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The Program in Asian American Studies (AAS) was born out of the 1960s movements for third-world liberation with a mission to utilize education as a path towards a more just world. The interdisciplinary field of AAS was created in solidarity with racialized and oppressed communities, and is rooted in community-based scholarship and student activism. With a foundation of history, culture, and context, AAS students examine the diverse experiences of Asian American communities and Asian diasporas to analyze systems of power, interrogate histories of empire, war, colonialism, indigeneity, imperialism, class, sexuality, and more.

True to the liberatory tradition of ethnic studies, AAS seeks to empower students by melding scholarship, critical theory, and practice. Through classes and programming, AAS provides opportunities to engage in critical research alongside local communities, such as learning from visual artists and musicians to analyze the politics of culture, working alongside K12 students and teachers in San Jose to underscore the importance of ethnic studies in public schools, and collaborating with activist organizations in the East Bay to fight racist deportation laws. Together, our faculty and students create impactful scholarship in service to Asian American communities and beyond. 

AAS is located within the Interdepartmental Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE). CSRE explores how race and ethnicity shape global history, undergird our social systems, and touch every aspect of our lives. Our courses empower students with the tools to assess and build inclusivity, equity, diversity, accessibility, and justice. CCSRE programs–encompassing Asian American Studies, Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies, Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Jewish Studies, and Native American Studies–take an interdisciplinary approach to considering how gender, sexuality, ability, capital, technology, education, history, politics, and the environment structure our bodies, experiences, and communities. Students have the option to focus on particular racial and ethnic communities and on issues that move across peoples and places.

The interdisciplinary nature of the academic programs empowers students to enroll in a wide variety of courses. CCSRE listings can be found in Anthropology, Art and Art History, Education, History, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Sociology, Theater and Performance Studies, and more. Majors and minors in CCSRE engage with various perspectives and methodologies and grapple with pivotal themes including decolonization, indigeneity, intersectionality, movement-building, resistance, solidarity and wellness. By analyzing interlocking structures of identity and difference, CCSRE students interrogate the role of power, reimagine the world, and reclaim the future.