{"id":64,"date":"2014-04-02T07:47:25","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T12:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/?p=64"},"modified":"2014-04-02T07:47:25","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T12:47:25","slug":"vana-xiong-mission-ignition-champion-your-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/2014\/04\/02\/vana-xiong-mission-ignition-champion-your-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"Vana Xiong &#8211; &#8220;Mission Ignition: Champion Your Cause&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>As a first-year this was the first time I attended the ECAASU conference, which was held in Washington, DC. \u00a0This year was ECAASU&#8217;s \u00a0first in exploring a new dynamic of ECAASU being managed and held by several different universities. \u00a0As this was my first experience, I can say that the structure of the conference was a nice effort in being different and new, but it was definitely disorganized which was a little upsetting as a first time attendee.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>ECAASU&#8217;s initiative this year was Mission Ignition: Champion Your Cause. \u00a0I appreciated the different speakers and performers who were present and made some of the first significant differences as Asian and Asian Americans in American politics, literature, and music. \u00a0The workshops I had attended were ones that were okay, but not very beneficial to learning anything new. \u00a0I felt they were very bare and minimal and didn&#8217;t push for depth in the discussions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As a Hmong-American, I am already a minority in the Asian-American setting. \u00a0I did not appreciate the light ECAASU\u00a0portrayed\u00a0my heritage and my identity and because of this, I didn&#8217;t enjoy the experience ECAASU could have been. \u00a0I believe that for a conference bent on its mission to provide a safe space for Asian-Americans to talk of their stories, that it is wrong, even with well intentions- to subject a group of people in such a way where the main stream understanding of my culture is already negative. \u00a0It saddens and hurts me as a Hmong-American when I am in a setting talking about identity and the institution I am in makes remarks that hold no regards to the differences that make my heritage the way it is. \u00a0I honestly would have preferred, for no mention of Hmong than to what my peers and I had to listen to at the conference.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I would recommend this conference to Asian-Americans and their allies that are in the beginning stages of their social justice understandings towards Asian-Americans in America and want a broad picture of that understanding. \u00a0They touch upon the basics and try for an inclusive community, but ECAASU is just a conference which skims the prominent issues of Asian-Americans.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Thanks!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Best,<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888\">Vana Xiong<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a first-year this was the first time I attended the ECAASU conference, which was held in Washington, DC. \u00a0This year was ECAASU&#8217;s \u00a0first in exploring a new dynamic of ECAASU being managed and held by several different universities. \u00a0As &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/2014\/04\/02\/vana-xiong-mission-ignition-champion-your-cause\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}