Asian American Studies Program
The Asian American Studies Program, one of the programs under the Department of Ethnic Studies, is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of historical and contemporary experiences of Asian-ancestry groups in local, national, and global contexts. Asian American is a pan-ethnic term designating a racialized population made up of various groups of Asian ancestry, and encompassing both the foreign-born and the U.S.-born.
As initially constituted as a component of the emergent field of ethnic studies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the AASP centered on domestic U.S. concerns. It continues to be part of a national activist effort to increase the political, economic and cultural representation of people of color in American life, more specifically, to improve the educational relevance and ethnic diversity of institutions of higher learning. However, the AASP has also been responsive to the shifting geopolitical, economic and sociocultural forces most conveniently summed up by the term globalization, and is now increasingly attentive to issues of transnationality and diaspora while retaining its original commitment to community empowerment.
Mission Statement
The AASP is committed to expanding and enriching the intellectual fabric of the entire academy by contributing to:
- the critical understanding of the rich and complex histories and experiences of Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry;
- the framing of this knowledge and understanding within larger intellectual inquiries regarding race and ethnicity in national and global contexts;
- the development of critical thinking and innovative learning through a socially engaged research and teaching curriculum;
- the promotion of comparative, multi- and inter disciplinary approaches to the study of the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian Americans in local, national, and global contexts;
- the strengthening of relationship between the university and the community by fusing academic learning with community engagement.
Core Faculty in Asian American Studies
- Catherine Ceniza Choy, Associate Professor
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Asian American Studies
Research interests: Asian American history, Philippine and Filipino American studies, contemporary U.S. immigration, and nursing history - Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Professor
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Asian American Studies
Research interests: Comparative historical studies of race, gender and class and their intersections in relation to immigration, labor markets, and citizenship. Uncovering the connections among social structure, cultural discourse, and everyday experience. - Elaine H. Kim, Professor
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Asian American Studies
Research interests: Asian American literary and cultural studies, Korean American Studies, Asian and Asian American Feminist Studies - Michael Omi, Associate Professor
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Asian American Studies
Research interests: Racial theory and politics, racial/ethnic classification and the census, Asians Americans and racial stratification, and racist and anti-racist social movements. - Khatharya Um, Associate Professor
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Asian American Studies
Research interests: Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian American Studies, refugee migration, transnational and diaspora studies, post-colonial, conflict and post conflict studies and genocide studies, access and education of racialized minorities in American public schools - Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Professor
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Asian American Studies
Research interests: Anglophone and Sinophone Chinese American literatures; the Chinese diaspora; immigrant writing and film; transnational reception studies. Asian American literature: transnationality, globalization, and mobility; gender and sexuality; canon formation