From One Generation to the Next:
Mother and Daughter Celebrate 25 Years of Asian American Studies
October 2024
Tanya Lee found the Asian American Studies courses she took at UMD to be both professionally relevant and personally inspiring. But when she graduated in 2001 with a degree in criminology and criminal justice, she could only earn a certificate in Asian American Studies.
Lee joined a group of students calling for more classes to be offered and a minor to be established, hoping that future Terps would benefit.
Today, as the Asian American Studies Program celebrates its 25th year at UMD, her daughter Kaia is among them.
“I love that this program is still running and that it's still growing and branching out,” said Lee. “That there have been two and a half decades of students seeing that there is a need and a desire to take Asian American Studies… it just means so much that the fight wasn't in vain. It speaks to the importance of this program.”
Like many Americans, Lee didn’t hear much in middle or high school about the importance of Asians in American culture or history.
“In middle school, there was maybe a paragraph about Chinese railroad workers and that was about it,” she said.
As a student, Lee convinced administrators to display a bulletin board for Asian American Heritage Month as a way of helping to raise awareness. “My dad raised us to be in this Asian American cultural mindset: You are an American first but don't forget your Chinese roots,” she said.
When she took her first Asian American Experience class at UMD, Lee said, “I was like, oh wow, there's an actual academic field on things that I feel and experience and I can put words to that… I think that was the first class that everything just clicked, just really resonated.”
“I think a lot of what [Asian American Studies] has taught me, my mom also has taught me: to speak out against racism that Asian Americans and any population faces.”
Kaia Lee-Espiritu ‘25 (left) with her mother Tanya Lee '01
Photo by: Amina S. Lampkin, Office of Undergraduate Studies
After a teaching assistant noticed her interest in class, Lee joined the "Working for an Asian American Studies Program" committee as a co-chair and began advocating for the expanded curriculum with other students. Almost immediately, Lee said they encountered skepticism about why the program was needed.
“We had to not only explain the difference between Asian American Studies and East Asian Studies to faculty and administrators,” she said, “but we also had to explain it to students — why is this important; why does this even matter? What can I do with a minor in Asian American Studies?”
But the students’ ongoing advocacy worked. In 2000, the Asian American Studies Program was approved and awarded the first Asian American Studies certificates. The minor was approved in 2007.
After graduation, Lee went to work in civil rights at the national level with the Organization of Chinese Americans, which is now OCA Advocates. She also found ways to connect what she learned in Asian American Studies courses to her personal life, as both a military spouse and now as an assistant athletics director.
Even though she works at a very diverse school, Lee said, there aren’t too many Asian American adult mentors available. And Lee said students come to her with questions about how best to speak up against the racism and anti-Asian discrimination they experience.
Her daughter, Kaia Lee-Espiritu ‘25––a double major in criminology and psychology––also sees the value of the Asian American studies program. Kaia says that with her minor in Asian American Studies she’s able to directly and frequently tap into what she’s learned from the classes in her work as a resident assistant.
“I definitely take into account all the Asian American Studies education that I have into my DEI training (as part of being an RA),” said Lee-Espirtu, who has served on the board of the Vietnamese Student Association.
Following in the footsteps of her mother, she is also among those on campus pushing for expanding Asian American Studies course offerings and hiring additional faculty.
“It's definitely so great hearing all of [my mom’s] experiences and about all of her advocacy for Asian American Studies,” said Lee-Espirtu. “I'm definitely very grateful that I’ve had the minor to shine in because of her.”
Lee-Espirtu plans to return to UMD next year for a master’s degree in Business Management and is considering a career in human resources.
“I think a lot of what [Asian American Studies] has taught me, my mom also has taught me: to speak out against racism that Asian Americans and any population faces,” she said. “I think really listening to people and hearing their struggles and trying to speak up for them and help them speak up for themselves is what I want to do and what I admire.”