Cultural invASIAN

For my Asian American Culture class, our midterm assignment was to commemorate the Third World Liberation Strike of 1968. Our class was split into four groups: fashion, poetry, skits, and visual and performing arts. My group, just so sick girls, combined with the Warriors and was in charge of the poetry section. We had a rough start, but in the end it all worked out. Our group decided to wake up early Thursday morning on October 30, 2008, and arrive on campus at 7am to “bomb” the school with poetry. We split into pairs and each pair was assigned to a building where they would write a poem or a quote from the 1968 Strike on the chalk board/white boards. To be honest, I wasn’t too excited about waking up early to write on boards but, as we went from classroom to classroom it turned out to be pretty fun. The sky was still dark and the classrooms were pitched black, it felt like we were breaking and entering. The anxiety of getting caught made this assignment exciting. I paired up with Sharon and we were in charge of the Business building. We hit up all the classrooms on the first floor and most of the classrooms on the second floor. On each board we wrote

Remember the strike!

Testament For My Students
"They're no different then the administration of this college,
which want to keep education for the select few."

- Kay Boyle

(student panel)
AAS: 40 Years of Struggle & Survival @ GYM 114 12PM Friday October 31st.

TWLF '68

Before heading back to class, we went back to one of the classrooms to try to get a video recorded reaction of someone who read our writing. We encountered one guy who read it, but he didn’t give us much of a response. We asked him what he thought of it and his response was “it was … interesting.”

I can read about the Third World Liberation Strike of 1968 over and over again. I can watch the video “On Strike” over and over again. I can listen to people talking about the 1968 strike over and over again, but honestly, I’m not the best at paying attention to these issues unless I am involved in it. I found this midterm to be very powerful. We all heard the saying “actions speak louder than words” which is completely true. Like I said I could read, watch, and listen to people talk about the strike over and over again, but nothing speaks louder to me than being apart of it. It may have not been the real strike but commemorating the strike of 68 by reenacting it, or taking excerpts from writings and sharing them helped me grasp an idea of what when down during the strike. Every little action we took whether it be from the skits group, the visual group, the fashion group, or the poetry group, helped the audience remember that because of the strike we now have ethnic study classes. We now have a College of Ethnic Studies, in fact, we are the only University to have a College of Ethnic Studies and it is all because of the people we stood up and fought. So now… in the year 2008… IT’S OUR TURN TO FIGHT!