Building a Home for Asian and Asian American Studies at Cal State LA: A Thirty-Year Struggle and Collaboration
by ChorSwang Ngin
ABSTRACT: This paper is an ethnography on the founding of Asian and Asian American Studies (AAAS) Department at California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA). It starts by describing the early vision in 1993 to bring learning about Asia and Asian American Studies to a public university when neither was available. With external funding, a core group of faculties founded the B.A. Degree in AAAS by combining Asian Studies with Asian American Studies. The paper continues to detail the building of collegial relationships across many disciplines on campus, especially Pan-African Studies (PAS), Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies (CLS), and Latin American Studies (LAS), which led to the creation of an Area and Ethnic Studies Coffee Group. This relationship was not only vital to AAAS when it was threatened with suspension in 2010, but also paved the way for the founding of the Cal State LA College of Ethnic Studies in 2020 in anticipation of AB 1460.
Article Citation: ChorSwang Ngin (2024) Building a Home for Asian and Asian American Studies at Cal State LA. AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice and Community: 2024, Vol. 21, No. 1 & 2.