AAA History

Rejection gave birth to the Asian American Association. During first-year orientation week in 1976, two Asian American women decided to attend a Minority Freshman Banquet sponsored by the university, but were barred from entering and were turned away.

Harvard did not recognize Asian Americans as a minority, despite the legacy of legal discrimination and social prejudice they share with other minority groups. Asian Americans were acknowledged as minorities by the federal government and by Harvard in enrollment reports it filed in order to receive federal affirmative-action funding. But the administration embraced the racist notion of Asian Americans as an assimilated, financially secure "model minority" and therefore not a true "minority."

Furious, Asian Americans and other minority students pointed out the inconsistency in Harvard's policy and demanded recognition of Asian Americans as minorities. Twelve different student groups submitted a letter to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III later that month. In response to a petition filed by 27 students in October 1976, Epps decided to include Asian Americans in minority programs but rejected the claim that Asians are "oppressed."

According to a November 1976 article in The Harvard Crimson, Epps's reaction had "several ramifications. Many Asian-American students now find themselves in limbo, unable to identify with the white majority, but separated by definition from the minorities on campus," The Crimson reported.

This feeling of isolation culminated in the establishment of the Asian American Association, which Fred Ho '79, a sociology concentrator, and other students helped found and spearhead. AAA launched an extensive campaign against the administration in seeking minority status for Asian American students.

The organization grew out of the Coalition of Asian American Students, an early activist group formed during the Vietnam War to oppose the U.S. war effort. The coalition dissolved after the war ended, but served as a precedent for the founding of AAA in 1976.

The orientation-week incident was the catalyst for the new group. Through protests and discussions, Asian Americans gained increases in admissions and recruitment trips to the West Coast and publication of an Asian American recruitment pamphlet. Still, Harvard denied recognition of Asian Americans as minorities.

The Coalition of Asian American Students joined with the Black Students Association, La Organizacion and other minority groups circulated a platform flier declaring that "Asian American minority recognition is an essential fight to expand the gains won by minority students and the democratic rights to self determination in their affairs."

After extensive confrontations and information campaigns and a sit-in in University Hall in which students vowed not to leave Epps' office until acceptance was accorded, the administration formally acknowledged Asian Americans as minorities at the end of 1976.

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