The recent mass shooting in Atlanta, where six of the eight victims were Asian women, sparked national outcry and protests against increased violence toward Asian Americans. At Cornell, professors and students are joining the national conversation, demanding institutional change from the University regarding anti-Asian racism.
Specifically, members of the Cornell community brought up the need for more mental health resources, more robust diversity awareness training and increased funding for Asian American-based programs.
The Cornell Asian Pacific Student Union is advocating for administration and faculty members to undergo a more rigorous mental health and diversity awareness training every semester to prepare them for how to respond to current events that negatively impact certain Cornell communities, the organization wrote in an email to The Sun.
“To wait until the APID/A community or the Black community or the Indigenous community are further victimized before taking action suppresses our already marginalized voices,” CAPSU wrote.
Other campus organizations are taking action to support the Asian American community through fundraising and organizing events.
Angelica Majorczyk ’22 and Saumya Sharma ’22, the diversity and inclusion chairs for Phi Gamma Nu and Phi Chi Theta respectively, spearheaded a fundraiser with a coalition of Cornell organizations, including Phi Delta Theta, Diversity on the Street and the ILR Women’s Caucus, for GoFundMe’s AAPI Community Fund. The group currently has raised over $2,000 that GoFundMe will distribute to trusted AAPI organizations to increase community safety and support those affected by violence.
“We thought we should do something actionable that would help the victims of violence,” Majorczyk said. “I thought it makes more sense to team up with a lot of organizations on campus and use people’s [extensive] networks.”
