UNC's Asian American Center celebrates fifth anniversary

UNC's Asian American Center is celebrating its fifth anniversary with milestones in January and May, reflecting on the center’s growth and impact since its inception.

Heidi Kim, the director of the AAC and professor of English and comparative literature, said the anniversary is a moment of reflecting on the past five years. She said the center has been through so much, with the COVID-19 pandemic, a surge of anti-Asian racism during the pandemic and shootings in Atlanta that targeted Asian-owned businesses. 

Kim said that the AAC serves the entire campus, but is located within the Office of the Provost. 

“Our mission really is to work with every school and unit in the University to educate and promote engagement with Asian American Studies and communities,” Kim said.

Associate Director of the AAC, Kevin Kim, said the center is involved in student programming and bringing in an Asian American studies scholar, writer or thinker to highlight their work and engage with the community. 

Additionally, he said the center holds Southern Mix, an oral history program partnering with the Southern Oral History Program at Wilson Library and the Carolina Asia Center. The program documents Asian American stories and has since turned into a traveling exhibition across the state. 

Kim said the center has a program surrounding grants and partnerships to help support Asian American scholarship, Asian American Studies, Asian American faculty and students with research funding regarding travel grants. 

He said the importance of the center is that it cultivates, connects and illuminates. 

“I've always described the Asian American Center as both a home and a hub,” Heidi Kim said. “It's a place where people can really come to learn and build community, and it's also a place where people can come to network and create exciting new projects.” 

Sneha Papineni, a first year and member of the AAC's student team, said that the center has given her and other Asian American students a place to connect, find friends or people with similar interests and passions and feel seen and connected to their cultures.

Elizabeth Ballou, a senior and another member of the AAC's student team, said she was ecstatic when she learned there was an Asian American Center at UNC. She said she was unbelievably happy when she found out there was a place for her because growing up there wasn’t a lot of diversity at her schools.

“I could have chosen any other place, but the fact that UNC specifically has an Asian American Center is one of the benefits, and one of the reasons why I do like it here,” Ballou said.

Kevin Kim said that some stude​​nts want to create an Asian American studies program on campus, like a department, and the center has helped begin that process. 

“We went through a cluster hire last year,” Kim said. "So we're getting new Asian American Studies faculty, which is great, but there still isn't quite enough to sustain a major or a minor yet."

Ballou said that having a major for Asian American studies would give students more opportunities, with the University’s population of Asian students.

To celebrate the anniversary, Heidi Kim said that the AAC is planning on having a ceremony in May to recognize students who have done important work in Asian American studies or public service.

“We are really grateful to the student activists and to the alumni and staff and faculty and administrators who worked with them to create the center in the first place in 2019,” Heidi Kim said. “And to our donors, because our programming is almost entirely funded by private money. So without their generosity, we wouldn't be able to do all of the events that we do.” 

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