ASIAN WISCONZINE ONLINE



MARCH 2022 ISSUE



My First Week as a Resident Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics!





Feb. 24-- From Christine Chen


Hi everyone!


In case you haven’t heard, I am serving as a Resident Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics this Spring semester! The Institute of Politics (IOP) was established in 1966 with a mission to unite and engage largely undergraduate students with academics, politicians, activists and policymakers in a nonpartisan fashion, to learn about the world of politics and public affairs from those with real world experience in the field. As a Resident Fellow, I will be hosting study groups over the semester to teach and discuss topics including the long history of Asian American and Pacific Islander activism, the state of voting rights, the power of our communities’ votes and more. I will also be using my time here to serve as a resource for AAPI students on campus, and to engage with AAPI organizations on campus to see how I may support them.


Former AAPIs who served as Resident Fellows in the past were often experts in a specific policy area – but there has never been a fellow to talk about the AAPI community as a whole. I am honored and excited to share my experiences and knowledge with these students who will eventually join us in the field. I hope that through this course and being immersed in campus life some of these amazing students will be inspired to build on our work to ensure AAPIs are included and uplifted for generations to come.


As part of my fellowship, I have a team of incredible student staffers helping me navigate the intricacies of Harvard and I want to give them some space to share their experience of working with me so far:



Anoushka Chander





Anoushka serves as my Chief of Staff at the Institute of Politics and is a first-year student. She previously worked for former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives Sara Gideon, also a former Resident Fellow at IOP, and has been heavily involved in political work over the past few years, working on issues from voter suppression to gun violence prevention. She also works with the Harvard Votes Challenge, a non-partisan initiative at Harvard University that strives to build a civic culture at the university by increasing voter registration and participation among students, staff and faculty.


“Working for Christine has been awesome! It’s been 2 weeks since we all got together as a team and it’s been a wonderful experience. Christine is very inspiring and lovely. She knows everything about the communities she’s serving, and it shows when she talks that she has a deep commitment to AAPI communities, and that she is ‘community first.’ She talks to the people in these communities, eats their food, and is involved with their lives. She’s dedicated to the work and their lives.”



Ethan Kelly





Ethan serves as my Communications Director for the Resident Fellow program. Ethan is also a first-year student who previously worked for former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives Sara Gideon. In addition to being on my team, Ethan also runs “Let’s Talk Elections,” a political YouTube channel geared at analyzing election news, data, polling and more. With few East Asian fellows at IOP and his deep interest in learning about AAPIs in the political arena, Ethan was deeply interested in learning more about my program for the semester.

“Christine is such a nice person and she has given us an environment that is really amazing. Her connection with students and with us is so genuine. You can tell she is listening to what you have to say and she values it. I’ve shared with Christine a lot of my different experiences, including my Mother’s immigration story and my experience with anti-Asian hate. My favorite memory so far is our Super Bowl weekend dinner. She made us dinner: Chinese and midwest food. It was a fun evening we all had a lot to talk about and had great discussions. I’m really happy so far working for Christine, and I think it’s going to be a very exciting semester.” .