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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone? When we consider the word diversity, a country and city of more inclusivity comes to mind obviously. Our next guest says that efforts for diversity have been exclusionary themselves, particularly toward Asian Americans. We're seeing how that lack of inclusivity is playing out in different parts of our society.

In the political arena, where despite being the fastest growing demographic in both America and New York City, Asian Americans are the least likely demographic to hold elected office. In the last mayoral election, where Republican Curtis Sliwa was surprisingly strong among AAPI, Asian American and Pacific Islander voters despite that not being the case in the Virginia election, this year, the other big bellwether.

In backlash against Asian Americans in the city, obviously whereas you certainly know or should know anti-Asian American hate crimes are up 361% this year compared to last. Joining us now to talk about all of this is Frank Wu. He's the president of Queens College and he's the author of the book Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. He had an op-ed last week in the Daily News, maybe you saw it, titled Inclusion, beyond Black, Brown, and White.

We'll also get into some CUNY issues with COVID rising and a few other things. President Wu, great to have you back on the show, welcome back to WNYC.

Frank Wu: Great to be here. I'm in downtown Flushing, Queens. Which if you haven't been here in the past 25 years, it is heavily Asian American and that's what revitalized Flushing, Queens. If you hear some background noise, it's people from all over Asia and their American born children and grandchildren in a place that many had given up on and it's come roaring back because of this migration.

Brian Lehrer: You start your op-ed with an observation that you had an event in the city. Would you tell us that story and what you think it represents?

Frank Wu: Sure. I was honored to be invited. I was just one of the attendees. There were about two dozen speakers, big event. I didn't mention who it is and I won't because it's not about pointing fingers. When this op-ed came out, so many Asian Americans reached out to me and they said, "Wow, that happened to me too, just last week." This is a common story. At the event, they were all about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

They touted it, they talked all about it, they had about two dozen speakers, more than two dozen. They had speakers who were white, they had speakers who were African-American, they had speakers who were Latino or Latinx in the new term that's being used. They had speakers of every background, they all talked about how they had speakers of every background except they didn't. They didn't have any Asian American speakers.

No one East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian and I'm not just talking someone in a prominent role. I mean not a single one, even though that's 10% of the population, the fastest growing demographic, and even though the whole theme was how do we build back after COVID in an inclusive way, but it wasn't inclusive.

Brian Lehrer: In the New York City mayoral election, as I mentioned, there was a big swing of a AAPI voters to the GOP. Curtis Sliwa's strongest voting block from what I've read was Asian American voters. He garnered 44% of the vote in precincts with majority Asian voters, higher even than the 40% of the vote he received in precincts with majority white voters. I will say that goes against the national trend.

Asian American voters were solidly for Joe Biden, much more solidly than that and even in Virginia, from what I read, where the Republican Glen Youngkin won that race, shocking the Democratic Party political establishment. The Asian American vote for the Democrat in that race, Terry McCullough, stayed at the same high 60s percentage that it was for Biden. What's going on in New York City?

Frank Wu: Well, I have a hypothesis and I want to talk to my friends who are advocates for civil rights as I am. One of the things I'm all about is bridge building and I always try to make clear. Bringing in Asian Americans does not hurt. It helps the historic struggle for Black equality and we can touch upon how Asian Americans have been involved in that. To answer your question directly, here's my prediction, and a little bit of a warning for my friends.

If people who care about civil rights, who care about diversity, equity, inclusion, don't reach out to Asian Americans, do you know who will? People who don't care about the historic struggle for Black equality. What I mean by that is Asian Americans are being courted. It's a big voting block and folks who aren't enthusiastic, even though most of us, we talk about DEI and certainly on college campuses, we embrace it. It's always been part of the identity of institutions such as Queens college, not everyone's in favor.

Some folks, truth is they're a little indifferent to the suffering of people who are Black or brown and they're reaching out to Asian Americans and they're saying, "Join us, come over to our side," and I think that's some of what we're especially because Asian Americans have this understandable concern about violence. You mentioned the hate crimes, boy, those statistics, they just came out.

NYPD has new statistics, anti-Semitic attacks and attacks on Asian Americans up. We're talking up an unbelievable rate more than any other type of hate crime and we've seen those viral videos, people being spit on, shoved to the ground till their bones are broken, kicked in the head, shoved in front of subway trains, stabbed, shot. You can't look at that and say, "Oh, that's random."

You can't look at that and say, "Oh, come on. What's the big deal?" It's serious attacks and it starts with those racial slurs, "Go back to where you came from. This disease is your fault." It's all come out aggressively because of this pandemic that's being blamed on people who've got nothing to do with it.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote in your op-ed that almost all Asian American professionals have had the shocking experience of being told that they are not eligible for a program advertised as meant for minorities because they are not regarded as the right type of person of color. They are acutely aware that they are not white either. This is a difficult conversation to have. This is you saying to some Black and brown leaders, "Hey, you are not taking us seriously enough, just as white leaders are."

Frank Wu: I want to do this in a bridge building way, in a positive way. I always point out Asian Americans have been around a lot longer than people think. Take a look, don't believe me, you can google this, Asian Americans fought in the union and Confederate armies during the civil war. I'm not talking one or two, I'm talking hundreds. There's a whole book published on that and they're part of civil rights.

Look at the assassination of Malcolm X, been in the news again and you can find the iconic photos, he's been shot, he's dying, he's gasping, drawing his last breaths at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City in 1965.

Look at all the photos and you'll see at the top of the photo and you might be puzzled by this, there's an Asian American woman. Her name's Yuri Kochiyama and she was one of his closest confidants and colleagues during the last years of his life. Someone who's Japanese American, who was there fighting for Black equality.

I always try to do this in a bridge building way to say, "Look, we believe in the same thing," but the reason it's hard to talk about is we think of race as Black and white and there's a couple stereotypes about Asian Americans. The first is crazy rich Asians. "Come on, what do you have to complain about? You're all doing well. You have $10 million and plunk it down and buy a condo and you got no concerns," even though Asian American suffer discrimination and poverty.

The other is this perpetual foreigner syndrome. "Oh, come on, you can always go back to where you came from," even though so many Asian Americans like me are native born. They're sixth generation Asian Americans. There are even Asian Americans whose ancestors came on the Mayflower. When I say that, people say, "Oh, come on," because they're Anglo Asian, they're mixed.

On one side of the family, they can trace their ancestry back all the way to the founding of the nation. Asian Americans aren't all fresh off the boat, but there's nothing wrong with being fresh off the boat. A TV sitcom has reappropriated that phrase and these are people who made a decision, they've staked their lives on this side of the Pacific ocean. We're real Americans, yet people don't think so.

Brian Lehrer: There are those who might say while everything you said is true, there's still no comparison between all of that and the discrimination that Black Americans in particular have faced over time. There is a hierarchy here in real life of discrimination and the effects on people in those communities.

That needs to come first and so when there are conflicts like over college admissions and what is so-called merit versus so-called justice, people are choosing [inaudible 00:09:55] on those things. How do you address those complexities?

Frank Wu: Through bridge-building and through discussion and dialogue. I'm not naive, there's conflict, but every time we have conflict, we can make it worse, or we can make it better. One of the worst things we can do is divide and conquer. Asian Americans who are mad about bias, you know what people say to them, "Well, blame African Americans," and then African Americans who are mad will get mad at newcomers to the nation.

There's a better way, to look at the principles that bind us together as a diverse democracy. That's what I hope we do. A contest of suffering, it has no winners and somebody in one of those hate crimes, like the lady who was beaten until she was in critical condition in midtown Manhattan, you've probably seen this [inaudible 00:10:44] , it's terrible. I don't encourage you to watch it.

Then those two doormen at the end, they go and they literally closed the door on the scene, they don't even help her. When you look at something like that, you have to say, "That person deserves our sympathy." You don't have to be Asian American, she was of Filipina background headed to church. You don't have to be Asian American to look at that and say, "There's something wrong when somebody is viciously attacked like that because of a racial stereotype, because they're assumed as something to do with a virus."

I always try to reach out. I began my academic career at a predominantly Black institution, and everything I do, want to say to my friends, my colleagues, who are African American, who are of any background, friends who are Jewish, "Let's work in coalition. There's a way that we can find a set of common principles here that we all agree to no matter where our ancestors came from."

Brian Lehrer: My guest is the president of Queens College, Frank Wu. He is also author of the book Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White and of the op-ed in the Daily News last week titled Inclusion, beyond Black, Brown, and White. 212-433-WNYC if you have a question for Frank Wu. 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. While some calls are coming in, President Wu, how is Queens College?

Are you taking any steps to close, or go remote, or do anything to adjust to Omicron in these last days before winter break?

Frank Wu: Yes, we're trying to do things as safely as possible. We're just about wrapped up, anything that's happening on campus. All the students are fully vaccinated in order to come on campus. We do have an exception if there's a health issue or if it's a bonafide faith-based thing, we respect that. About 98.5%, almost 99% of our students are fully vaccinated, but we've been as cautious as you can be. I know this has been devastating for our community.

We're planning a memorial, and by our count, at least 40 stakeholders died. That's not even including family members of our faculty, staff, and students, but we have had zero campus spread because we've been really very cautious. We've ramped up very slowly, and I intend to continue to do that.

By the way, higher education is one of those ways you bring people together, because on our campus, our students, in their homes, they speak 83 different languages, but they're united because they come and sit next to one another in classroom, they make friends, and they want to move up in the world. Higher education, that's the engine of the American dream. At the end of the day, I'm an optimist about this.

I wrote that op-ed not because I don't want to participate. I wrote it because I want to be a part of rebuilding, and I want other Asian Americans to want to be a part and not to be isolated. This is all about participating in America and helping, especially now with this pandemic.

Brian Lehrer: Present Wu, how is access to Queens College education right now? With that amazing diversity and maybe the most diverse county in the world that we know Queens has, and the way it's represented, therefore, at Queens College as a public institution serving the Borough. You know there's new publicity to a movement, I guess, new energy in a movement to try to make CUNY free again.

Even though it's so much cheaper than most other college educations, it's still thousands of dollars a year and that's still a barrier for some people. Do you support that movement?

Frank Wu: Thanks to the State of New York and to the city. Almost half, not quite half, but almost half our students pay nothing and increasing access is so important. I'm dedicated to figuring out how do we do that, working with public officials who believe as we do that this is why the whole City University of New York system and why Queens College, why we were set up.

If you go back and look at the founding documents, it says right in those documents, it's to educate the immigrants coming to New York City, and that has remained true. I never criticized any other institution of higher education. I'll just say this, it's just fact, there are schools out there that to go there for one year, it cost 10 times, 10X, what it would cost for our tuition. Let me repeat, more than 40%, almost half of our students, already are paying nothing for tuition.

The more that we can get that number up, the more that we can offer this because we know it works. It works to improve the lives of those individuals, and their kith and kin, their extended networks, their whole community, it brings up the world. That's what New York is all about. It's about welcoming people here, and they all become New Yorkers. It doesn't matter where you're from, what your color, creed, what your faith is, what language you speak.

If you want to be part of this, what is still the greatest city in the world, we've welcomed you and higher education in our campus is part of that.

Brian Lehrer: Is that to say you think it's affordable enough as it is?

Frank Wu: No, the more we can do to make it affordable. Yes, I wouldn't want anyone to mistake that. The more we can improve this access, the better. It's a matter of figuring it out together. How do we do this? I'm always trying to talk to everyone about the value, that this isn't charity, this is an investment. That's all the more true now because we need people to participate in building back, they need to be retrained, upskilled is the phrase that's being used, and we're ready to play our role doing that for everyone.

It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you're undocumented. We welcome students who are undocumented because we know that so many go on to great careers and contribute and they're taxpayers. The first undocumented member of Congress, Adriano Espaillat, is a Queen's College alum and proud of it.

Brian Lehrer: What do you make of the reasons for the surge in anti-Asian American hate crimes? It was easy in 2020 to say Donald Trump because he kept saying China virus and things like that. What about in 2021?

Frank Wu: Well, this hatred that's been motivated in part by the pandemic, one of the things Asian Americans have said all along it's not new. You go back, you study the history, Asian immigrants were being lynched in the 19th century, there was an Exclusion Act passed in 1882 targeting the Chinese, and then expanded in 1917 to all Asians. I actually study history, and that's one of the subjects that I teach. None of this is new, but the awareness is new.

What has made it continuous, not just the pandemic, it's this image that Asian Americans are all well-to-do foreigners. It's this idea Asia has taken over the world, that US and China are locked into this global geopolitical struggle with only one winner. I'll just point out, the people who are Asian Americans, you know what, they came over here, they want to be part of America.

The bet that my family made was on this nation and its ideals. When people say to me, "Hey, if Asia becomes dominant, you're going to be all set." I say, "No, that means my family made the wrong bet again and again because I'm an American through and through."

Brian Lehrer: Let's get at least one phone call in here. Deseret in Park Slope, you're on WNYC with Frank Wu, the President of Queens College. Hi, Deseret.

Deseret: Hi. I am a graduate of Queens College in the library school. Nice to meet you, sir. I wanted to say that I have been wanting to call in about this issue for so long. I would like to ask Brian to never say the phrase Black and brown again, it is so reductive, it has no meaning. Black and brown, in terms of skin color, crosses literally all kinds of people, Middle Eastern people are brown. Pacific Islanders are brown.

I know that that's not who you're talking about when you say Black and brown. It is incredibly exclusive. I also think that Black people are 13% of the population. Yes, we were enslaved humans at one point, but alone, we could not change anything in this country at 13% of the population. There has to be a way for media to be way more nuanced when they talk about people of color and the issues of people of color, which by the way are not all the same.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you a follow-up question about that, Deseret, because I agree with you. This is really important-

Deseret: I hate it.

Brian Lehrer: -to everybody to get terminology right, but recently, I use Black and brown because the activists used Black and brown to be perfectly honest. That's what the people who were fighting for diversity and inclusion and equality are tending to say these days.

Deseret: Let them do that. You don't have to do what they do.

Brian Lehrer: What would be better?

Deseret: I'm Black. [laughs]. I've been Black all my life. I lived in Jackson, Mississippi until I was a teenager, so I understand the importance of having proper terminology. I'm also an activist. I have been since I was 16. You don't have to use the same language that they're using. In the same way that there are tons of people who are of Hispanic or Latino or Latina, [unintelligible 00:20:47] who hate LatinX.

We're not on board. We're not homogenous. We don't all think the same way, so you're making a choice to use terms that some people like and some people don't no matter what you do. [inaudible 00:21:01] .

Brian Lehrer: I'm seeing the title of the book, President Wu, Race in America Beyond Black and White. The op-ed is Beyond Black, Brown, and White.

Frank Wu: Deseret is absolutely right. It's all about coalitions because no single community is able to win whatever it is they want, win an election, or get justice. All these movements have been about coalition and these communities come together. There are Afro-Latinos, and no one ever talks about this, so I'm going to mention. There are Afro-Asians. My favorite jazz artist, Charles Mingus, was Afro-Asian.

Look at his second album Mingus Dynasty, he's in Chinese robes as an homage to grandfather. When I talk about Asian American, I want to make sure I reach out, that includes South Asian, includes Southeast Asian refugees, includes Afro-Asians, it includes adoptees who people don't talk about either. Inclusion is incredibly complicated. It's hard work, but it makes us better as a society.

It's not just ideals and principles. If you look at the nitty-gritty, you started off talking about the New York City mayoral race. You want to win an election? If you only line up voters of your racial group, you are not going to win an election. A candidate has to appeal to multiple groups, many constituencies. That's why there's bridge building, coalitions, and principles, and pragmatism.

Brian Lehrer: Let me come back to one final Omicron question before we run out of time, or really even COVID writ large. You said there was zero campus spread at Queens College. Do you mean over the whole pandemic and even now? Because I know people who are getting Omicron who avoided the other stuff and they don't even know how they're getting it.

Frank Wu: We have had cases, but as folks to the best of our knowledge, nobody is giving it to somebody else while at one of our advance or classes. I can't promise it's going to stay that way. We're going to reduce the risk, but I know it's impossible to eliminate. Omicron, boy, it is scary. Every time I make a decision, I remind myself, I'm not just making a decision, I'm trying to show that I'm competent and thoughtful, look at the science, and above all, that I have empathy. That's how all these comes together.

The pandemic has revealed there are those who want to divide and those who want to unite. Our nation, it has been torn apart during this time, and I'm determined to try to bring us together. That's what Asian American does. It's a coalition. The people who call themselves that, their grandparents were fighting total wars against one another. They come here, they're told, "You all look alike." Then they realize, "We need to say we're Americans." That term itself is about bridge building, and it's not easy, but we have to keep at it.

Brian Lehrer: President of Queens College, Frank Wu. He's the author of the book Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, and our Daily News op-ed called Inclusion, beyond Black, Brown, and White. President Wu, we always appreciate it. Thank you for coming on today.

Frank Wu: Thanks so much. A Pleasure. Take care.

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