Asian-American Studies

Asian American Studies is an academic discipline which critically examines the history, issues, sociology, religion, experiences, culture, and policies relevant to Asian Americans. It is closely related to other Ethnic Studies disciplines, such as African American Studies, Latino/a Studies, and Native American Studies.

History

Asian American Studies appeared as a field of intellectual inquiry in the late 1960s^[1] as a result of strikes by the Third World Liberation Front, a group of minority students at San Francisco State University and at the University of California, Berkeley. The students demanded that college classroom instruction include the histories of people of color in the United States, told from their perspectives. The demand for Ethnic Studies originated from the Eurocentric bias in university curricula.^[2] As a result, a College of Ethnic Studies (the only U.S. university academic department of its kind at the time) became established at San Francisco State University with American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Africana Studies, and Latino/a Studies as its four units,^[3] and four ethnic studies programs became established at the University of California, Berkeley. The Association for Asian American Studies, a professional organization designed to promote teaching and research in the field, was established in 1979.^[4]

Topics in Asian American Studies

Drawing from numerous disciplines such as sociology, history, literature, political science, and gender studies, Asian American Studies scholars consider a variety of perspectives and employ diverse analytical tools in their work. Unlike Asian Studies which focuses on the history, culture, religion, etc. of Asian people living in Asia, Asian American Studies is interested in the history, culture, experiences, of Asians living in the United States.

Academic programs in Asian American Studies provide students with the opportunity to examine the history of Asian-Americans, which includes topics such as immigration and race-based exclusion policies.^[5]

Asian American Studies provides an academic avenue for addressing issues of racial oppression, capitalism at home, and imperialism abroad.^[5]

The discourse also includes studies on how first- and second-generation Asian Americans deal with adjustment and assimilation, especially on their Americanization and aggressive pursuit of higher education and prestigious occupations in a society that still discriminates against them.^[5]

Asian American Studies focuses on the identities, historical and contemporary experiences of individuals and groups in the United States. Concepts and issues that are crucial to this interdisciplinary curriculum include: Orientalism, diaspora, Asian American masculinity, Asian American femininity, cultural politics, and media representation.^{[citation needed]}

Universities and colleges with Asian American Studies departments and programs

• Arizona State University
• Binghamton University
• California State University, Fullerton
• California State University, Long Beach
• California State University, Northridge
• City College of San Francisco
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Dartmouth College
• Hunter College, City University of New York
• New York University
• Northwestern University
• Queens College, City University of New York
• San Francisco State University
• State University of New York at Stony Brook
• The Claremont Colleges
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, Irvine
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, San Diego
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• University of Colorado at Boulder
• University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
• University of Maryland, College Park
• University of Minnesota
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Southern California
• University of Washington

Prominent academics in Asian American Studies

• Roger Buckley, University of Connecticut
• Jeffery Paul Chan, San Francisco State University
• Lucie Cheng, UCLA
• E. J. R. David, University of Alaska
• Kip Fulbeck, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Evelyn Nakano Glenn, University of California, Berkeley
• Dan Gonzales, San Francisco State University
• Madeline Y. Hsu, University of Texas at Austin
• Yuji Ichioka, UCLA
• Jerry Kang, UCLA
• Nitasha Tamar Sharma, Northwestern University
• Elaine H. Kim, UC Berkeley
• Peter Kwong, Hunter College, CUNY Graduate Center
• Him Mark Lai, independent scholar
• Vinay Lal, UCLA
• Elizabeth Lew-Williams, Princeton University
• Russell Leong, UCLA
• Huping Ling, Truman State University
• David Wong Louie, UCLA
• Lisa Lowe, Yale University
• Gary R. Mar, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Kevin Nadal, City University of New York
• Lisa Nakamura, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
• Don Nakanishi, UCLA
• Robert Nakamura, UCLA
• Mae Ngai, Columbia University
• Viet Thanh Nguyen, USC
• Gary Okihiro, Columbia University
• Michael Omi, University of California, Berkeley
• Rhacel Parrenas, Brown University
• Celine Parrenas Shimizu, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Robyn Rodriguez, University of California, Davis
• Alexander Saxton, UCLA
• Derald Wing Sue, Columbia University
• Betty Lee Sung, CUNY
• Ronald Takaki, University of California, Berkeley
• Shawn Wong, University of Washington
• David Yoo, UCLA
• Ji-Yeon Yuh, Northwestern University
• Judy Yung, University of California, Santa Cruz
• Min Zhou, UCLA

Celebrities who studied Asian American Studies

• Randall Park, UCLA
• Ali Wong, UCLA

References

External links

• Asian-Nation: Asian American History, Demographics, and News
• Association for Asian American Studies

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