Courtesy of AACC

This past spring break the Asian American Cultural Center — AACC — once again arranged unique externship opportunities for Asian American students. 

The program connects current Yale undergraduates with Asian American alumni sponsors around the world who provide participants with a one-to-two week unpaid internship experience in a variety of fields. This year, the AACC offered externships to 28 students across eight different professional sectors.

“We are very mindful about offering experiences that can expose students to their own heritage,” said Victory Lee ’25. “I think it is an important way to encourage students to connect what they’re doing professionally to their own identity, and the impact that they can have to the community that they belong to.”

Lee serves as one of the AACC’s two Alumni Engagement Student Coordinators. She and Mark Chung ’25 were in charge of organizing the program and oversaw the entire process. 

For Lee, the mission at the core of this externship program is to celebrate Yale’s Asian American alumni and amplify their work’s visibility to current undergraduates. 

“It’s not just an alternative to conventional internships. It’s more like highlighting the work that Asian American alumni are doing in more community-focused industries and building Asian American communities in particular,” said Lee. 

One of these alums was Grant Din ’79. 

Din served as Yale’s Asian American Students Alliance president during the second semester of his first year and remained heavily involved in Asian advocacy on campus throughout his undergraduate career. When he first received an email inviting him to host AACC externs, he was working at the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation in San Francisco. 

“It was a perfect match,” said Din regarding the externship program. “I wanted to not only have them, have the students do research at the National Archives, go to Angel Island, but ideally, learn a little bit about the Asian community, out here in the Bay Area.”

This year, four students participated in the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation externship. For Sophia Li ’27, it aligned perfectly with her aspirations to enter the non-profit field. 

For Hubert Tran ’27, the five-day program provided a break from his typical STEM research and allowed him to engage in a different kind of inquiry. 

During their week in San Francisco, students conducted independent research at the National Archives at the Leo J. Ryan Federal Records Center. Each student chose a topic to focus on, and many chose deeply personal subjects. 

Tran, whose family is of Vietnamese origin, investigated the disparate experiences of immigrants from China compared with those from French Indochina. 

The externship also included a visit and guided tour of Angel Island. 

“When they look at all these case files, they can see something in addition to what you might learn in a textbook or in a class,” said Din. “You can read about it, but if you go in and see the carvings that people left because they were being detained and are not able to see their families or just get out of there and just walk around and see all that, that’s pretty profound.”

The students agreed with Din’s perspective — each found their trip to the island, which is now a museum and state park, deeply meaningful.

At the end of the externship, each student presented their research to the director and other staff members and tour guides of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation. 

Din emphasized how the students’ novel perspectives provide regular employees useful “exposure” to ideas and experiences they may not have previously considered. 

For many participants, their externship experience also granted them insight into the professional world. 

“It was really useful for me personally, because I didn’t have experience with architecture professionally before this, so what I really valued was that I got this thought that these architects are working on real life projects, and I went on site to see exactly what they do,” said Tajrian Khan ’27, an architecture and computer science student who was an extern at Apicella + Bunton Architects in New Haven. 

Khan spent the week researching and presenting precedents to clients looking to renovate particular spaces, visiting architectural sites and meeting with construction engineers. His externship host additionally invited experts to speak with Khan and the other employees at the firm over “educational lunches.” 

The externship validated Khan’s interest in architecture.

Muhammad Nuliadi ’28 worked with five other externs in Seattle, Washington, at the International Rescue Committee, which helps refugees settle into life in the United States. 

“I see the passion of the people I was lucky enough to work with, and I think that was a big one, just being able to see the people that are passionate about this,” said Nuliadi. 

Through the program, Nuliadi said he also gained a more nuanced view of Asian American student life at the University. He cherished the opportunity to grow close with students from “diverse parts of campus.”

“Having an Asian American community and being able to see the alumni staying connected under that shared identity is something that I think is really powerful,” said Lee. “The spring break externship is ultimately really focused on community building.”

For Din, the benefit goes both ways. The AACC externship has allowed him to continue to feel involved in Yale’s Asian American community and to share the Bay Area with these students. He added that he has designed a special “sightseeing” tour for the externs and connects them with other alumni in the area over meals. 

Many externs emphasized the kindness their hosts extended to them. Khan told the News that from his host’s frequent check-ins, he “felt like she really cared.” Additionally, Li described how meeting Din “gave me hope for the future.” 

“Being able to meet these extraordinary trailblazers, really, who were able to start programs, the first of its kind in the U.S. and especially here at Yale, was very inspiring,” said Tran. “Seeing people who look like us in these roles of power, of success and leadership, it tells young people that we are able to do things that we want to do.” 

According to Li, meeting alumni was the highlight of her externship experience, and everyone was enthusiastic to work with externs. 

Grant Din ’79 served as a member of AASA during the student movement to found the Asian American Cultural Center in 1978.