Asian American Studies

Asian American Studies is a Tri-College program that offers a minor at Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr colleges. The interdisciplinary curriculum is designed to help students develop an understanding of Asian American experiences, histories, cultures, and art.

While the program centers Asian American experiences and perspectives, it also contextualizes Asian American Studies within the broader field of critical race and ethnic studies, with a focus on how race operates in the United States and intergroup relations between Asian Americans with other racial and ethnic minority groups. Asian American Studies provides rich interdisciplinary training in complex social and cultural issues pertaining to the study of race, ethnicity, and identity; migration and acculturation; intergroup relations; power and privilege; stereotyping and discrimination; and globalization. Studying the experiences of Asian Americans helps students to learn more about themselves and their relationships in an increasingly multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural nation. Students are engaged in thinking deeply about concepts and theory, and relating those in applied ways to contemporary issues and problems in Asian American communities.