Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2025
As we enter AANHPI Heritage Month, we celebrate our community members who identify as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and/or Pacific Islander and highlight some of the ways that CLA scholars engage with topics relevant to these diasporas.
We’re proud to share stories from the past year and highlight resources and opportunities.
Engaged scholars
The UMN Hmong Corpus Project is building a digital library to preserve and share Hmong language and culture, connecting history, technology, and community.
From Lucknow to Minnesota: Learn how Professor Emerita Richa Nagar’s journey has shaped her profound impact on the UMN community.
Graduate student Shujianing Li says, “I found it rewarding and motivating to be able to integrate many of my professional skills into one internship experience.”
Grad student Shania Kuo found sociology helped her understand societal issues. It’s also encouraged her to explore topics close to her own Asian American identity.
SEED award winner Anlin Thachil has become a leader by truly seeing others and shining a light on perspectives that aren’t always seen.
The experiences of Asian and African communities in the US are deeply connected. Faculty in CLA explore this fascinating intersection with their research.
Asian American Studies Program Celebrates 20 Years
The Asian American Studies Program marked its 20th anniversary with a celebration in Pillsbury Hall on April 24, 2025. A highlight of the evening was Professor Josephine Lee, one of the program’s founders, receiving the Asian American Studies Program Lifetime Achievement Award from former UMN faculty member Professor Erika Lee.
“Asian American Studies allowed me to bring my whole self into work and for that I’m incredibly grateful, and I hope that legacy goes on,” said Professor Josephine Lee.
UMN art professor Pao Houa Her presented Minnesota photographer Wing Young Huie (BA ‘79, journalism) with the inaugural Josephine Lee Asian American Studies Program Community Award.
Former program directors returned to celebrate, including some returning from out of state for the occasion.
Undergraduate Degrees in Asian American and Asian Studies
Minor in Asian American Studies
BA in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Minor in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Integrated BA/MA Program in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Knowledge in practice
Meet Jeeyon Choi, a graduate student in political science who studies collaboration between international NGOs and local groups in post-conflict statebuilding efforts.
A cultural and intellectual historian of early modern China specializing in natural history and philosophy, Oh is in her second year as a postdoc in the Department of History.
Bee Vang-Moua, director of the Hmong language program, discusses a new audiobook she translated.
Anthropology graduate student Euphoria Rising examines the push and pull between repression and social change within higher institutions.
Read "Euphoria Rising"
Why and when do cities take the lead addressing climate change? Political science PhD candidate Yoonsoo Kim discusses her research into this question.
Read “Yoonsoo Kim Researches How Cities Confront the Climate Crisis”
Spotlight on the Chinese Flagship Program
The Chinese Flagship program at the University of Minnesota trains the nation’s most qualified undergraduate students from diverse disciplines to achieve superior-level Mandarin Chinese proficiency and promotes their success as global professionals.
Learn with us
Registration is open for summer and fall ‘25 courses. You do not need to be a degree-seeking student to register; learn about registration as a non-degree-seeking student.
Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Summer Program
Learn about language and culture courses in the Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Summer Program.
1000-level
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AMES 1201: Arrow, Fist, and Sword: Conceptions of the Hero in Asian Cultures
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HIST 1463: An Introduction to Imperialism in Asia, 1850-Present
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HIST 1933: Philosophies for Change: Ancient Chinese Thinkers on Modern Problems
3000-level
Chinese
Filipino
Hindi
Hmong
Indonesian
Japanese
Korean
Tamil
Thai
Urdu
Vietnamese
AANHPI Featured Books from the UMN Bookstore
Looking for your next read? The UMN Bookstore has curated a list of books by authors of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage and cultures.
Program in Asian American Studies
Taking our inspiration from the words of Grace Lee Boggs, we "embrace the idea that we are the leaders we've been looking for."
Asian American Studies (AAS) recognizes both the uniqueness of Minnesota's Asian American populations as well as their commonalities with each other and with other Asian American communities across the nation. Community interests and concerns shape all of our curriculum, research projects, and outreach work.
With our locale, community resources, and faculty, we are helping create new models of teaching Asian American history, politics, literature, and cultures.
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
A dynamic and innovative department, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) offers courses in the study of the cultures, media, literatures, and languages from Asia and the Middle East. We offer courses in the diverse fields of cultural studies, film studies, gender, religion, poetry and prose, environment, postcolonial studies, and more.
Our majors and minors combine the study of cultures and languages to be astute global citizens. Graduates of AMES work in every field imaginable and pursue graduate degrees in cultural studies, social sciences, law, arts, humanities, and more.
Department of American Studies
One of the leading programs of our kind in the United States and globally, American Studies is a small community of core faculty with a large group of affiliated faculty from a wide number of interdisciplinary areas of study, including race, class, gender and sexuality, immigration, politics, social justice, and more.
We pride ourselves on providing our students with valuable degrees that address the vital and timely questions our society faces today. Approaching the study of US culture from a local, global, regional, and transnational perspective, our courses challenge students to examine issues from a variety of geographic scales and locations.
Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies (RIDGS) provides a recognizable and sustainable hub for rigorous theoretical work and engaged scholarship on diversity, social justice, and inequality. RIDGS brings together faculty to build upon interdisciplinary strengths by fostering intersectional collaborative projects and community-engaged research.
RIDGS is dedicated to bringing faculty and students together to pursue lines of inquiry that challenge systems of power and inequality, assert human dignity, and imagine social transformation.
