TAPAS Alumni
Juhwan Seo
Juhwan Seo '17 is the co-founder of TAPAS and the Harvard Ethnic Studies Coalition. He developed his racial consciousness through Asian American Studies classes at Harvard. He was a joint concentrator in Sociology and WGS. After college, he worked at the New York Immigration Coalition, where he organized immigrant-serving organizations and advocated for policy change. Currently, he is a PhD student in Sociology at Cornell University.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Developing TAPAS from parent organization PAPIA
Asian American Studies Town Hall
Contributing to efforts that resulted in the formation of HESC
Daniel Lu
Hi everyone! I’m Daniel, class of 2020 :) I lived in Lowell house, majored in physics and philosophy, and spent a lot of my time outside of TAPAS dancing. I joined TAPAS sophomore fall, after looking for a way to get involved with Asian-American activism and then meeting Sally Chen. Over sophomore spring and junior fall, I served as a programming coordinator (i.e. events chair) with Jude He. We had some fun organizing movie screenings, cooking classes, and some advocacy for affirmative action. Fellow TAPAS member James Gui later introduced me to the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), a non-profit working to empower the Greater Boston Area Chinese community, and I ended up interning at CPA my junior summer and senior year. TAPAS taught me so much about being a better advocate, team member, and person, and I know I will always treasure those lessons and friendships.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Panel on Asian Americans and affirmative action
BLM Solidarity Action Hours
Panel on Advocacy on College & Beyond w/ Wayne Yeh
Emily Zhu
Emily was a student in Eliot House and graduated with a degree in Sociology and Statistics, with a secondary in EMR (and an unofficial secondary in WGS). Their senior thesis focused on the relationship between environmental injustice and the prison-industrial complex, analyzing the distribution of environmental toxins on incarcerated populations. During their time at Harvard, they also were involved in Asian American Womxn's Association (AAWA), Harvard Queer Asian (HQA), PBHA Chinatown Citizenship, and the First Year Urban Program (FUP), and hosted Asian American Community Brunch. In addition, Emily has a deep love for shoujo anime, strangely cute animals, and sharing food with their loved ones.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Queer Asian American Programming
ICAP Kick-off Event
Making Sense of the Mauna Kea Protests
James Gui
I'm James, class of 2020, and I've been a member of TAPAS since 2018, though it feels like it's been longer. My politicization and radicalization came quite late in college, but after reading Edward Said's Orientalism, Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks, and an unhealthy number of tweets, I began to look at the world in an anti-imperialist lens. My theory of change informs my volunteering with PBHA's Chinatown Afterschool program, and I hope to continue fighting for change as an educator or community organizer. I also DJ for Harvard's radio station and take photographs of pretty things.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Abolition Action Hour
Attending Ethnic Studies and Sit-Ins
Photographing Mauna Kea Event
Julie Sunyoung Chung
My name is Julie, and I’m from Los Angeles, CA. I graduated from Harvard in 2020; while I was an undergrad, I lived in Adams House (woot!) and studied Social Anthropology and Global Health & Health Policy. I joined TAPAS around the end of my junior year, and by then, I'd become friends with or organized events with the majority of TAPAS members through my work with Asian American Womxn’s Association (AAWA) and Asian American Community Brunch. Junior to senior year, I encountered many barriers while researching and writing my senior thesis in ethnic studies, but TAPAS was always there to support me. Right now, I’m working on issues of food sovereignty and SNAP (food stamps) outreach with Food Roots, a program of Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement. I’m so glad that I still have my TAPAS friends to talk to about decolonization, U.S. militarism in Asia and the Pacific, capitalism, queerness, narrative ethics, the problem with liberalism, the future of ethnic studies, and so much more!
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Panel and Q&A event about the Protect Mauna Kea Movement
Organizing undergrad signatures around denial of tenure to professors of color
“Art Installation” [AKA ‘The Bus’]
Atheena Arasoo
Atheena lived in Currier and Winthrop Houses and graduated with the Class of 2020. She designed her Social Studies focus field, entitled "Pacific Studies: Indigeneity, Migration, Empire" based around some of the themes she was lucky to study from faculty, particularly through the History Department and Warren Center, who were supportive of Ethnic Studies. She was very much interested in building Ethnic Studies opportunities in the social sciences at Harvard. Atheena was also involved in many cultural groups on campus and pushed to increase TAPAS' reach and diversity of membership. After graduating, Atheena is now working as a Budget Coordinator for Boston Public Schools.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Connecting with other student orgs and recruiting new TAPAS members
Helping to increase our social media (Facebook) presence
Participating in Ethnic Studies discussion sessions with students, faculty, and administrators
Alice Cheng
My name is Alice Cheng, and I graduated in 2020 with a concentration in Economics and secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights. During my sophomore fall, I got involved in TAPAS and found a wonderful group of people invested in each others’ learning and growth. Soon after, I became involved as a co-coordinator, organizing for Ethnic Studies before the formal establishment of the undergrad branch of HESC and contributing to TAPAS’s now non-hierarchical committee structure. I found Asian American studies and ethnic studies classes I took to be critical to my growth and political consciousness. While at Harvard, I was also involved in PBHA’s Refugee Youth Summer Enrichment program and Chinatown Afterschool. To me, progressive change combines direct service, advocacy, and education (ethnic studies!). TAPAS embodies this theory of change, and it has been so great to see the TAPAS community grow!
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
“Art Instillation”
Helping start the undergraduate Harvard Ethnic Studies Coalition
Met with administrators and organized rallies about ethnic studies
Jenny Choi
I graduated in 2016 (social studies; Winthrop), and am now finishing up my last year at the Yale Law School. I helped found TAPAS in 2015, and am so proud to see how the community has grown and matured over the years!
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Planning teach-ins to supplement the dearth of Asian American Studies courses at Harvard
Organizing with alumni and faculty to grow stronger presence at multiple levels of the school community
The night that "TAPAS" became "TAPAS" in earnest, we were all huddled around a table in a Winthrop seminar room, working through possible names and organizational structures
Kelsey Ichikawa
(she/her/hers) I graduated from Harvard College in 2020 with an A.B. joint concentration in neurobiology and philosophy. I originally hail from the California Bay Area and (like most folks here!) care a lot about issues related to race, gender, class, and the politics of science. In my academic life, I've conducted research in social neuroscience & neuroimaging, philosophy of emotions, and science and technology studies. I'm indebted to TAPAS and the Asian American Womxn's Association for giving me a political and personal home at Harvard! When I'm not working, you can catch me writing sloppy poetry, or geeking out about museums and science fiction. Next year (if all goes well), I'm starting a traveling project about art collectives and transnational feminist movements. Get in touch or tweet me @IchikawaKelsey
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Southeast Asian Deportation & the Model Minority Myth Panel
Intercollegiate Asian American Zine Workshop
Prison Abolition Reading Group
Sally Chen
Sally Chen ‘19 was co-coordinator of TAPAS and graduated with a joint concentration in History & Literature and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, as well as a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights. Through ethnic studies, she learned to interrogate the root causes of obstacles that communities of color face, but more importantly, found an inspiring community of activists and advocates putting this education to practice. At Harvard, she was also active with PBHA’s Chinatown Citizenship and the Bok Center Undergraduate Pedagogy Fellows. As a first-generation college alumna from a working-class Chinese American family and a beneficiary of race-conscious admissions policies, she testified in support of affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard, a federal lawsuit for which TAPAS was granted amicus status in 2018. She is currently Economic Justice Program Manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action, working with Chinese immigrant communities seeking economic sustainability and independence.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Hosting increasingly more fun and festive TAPAS Open Interest Meetings (and seeing our community grow)
Defend Diversity! Solidarity Rally for Opportunity and Equality
To All the Boys I've Loved Before Screening + Discussion
Sunah Chang
Hi y'all! My name is Sunah, and I graduated from Harvard in 2020 with a degree in Social Studies. I first joined TAPAS during my sophomore year after taking a few Asian American Studies courses at Harvard, which energized me to get involved in the broader fight for ethnic studies on campus. Finding a community of fellow progressive and politicized Asian American students through TAPAS was such an impactful part of my college experience, and I continue to feel incredibly grateful for all the friends and role models I found through TAPAS. In my post-grad life, I'm currently working as a paralegal for a plaintiff's law firm that advocates for folks dealing with discriminatory workplaces. In the future, I plan to go to law school and pursue a career at the intersections of legal advocacy and racial justice work.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Organizing the first meeting of ICAP (Intercollegiate Coalition of Asian Progressives)
Coordinating the Intercollegiate Zine Workshop/Event
Starting TAPAS' Facebook page
Liren Ma
Liren Ma ‘20 was co-coordinator of TAPAS and graduated with a joint concentration in Statistics and Sociology, as well as a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights. Liren is passionate about urban design and planning.
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Reforming TAPAS committee structure
Defend Diversity! Solidarity Rally for Opportunity and Equality
To All the Boys I've Loved Before Screening + Discussion
David Moon
I technically studied Computer Science at Harvard, but count my personal experience with ethnic studies as far more important to shaping how I see the world. Both coming to understand my own ethnic identity and the ways in which it influences how I see the world and the world sees me have deeply transformed my values and perspective. I want a future where more people have exposure to ethnic studies and pursue it to their hearts' desire!
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
TAPAS Cooking with MSG
Canvassing signatures for restoring voting rights to convicted felons
Maxwell Ho
I'm Max (or Maxwell), and I've been a member of TAPAS ever since Sally invited me into the organization in my first year. I graduated in 2021 and studied Computational Neuroscience with a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights (EMR). My friends in TAPAS showed me what it means to be together in community and to work with communities as spaces of justice and change. In my first and second years, I loosely participated in TAPAS's advocacy for ethnic studies and affirmative action. With Liana, Raj, and Ruth, I coordinated TAPAS's transition to cyberspace, name change, and growing pains as a newly non-hierarchical org. For the near future post-grad, I will be working as a medical assistant/scribe at a pain management clinic and applying to medical school. As a proud member and co-coordinator, TAPAS has been the foundation of my growth and friendships in college!
TAPAS Projects Involved in Include:
Anti-Southeast Asian Deportations
Abolition, Economic Justice, and Solidarity Action Hours
#StopAsianHate Asian American Coalition Vigil and Fundraiser