Thursday, January 23, 1997
MISSION:
Organizations should be role models, encourage activismBy Dan
Su
The following editorial is a unanimous opinion of the Executive
Board of the UCLA Vietnamese Student Union, the representative
organization of the UCLA Vietnamese community.
During this past summer, the UCLA Vietnamese Student Union was
officially sponsored by the Undergraduate Students Association
Council. In taking this step, the council recognized the need of a
student group to grow and expand beyond its artificially imposed
barriers, limiting itself only to providing community and cultural
services. The council recognized that, in order for a group of
students to truly represent itself, it had to put those students
first!
VSU is the representative organization of all Vietnamese
students at UCLA. Thus, as any representative organization, VSU
represents not only the immediate interests of its members, but it
also serves to envision and advocate their long-term interests.
USAC is the representative organization for all students and all
student organizations. Thus, USAC not only represents but also
serves to envision and to advocate for the long-term interests of
all UCLA students. This is the ultimate goal for USAC.
How does any representative organization accomplish this
goal?
USAC accomplishes this by advocating many inviolable principles
which serve the long-term interests of the students it represents,
such as open access to education for all and, especially, for
minorities and women, the preservation of minority language and
culture, and opposition to racism, among others.
By taking these tough stands, USAC not only establishes itself
as a role model for all student organizations to emulate, but it
also encourages student activism at all levels.
USAC understood that open access to education starts at a very
young age. That’s why the Community Service Commission of USAC
sponsors many community outreach projects to reach kids at a very
young age, not only to teach these kids the most basic educational
skills, but also to involve approximately 3,000 UCLA students in
community service and to serve as models to the kids that they
help. In this effort, VSU offers the Tutorial Project which
provides tutors for middle school kids from a variety of ethnic
backgrounds in the city of Hawthorne, which is located in the South
Bay area.
Open access to education also means fees and the need for
financial aid for education, because education is not really open
if only a few can afford it. USAC, together with allied
organizations, worked successfully to freeze the amount of
mandatory fees that were taxing every UC student. To this end, VSU
contributes the active participation and support of its members and
serves as an organ to help spread the common message that USAC
advocates.
In advocating equal opportunity access to education for
minorities and women, USAC’s stand on Proposition 209 was
unmistakable. To this, VSU members were marching under the same
banners with other students of all colors on Wilshire Boulevard to
express our solidarity. Proposition 209 passed, but USAC’s efforts
galvanized many student organizations and helped lay a solid
foundation for further collective action.
To help retain those who have accessed higher education, the
Campus Retention Committee of USAC establishes many culturally
sensitive projects to help those who struggle against conditions
inhibiting their successful education at this school. VSU expresses
its sincere desire to become a participant, for there is a great
need within our own membership for the services that this committee
provides.
For the preservation of minority language and culture, USAC also
further enriches the diverse cultural experience of the UCLA
community by sponsoring and funding many cultural events and
programs by many different student organizations. To this end, VSU
contributes by hosting its annual production of Vietnamese Culture
Night, not only to present our Vietnamese-American heritage, but
also to contribute a small part to the effort to create a
culturally sensitive learning environment for all UCLA students by
spreading cultural awareness.
Institutionalized racism and discrimination were codified into
the laws of this nation for the most part of its history,
thoroughly permeating and effecting every fabric of this society
from the very core to the farthest periphery. To combat this rabid
disease, USAC’s stand on affirmative action, which is the only
institutionalized set of policies to redress past discrimination,
is uncompromising. VSU can only recognize that many of our members
came from low-income families and were certainly targets of
affirmative action,which has benefited them. Accordingly, it is
only natural for us to stand firmly with USAC on affirmative
action.
Despite recent negative attacks on student government, USAC
yielded none of its stands on principles, for its vision and
purpose are righteous, and its goals and objectives are clear. And,
most importantly, it has the active support of UCLA students and
student organizations, such as VSU.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr.: "If you have nothing to
die for, then you have nothing to live for." Analogously, USAC
provides a model in which UCLA students can easily recognize that
they are here not only in the mundane world of scholarship but that
they are also in an environment of student activism where they can
dedicate themselves to the fight for social justice for all
people.
An organization is known for what it stands for. USAC must stand
firm on principles and issues with which UCLA students can
identify.