What’s NYCAASC?

The New York City Asian American Student Conference (NYCAASC) is a student-run intercollegiate organization dedicated to addressing issues pertinent to Asian/Pacific/Americans on local, national, and global scales. Featuring interactive workshops alongside local and nationally based speakers and performers, the conference is structured to encourage solidarity and initiative both within the community and beyond. The day-long conference consists mainly of workshops and discussion groups with each workshop track specifically themed to cover a range of topics and ideas that intersect with the Asian American identity.

Like a strand of thread connecting two worlds, the hyphen in the word Asian-American often reminds us of how we are seen as neither fully Asian nor fully American. The Asian-American narrative emerges not from our own experiences, but from the stories that others have constructed about us, and our otherness comes from our existence between multiple worlds. NYCAASC 2020’s theme, Amplify, takes both a retrospective and forward-looking view of Asian America by celebrating the successes of Asian American creatives and activists over the past year while pushing for representations of our community that reflect the true diversity of our experiences. This year’s conference takes place on a virtual platform, allowing us to bring engaging workshops, open discussions, and community-building activities to an even broader audience.