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Did you know? The United States' population is 4.2% Asian.
TakeawaysCalifornia schools have many strong programs and clubs for Asian Americans.Many colleges offer an Asian studies program.Look at the professional clubs offered by the school when making your choice.For Asian-Americans wanting to find the right school, there are many things to consider. A natural first reaction to the question "Which college is best" is another question-in this day and age, what does ethnicity have to do with it? Wouldn't one college be as good as another? Should we encourage the idea of certain colleges being "better" for Asian-American students than others?
While huge strides against racial and ethnic prejudice have been made here in the United States, there is still much more that goes on that we are willing to admit. Just a few years ago, a girl at my university who belonged to an ethnic minority was harassed so much by her sorority sisters that she left school. Thinking about this, then, and the fact that the college years are very important to young people, usually playing a large role in how their lives develop afterwards, it is practical and realistic thinking to acknowledge that certain schools have better environments than others for young Asian-Americans during this influential time of their lives.
So which school is best? Taking a top ten approach, I think it is safe to start with Hawaii, which has such a large percentage of Asian people and culture that they are considered the norm rather than the exception. The University of Hawaii in Honolulu, aside from being located in a beautiful tropical location where most people would give their eyeteeth to be going to school, has between 80 and 90 percent colored students at any given time, and a large number of multicultural student organizations. As well as the usual fare, they offer classes in Asian studies, Chinese, Japanese, and Pacific Asian Management Institute. Pictures of staff at their website are predominantly people of Asian descent, and sponsored cultural events include such offerings as Beijing opera performances.
Universities in California are another excellent option, since the population is generally more diverse than in many US states. At the University of California, Riverside's website, campus bulletin postings included "Chancellor's Task Force on Respect, Civility, and Tolerance" and "Principles of Community and A Framework for Diversity". Campus news postings noted that "Black Psychology Lectures" were continuing, and campus events included a National Black HIV/Aids Awareness Day. They offer East Asian languages, Asian Studies, and Asian happenings produced by a search of the site included the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Exploring Early Asian-American History in Los Angeles County, and African and Asian speakers lecturing against sweatshops.
UCLA is a second California college which would be a solid choice for Asian-American future students. Working closely with the community, they participate in various health and AIDS awareness programs, and they have individual centers for the administration of American Indian studies, African-American studies, Asian-American studies, Chicano studies, as well as a catalog of ethnic studies publications. While the emphasis on their website was less explicitly Asian, there was abundant evidence of a thriving diversity awareness and acceptance.
At the University of California, Davis, there is an attractive and user-friendly virtual tour, with promising images of Asian and Chicano cultural clubs performing, and a website search revealed activities such as the Asian Pacific Culture Week. They offer East Asian studies and Asian-American studies, and are the founders of the National Research Center on Asian-American Mental Health. The University of California at Irvine strives for intellectual and cultural diversity. In addition to these impressive facts, the college's Center for Asian Studies has a well-developed site and busy schedule, including co-sponsoring a workshop on "Creating Wealth and Poverty in Contemporary China" and a talk on "Non-Profit Work in Vietnam", indicating a healthy and thriving Asian culture at the university.
Moving away from California, the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia offers many assets to Asian prospective students, with departments of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, the South Asian Language Teachers Association (SALTA), and the Asian Student Union. They also have the Pan-Asian Dance Troupe with performances like "Hot Off the Wok".
Another college for Asian-Americans to consider is the Polytechnic University of New York, where indicators of tolerance and support for ethnic minorities include the existence of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers, and Society of Women Engineers, and numerous campus clubs such as the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, the Hindu Student Association, the Jewish Student Union, the Muslim Student Association, and the Polytechnic Italian Cultural Club.
The University of Maryland in College Park offers and Asian-American Studies program, a service called the Asian Update, which provides information on the Asian electronics industry, and a comprehensive Diversity Database with which we were very impressed, finding a whole slough of Asian-American resources: an Asian-American reading room, historical backgrounds, media reviews from an Asian-American perspective-in fact this was the most complete and well-rounded, specifically Asian-American-geared college thus far.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a well-known college that has many things to offer the Asian-American student: Asian studies, an Asian Christian Fellowship, a site particularly for Asian student resources, such as their Asian Women's Lunches. On-campus resources for students include the Academic Resource Center, the Committee on Campus Race Relations, the International Students Office, and the Office of Minority Education.
The last university we will look at is Washington State University (WSU). With a growing Chinese department and a well-established Japanese department, there is much for the Asian student at WSU. They offer an Asian Studies major and a Chinese major, as well as Chinese and Japanese languages studies. Chinese clubs and organizations regularly hold on-campus activities such as Chinese New Year celebrations and other festival-based events, and evenings of traditional Chinese Dance or Koto performances are not uncommon.
For the Asian-American student wanting to be a part of mainstream college life without losing their cultural and ethnic identity, careful choice of a school is imperative. The preceding list should not be thought of as exclusive, since there are no doubt possibilities that have been missed here. However, all of these schools have shown that they welcome minority students in general and Asian-Americans in particular, and any of them should be positive choices for the Asian-American student. User-generated content powered by Associated Content | Publish your own Content |
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