Jerry Zou: Chapman’s newest Asian American Studies minor
Senior theater performance major Jerry Zou attended a lecture event Chapman hosted in November 2022 with “Star Trek” actor George Takei. Photos courtesy of Jerry Zou
Despite being Asian American for his entire life, it wasn’t until senior theater performance major Jerry Zou took a First-Year Foundations Course his freshman year at Chapman titled “Yellow Peril to Yellow Power: Asians in America” that it finally hit him just how much of his culture he had yet to learn.
“It was the start of something new here at Chapman when it comes to Asian American education,” Zou said. “For me, it was right at the start of my college career, and I (realized) there's so much more to learn about Asian American studies than I have ever encountered.”
In Zou’s sophomore year at Chapman, conversation swirled about the possibility of creating an Asian American Studies minor. Now in his senior year, Zou is officially the first student to join the program. The minor resides under Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and students are required to complete 21 credits.
“Students want to study the nature, the history and importance of their identities,” Zou told The Panther. “I think there's a natural curiosity that we human beings have, and with a pretty good demographic of Asian students across the university, (most of whom) definitely missed out on studying their Asian American identity critically in high school. I think that's the reason why it's only right that we have this minor.”
“Students want to study the nature, the history and importance of their identities. I think there’s a natural curiosity that we human beings have, and with a pretty good demographic of Asian students across the university, (most of whom) definitely missed out on studying their Asian American identity critically in high school. I think that’s the reason why it’s only right that we have this minor.”
Stephanie Takaragawa, the associate dean of the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, played a major role in the making of the Asian American Studies minor.
“In 2015, two students, Farrah Su and Darryl Zhao, asked me what ethnic studies programs Chapman had since they couldn’t find any,” Takaragawa said. “I told them we didn’t have any, and that’s why they couldn’t find them. Both were active members of the Asian Pacific Student Association and asked about a proposal to start Asian American Studies.”
After being denied a grant to do research on creating the minor due to “Chapman already having Asian studies,” Takaragawa decided to teach the very course that had introduced Zou to his own Asian American identity.
“I wanted to see if there was interest in a class like that,” Takaragawa told The Panther. “The class was full with a waitlist… All these students together encouraged the creation of an Asian American Studies minor. In 2018, I taught the class again and for the third time in 2020, where Jerry Zou, now our first Asian American studies minor, self-designed the minor before it was created.”
But in order to create an educational minor, it was essential for Takaragawa and a team of students to create the perfect curriculum.
“(The minor) is pretty broad and expansive,” Zou said. “The curriculum goes from history to media to film to mixed race theory to Asian American literature to anthropology and Asian American food culture.”
But its creation didn’t come without its own set of challenges for the team, the biggest being trying to convince the university that the school needed the minor.
“The faculty at Chapman didn’t understand the difference between Asian and Asian American studies,” Takaragawa said. “Actually a lot of people don’t, which is why we need it and need to educate people to stop conflating identities based on phenotypic differences or race.
Takaragawa continued: “Understanding how Asians contributed to (United States) history, how they got here, what their lives were like, immigration issues and laws, discrimination, the racialization of the groups and lots of other reasons that diversity is important is embedded in Asian American studies, from discrimination to activism and empowerment.”
“The faculty at Chapman didn’t understand the difference between Asian and Asian American studies. Actually a lot of people don’t, which is why we need it and need to educate people to stop conflating identities based on phenotypic differences or race. Understanding how Asians contributed to (United States) history, how they got here, what their lives were like, immigration issues and laws, discrimination, the racialization of the groups and lots of other reasons that diversity is important is embedded in Asian American studies, from discrimination to activism and empowerment.”
Zou became interested in pursuing a minor in Asian American Studies after taking the “Yellow Peril to Yellow Power: Asians in America” First-Year Foundations Course during his freshman year at the university.
In the future, Zou hopes to take his education about Asian American studies and incorporate it into his future career: on-stage performance.
“If we can bend the idea that old white plays can only be cast with white people, then we can really (confront the idea) of what theater can (traditionally) be and then reapply it now and retell these stories but through an ethnic life,” Zou said.
With the minor still being so new, there aren’t many students associated with the program yet. But as popularity begins to grow and more awareness is spread, there will be more students to give input on classes they would like to take.
“In the future, I would like more students to let us know what they want in the minor, and how their interests can be incorporated into the curriculum,” Takaragawa said. “Right now, classes like Asian American Media, Asian American Ethnic Enclaves and Asian American Film give broad strokes on the communities and how they are represented and how they represent themselves. But there are so many ways this minor can go and we are excited to see the possibilities.”
For more information on the minor, visit Chapman’s website.
“In the future, I would like more students to let us know what they want in the minor, and how their interests can be incorporated into the curriculum. Right now, classes like Asian American Media, Asian American Ethnic Enclaves and Asian American Film give broad strokes on the communities and how they are represented and how they represent themselves. But there are so many ways this minor can go and we are excited to see the possibilities.”
