Remember Your Roots, Lawyer / Activist Tells Asian Students

The keynote speaker at UC Irvine’s Asian Pacific Awareness Conference on Saturday called on students to pursue their dreams but not forget their ancestry.

Angela Oh, a Korean American attorney and Asian community activist, told the audience of more than 300 Asian students that “it’s important to maintain our identity (and remember) who we are.”

Since 1985, the conference has been held annually at the Irvine campus, where Asian students constitute 51% of the university’s enrollment--the second highest concentration of Asian university students in the nation--to help bridge cultural differences between the different Asian cultures.

Students attending the daylong seminar said Oh inspired them to appreciate their ethnicity, and to support their Asian communities.

The message hit home with Arnold Kim, a UCI student. “Living in Orange County, there’s such a diversity of cultures. I’m Korean, and I still don’t know much about the Vietnamese or the Chinese. When they say Asian, it’s such a vague term. In the big picture I’m Asian, but a part of that is being Korean,” Kim said.

Oh also told students that their life is easier today because of the work of pioneers.

“You didn’t get that opportunity (for a better life) because this country opened its arms to you. People sweated and died. People raised voices and got booted out. Don’t ever forget. None of us got where we are today without the help of those who came before us,” she said.

“She made me aware of the issues that hit the Asian American communities. I agree with her. I’ve seen my parents and grandparents work very hard to give me the opportunity to have an education here,” said Siamone Bangphraxay, a senior at UCI.

During a lunch break, a group of Korean American students spoke with admiration about Oh’s pro bono representation of Korean American shopkeepers in the wake of the Los Angeles riots in 1992.

“She’s in white America, career-wise. She’s made everything that I would dream of doing. Yet she turned back to help Koreans who were victims in the riot. That’s very big,” said Candy Kwak, a junior at UCI.

Ron Wilson, the assistant executive vice chancellor who helped organize the event, said the conference was first convened 10 years ago after the suicide of a young Asian student. Around that time, there were several attempted suicides among Asian students who struggled to bridge two cultures.

Initially, the program was designed to make UCI faculty and staff more sensitive to the differences between Asian American students of varied cultural backgrounds, Wilson said.

Over the years, the conference has evolved, and includes workshops addressing social issues facing the Asian students. This year, two new topics of discussion involved Asian homosexuals and the future of Asian American studies, he said.

Brian Okamoto, president of an Asian fraternity on campus, said he urged members of his fraternity to attend so they can “become aware of the different Asian issues.”

“Everyone came here with intentions of learning something. I think having something like this gives people an opportunity to think and talk about these factors openly,” Okamoto said.