Did you know that Asians have been at Virginia Tech for more than a century?

Asian students first attended Virginia Tech since at least 1914, when Mozaffar-ed-din Khan enrolled as an international student from Teheran, Persia. This was not long before women were first allowed to attend classes full time at the university in 1921, but nearly four decades before the university would enroll its first Black student, Irving L. Peddrew III, in 1953.

Other early Asian students include Tek Heung Fung, who was the first international student from China to enroll at the university in 1920–1921. The first Asian student to graduate from Virginia Tech was Tien Liang Jiu, class of 1924. He came from Hong Kong to the U.S., and he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. Cato Lee also graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1927. 

The first international student from India was Chittaranjan Ishverlal Almaula of Bombay, who enrolled in 1948 as a graduate student. The first Asian woman international student to enroll at the university in 1950 was Yvonne Rohran Tung, from Hong Kong. She would go on to earn an M.S. from Cornell University, with a thesis titled, "A Study of Stabilizing Agents for Ascorbic Acid in Plant Material." Fujio Umibe of Yokohama was the first Japanese international student to enroll at Virginia Tech in 1952, and Tullio Giacinto Vigano of Manila, Philippines, was the first Filipino international student to enroll at the university in 1955.

Blacksburg Chinese School, then known as the Chinese School of VPI, was established in 1979 by Dr. Joseph Wang, Professor of Architecture and Design, and the late June Wang. The School was important for bringing the Chinese community together in a formal space, and it helped connect Chinese children born in the area to their ancestral culture and language. It was renamed the Blacksburg Chinese School in 2010 when Xiaojin Moore became the principal.

The Vietnamese Student Association was also established in 1979. The Association of Chinese Students and Scholars was founded in 1982, and the Chinese American Society was founded in 1984. The Filipino Student Association was founded in 1989.

Multi-ethnic Asian organizations include the Asian American Student Union, which is estimated to be established in around 1991. The first annual Asian American Cultural Exhibition took place the following year, in 1992, and the first Asian American Awareness week was held in cooperation with the Asian organizations a year after that, in 1993. Sigma Psi Zeta Sorority, Inc., the first Asian/Asian American interest Greek organization was founded by San-Young Hwang, Elaine Kwan, An Tran, and Van Tran in 2001. A number of Asian and multi-ethnic Greek organizations including Theta Nu Xi, Alpha Kappa Delta Phi, and Lambda Phi Epsilon would follow. Later, the Asian/Asian American Faculty and Staff Caucus was founded by Jennifer Sano-Franchini in 2015. The Asian American Coalition started by Sora Ko and Anu Sharma in 2016.

The Asian Cultural Engagement Center was established in 2017. According to the Office of Analytics and Institutional Effectiveness at our university, as of Fall 2019, Asians comprise 10% of the undergraduate student body and are thus the largest racialized minority group on campus.