In the month of May 2021, a month of Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Celebration (APIAHC), APIMEDA Programs and Services, Asian and Pacific Islander Student Alliance, and Asian and Pacific Islander Studies as GROW joined to present a week-long series on A Look into the Movements for Asian American Studies at UC San Diego.

On Monday, May 24, 20201 from 3-4:30pm PDT (Facebook Event Page), the event kicked off with a virtual screening of the first Asian American Studies Course at UCSD by Regents’ Lecturer Minoru Yasui in Spring 1986. Introductory remarks were made by Emeritus Professor Jim Lin and board members of the Asian and Pacific Islander Student Alliance at UCSD. In March 1986, Japanese American activist, attorney, and Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee Minoru Yasui was announced to be a University of California Regents’ Lecturer. On April 9th at 8pm in Peterson Hall Room 108, Yasui was a guest speaker in the first Asian American Studies class at UCSD with talk “Liberty and Justice for All.” Yasui’s speech was the first speech given at UCSD that persuaded administrators to consider AAS as a legitimate field of study. Students, faculty, staff, administrators, and other community members packed the room this day. Yasui’s lecture marked a pivotal moment in the movement to establish AAS at UCSD during the 1980s. This is the last known video footage of Yasui.

On the following Friday afternoon (Facebook Event Page), Emeritus Professor Jim Lin and Associate Professor of History and Director of the AAPI Studies Program Dr. Simeon Man discussed the movements for Asian American Studies at UC San Diego. The movement that led to the establishment of the Asian American and Pacific Studies Program in Fall 2020 is a result of nearly forty years of advocacy. Dr. Lin and Dr. Man discuss discuss the differences between the first Asian American studies class and current courses, the proposals in the 1980s and in 2020 to start a minor, why recording the history of these movements is important, and they ways they hope that the program will grow. Generation and Reclaiming Our Wisdoms: A Collection of AAPI Stories at UCSD, formerly known as the Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies Community Archive Project, was discussed with the public in this conversation. You can watch “A Conversation about the Movements for Asian American Studies at UC San Diego” on the APIMEDA Programs and Services’ YouTube channel.