Over 50 years ago, students went on strike at UC Berkeley demanding formal research and teaching of Asian American, Black, Chicano and Native American experiences; they also called for more representation among campus' faculty and staff. And they prevailed. After 37 contentious days of strikes, the university created the Department of Ethnic Studies, one of the nation's first.
Half a century later, the campus has kept up that spirit by investing millions of dollars in these areas of study to meet student demand, even in times of mounting budget pressure. By this spring, Berkeley will have welcomed six new professors specializing in Asian American and Pacific Islands studies, including one of Berkeley's first Pacific Islander faculty members. It's the culmination of more than a decade of advocacy and required remarkable coordination across departments, schools and colleges.
Hiring an interdisciplinary group of academics to bolster an area of study is a relatively new practice known as a "cluster hire." Some previous clusters have recruited scholars focused on the ethics of artificial intelligence and environmental equity. The new Asian American and Pacific Islander Transpacific Futures cluster will bring experts in ethnic studies, geography, education, public health and environmental sciences to several different Berkeley schools and colleges.
Long Le-Khac, an assistant professor of ethnic studies and the first member of the cluster, put the rationale behind the cohort's hiring plainly: "Forty percent of the undergraduate student body at Berkeley is Asian American. We [had] maybe 10 scholars across campus who are specifically trained in Asian American studies and can offer those classes. That's ridiculous. The need for Pacific Islander studies was even more stark."
In addition to the high proportion of Asian American and Pacific Islander students on campus, Le-Khac noted that Berkeley's location and history make it a prime spot for studying the experiences of this diaspora.
"Berkeley sits … at the nexus point of the most consequential power dynamic and axis of change of the 21st century: the relationship between Asia, America and the Pacific. If we don't have people studying it, we are losing out on a huge opportunity," he said.
The Bay Area is also home to some of the country's earliest and largest Asian American and Pacific Islander settlements, its first Asian American legal advocacy organization and even the term "Asian American," which Berkeley graduate students coined in the '60s.
Before this year, the campus lacked a dedicated, tenure-track specialist in Pacific Islands studies, a deficit the cluster hire helped address. The umbrella term AAPI, which nods to the fact that Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians were all one census category between 1960-1990, lumps together many distinct ethnic groups that do not always face the same issues. For instance, many Pacific Islanders are descended from their home's original inhabitants who endured colonization. This indigeneity, and how it shapes their experience, differs from the perspective of someone who immigrated from South or East Asia to the U.S. Accordingly, the new hires include one of Berkeley's first Pacific Islander faculty members: Kourtney Christen Kawano, a Native Hawaiian (or Kānaka) education professor.
Berkeley sits … at the nexus point of the most consequential power dynamic and axis of change of the 21st century: the relationship between Asia, America and the Pacific."
Long Le-Khac
As Berkeley's landmark Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies program neared its 50th anniversary, classes remained highly sought-after, and students craved more public events and programming. Professor Lok Siu, then the program coordinator, began fundraising to hire more professors to meet this student demand. By 2019, she, with the help of faculty colleagues, alumni, emeriti faculty and alumnus and San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting, notched a victory: $2 million to form a campus hub for interdisciplinary and community-engaged research, the Asian American Research Center.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, bringing with it virulent anti-Asian racism.
"It became increasingly clear to us, with the rise of anti-Asian hate, that there was so little knowledge of the long history of Asian American presence and contribution to the United States … that we are thoroughly embedded in the fabric of American society and culture," Siu said. The surge in discrimination further motivated them to amp up the study of Asian American and Pacific Islander issues.
Lawmakers in Sacramento reacted by earmarking $15 million to create two tenure-track junior professor positions as well as generally financially support research and programming in Asian American and Pacific Islands studies.
The campaign to expand such scholarship also found supporters in the executive vice chancellor and provost, as well as in Raka Ray, dean of the Division of Social Sciences. "Even amid real budget pressures, Berkeley continues to invest where it matters most," Ray said. "Located where we are, how could we not promote scholarship on Asian American and Pacific Islander communities? It is essential both to our public mission and to understanding the forces and counterforces that shape our democracy."
Utilizing the cluster hire model for this effort would help the lens of Asian American and Pacific Islands studies reach a broader group of students taking classes other than ethnic studies. Siu and others began reaching out to chairs in different fields, hoping to find overlap within the areas of expertise they hoped to invest in, and were met with interest.
Vivienne Yu/UC Berkeley
After extensive consultation and coordination, the Asian American Transpacific Futures proposal was formally approved in 2024. "We couldn't have done any of this without the support of key campus partners and alumni," Siu said.
From there, the complex process of hiring began, spearheaded by School of Education professor Thomas Philip. This fall, four others joined Le-Khac on campus: Kawano, who studies how race and indigeneity affect schooling; Charmaine Chua, a geographer with a focus on capitalism and transpacific supply chains; Brian TaeHyuk Keum, a public health scholar researching mental and physical health disparities in Asian American communities; and Ida Yalzadeh, an ethnic studies professor who specializes in the Iranian diaspora and Southwest Asia.
Hiring is underway for the final position - a tenure-track assistant professor in the Rausser College of Natural Resources who will likely focus on climate change in the Pacific.
"One of the things I'm really proud of, with the cluster hire, is its expansion beyond L&S to other colleges, which increases the footprint of Asian American studies and Pacific Islands studies across the campus," said Colleen Lye, an English professor who chairs the Asian American Research Center.
Last fall, with most of the Asian American Transpacific Futures professors now on campus, they gathered for the first of a series of brown-bag lunches intended to build community among the cohort and foster interdisciplinary idea exchange. Berkeley has also devoted five years of seed funding that will support collaborations between cluster faculty and other Berkeley academics as well as work with Bay Area nonprofits like Asian Health Services in Oakland.
After all these years, "it is really gratifying to see a cohort of new faculty arrive on campus, whose shared expertise and interests will create exciting synergies across campus," said Siu. "Their collective presence will make a significant difference for our student population and our field of study."
Courtesy of the Critical Pacific Islands Studies Collective
Lye also pointed out that more faculty in these fields and from these backgrounds means more mentorship opportunities from which students can benefit.
Sophia Perez agrees that such academic mentorship was sorely needed. As an undergraduate at Berkeley, she didn't know any other Pacific Islander students, let alone faculty members. "I basically went through my entire college experience without the term Pacific Islander even being brought up," she said. "It was such a missed opportunity."
Now a Ph.D. student in geography focusing on colonialism and military presence in the Mariana Islands, Perez said she has needed to reach out to experts at other institutions for guidance on her research because of a dearth of Pacific Islands expertise at Berkeley. She co-founded the Critical Pacific Islands Studies Collective, which advocates for their discipline to be represented on campus and conducted outreach to 70-odd Pacific Islands specialists to promote job listings for the new professorships.
This investment in AAPI studies comes at a fraught time for both ethnic studies and higher education. The U.S. Department of Education, for instance, recently cut $1.19 million in grant money that was earmarked to support the campus' status as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution.
"Despite the times of austerity we're undergoing as a result of external pressures and funding cuts," Lye said, "the campus really showed its commitment to this cluster."
