please fill out the form here:https://goo.gl/forms/qoBhZW82LY0R3WNo1

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Please join Project Ava, Reappropriate, Fascinasians, Vanessa Teck and Juliet Shen to commemorate 32 years since Vincent Chin's death. 1. Post a selfie tagged #IAmVincentChin to Twitter. Writings and photos will be curated at the #IAmVincentChin Tumblr. (iamvincentchin.tumblr.com) 2. Post tweets throughout the weekend remembering the Vincent Chin tragedy, and how it has impacted you. 3. Tag all your thoughts with #IAmVincentChin. Trend it. 4. Share this post and the #IAmVincentChin Tumblr with your friends, widely and often. We are all Vincent Chin

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I looked myself up and down in the full-length mirror. Blouse tucked in? Check. Pearl earrings on? Check. Lipstick flawless? Check. After a few minutes of primping, posing and deep breathing, I was off to my first day at a new job. When I start a new job, I struggle with all of the typical trepidations and hesitations. Will my coworkers like me? Will I fit in with the office culture? Am I formatting this report the right way? But one question loomed above all others as I started my job last week: what should I wear to work? In many ways, it's a concern everyone faces. On the first day, everyone wants to get their outfit just right. The morning before a new job, most of us spend an extra ten, twenty or thirty minutes making sure that our hair is properly coiffed, our deodorant is both effective and unobtrusive and our outfit is on point. But for transgender and gender non-conforming people like myself, the question of what to wear to work becomes an exhausting question of identity and of survival. For us, the question changes from "how do I present my best self at work?" to "can I present my best self at work?" As an undergraduate at Duke, I spent four years learning to love and appreciate myself as a gender non-conforming person. Going into college, I thought that my desire to dress androgynously and adopt a feminine gender expression was shameful; and for the first few months of college, I hid it from others and from myself. But after years of work unearthing internalized oppression and masculine shame, I finally learned to keep my head high as I stomped by the frat boys in my five-inch heels. I made a name for myself at Duke, and by the end of four years I wore pencil skirts and pant-suits to meetings with the Board of Trustees. During undergrad, I became fully empowered and comfortable in my gender. Or so I thought. Now, as a recent graduate confronted with entering the workforce, I find myself having to contend with a much bigger obstacle than frat boys. I have to contend with professionalism. Professionalism is a funny term, because it masquerades as neutral despite being loaded with immense oppression. As a concept, professionalism is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, imperialist and so much more -- and yet people act like professionalism is non-political. Bosses across the country constantly tell their employees to 'act professionally' without a second thought. Wear a garment that represents your non-Western culture to work? Your boss may tell you it's unprofessional. Wear your hair in braids or dreadlocks instead of straightened? That's probably unprofessional too. Wear shoes that are slightly scuffed because you can't yet afford new ones? People may not think you're being professional either. For years, professionalism has been my enemy, because it requires that my gender identity is constantly and unrepentantly erased. In the workplace, the gender binary can be absolute, unfaltering and infallible. If you dare to step out of line, you risk being mistreated by coworkers, losing promotions or even losing your job. And if you are discriminated against for being transgender or genderqueer, you may not even have access to legal recourse, because in many states it is still perfectly legal to discriminate against gender non-conforming employees. So, the first morning before work, as I put on my pants, blouse, heels and pearls, self-doubt came roaring back. Would I still have the respect of my boss if I showed up in heels? Would I be treated as a professional if I wore earrings? Would I be taken seriously wearing lipstick? Would my colleagues respect me for who I am? As I walked to work, these doubts kept creeping up over and over in my mind. I thought back to all of the times that people had told me to "tone it down for work." I thought back to conversations with my father, where he told me to put away the "flamboyant shit" if I wanted to be respected. I thought back to former internship supervisors who told me that I would not be respected around the office if I chose to express my gender identity. I thought back to the countless memories from childhood of being mocked for being a 'sissy.' I thought back to all of this, took a deep breath and walked through the front door of my new office, heels click-clacking on the concrete floor. As transgender, genderqueer and gender non-conforming people, we deserve better. We deserve to have our work ethic and intellect respected regardless of how we choose to express our gender identities. We deserve to be able to wear clothing and behave in ways that affirm our gender. We deserve to be treated fairly in the workplace. While people may try to discriminate against me and tell me that I'm dressing "inappropriately" for work, I will hold on to my gender identity and sense of self. In the workplace, I will stick up for those who, like me, find that their gender does not match a prefabricated box. I will wear my heels, pearls and skirts to work until, hopefully, the world can learn to respect people like me. So to all of the discriminatory employers out there, you better watch out, because I am genderqueer, professional and unafraid.

- via Jacob Tobia in "Why I'm Genderqueer, Professional, and Unafraid"

How do you define "Professional?" Do you think professionalism is universal? What do you think we can all do to make professionalism more inclusive? What do you all think?

Here is a article is that very thoughtprovoking because it brings a very different perspective of professionalism from a transgender and gender nonconforming lens and challenges all of us to think about professionalism more equitable and inclusively.

As college students we've been gradually told that we need become more professional, we need to develop professional skills, we need to dress certain ways, and we need to act certain ways. But this can be more difficult for some people, as the article discusses.

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Scot Nakagawa writes in this Colorlines article about his debt to Dr. King, and how and why Asian Americans are stakeholders in the fight for racial justice and equity.

The reality is that the experiences of Asians-Americans in the years just before and during the black-led Civil Rights Movement illustrate the complex nature of white supremacy in the U.S. and the centrality of race in our conceptions, both legal and cultural, of citizenship.

Our diverse stories as Asian- and African-Americans are simply different branches on a tree with shared roots.

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What has always been so disturbing about yellowface, blackface, brownface and redface is how far the industry is willing to go to not employ people of color. Instead of hiring an Asian-American actor to portray an experience written by an Asian-American writer — an experience that can certainly include a penchant for kung fu — television has historically, aggressively, employed white artists to write about and portray nonwhite people. But this practice continues in entertainment for reasons far more complicated than the refusal for white Hollywood to employ entertainers and performers of color. Whites donning theatrical makeup and costumes to display blackness, brownness or Asianness is utilized for white viewers to explore and have fun with their collective fears and anxieties surrounding the other. According to the show’s apology, posted by its co-creator via Twitter on Wednesday, HIMYM simply wanted to create a “silly and unabashedly immature homage to Kung Fu movies, a genre we’ve always loved.” But despite their well-meaning intentions, this is by-the-book yellowface. It’s white people acting “silly” or “funny” when acting Asian, in a performance written for the enjoyment and consumption of non-Asian viewers. And it cements nasty racist stereotypes. Silk-robed women in accented English pouring tea? The lotus blossom. Fu Manchu? A perennial foreigner and criminal archetype that has been featured in pop culture for almost 100 years. These are caricatures that have been plaguing Asian Americans for generations. Even journalistic coverage of then Knicks star Jeremy Lin was especially revealing: ESPN’s “Chink in the armor” snafu and MSG Network’s fortune-cookie advert made it abundantly clear: Americans, well intentioned or not, simply don’t know how to write about Asian people.

Kai Ma, Why Yellowface Episode in ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Is Not Funny | TIME.com   (via pag-asaharibon)

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Nothing But the Truth (And a Few White Lies) by Justine Chen - Fifteen-year-old Patty Ho, half Taiwanese and half white, feels she never fits in, but when her overly-strict mother ships her off to math camp at Stanford, instead being miserable, Patty starts to become...

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This is a part of a campaign started in India to counter celebrity support of skin-lightning creams. It’s meant to be a direct contest to the idea that light skin is necessary to achieve beauty or success. This actress here, is Nandita Das, who’s part of this project (aside from being a part of campaigns against domestic violence and the stigma against HIV-positive people).

And with that, I present to you a blog celebrating our dark-skinned Indians and their stories: darkisbeautiful.blogspot.com