Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

May 4, 2020

 Division of Equity & Inclusion

Dear Campus Community,

Each May our nation celebrates Asian Pacific Heritage Month to recognize the historic contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) to the United States. UC Berkeley has a special connection to this month. In 1978, alumnus and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation and Commerce Norman Mineta led the effort with others that resulted in the first Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Week. In 1990, this week was expanded to a one-time commemorative month and gained permanent designation two years later.

This year, celebrating the contributions that AAPIs have made to our country, state, and university cannot be done without calling out the dramatic increase in anti-Asian racism and xenophobia stoked by false claims and narratives and a lack of understanding about COVID-19 and the global pandemic.  Unfortunately, this is not the first time American citizens and immigrants of AAPI descent have been the targets of hate and hostility. Xenophobic treatment and racial scapegoating of AAPIs have been entrenched in our nation’s history and policies, including but not limited to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and more recently the Muslim Ban.   As a result of these racist laws and views, members of the AAPI community continue to be treated as “perpetual foreigners” in their own country.

UC Berkeley’s AAPI communities are an essential part of our campus. Even as they are once again being confronted with increasing incidents of hate, they are being called on to provide leadership, perspective, and inspiration to the campus and the nation during these challenging times -- as they have throughout history. I would like to highlight a few of their contributions from the past year. 

The Asian American Pacific Islander Standing Committee (AAPISC), an inaugural advisory body to the Division of Equity & Inclusion, began meeting in September. The group is helping the campus, including leadership, better understand and address the diverse needs of AAPI undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and faculty.

In November, the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Program (AAADS) marked its 50th anniversary with a celebration in Pauley Ballroom attended by over 500 supporters and the publication of Mountain Movers:  Student Activism and the Emergence of Asian American Studies, documenting the 50-year legacy of socially engaged research, teaching, and community service that has distinguished Asian American Studies as a discipline.

This semester, Raka Ray started her tenure as the new dean for the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Letters and Science. A professor of sociology and South and Southeast Asian Studies, Dean Ray has previously held several leadership positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Institute of South Asian Studies, Chair of the Department of Sociology, and Chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Budget and Interdepartmental Relations.

Sunny Lee was recently named the permanent Assistant Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students. Since July of last year, she has served as the interim. Dr. Lee oversees a dozen entities on campus including the Career Center, Public Service Center, ASUC Student Union, Centers for Student Conduct and Support & Intervention, and Student Legal Services. She has also served as the associate dean of students and the assistant ombudsperson in the Ombuds Office for Students and Postdoctoral Appointees.

Under the new leadership of Dean Michael C. Lu, the School of Public Health is using expertise and research to find solutions and inform the public about COVID-19. Starting this month, their researchers will work with the College of Engineering to test 5,000 healthy Bay Area volunteers in an effort to find out who is most susceptible to the virus.

Alumnus Russell Jeung, Ph.D. Ethnic Studies, currently the chair of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, is leading efforts to track AAPI hate-related incidents of harassment and violence in the Bay Area and nationally during the COVID-19 pandemic through a new website called Stop AAPI Hate.  Since the launch, they have received 1,500 reports.

In a New York Times op-ed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen, BA and Ph.D. UC Berkeley, writes, “Our real enemy is not the virus but our response to the virus — a response that has been degraded and deformed by the structural inequalities of our society.”

Berkeley’s students also are making significant contributions that are helping people stay healthy and informed during this pandemic. Graduate student Abrar Abidi and his colleague Yvonne Hao, who is a Berkeley alumna, have been producing hundreds of gallons of hand sanitizer since before the shelter in place mandate. It is being distributed for free to hospices, jails, homeless shelters and encampments, and other places. They are both members of Professor Robert Tijian and Professor Xavier Darzacq’s biochemistry lab.

At the Graduate School of Journalism, students are collaborating with the New York Times to cover the COVID-19 crisis in California. Meiying Wu wrote a piece with Alyson Stamos titled How San Francisco’s Chinatown Got Ahead of the Coronavirusand Yinuo Shi contributed a remembrance of Scott Blanks, one of the more than 1,800 people who have died in California from the virus.

We encourage you to learn more about Berkeley’s diverse Asian Pacific communities and the work they are doing to support and further the vision of our students, staff, and faculty through these organizations:  Asian Pacific American Student Development (APASD), Asian Pacific American Theme House (APATH), and Asian Pacific American Systemwide Alliance (APASA)

Best regards,

Oscar Dubón
Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion

This message was sent to UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and students.

If you are a manager who supervises UC Berkeley employees without email access, please circulate this information to all.

CalMessages footer

via Calmessages