College of Humanities

The College of Humanities grieves with the families and friends of the eight victims of the mass murder that took place in Atlanta on March 16.

Xiaojie Tan.  Daoyou Feng. Soon Chung Park.  Hyun Jung Grant.  Suncha Kim. Yong Ae Yue.  Delaina Ashley Yaun.  Paul Andre Michels 

Of the eight lives lost in the horrific attacks, six of them were Asian American women.  Women who were mothers, sisters, aunts, friends, colleagues, neighbors.  Women who were the target of anti-Asian, misogynistic violence. 

We cannot ignore the fact that there have been nearly 3800 documented violent crimes against Americans of Asian descent—primarily women—in just the last year.  We cannot ignore the rhetoric of hatred, racism and violence that has fueled these crimes.  We cannot ignore the ways in which this rhetoric is rooted in a toxic intersection of racism, sexism, hypersexualization, misogyny, imperialism, militarism, and violence.

And we cannot continue to elide the fact that Anti-Asian hate is entwined with the history of our country, from the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); to the anti-Chinese riots of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II; the mass shooting in Stockton that targeted Asian American children (1989); the murders of Vincent Chin (1982), Navroze Mody (1987) and Joseph Ileto (1999); and many other examples.  

But violence against the AAPI community has far too often been rendered invisible:  ignored, treated as something from the distant past, or attributed to causes other than racism—as we have seen even today in the “debate” over the motivation for the Atlanta attacks. 

Our Asian American Studies department, founded in 1990, has been dedicated since its earliest days to fighting for social justice and empowering our graduates to go out and transform the world.  As a college, we redouble our commitment to supporting the faculty and students in this department in reaching for this vital goal in such troubled times. 

An important part of our mission as a college is to “Act as responsible global citizens committed to principles of freedom, equality, justice and participatory democracy.” 

We must work together as a college and as a university to live up to this goal through such actions as:

• Supporting programming and curriculum that educates all of us on this history of AAPI communities in the US
• Offering visible and vocal support for all of our AAPI colleagues and students
• Calling out xenophobia, racism and harassment wherever it is exhibited   
• Amplifying and valuing the diverse and unique stories that are woven into the American tapestry.
• Working to enact systemic changes that lead toward racial justice and empowerment for all

The College of Humanities unequivocally condemns anti-Asian racism and stands in solidarity with all in the Asian American/Pacific Islander communities.

Resources:

https://www.csun.edu/counseling

https://www.csun.edu/humanities/asian-american-studies

https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/?fbclid=IwAR23rQgPUI0f11Mml5W-tQyYdOp11iT5FH8kEOq8sGzMvEWyfHzIDUETkuQ

www.Stopaapihate.org

Welcome to Humanities

As education becomes ever more focused on professional degrees and vocational training, employers increasingly report that what they seek is not necessarily more specialized degrees but rather people who can think, who can synthesize, who can analyze, and who can apply a broad base of thought to a wide variety of areas. The College of Humanities teaches students to read, write and think. Our graduates are prepared for a 21st-century workforce that advances those who have the power not just to achieve and innovate but to communicate their ideas to an audience beyond their applied field.

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