The most common reaction when my graduate student peers hear that I specialize in Asian Americanstudies at the University of Pennsylvania is a pitying shake of the head. Penn does not have a program in Asian American studies, and currently it scrapes along from semester to semester with a few undergraduate courses taught by adjuncts or visiting professors. How, my peers wonder, does a graduate student work on a doctorate in the field when there are no professors at her home institution with whom to work?

The issue here is to work around the absence of Asian American studies, and I’ve stumbled onto three practical strategies. One is to borrow shamelessly from other institutions. Two of my three dissertation committee members, for example, are professors at other universities. The second strategy is to exhaust all existing resources at Penn. And the third is to actively work to bring Asian American studies to Penn. These three strategies work in part because, despite the lack of Asian American studies, Penn and my department, history, in particular, are not overtly hostile to the field. My advisor, for example, is a strong supporter of my work, and I have the opportunity, through my department, to teach my own course in Asian Americanstudies.

Let me first explain that when I entered graduate school, my intended field of study was immigration and U.S. social history, fields in which Penn has some fine professors. It quickly became clear to me, however, that Asian immigration didn’t fit comfortably within the theoretical frameworks set up in the immigration field, and within the first semester I was turning to Asian American studies and its more hospitable framework. That first year of graduate study, however, I was quite alone. Without any classes that included even one article on Asian immigration or Asian Americans, I scoured the library for texts on Asian immigration. There I stumbled onto Amerasia Journal and first came upon the names of scholars I would later learn were pioneers in the field. With those names, I sent letters to faculty members in fertile California requesting syllabi and reading lists. And then I found, through a mutual acquaintance, the one person in the area who was teaching an Asian American studies course, a dean at a nearby liberal arts college who has since moved to another institution.

Two years later, when I returned from a leave of absence studying Korean history at a university in Seoul, Penn’s situation had improved somewhat. We now had a few courses taught by adjuncts, and that year even had a visiting professor in Asian American studies. That professor is now a valued mentor. Penn also had formed, through student pressure, a search committee for a full-time faculty member in the field. Through the recommendation of my advisor I was made a member of that search committee. After three years of searching, we hired two junior faculty this spring, one in literature and one in sociology. My involvement in the field began in earnest that year as I studied for oral examinations, engaged in the faculty search, and put together a dissertation proposal.

My ties to Penn now mainly revolve around the struggle for an Asian American studies program. As a graduate student who works closely with undergraduates, as a member of the Asian American studies faculty search committee, and as the main organizer for last year’s Asian American studies conference held at Penn, I’ve been witness to an ongoing struggle, a participant in the art of academic hiring, and a cheerleader of sorts for the field as a whole.

My own research and intellectual development, however, lie largely outside Penn and within the Korean communities of which I am a part and which provide the rational for an Asian American studies program, for I am a strong believer in an academics that is rooted in communities and responsive to community needs. Thus, I locate my intellectual home base within the Korean communities where I live and work. This is a return to the roots of Asian American studies, a field originally committed to Asian American communities and their struggles for liberation, struggles which gave birth to the field itself.

Working in Asian American studies at a school where the concept itself is alien to most faculty is not necessarily to be recommended. My solution has been to locate myself firmly within my specific community and to become directly involved in the struggle for Asian American studies programs. Thus, I’ve been able to draw strength from the field as a whole rather than from only my particular institution. The experience has been rewarding in providing me with a sense of participation, however meager, in the growth of an academic field that is still concerned with justice, liberation, and the betterment of our human condition.

Ji-Yeon Yuh studies the Korean diaspora, Asian American history, and U.S. history at the University of Pennsylvania. She is writing a doctoral dissertation on Korean military brides and their lives as immigrant women.