Students Launch Campaign o Dismantle 'Asian American' at UCs

The same report defines APAs as: Chinese, East Indian/Pakistani, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Other Asians.

For Nefara Riesch, who is of Samoan descent, being "other" or just "Asian" doesn't encapsulate a Pacific Islander's struggle for access to higher education. The 19-year-old history major is one of about 40 Pacific Islanders on the University of California, Los Angeles campus of over 24,000 undergraduates. For Riesch, the numbers just don't add up.

In order to call attention to the plight of smaller APA ethnic groups, UCLA's Asian Pacific Coalition (APC) is leading a campaign to pressure university administrators to disaggregate the "Other Asian" category, which critics say traps some APAs under the Model Minority Myth.

Beating the Odds

The Count Me In! Campaign, which is currently a UCLA initiative but will soon spread to the other UC campuses, seeks to achieve:

• the inclusion of 10 more APA ethnic groups such as Bangladeshi, Fijian and Hmong in the university's collection of data;

• the creation of a Pacific Islander racial category; and

• financial support for outreach projects targeted at disadvantaged APAs.

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