Minor Requirements and Core Courses

Focus on biracial, multiracial, and adopted Asian Americans with an emphasis on race and ethnicity in the United States. Critically examined. Topics: history, racial categorization, immigration, identity, interracial and interethnic friendships and marriage, racial attitudes, mass media images, residential segregation, educational stratification, and labor market outcomes.

Units: 3
G.E. Breadth D2

Examines contemporary and historical Asian American community health, beliefs, and healing systems

Units: 3
G.E. Breadth E

(ASAM 10 same as MCJ 6) This course equips students with an understanding of the principles and practices of Asian American journalism through examination of Asian American newspapers and mass media. This includes examination of mass media as well as independent newspapers, magazines, zines, and other media products made by Asians and Asian Americans. Includes analysis of representations of Asian American media throughout U.S. cultural history. G.E. Breadth F.

Units: 3
Course Typically Offered: Fall
GE Area: F

Prerequisite: G.E. Foundation A2. Historical, social, and psychological factors in the changing status and identity of Americans from Asia. Examines variables such as cultural heritage, family organization, intergenerational conflict, and the experience of racism in the changing world of Asian Americans. 

Units: 3, Repeatable up to: 3
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
GE Area: D3

This introductory course examines how Asian Americans have been imagined and depicted through various mediums of popular culture such as print, film, television, internet, music, etc. Students will become familiar with concepts relating to popular culture and Asian Americans. G.E. Breadth F.

Units: 3
Course Typically Offered: Fall
GE Area: F

A survey of social adaptations and cultural changes among Japanese Americans in different communities such as California and Hawaii. Considers identity, marginality, acculturation, and cultural traditions in Japan and in American communities.

Units: 3, Repeatable up to: 3
Typically Offered: Fall 

The course examines Asian American contemporary issues. It analyzes cultural, political, social, and economic complexities facing Asian Americans. G.E. Breadth F.

Units: 3
GE Area: F

Introduction to the process of critical thinking through the lens of race-based theories and selected historical and contemporary discourse of African Americans, [American Indians,] Asian Americans, European Americans and Latinos on race relations and multiculturalism in American society. Examines contemporary social issues through the use of scholarly studies and a range of cultural texts in order to explore the effects of race and racism on the relationship between language and logic, processes and form of reasoning and practices of critical reflection. Also examines intersection of race, gender, and class. (Available for General
Education, Basic Skills A3 Critical Thinking.)

Units: 3
GE Area: A3

Interdisciplinary study of Asian American religions, spiritualities, cultural beliefs and practices, as well as their receptions, resistance, and racialized depictions within the U.S. culture, legal systems, and politics; includes Jain, Hindu, Sikh, animist, Buddhist, Taoist, and their sub-traditions.

Units 3
GE Area:  F

Prerequisites: G.E. Foundation and Breadth Area D. A multidisciplinary study of Asian American communities and their relations with the larger society. Analyzes values, lifestyles, processes of group identity and boundary maintenance, social organization, and cultural change. Examination of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and other Asian American subcultures. G.E. Multicultural/International MI.

Units: 3, Repeatable up to: 3
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
G.E. Multicultural/International MI.

Introduction to Asian American History focuses on the historical contexts of Asian Americans from the mid 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century.

Units: 3
GE Area: ID

Examines central concepts, theories, and historical contexts of race and ethnic relations in the United States. Students will become familiar on the formation of racial and ethnic identities, and how they are produced, maintained, and transformed over time and space in American politics and culture. G.E. Breadth F.

Units: 3
Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
GE Area: F

This course explores the social, political, and economic issues related to the intersection of race, gender, class, and sexuality that have shaped Asian American/Asian immigrant women’s lives. Focuses on the complex relationships between local and national politics, globalized capitalism, formations of US imperialism, and individual histories of Asian American/Asian immigrant women.

Units: 3, Repeatable up to: 3
Typically Offered: Spring

Since the Immigration Act of 1965 the Asian American population has grown dramatically. This course focuses on recent issues that are facing new arrivals and supplements a history of Asian American communities. 

Units: 3, Repeatable up to: 3
Typically Offered: Spring 

Prerequisites: ENGL 5A & B or equivalent, and ENGL 20. This course provides a general overview of Asian American writers within U.S. culture and politics. It explores how Asian American writers negotiate a myriad of identity formations that rebut many mainstream racialized depictions and how their writing resists restrictive legal contexts. G.E. Breadth F.

Units: 4
Course Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
GE Area: F

Critically looking at Asian American/Asian art and visual culture including documentary, film, television, art, paintings, architecture, and monuments.

Units: 3
GE Area: 1C

(ANTH 126W same as ASAM 151W.) This is a writing class that explores these various unknown stories of Asians and their foodways. Meets the upper-division writing skills requirement for graduation.

Units: 3
Course Typically Offered: Spring

Focuses on Asian American contributions to the caring fields in education and health, including teaching, educational administration, social work, and labor in medical professions as doctors and nurses. Includes an examination of Asian American history, migration, and other social and cultural factors that influence the work of Asian Americans in the caring fields. Meets the upper-division writing skills requirement for graduation.

Units: 3

(ANTH 175 same as ASAM 175) Asian American Cultural Studies focuses on the cultural products of Asian Americans and the peoples of Asia. G.E. Breadth F.

Units: 3
GE Area: F

Focuses on the political, educational, and theoretical development of the field of Asian American Studies. Topics include the formation of the field, its relationship to the ongoing civil rights struggles of Asian American people, and the position of the field in higher education and the wider community. G.E. Breadth F.

Units: 3
Course Typically Offered: Fall
GE Area: F

Prerequisites: ASAM 15, permission of instructor. Detailed consideration of a single topic concerning the past or present position of Asian Americans in U.S. society.

Units: 3, Repeatable up to: 6

See Academic Placement -- Independent Study. Approved for SP grading.

Units: 1-3, Repeatable up to: 6
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

Prerequisites: G.E. Foundation and Breadth Area D. The cultural and social origins of ethnicity, and its opportunities and problems for contemporary mass societies. Offers a critical review of major theories on ethnic politics, economics, and ideology in the light of cross-cultural evidence.

G.E. Multicultural/International MI. 

Prerequisites: G.E. Foundation and Breadth Area D. An introductory survey of the cultural and historical adaptations of societies in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam; and of Insular societies in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Examines the major effects of culture contact between East and West. 

G.E. Multicultural/International MI.

(Same as HUM 140.) Prerequisites: G.E. Foundation and Breadth Area D. Examines the current aspirations and problems of the Chinese and Japanese in terms of their traditional cultures, and explains how their histories, values, world views, and intellectual traditions affect their lifestyles and their international relations today.

G.E. Multicultural/International MI.

(Same as ASAM 151.) Treats cuisine as a systematic product of the interaction between culture and ecology. Focuses on sociocultural rather than bio-nutritional factors in the preparation and ritual implications of food in Mainland and Insular Asia. Students learn to prepare and serve a variety of Oriental dishes.