Linus Kaechele (he/him) is a senior studying comparative cultures and politics with minors in Spanish and sociology. He works as an undergraduate research assistant to Associate Dean Linda Racioppi and as an intercultural aide in Case Hall. Kaechele is the chair of theComparative Cultures and Politics Caucus on JMC Student Senate.
My time taking MC 319: Asian American History left me with a deeper understanding of how American history cannot be understood without the involvement and influence of the APIDA/A community. While the historical lessons I learned from this class were incredibly valuable, it is the oral history and collaborative book-making project that I will remember most from MC 319.
As part of the course, my classmates and I spent the fall semester of 2023 creating a book that centered the experiences of APIDA/A people in Michigan titled “On the Banks: Currents Within APIDA/A Youth Experiences in Michigan.” To do this, we each interviewed a member of the APIDA/A community with ties to Michigan State University or the state more broadly to create an oral history of their experiences.
Through the interview I conducted, I was able to learn more about my friend Hannah Raymond’s background, her culture and her perspective as an adopted Chinese American woman. This interview then allowed me to write an essay about Hannah that is included in the book.
Additionally, this class and this project helped me further understand my positionality as a white man in relation to inequality, social change and how I move through time and space.
While my time in Madison has helped me to become well-versed in the intersectional issues faced by different people by virtue of their multifaceted identities, these issues of inequality have been taught through watered-down academic texts that communicate an experience of inequality but not all types of inequality.
Creating this book taught me that while the existing reservoir of academic texts on inequalities, identities and experiences of different people is incredibly important, these texts are incomplete if not paired with conversations with those whose life stories they seek to capture.
As a CCP major, my education has focused on understanding the world, the histories that shape it and the issues that plague it. And, as a graduate of MC 319, I’ve learned that addressing these topics requires one to study them through perspectives other than my own.
"On the Banks: Currents Within APIDA/A Youth Experiences in Michigan" and the stories it
contains can be found on Humanities Commons.