Chapman commences hiring process for new Asian American studies director

The director will be overseeing the new Asian American Studies minor, which will begin in the fall 2023 semester and will educate students about Asian American culture, history and media. Photo from The Panther Archives

Chapman University Provost and Chief Academic Officer Norma Bouchard announced the creation of the new director of Asian American Studies on March 23. The university is currently working on filling the position, and the minor itself will commence in the fall 2023 semester.

A National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant of $150,000 — the largest in Chapman’s history — was granted to the university in January 2022 to start the Asian American studies minor. 

“For the entire time that I’ve been here, students have been asking for Asian American Studies, but we have no classes like that, so we thought we should add it since we have (courses like) Africana Studies (and) Latinx Studies,” Takaragawa told The Panther. “I felt like it was problematic that we didn’t have Asian American Studies, with so many students asking for it.”

The minor will cover Asian American history, media, food and enclaves of Asian American communities. Takaragawa said that the Asian American studies minor will challenge students’ perceptions of Asian Americans and learn to look past their potential biases against them. There are already several Asian American studies courses, including Introduction to Asian American Studies.

“There’s a significant history that people don’t know of how exclusionary practices in the United States have created Asians as a perpetual foreigner or as a model minority,” Takaragawa said. “Maybe if they understand that this is not something that’s inherent to their culture, but actually how they’ve been stereotyped, (people) would get past those particular kinds of biases that resulted in an increase in violence against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Professor Rei Magosaki, who teaches literature at Chapman including multicultural and Asian American literature, said that Asian American studies, in particular literature, exposes students to Asian-American voices, history and cultural traditions and values.

“The way that literature works is that we get a sense of very different voices of individuals who are writers,” Magosaki told The Panther. “What you get exposed to is not just history, but how people write about it, how people might remember things and what is important to the community through major events that happened in the U.S.”

Sophomore broadcast journalism and documentary major Czerena Bayle, who is the secretary of Kapamilya, Chapman’s Filipino club, said that she is enjoying the Introduction to Asian American Studies course that she is taking this semester, and she supports Chapman’s addition of Asian American studies as a minor.

“(Creating the minor) is the first step in Asian visibility at a predominantly white institute,” Bayle told The Panther.

The Introduction to Asian American Studies course gives Bayle and her peers a space to discuss issues affecting the Asian American community with other people of Asian descent.

“It's so important to have these safe spaces and opportunities to learn,” Bayle said.