Dr. Franklin Odo’s Impact On My Educational Journey

I never met Dr. Franklin Odo in person but his impact on my journey as an educator was immense.

In the summer of 2010 I arrived at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center to serve as a graduate student research intern. Aside from conducting research at the National Archives for my dissertation, my duties at APAC included participating in several public-facing projects advancing Asian American history and culture under their new executive director, Dr. Konrad Ng. I loved my brief stay working with awesome folks at APAC--it was my first time being exposed to a vision of Asian American Studies as something valuable outside the ivory tower classroom; in a way, returning it to its activist community roots. It really inspired me to *do* Asian American Studies in a way that truly matters, and shaped every subsequent class I taught and project I oversaw. None of that would've been possible without Franklin, who served as APAC's founding director until his retirement in 2010, right before I arrived. Even though APAC didn't nearly have the same status or resources as the Smithsonian's other identity-based museums, Franklin stewarded APAC for 13 years, curating innovative exhibits on multiple Asian American communities and histories.

So, it was truly an honor when I was invited by historian Dr. Beth Lew-Williams to join Franklin and other Asian American historians on the roundtable, "How Should We Teach Asian American History?” at last year's virtual Association for Asian American Studies conference. I nervously presented on my oral history project, Memories of Militarism and War: Asian American Voices From the DMV which I oversaw as a faculty member of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland, one of many institutions where Franklin taught and helped build Asian American Studies. Franklin was enthusiastically supportive of my work and the work of the other roundtable participants. I had no idea he was battling cancer at the time. But he was clearly still passionate about Asian American storytelling as a way of sharing our struggles and triumphs with ourselves and the rest of the country.

Speaking of storytelling, click here to listen to a great oral history interview with Franklin from the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

Rest in peace and power, Franklin, and thank you for all that you've done for me and so many others.