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At the time of its founding in 1987, the Asian American Studies Program at Cornell University was the first such program in the Ivy League. Today the program has faculty members in the humanities and social sciences in a variety of departments and colleges. With a minor in Asian American studies, you’ll examine the histories and experiences, identities, social and community formations, politics and contemporary concerns of people of Asian ancestry in the U.S. and other parts of the Americas.
Location: Rockefeller Hall, Fourth Floor
“The AAS minor has provided me with an academic framework to better grapple with my own Desi identity. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to learn about the rich history of Asian Americans in the U.S., racial solidarity, and grassroot resistance against colonial power structures. I know that the perspectives and concepts I have come across in my Asian American studies classes will continue to inform how I see and interact with the world around me.”
— Alyssa Kamath ‘23
Cornell admits the Class of 2030 emphasizing real-world impact, enrolling 5,776 students from 102 countries.
At Cornell University, the diverse cohort reflects the land-grant mission and applied learning goals across multiple colleges.
Sandhya Shukla ’88, a professor of English and American Studies at the University of Virginia, presented her ideas of “Cross-Culturalism” on Thursday afternoon in Goldwin Smith Hall.
In the talk, she examined Harlem, New York and other heterogeneous communities to study how different cultures interact.
“Strangers in the Land,” the recently published book by New Yorker Editor Michael Luo, chronicles the journey of Chinese immigrants to the American West, and then eastward across the country. Perhaps inevitably, it is also an account of the violence and bigotry directed against them, which only became more intense as the boom years of the Western Gold Rush gave way to the economic downturn that followed the Civil War.
Christian clergy cast their own shadow over Luo’s narrative. Faith leaders — almost all of them white Protestants — were instrumental in shaping, not only the experience of the immigrant, but also the communities that sometimes welcomed, sometimes attacked them.
Grant Farred, a professor in the Africana Studies and Research Center, chronicles his love for both a distant and a local sports team in “A Sports Odyssey: My Ithaca Journal,” published July 25 by Temple University Press.
Congratulations to our Class of 2025 Asian American Studies graduates!
Ameya Kamani is a government major.
Alexis Boyce, Asian American Studies Program manager and co-chair of the Staff Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Committee, discusses the group’s ongoing efforts to address staff concerns and drive meaningful change.
“We felt this is an important resource that should be available to our humanists at all levels, whether they have the resources to pay for membership or not,” said Peter John Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences.
