San Diego State University is bound to create its first Asian-American studies department in school history.
The news was confirmed by the school's student publication earlier this week, stating that SDSU will have two professors at the helm of creating this department.
Dr. Virginia Loh-Hagan, who's the center's director, says that the candidates for the two roles as professors will come at the approval of the student population involved, because at the end of the day, it is the students that will be represented by those same teachers in the department.
“If they hire someone we don’t like then it’s kind of our fault for not attending these meetings and voicing our opinion,” Kubota said in an interview with The Daily Aztec. “I like to attend and get to know the person before considering them to be our representative.” Kubota added.
Dr. Brian Hu, who's an associate professor in the School of Theater, Television, and Film, says that it wasn't a surprise to him that the school didn't already have an Asian-American studies department, stating that these kind of actions have to be fought for. Hu also says that there has been a lot of demand for this, which would make sense given that the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American student body makes up for about 13% of SDSU's population.
“It wasn’t shocking that SDSU didn’t have [a department]. It has to be fought for. Since being here, I found there’s a lot of demand for it and this was a happy surprise,” Hu told The Daily Aztec.
Director Loh-Hagan says that this new department will help combat the ignorance and hate that is aimed towards the APIDA community.
“I’m hoping that all our students will have the opportunity to really dig deep into knowing APIDA history,” Loh-Hagan said. “I think that’s important because I think that ignorance is one of the root causes of anti-Asian hate. The more visibility and more understanding we have of people, the less likely we are going to suffer from discrimination and hate.”
