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 For over forty years, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center has been at the forefront of educating the American public about the intellectual, cultural, and political diversity of the Asian American and Pacific Islander experience. Leading experts from across the country judged the Center recently and concluded: "The Asian American Studies Center at UCLA is indisputably the leading Asian American Studies center in the country and an exemplary ethnic studies center of any kind, the gold standard against which all the rest are measured." The Center, through its mission to "educate through innovation," is recognized as the premier site of scholarship and publications, research and archives, and programs around public policy and leadership.
The Center continues to initiate an agenda for the future through new programs and partnerships with the social sciences and humanities, as well as professional schools of law, public policy, education, and public health. In an increasingly global and transnational environment, innovation has taken the shape of visionary international initiatives such as the U.S-China Media Brief. These programs signal a movement in which Center collaborations will push beyond traditional intellectual and physical boundaries to creatively connect the campus community to scholars and leaders in other parts of the world.
The Asian American Studies Center has been uniquely influenced by and has sought to maintain mutually beneficial relations with a diverse range of constituencies and audiences from scholars to policy decision-makers, and from local social services agencies to museums and civil rights groups in Los Angeles and nationwide. The Center has been committed throughout its history to be actively engaged in the development of the next generation of leaders for the diverse ethnic and immigrant communities of Asian American and Pacific Islander populations.
One of the early editors of the Center's Amerasia Journal stated that these collective and wide-ranging efforts "helped unearth a buried past, to heal a fractured psyche, and to give voice to what were once unarticulated stirrings.... The challenge ... lies in visualizing new futures and inspiring our collective will to transform these freshly created dreams into new realities." It is to these new futures and new realities that the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA is engaged and committed.
David K. Yoo
Director, UCLA Asian American Studies Center
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