Welcome
Building on the tradition of Asian Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and in response to the national growth of Asian American Studies and enrollment trends on campus, a new joint undergraduate Program in Asian and Asian American Studies was introduced in the spring of 2000.
As American society becomes more diverse, multicultural, and globalized, and in the context of the cultural and economic emergence of Asian countries such as China and India, the Asian & Asian American Studies Certificate gives students the opportunity to learn about the interconnections between two similar but unique sets of histories, cultures, and issues -- Asia and Asian America.
With course offerings and faculty specializing in numerous academic disciplines, the Certificate is designed to give students (1) an understanding of different racial/ethnic groups & international issues and (2) interdisciplinary and multi-method research and learning skills. In turn, these skills will give the student a competitive advantage in both their studies at UMass and in whatever career they enter once they graduate.
Please refer to the menu on the right for links to more information about the Asian & Asian American Studies Certificate Program, including requirements of the certificate, frequently asked questions, and an updted listing of courses that count toward the certificate.
For additional information regarding the Asian and Asian American Studies Program, please contact:
C.N. Le, Director
Department of Sociology
Thompson Hall 508
Tel: 413-545-4074
Email:
What's New
Once again, we've completed another productive and succesful academic year. Here is a list of some of the notable highlights of our activities and events that took place in the fall and spring:
- In October, we hosted the annual meeting of the Asian American New England Research Initiative (AANERI), a network of scholars from various disciplines and others in the region who do work related to Asian American Studies. This was the first time we at UMass Amherst have hosted the AANERI meeting and by all accounts, it was a big success -- more than 50 faculty, students, administrators, and community members attended.
- Throughout the academic year, we helped to sponsor many lectures and presentations from faculty visiting our area, including Allan Isaac, Rey Chow, and Jeff Adachi, the filmmaker behind the critically acclaimed documentary The Slanted Screen about media portrayals of Asian American men throughout the years.
- Through the initiative and leadership of Edgar Chen, grad student in the Labor Studies department, we sponsored and participated in the very successful Five College APA Student Leadership Conference, attended by over 100 undergraduate students from UMass Amherst, Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and Mount Holyoke College. It was so successful that there are firm plans in place to not only hold it every year (rotating around each of the five schools), but to also expand it into two separate one-day conferences.
- Several of our faculty and students also attended the annual meeting of the Association for Asian American Studies in New York City in April, presenting papers and filing reports and summaries of different sessions that they attended.
- I was also fortunate to complete my first UMass Amherst General Education Council grant to improve and expand our "Sociology of the Asian American Experience" foundation course that also involved hiring and mentoring QJ Shi, a very dynamic and talented graduating senior, as my student project assistant. Not only that, I was also awarded a second General Education Council grant to do the same with the Certificate's other foundation course, the "Bridging Asia & Asian America Colloquium," and to hire two new student assistants for the upcoming academic year.
Just as important, our success and productivity can also be seen in the quality and quantity of the students who completed the Certificate this year. Up until this past year, we usually have 3-4 students who complete the Certificate each year. However, as a result of our consistent efforts to promote the Certificate, we had 9 students who did so this year. In fact, this number compares very favorably to many other universities around the country, almost all of whom have much older and more established Asian American Studies programs than we do.
We look forward to building on this momentum and continuing this positive trend for years to come, starting with another academic year starting in the fall.
Statement on the Virginia Tech Tragedy
We would like to offer our deepest sympathies to all those affected by the shootings at Virginia Tech. As members of an educational community ourselves, we can only imagine how this magnitude of violence has impacted the entire community. We grieve for this tragic loss of lives and shattered sense of safety.
In the ensuing days, we have been further saddened by the ways in which Seung-Hui Cho's ethnicity and immigrant status have been emphasized in some quarters. We feel that this works to distance him from U.S. society and reinforces a misapprehension that has been present for over a century: the idea that Asian Americans -- even those born here -- are perpetual foreigners and therefore not "real" Americans. While Cho originally immigrated from South Korea, he did so at the age of eight and therefore, was raised and socialized as an American.
Without placing Cho's ethnicity or immigrant identity in the proper social context, such emphasis may foster misplaced racial prejudice, suspicion, and discrimination. As the Asian American Psychological Association observes, "Psychological research has indicated [that] experiences with specific individuals of color have the clear potential to be generalized to the detriment of the community and the shared goal of justice and equality." Thus, as Stewart Kwoh of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center suggests, we must be alert to potential backlash while we also work to "help heal the nation and support the Virginia Tech community."
We recall that the collective White community was not held responsible for the killings at Columbine High School eight years ago, nor in other high-profile cases that occurred in California; Jonesboro, AR; Paducah, KY; Pearl, MS, and other schools in the United States. While it is beyond our scope to speculate here on the causes of such violence, we can say this: just as other shootings were the exception rather than the rule in their communities, so too must Cho's actions be understood as the aberrant behavior of an extremely troubled individual. Let us not add to our burden of loss by stigmatizing immigrants, entire ethnic groups, or nationalities for tragedies that arise from some combination of mental illness and the pressures of modern society.
We must try to understand and ameliorate the complex factors that cause some young people to commit atrocious acts of violence to others and to themselves. Rather than fixating on race, ethnicity, or immigration status, we appeal to the media and other public forums to focus attention on the issues of gun control, the culture of violent masculinity, resources for the effective diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, and facilitating greater cultural tolerance in our communities and schools towards those who might otherwise be seen as outcasts.
Let us try to make our communities more compassionate by reaching out to those who feel alone and forging communication across cultural boundaries.
