Director's Overview

Don T. Nakanishi
Director and Professor
UCLA Asian American Studies Center

Our Historical Mission

The UCLA Asian American Studies Center was established during the 1969-1970 academic year as a result of faculty, student, alumni, and community advocacy. "The Center," the founding steering committee wrote in its proposal to the UCLA administration in 1969, "will hopefully enrich the experience of the entire university by contributing to an understanding of the long neglected history, rich cultural heritage, and present position of Asian Americans in our society."

Through its programs in research, teaching, publications and other endeavors, the Center has pursued its original mission, and has sought to enrich and inform not only the UCLA community, but also an array of broader audiences and sectors in the state, the nation, and internationally.

Today, UCLA is recognized as the premier research and teaching institution in the field of Asian American Studies.

37 Years of Asian American Studies

In 2004, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center celebrated its thirty-fifth year and the official establishment of the Department of Asian American Studies. At UCLA, we now have a Center and a Department working in dynamic fashion.

The Asian American Studies Center is one of four ethnic studies centers at UCLA and one of the oldest programs in Asian American Studies in the nation. Together with the Department, the Center has core programs in research, teaching, and publications; in library and archival collections; in student leadership development; in joint university community research projects; in endowment and development efforts; and in public educational activities.

The Center’s development has coincided with the dramatic growth of the Asian American and Pacific Islander population. In 1970, the U.S. Census indicated that there were 1.5 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders nationally, with the majority being American-born; less than 10% of the UCLA student body were Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Today, there are over 12 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders nationally, the majority of whom are immigrants. At UCLA over 40% of the current 36,000 undergraduate and graduate students are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. By 2020, the AAPI population in the U.S. is expected to reach 20 million.

As an educator and as Director of the UCLA Asian American Center, I believe that the Center and the Department of Asian American Studies will play an ever-dynamic role in helping to understand the past and the promise of the Asian American and Pacific Islander experience in the twenty-first century.

But we must do much more than react to today’s challenging social, economic, and environmental issues.

We must act decisively, think creatively, and educate courageously.