[0:00:04]

Kiera Feldman: Alright, there we go. Can you hear me alright?

Lena Chen: Yes, can you hear me?

KF: Uh huh, yep, sounds good. So um I guess can we begin by you introducing yourself and giving today's date and where you are?

[00:00:18]

LC: Ok. Today is July 14, 2006. Um I am in San Francisco sitting in my office. This is a Friday. My name is Lena Chen, class of 1973. I came to Brown from Hong Kong as a foreign student starting in 1969.

KF: Great. And so could you give some background about where you grew up and where you went to school?

[00:00:50]

LC: Yes. I was born in Taiwan. My father was a college professor. He taught southeast Asian history so we moved around Asia quite a bit when I was growing up. We lived in Vietnam and Hong Kong. And I came from Hong Kong to attend Brown. And when I first started at Brown I actually was better in French than I was in English. So by necessity a lot of my friends-my first friends at Brown were also people who were French speakers.

KF: And could you maybe give a little bit more about what your family was like?

[00:01:36]

LC: My father's family is from Taiwan. And my mother's family is from Vietnam, from the North of Vietnam. They met when my father was a graduate student studying Vietnamese history in Vietnam. They married in Vietnam and moved back to Taiwan. The family was very involved with Vietnam in many ways since my father was an expert in its history and my mother's family was split between the civil war. Part of the family joined the North and part joined the South. And I think that was not over until the 1970s when the country was reunited. So Vietnam and politics, always a very touchy and hot subject in the family.

KF: So um what made you decide to leave and come to Brown?

[00:02:47]

LC: We had-our education when we were growing up in Taiwan, we spoke Taiwanese and at home and talked Mandarin in school. And my mother, being Vietnamese, had always insisted that we speak to her only in Vietnamese. So we grew up bilingual. And when we moved to Vietnam we switched from Chinese to French so back then it was Vietnamese and French. By the time we got to Hong Kong we switched back to Chinese and started learning English. And at that point the option for me was to either go to a college-attend the local university, the Hong Kong University, or either go to Canada or the United States to attend colleges so we wouldn't have to learn yet a foreign language.

[00:03:47]

LC: And I was on a premed track so um I was in-they track you pretty early on in high school into either the liberal arts or the sciences. I was in the sciences part and trying to follow the footsteps of my grandfather who was a doctor in Taiwan. I was supposed to go into medicine and Brown was known to have an excellent premed program. And that was the reason why I applied to Brown. I didn't know any better to apply to more than one school, so Brown was the only school that I applied to and I was accepted.

[00:04:28]

LC: Come from a middle class family in Hong Kong was still considered I guess eligible for scholarship so I was on a tuition scholarship at Brown for the four years that I attended. By the time I got to Brown I had realized when I looked at the curriculum for the premed program I realized there were a lot of other subjects that I had been very very interested in but never really had the opportunity to explore. Because the early tracking that we had in high school. So I started basically-I think at that point we had the option in 1969 we had an option to either have grades or just have a pass fail system with a letter of recommendation from the professor. So the openness of that was very very attractive. So I started taking courses in practically probably every subject just to find out what they were all about.

[00:05:38]

LC: And eventually came to realize that I was even though I had a good science background I was also very interested in the arts, in the fine arts specifically. And eventually graduated, turned into a very strong interest in sculpture. And from there on it was trying to combine my interest in arts and science and architecture seemed like a perfect subject, perfect direction for me.

KF: And how did your family feel about you switching from the premed track to the one you took?

[00:06:22]

LC: My family was very disappointed um because in Asia you are either a doctor or go into business for yourself. I guess being a professor was a very respectable thing but that just mean, it meant life-long poverty [laughing]. Which in the case of my father was pretty true. So yeah my family was very disappointed even though I have no regret going into architecture. I really love architecture and I've been practicing it since I graduated-since I got my master's degree in architecture.

KF: So you came to Brown in 1969 and graduated in '73?

LC: Yes.

KF: And what year were you born?

[00:07:17]

LC: I was born in 1949. I was a few years behind the freshman class because of all the school changes that we went through, myself and my siblings. All the changes in languages. We were always-every time we started in a new country we were always dropping a few grades behind. Always being the biggest kid in a class, always sitting in the back [laughs]. Uh and it almost seemed that by the time we caught up with the rest of the class we [were] moving on to another country and started that all over again. So as a result of that my oldest brother went to school in France and had-he's now a French citizen with a family with children who are French citizens. And my second brother went to college in Japan and married a Japanese woman and his children are both in Japan now. They also grown, they finished college already. And myself and both my sisters came to the US. I came first and then my two younger sisters followed. We decided to stay with English, so it's a interesting family situation when we get together for a family reunion we all have different languages that we are more fluent in than our own native language that we grew up with because of circumstances in educational opportunity.

KF: What was it like when you got to Brown with the language difference?

[00:09:06]

LC: That was part of the thing I was talking about. My first friends were people who speak uh French, who I could communicate with in French and also among them quite a few were foreign students. So French actually was very-I had my English was more of a British English, so the American idioms and the accent was kind of a problem in the beginning. I found myself sitting in lecture hall having to be at the very front, right in front of the lecture in order to practically be able to see the lips of the lecture in order to understand what he was saying. I got a lot of help from my friends. So the lectures were the most difficult part. The reading was not as difficult. And the small seminar and small workshop type of classes were a lot easier just because you have more personal interaction.

KF: Um were you um involved in the anti war movement at Brown?

[00:10:25]

LC: I was involved in the sense that all of my friends were fairly active in the movement. I've always had a-even though I felt the war was wrong, my mother was because of what happened with my mother's family, I have always had problems with saying for certain that one side is right and the other side is wrong. The family itself is split so it was always a very difficult, emotional thing for me. But most of my friends, I think probably all of my friends were involved in the anti-war movement. And I joined them in several peace marches and finding myself um with great difficulty trying to explain that to my mother, who was very strongly-she's Vietnamese, Vietnamese Catholic and very strongly anti-Communist. But she also has a brother who belongs to the Communist party, who's still alive living in Vietnam in his 90s now. He was jailed by the French, by the Chinese, by the Americans, and he's just growing old now with his children and grandchildren around him. So it's a very very touchy subject in the family.

KF: [interrupting] what kind-oh excuse me.

LC: Going back explains by situation.

KF: What kinds of-what was he doing during the war?

[00:12:24]

LC: My uncle?

KF: Uh huh.

LC: Well he was a, he was part of North Vietnam. I don't know whether he was actually in the army or what capacity he was in, but he, he was very active in the North Vietnamese government.

KF: And uh could you maybe go into a little more detail about how your mom felt about the war?

[00:12:51]

LC: It-for my mother it's always been very clear. She's never deviated from uh from her stand that communism is a bad thing for the country-for the culture and for Vietnam as a country. There's no discussion, there's no argument, that's why she [inaudible].

KF: So how did you explain your taking part in peace marches to her?

[00:13:29]

LC: I think I can't remember exactly, but I think my-you know part of it is because of the need for more information. You know to try to educate myself. After growing up, you know growing up in Taiwan which is very very anti-communist, and in Vietnam, you know, a country that's had civil war for years and years and years. Um communism, growing up with communism as the most evil thing in the world. And then staying in contact with people who think otherwise. It was just an incredible educational experience for me. And�you know I, it's always, it's very difficult to always look at things in black and white. There's always a lot of gray area between. And I've never been able to take a stand and say this side is right or this side is wrong.

KF: So what did the gray area look like to you?

[00:14:49]

LC: The gray area comes down to the fact that people are the same, whatever political party, whatever religious or ideological um factions they belong to. There are always good people and always people that are not so good. When it comes down to it, it's really just the person to person, the interpersonal relationship and how people, you know the kind of ethical standards that each person has for themself. That's really the most important thing.

KF: [interrupting] So um

LC: It makes it a lot harder to classify a whole group of people as being bad, evil, or you know on the opposite side. Being always right, there's just no such thing. It's just a hindsight from being older now. But I think, I know, I think when I was younger it was just a lot more confusing. Not as clear as it is now.

KF: And um, how would you say women were treated in the anti-war movement?

[00:16:05]

LC: Um�I think the issue of sexism has kind of took a subservient role to the priorities of the anti-war movement. I think the men were still running the show. And I think a lot of the women I saw who were very active in the anti-war movement were still not taking the leadership role.

KF: Um I hate to interrupt but um I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding you.

LC: I'm sorry, I'll get closer. I'll get closer to the speaker.

KF: Ok [laughing].

LC: Better now?

KF: Yeah definitely.

LC: I was just leaning further and further back.

KF: [laughs] Well I mean get comfortable, definitely. So you said it seemed like women weren't running the show. What do you mean by that?

[00:17:11]

LC: It seems to me that um most of the leaders that i-this is on campus, you know. Most of the people who were the quote unquote leaders were still all male. There were very few women who were in the leadership position. There were a lot of women involved with the movement. And I was not um, I mean I was not-I think we discussed this last time, I was not officially involved with either the anti war movement or with the Women of Brown United. I was involved in the sense that um a lot of my friends were involved in it, very closely involved. And we had a lot of exchanges and communications and discussions about the issues. I was always too busy [laughing] doing my thing, um wanting to be learning about architecture you know.

KF: Was it only a question of being too busy or were there other reasons you weren't involved?

[00:18:38]

LC: In hindsight, um I was-architecture was something I had just become very um attracted to, you know. It's a field of incredible interest to me. And the fact that Brown did not have a program put me in a position where I had to structure my own concentration. Which means going to schools like Goddard College and commuting to Vermont in Goddard College to learn about architecture, spending summers there and during the fall commuting back and forth between Brown and Vermont. This is back in the time when I did not drive and I began to rely on friends and taking buses and so on.

[00:19:36]

LC: So that was very consuming in terms of time and energy. I think in my third year, my junior year at brown, I spent very little time at Brown. I was up in Vermont a lot. I worked with William Jordy [sp]-I don't know is he still around?

KF: um I'm not sure.

LC: Art and architecture historian. He wrote the book on American art history. Um anyway he was the only person on the faculty who remotely, who comes very close to, who was able to advise me in terms of what I was trying to do. So you know setting up your own independent concentration, spending a lot of time away from the campus, so on and so forth, does not lead to very much time left to get involved.

[00:20:29]

LC: When I was at Goddard I was actually crashing at the feminist dorm up at Goddard. I had some good friends who were going to school there and I was sleeping on the floor [laughs]. At their dorm and working in the day time doing construction work and taking classes at night in architecture history and [inaudible] and so on. So, and then I had to write a um basically write a paper for Mr. Jordy to you know basically reporting on what I was doing at Goddard. And it was a very exciting time, but it was extremely you know I found myself not having much time for anything else. Doing I think starting I think in the sophomore and going on through the senior year.

KF: So what was a feminist dorm?

LC: I'm sorry?

KF: What was a feminist dorm?

LC: At Goddard?

KF: Uh huh.

[00:21:43]

LC: At Goddard was at that point was a very interesting place. It's a very experimental school, it's very very very progressive, only it's on the left side of progressive and it's a place where there's just incredible amount of energy. Some very very talented, interesting people who at the campus at that time. But at the other extreme there were also people who were total burnout, you know, doing a lot of drugs, not doing much of anything else. So there's this extreme on campus and the feminist dorm just happened to be one that's the cleanest [laughs]. Where there's always food in the fridge, uh you know and some very together people who were living there.

[00:22:37]

LC: And that was very attractive to me, especially since my friends were living there. So they basically put me up, put up with me, I spent a lot of time on the construction site so actually I only came back to crash. It was good to come back to a place where the fridge is well stocked and it's clean and people were very supportive. So that's my definition of what-I mean it's called, it's considered a feminist dorm. I'm trying to think whether there were other ones like that. There was actually a design and construction dormitory. These are basically-it's very bucolic. At Goddard we had small buildings that are scattered across the landscape. And the design and construction dormitory was so chaotic [laughing]. I uh I think I lasted two weeks before I moved out. Between myself and a fellow architecture student from Ethiopia and a good friend from Texas, the three of us ended up, we seemed to be the most responsible people. We ended up doing most of the food shopping and cooking and the cleaning. But not very much time left for doing anything else. So we all moved out, I think the three of us moved out after the first couple of weeks. That's when I moved into the feminist dorm.

KF: Um so, so you-what kind of perspective do you think this kind of distance from the uh anti war movement gave you?

[00:24:31]

LC: I think it's basically what I said before-that you just cannot, there's no, it's very hard to be able to say one group is right and one group is wrong. There's always room in the middle. I tend-I vote democrat now but I still don't agree with a lot of things that they do. Uh and like I said it's very hard to-there are certain issues such as the environmental issue which now I take a very strong stand on that I say this is wrong to do this, we need to do something different. But it was not always so easy to be able to say that. There was tremendous atrocity that was committed by both sides during the Vietnam war. Of north Vietnamese against the south Vietnamese and vice versa. And since I have family from both sides, there's always-excuse me for one second. [knocking] come on in. yes I'm on the phone, ok, bye.

[00:25:44]

LC: Ok we're good. I'm back.

KF: Ok.

LC: I forgot what I was saying.

KF: Oh that's alright. Um what um-how would you describe the relationship between the anti-war movement and the women's movement?

[00:26:07]

LC: I think um even though the anti war movement seemed to be led primarily by men, that gave women an opportunity to start um learning to be leaders and becoming leaders themselves. From a very grassroot level. And I think it also was just the time, probably independently of the war, it was I think at Brown especially there seemed to be a general sense of new possibilities opening up for everyone. And this uh I think we talked about conciousness-raising as something that was a newly found concept. That the idea that if you could change the way the person perceived the world or perceived themselves, things could be better. Um I'm not sure that was all that clearly felt back then for me. Again this is with the benefit of hindsight.

KF: Could you maybe describe how you were involved in the women's movement?

[00:27:51]

LC: I was involved in the sense that I was feeling that I want my place in the sun, you know so to speak. That there should not be anything that would stop me from reaching my goal for me at that point becoming an architect. Of being-there should not be any difference between me and a guy in terms of having opportunities in the field. I had been-the construction site, when I was offered a job to be a photographer's model. You know, that kind of thing. And as far as I was concerned, that should not have happened. That would not have been offered to a man, that they would just take it for granted-I mean if you look at all the literature and the movies and television, whenever they show, whenever someone is portrayed as an architect, invariably it is a male, a white male who wears a hardhat and a little roll of drawings under the arm.

[00:29:09]

LC: And that perception is changing. I don't think it's completely gone. That's still very much in the popular culture, but there certainly are a lot more women in the field of design and construction as opposed to architecture and engineers, and in construction than there ever was before at the time when I was starting out. I think at the time I was starting out, um the only women who were in the construction field-I think women went into it as either plumber or electrician. Because it didn't require as much muscle power as skills. I think a lot of those women were also um-well I'm not going to say this [laughs]. Uh anyway they were all very strong, um they were all very strong as a person. You know personally they were all very dynamic and they're very driven and incredible competitive.

[00:30:14]

LC: I have to say that some of the-the main criticism that I share with my friends who were the, perhaps the illusion that if women were in the position that men were that we would do a better job because we were better people. I'm not sure if that's true anymore. Like I said, people come in all kinds of size and shape and orientation, so we-I used to be critical of women who are um more aggressive or more ruthless than some of the men that I knew, but I've come to accept it as they're just part of human nature, whether you're man or woman. Those traits will come out, it depends on your own value system, you know, whether you're going to let it affect how you relate to another person or whether uh where you can channel it into something better. Anway I think I've run out of steam on that topic.

KF: [laughs] that's alright. Uh let's see, I think you started to go into this, but what kinds of activities were you involved in that could be called part of the women's movement?

[00:31:47]

LC: Um�I think the fact that I was pursuing a career very aggressively, very independently. That all my friends were involved in similar pursuits. That everyone was um fairly active politically. Outspoken, you know, people taking stands on issues. People were raising issues by different-I think on campus it was�it was primarily focused on the relationship between�I think there was quite a bit of focus on the relationship between male faculty and women students.

KF: Oh really, how so?

[00:32:48]

LC: I think we had talked about one specific instance of-I'm not sure I want this to uh, I think we talked about this one, about the fine arts department. But I don't know whether I want to have that on record [laughs, loud siren can be heard in background]. There was a um there was quite a bit of um�let's say extracurricular interaction between female students and male faculty at the fine arts department. And my own group of friends that I was involved with, we did something about it. And that's an instance where you don't just put up with it, you don't suffer the silence like a victim, but you actually take a step and do something about it that's positive.

KF: What did you do about it?

[00:33:47]

LC: We did a-I put together a, you know the Rhode Island Feminist Theater? With Jessica being involved, Jessica Murray, and quite a few other people were involved in that theater. I used that resource to help me put together a kind of a street theater kind of thing targeting the male faculty at the fine arts department. And I know that the male faculty who was involved, their names were never mentioned, but they knew they were the ones being criticized. But at the same time they were able to rise beyond, above that and appreciate the artistic quality of the play that we put together.

[00:34:51]

LC: It was done as a piece of conceptual sculpture that was part of my project.

KF: Why did you um-why theater? Why street theater?

[00:35:06]

LC: Why theater? Um�might have had something to do with the fact that the resource was there, that the feminist theater was there and alive and available. Some of the people in that group like Jessica [Murray] herself is also and art student and understands fully what was happening in the fine arts department. Um I have mixed feeling about having this particular incident put on record, so um�

KF: Ok, do you mind talking about how um the Rhode Island Feminist Theater acted as a resource?

[00:35:55]

LC: Well I have-I have access to the group as actors and actresses. And um I think the guy who, the guy who was the um who was writing the screenplay for them, who was the playwright or at least one of the playwrights, was available to help with the script. And three, four, maybe five of the actors and actresses participated in the play. We put it on as a presentation of my-I think, I'm trying to remember whether it was my junior or senior project for the sculpture department. So these were people who are already politically in agreement with what I was trying to do, and also personally they also had personal experience with what was happening in the department.

KF: Uh could you maybe explain what exactly you were trying to do?

[00:37:10]

LC: We were trying to show�um almost verbatim the exchanges, the verbal exchanges and the different types of behaviors that were happening in the hallways of the department, in the classrooms.

KF: Uh if you don't mind me asking, what kinds of behaviors were happening?

[00:37:36]

LC: There was a lot of heavy duty flirting, um�there were uh�you know, gestures that were not appropriate. Back then there were not so much of the gay issues, so most of the kind of sexual harassment happened between the male professor and the female student. It was along those lines. I don't have anything very specific to, I can't remember specifically�about the play, I think I videotaped it and I don't remember what happened to it. I don't know what happened to the tape. Um do you have something more specific you want to ask?

KF: Um yeah, let's see, well how did people respond to that performance?

[00:38:45]

LC: [laughs] Everybody loved it! Including the professors who were the subject of the play. Um it was a-so we scored in terms of getting a political message out, also in terms of artistic merit. I'm fairly proud of it [laughing]. I just don't remember the specifics of it. I just remember having help from Mark [Halliday] and Jessica [Murray]. I think Katie Phelps was in that. I'm trying to remember who else was in that. I guess I directed and produced it, even though I didn't really have that much theater experience. It was a collective, it was group effort in doing something that we all believed in. And we pulled it off in terms of artistic merit, so there couldn't be anything that's better than that in terms of getting the message across. Because a lot of the times the message-the medium, it's hard to find a medium that's attractive enough for people to be willing to sit through it and listen to it and be touched by it.

KF: Did behavior change after that performance do you think?

[00:40:07]

LC: Definitely changed towards me and towards some of the women who were in the play.

KF: Alright, great. Well on a um slightly different vain of thought, um uh so did you consider yourself a feminist at the time?

[00:40:26]

LC: Yeah. Yes I did.

KF: So what did it mean to be a feminist to you?

[00:40:36]

LC: �It means uh�it means to be able to pursue your dream without being discriminated against as a woman. And for me at that point also as a minority, as a-I considered myself a foreign at that point in this country. So um and to expect to be treated�equally. And one is not always conscious of the fact that you're a woman when you are in a I suppose at that point it would have been academic situation. In these days it would be in a professional situation.

KF: Where did your idea of feminism come from do you think?

[00:41:48]
LC: I think my mother is a very strong influence. She's�she um�she was one of the back-she was born in 1919. Grew up in the North at the time where very few women were educated. I think she and-she has a sister and three brothers. I believe all of them went through at least primary education. I think she and her brothers went through secondary education. Her brothers went on to higher education. Her father was an educator. He was a village teacher in the rural area and he traveled from village to village teaching. He was also a medical doctor. And she was very strongly influenced by him. She was the youngest. She was very bright. And she, she was one of the first women in her time and place to not have her teeth blackened. I don't know if you know of that tradition. It's a way traditional thing for men and women to blacken their teeth. I think it was meant, started as a form of preventing their teeth from rotting and eventually became more of a cultural trait of being a traditional woman.

[00:43:30]

LC: So she was one of the first without having that done. And she also was one of the first to work-to work outside the home as an educator. She worked as a high school teacher, which is very very unusual. And as a group, Vietnamese women have always been known to be very outspoken, very independent. Very strong, very fierce drive to-you know the history of Vietnam has several instances of women who became generals who led troops against China. China was always invading Vietnam.

[00:44:23]

LC: So Vietnamese history had a lot of stories of these very strong women. And my mother, I see her as another one, you know. And it was too bad that she was not able to continue to higher education. But she's always had very great expectation that all her children-especially because my father is a college professor. They always expect that we would have a career and move on and be independent. I think so yes my mother's side of the family, I think I got a lot of inspiration from that.

KF: Were you reading any feminist books or articles or that kind of thing?

[00:45:13]

LC: I read a lot of them back them. I can't remember exactly who I read. Yes I was doing a lot of reading of the books that were coming out at that point. I think I still have all the books in boxes somewhere in boxes in my house. I don't think that I've looked at any of them recently.

KF: Any names at all, or anything come to mind?

[00:45:45]

LC: Anyone that affected me very strongly?

KF: Anything at all.

LC: Oh I can't remember names. But uh, I just, what I can remember is that the, just the general moral support of pursuing your dream and not let the culture and society the way it's set up from stopping you from becoming what you want to become. So that was just the general thrust of the literature that I was reading and of the you know, just the people that I was friends with. So I think like I said before in our last discussion, it probably was not that uh, it's probably not that conscious that I was a feminist, that I was someone who's doing something that's different than before. It's just what was very clear was that this is what I want for myself and I would like to have, I mean I want to see a society that would not put any obstacles in my way. I would like the next generation of women to not have to fight this fight, at least not as intense as we were fighting.

[00:47:20]

LC: So I see in that sense my daughter who is about to go to college, I see her taking a lot of things for granted which I didn't. I remember having to fight all those things. I was very, I mean I'm very glad to know that�the society at least in this part of the US where we live has become that much more progressive, that much more tolerant.

KF: Definitely. Could you uh maybe tell me about your experiences with consciousness-raising groups?

[00:48:07]

LC: I remember meeting with groups of friends on a regular basis, maybe once a week or maybe more often. Sometimes it was all women, sometimes men and women, and spending a lot of time reading-I think reading literature together and discussing issues and talking about interpersonal relationship. Um I think it um�I think that's what they were eventually were called, but I think at the time when we actually were doing it, it was more of a support group where we would try to support each other in terms of what we think is the right thing to do, the right approach. Maybe right is not the right word, but maybe�I can't think of another word but um there was sort of-we were always challenging [cell phone interrupts]. I'm sorry, hold on just a second.

KF: That's alright.

[00:50:00]

LC: Sorry.

KF: Oh no problem, I just have a couple more questions. Um so what um, what was the goal of having these groups?

[00:50:11]

LC: What was the goal of having these groups�I would say uh support, moral support. A forum where you, you can express yourself and test out�test out um�I think there was a lot of question as to-because people's interaction, the way people interact with each other was so much in question, especially between men and women. And also between women and women. That there was always the question as to whether or not I'm doing the right thing, whether or not I'm behaving, you know whether by snapping at somebody because they seem to be having a sexist attitude, was that appropriate or was that overdoing it? So it's just kind of a place where you can feel comfortable and share with your friends, people who are going through the same kinds of things you are going through.

[00:51:24]

LC: What is the appropriate thing to do in certain situation without always having to be on the, having a chip on your shoulder and being so supersensitive about-

KF: And what issues did you personally bring up in these groups?

[00:51:50]

LC: [sigh] That was a long time ago. I don't know if I can remember it [laughing]. Just in general, really just in general, of what is the right mode of behavior. How do you behave towards each other that will promote um the kind of society we live in now. That will move us closer to more tolerance to each other. Because you don't always want to be angry, you don't always want to be protesting, you don't always want to always be what do you call quote unquote bitching. You'd like to be able to take what somebody said at face value or give them the benefit of the doubt without jumping to conclusion and saying you're being racist, you're being sexist. It's just seemed like a, a continually critical state, rather than to live your life you always have to be on the watchout.

[00:52:57]

LC: And it calls-I mean looking back on it it seemed to be a kind of very stressful time. It was very exciting but it was also very stressful. Because you never know whether, you know-you were always questioning what you were doing, you were always questioning what other people were doing. So um, I think that was primarily what was going on in having these groups. Group support was very very important.

KF: How do you think your cultural background played into these conversations?

[00:53:38]

LC: Um being Asian and coming from a very traditional family um, speaking up, being negative, being confrontational, was very very very difficult. It's still very difficult to do. Luckily I don't seem to have to do it as often now as I used to. So there was this quote unquote acceptable behavior pattern for Asian female is being on the submissive side, of being agreeable, of being the uh useful helpmate kind of role. It takes a conscious decision of fighting it every step along the way, of not falling into that all the time. Not to say that-I mean normal human behavior you can just be that way if you were not in a threatening situation, right. Sometime you're aggressive, sometime you're more passive, sometime-you know you don't want to have to think about being so conscious all the time. You just want to be.

[00:54:58]

LC: But back then, just to be means staying stuck in that role, stuck in that mode of behavior, that kind of habit. And once your consciousness is raised you would be always-you can never go back. You always have to [be] continually questioning it. And if you, in that sense having the group around you is also a reminder of the value that you set for yourself of continuing questioning until the situation changes, until the mode of behavior changes.

[00:55:42]

LC: So uh I don't know, does that make sense to you?

KF: Yeah I think so. Do you think-did you the group understand the difficulty it was for you to kind of talk in that way?

[00:55:59]

LC: Yes and no. Some do have more of a�of a more tolerance for cultural differences in terms of responses than others, you know. I needless to say the ones who had more understanding and more forgiving and more support for the difficult position I felt I was in tend to remain my friends up till now. People like Jessica [Murray] and Jenny [Smith] and Rachel [Wyon]. That's probably the reason why they're still my friends. We kept in touch with each other and [inaudible] when I go back east.

KF: Definitely. Um uh were there any other people in your group that were from a different cultural background?

[00:57:05]

LC: I have some friends, [inaudible], who was Japanese decent from Peru. She speaks no Japanese but fluent in Spanish. That was a very interesting background she came from. I'm trying to think who else that I still remember and still keep in contact with. She was uh, she and her husband is from Peru and they were both mathematicians and they graduated the same time, the same year, from the university. I think it's in-I forgot which university. But she was top of the class and he was second. They're both mathematicians and she was offered a scholarship to go do graduate studies at Brown and after she was given the scholarship her-the dean of the school approached her and asked her if that would embarrass her husband for her to be first in class and to have gotten the scholarship and whether she'd be willing-at that point they were not married, her fianc�-whether she'd be willing to give that position and the prize to her fianc�. And she turned it down and she came to Brown. And he subsequently got himself also a scholarship. He also came to Brown. So that was an interesting story to tell. That kind of thing happened uh seemed to happen a lot back then. And they still happen. I still hear about that kind of thing these days, not as often, at least would not be as blatant.

KF: Now I should have um definitely asked this before but um could you maybe tell me a little about Women of Brown United and how you were involve din that?

[00:59:09]

LC: I think my answer to that would be similar to being involved in the consciousness-raising groups. It's the same group of people, essentially, who were involved with the consciousness-raising, the anti-war movement, and women of brown united, rhode island feminist theater. I think it's essentially the same group of people.

KF: And what kinds of things was Women of Brown United doing?

[00:59:39]

LC: I cannot remember other than serving as a support group for women. So because all these groups, different groups that I mentioned, they overlap so we tend-I tend to be involved with them in the same capacity as more of a support group.

KF: Besides having overlapping membership, how else would you characterize the relationship between Women of Brown United, the Rhode Island Feminist Theater, and the anti-war movement?

[01:00:19]

LC: You know what, that's probably a better question to ask Jessica [Murray]. Have you talked to her [laughing]?

KF: I have, I have. But I should probably talk to her again.

LC: Yeah ok. Because she I think Jessica or Rachel Wyon are more of the�I think I'm correct in saying they were the actual, they actually had a membership in these groups whereas I was involved with the people in these various groups. I don't know whether I was actually on the formal official roster of any of these groups.

KF: Well I mean I'm interested in that perspective too, for sure, kind of the peripheral perspective if you will. So you said that all of these groups in your memory kind of acted as um support groups. And I'm wondering why do you think at that time women felt like they needed support?

[01:01:22]

LC: �Because on the daily basis you're confronted with situations where, that require that you respond in a different way than the way you were raised to respond. And you were never certain, especially if you come from a different culture, you were never certain that you whether you were overacting, whether you were underreacting, whether you should approach it in a completely different way. I don't think anyone has really the answer to it. I think it was something that was just evolving, you know. It was a very exciting time, it was a very disconcerting time. You feel very insecure because you were number one you were just becoming a young adult, and so the learning behavior from your own parents from whatever cultural or economic background that you come from, I mean those were the behavior that you learn and all of a sudden you find that, you know, you need to come up with a different way of responding to things.

[01:02:48]

LC: That was a very, very difficult time. You know you were always feeling am I doing the right thing, am I being too angry, um you know and you can't just live and let live, like the saying goes. You always have to challenge it, and even if you don't want to challenge it, and you once your consciousness is raised you cannot walk away from it. [laughs] You have to confront it, constantly.

KF: Now you've touched on this, but I'm wondering um what was it like being um both a woman and Vietnamese and American-or Vietnamese, Chinese, and American.

[01:03:46]

LC: Um there weren't a lot of Asians on campus back then. I think there was a group of Asian American, I forgot what they're called exactly. And I remember being involved with a group briefly maybe in the first year or so that I was at Brown. I just uh�there's a lot of anger expressed when the group got together. There were um, I um, as much as I identified with some of the issues that this group was facing I was, I actually was more attracted to the other groups partially because there were friends in those friends who were also very sensitive to the cultural heritage that I came from.

KF: Other groups-which ones again?

[01:05:00]

LC: The, you know the I don't know how you refer to it, but it's the group that has um that overlaps all those groups that you mentioned-Women of Brown United, the Rhode Island Feminist Theater, and the anti-war movement. I found myself sharing more with these people than I did with the Asian-American group. Not to say that they you know that the issues, I mean I share a lot of the issues of being someone that someone is always asking even if they were born and raised in America, in the United States, there were a lot of Asian Americans in that group. And it seemed to me that the anger they felt was something that was different from what I was feeling.

[01:06:00]

LC: They have a slightly different issue than what I was facing. I didn't mind so much somebody asking me where I came from because I actually came from another country. But for them it was difficult for the, kind of identity crisis of being-I think for them, I think many of them came from the west coast and also from Hawaii. And so for them, being on the east coast which is much more conservative culture, um and not having as many Asians in that area tend to put them in a situation where people would ask them where they're coming from and would get very very angry. Um because they were born and raised in the US, just like everybody else. So it was a different you know kind of different issue for me.

[01:07:58]

LC: I think I mentioned that I was physically attacked in the street, once in Providence, once in Boston, during that time. Having to do, it's totally directly to the war. I think both of these instances the two guys that attacked me were Vietnam vets. One of them was actually in a wheel chair. So those are direct things, direct personal attack which was very difficult for me to understand, you know, except in hindsight knowing that these were people who were direct casualty from the war. And they were probably mentally not equipped to handle anything that reminds them of where they had been injured, where their life had come apart.

[01:08:04]

LC: So in hindsight, intellectually you can understand it. The personal experience was still very traumatic.

KF: How did you deal with it at the time?

[01:08:16]

LC: I um, in the case of Boston, a friend of mine gave me a German Shepherd [laughing] that I took everywhere with me for about 6 months until I realized that the poor dog was probably lonely to go back to the countryside where he lived. And by then I had gotten over that partially. In the case in Providence, I think friends encouraged me to perhaps take a-I don't know, judo or karate class or something, which I think I took briefly following that. But it's not something that you can prepare yourself for. It's just something that happens.

KF: What kinds of support did your friends give you?

[01:09:10]

LC: [sigh] I'm trying, I can't remember specifically about Providence. I just remember that after the attack in Boston these friends loaned me their dog.

KF: What years would those have been?

LC: 1972.

KF: Both of them?

LC: Um I think both of them happened in that same year.

KF: Wow, wow. Well um let's see I am just noticing that I am way over time, [laughing]

LC: Yes [laughing].

KF: Um but is there anything else that you'd like to add?

[01:10:00]

LC: I don't think so. I think um, unless you have some specific question I would be happy to answer it but otherwise-I feel like I have not been able to respond directly to some of your questions specifically about these groups, some of the groups that you're interested in. But um like I said, all I can say is that I was not, I might have never belonged to these groups formally or officially, but the people who belonged to these groups were my friends and some of them still are. So we go back a long way and we still share a lot of these values. It's always good to get together and reminisce [laughs].

KF: For sure, for sure. Do you have-is there anything in particular that you guys reminisce about? Any favorite stories?

[01:11:02]

LC: Well these days, we talk-Jessica [Murray] has a daughter who finished at RISD who is back here working. And my daughter is going to college. And Jenny's [smith] daughter is a few years from going to college. So I think in these days when we get together, one of the things that we do talk about is the fact that we're glad that our kids don't have to be so angry any more. That they could afford to take certain things for granted. And that's really the legacy that we leave behind, that you know, we can-I feel that for myself I can say that I don't have to, I don't feel like I have to be fighting all the time anymore. But perhaps in many ways things have gotten better in society, at least in this part of society.

KF: What kinds of things have gotten better that your children can now take for granted?

[01:12:12]

LC: Um�my daughter is one of the best science student in her class at this private high school she goes to. And she-it does not seem to intimidate her to speak up in class, to challenge the teacher, challenge her classmates, independently of whether they're male or female. Um she, whereas something that you're always-I don't recall being able to do that when I was a high school student and even when I first got to Brown. There's just no question to her that she's just as good. She's a soccer player and you know she does capoeira. There is just no question that this is something that she would do. How long have we had a women's soccer team? Not that long ago, right. Uh I mean, [inaudible] on the national level.

[01:13:32]

LC: So uh those are good things, those are really good things to see. And I'm, you know, I'm glad.

KF: Well thank you so much for talking to me today. I really appreciate it.

LC: Yeah, that's fine. I really enjoy it and I appreciate you doing this. So maybe we have a chance to me at some point. I'll be going to the east coast quite a bit from here on [laughing].

KF: Well definitely. Definitely drop me a line. Alright well I'm going to turn off the recording now if that's alright.

LC: Of course, of course. So stay in [cuts off "touch"].