Wendi Yamashita
Assistant Professor and Coordinator
The Asian American Studies minor covers a broad range of issues, from the historically constructed and contested nature of individual identities to issues of cultural and historical representation, social justice, and struggles for racial redress. While the primary focus of the minor is on the experiences of Asian-Americans, its overall objective is to encourage, allow, and facilitate a study of the self in relation to the other. Where possible, courses rely on historical and comparative methodologies, a combination of epistemological/theoretical concerns with an analysis of “real-life” problems, and a critical approach to the processes of knowledge construction, all of which allow students to develop a contextual understanding of the issues they are studying.
Minors are required to take six courses (18 credit hours), two from Conceptual Frameworks and one each from the following four categories:
- Comparative and International
- Culture and History
- Policy and Praxis
- Power and Liberation