Keva Bui

Candidate statement

I am a 3rd year PhD student at UC San Diego in Ethnic Studies with a Graduate Certificate in Critical Gender Studies and a community organizer with VietUnity-SoCal. AAAS has been a valuable haven for me since my undergraduate education at Dartmouth College, as it provided an intellectual, collaborative, and community space for me to explore my interests and passions during moments where I felt trapped by institutional racism and structures of violence. I feel deep gratitude for the AAAS community, and am running for Student Representative in hopes of contributing to the community that has sustained me for the past 5 years. Having participated in campus movements for Asian American Studies, served on the executive committee for the Southeast Asian American Studies conference in 2020, as well as organized multiple gatherings of Asian American community organizers, I deeply believe in creating networks of solidarity between students, faculty, and community members. The work we do extends beyond the boundaries of the academy. I hope to bring my experiences as both a student and community organizer to help create cross-collaborations that can truly work to fulfill the project of Asian American Studies in imagining more just worlds for collective livability