When Dr. Chia Youyee Vang arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee five years ago, numerous Hmong students along with community residents called for more courses specifically examining their life experiences. Now, her university offers a certificate in Hmong diaspora studies. It's part of a growing tide within Asian American studies--more…

For years, New York health-care providers have treated Asian-Americans afflicted by serious, even life-threatening illnesses with ever-increasing frequency. Many doctors in the nation's largest city agreed that Asians seemed particularly at risk for specific health problems, but there was neither research nor statistics supporting physician…

This article describes the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston which complements students' career tracks and engages them in the surrounding Asian American community. For many educators, large numbers of graduates are not only a bragging right, but a goal. However, those involved in the Asian American…

Since its inception in 2000, Pan-Asian American Community House's (PAACH's) education mission has bridged Asian-American studies to student life. PAACH initiatives have helped spread Asian-American diaspora to thousands of students at the University of Pennsylvania. They have also helped students determine for themselves what it means to be a…

Many efforts have helped increase the number of women and ethnic minorities in college presidencies the past two decades, but Asian Americans have not kept pace with other historically underrepresented demographics. In fact, Asian American presidents are barely replacing themselves on the national landscape as they retire. This fact appears even…

Total associate degrees conferred by U.S. institutions increased by 11 percent between academic years 2009-10 and 2010-11 to a record high of close to 950,000. Among students of color, the percentage increase was even higher: 13 percent. Students of color received nearly 300,000 associate degrees or about one-third of the 2010-11 total. Among…

Every time Dr. Larry Shinagawa teaches his "Introduction to Asian American Studies" course at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park, he finds that 10 to 20 percent of his students are adoptees. Among other things, they hunger to better comprehend the social and political circumstances overseas leading to their adoption. In…

Asian-American performers were few and far between when Dr. Oliver Wang was growing up in the 1970s and '80s. Looking back, Dr. Wang, an assistant professor in sociology at California State University-Long Beach, says the lack of artists may have been the result of a lack of role models, since Asian immigrants did not begin to arrive in the United…

Asian American college students are often stereotyped as immersed in math clubs or networking groups for future engineers or doctors. However, the campus groups that Asians most commonly join are actually Christian fellowships, educators say. In fact, Asian membership in the ministries has exploded in recent years and is most striking at the most…

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is considered one of the major hubs nationally for Filipino-American studies. However, the fact that its core consists of only four tenured and tenure-track faculty members illustrates a historical disparity that exists among Asian Pacific Americans at U.S. colleges. Despite the diversity in…

This article discusses how a Harvard-educated scholar of English and poetry, Dr. M. Lee Pelton puts a prominent face on changes that are underway at Boston's Emerson College. Faced with a public controversy over its limited faculty diversity, Emerson College has responded with a spate of hirings and promotions of minorities, capped by the…

Ask the average person what comes to mind at the mention of the Black Panther Party (BPP). Odds are the answer involves armed African-Americans winding up in shootouts with police. Those images have overshadowed the Panthers' free breakfast programs, medical clinics and other efforts to improve poor Black neighborhoods in the late 1960s. Also…

Few organizations have as racially and culturally diverse a work force as the organizations that make up the World Bank Group. Of its 13,000 employees, nearly 60 percent of whom are located in downtown Washington, D.C., and the rest scattered across 160 offices around the globe, nearly every nation in the world is represented in the World Bank…

Even as a little girl, Dr. Nitasha Sharma aspired to become a college professor like her parents, whose careers let the family spend entire summers or longer in either her mother's native Brooklyn, New York, or her father's native India. She dreamed of long vacations as a grown-up and going home for lunch on weekdays. But during a stay in India…

Greybull is a small high school nestled among the graybrown buttes of northwestern Wyoming. As in five other states, juniors take the ACT test, not for college entry but to see how they perform and how curriculum might be improved. Principal Mark Fritz said that they do watch the scores and do make changes in the curriculum and that Wyoming has…