Asian American Community Studies (AACS) Program
Asian American Community Studies (AACS) is an interdisciplinary academic program at QC open to anyone interested in learning more about Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities (with roots in Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia and the Pacific Islands, and including Asian diasporas (e.g. Indo-Caribbean communities)) and the field of Asian American studies.
AACS engages with the transnational histories, forms of racialization, cultural expressions, and politics of Asian America. We explore how migration and community formation relates to processes of empire, nation-building and globalization. Throughout the program’s activities, we work on developing connections between critical inquiry and action for social change.
AACS is also a minor!
The AACS Minor provides opportunities for students from all majors to learn about Asian American communities and to engage in research and service learning here in Queens/NYC. The minor is ideal for students who want to pursue careers in the arts, business, education, government, healthcare, international affairs, the law, nonprofits, social services, and more.
The Minor consists of three required courses and three additional elective courses.
Three required courses
- AACS 107 – Immigrant Communities in Queens
- ENGL 369 – Asian American Literature
- AACS 370 – Capstone: Field Work in Asian American Communities-Opportunities for Service Learning and Research [*A waiver can be granted for students who want to pursue an independent study research project with a QC faculty, by approval from AACS Advisor]
Three additional elective courses
*Prerequisites for AACS minor courses may be waived upon request.
- AACS 220 – Asian American Communities: Culture, Power, and Agency
- ANTH 204 – Anthropology of Islam
- ANTH 208W – Peoples of South Asia
- ANTH 210 – Peoples of East Asia
- ANTH 214 – Peoples of New York City
- ANTH 216 – Peoples of Southeast Asia
- ANTH 388 – Voices of New York
- EAST 282 – Body Politics and Transnational Korean Popular Culture
- ECON 204 – International Political Economy
- ECON 233 Globalization Now and Then
- ENGL 255 – Global Literatures in English
- ENGL 377 – South Asian Literature
- ENGL 379 – VT: Transnational Postcolonial Global Literature
- ENGL 394 – Writing Multilingualism
- HIST 145 – Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
- HIST 166 – History and Memory
- HIST 285 – History of the City of New York
- HIST 343 – History of the American City
- HIST 276, 276W – The Immigrant in American History [taught as Immigration, Race, & Ethnicity]
- LCD 103 – Multilingualism in the United States
- LCD 244W – Language and Social Diversity
- LCD 288 – Voices of New York
- PSCI 286 – Race, Class, Gender, and Law
- SOC 208 – Social Problems
- SOC 210 – Modern Urban Community
- SOC 211 – Ethnic and Racial Relations
- SOC 279 – Globalization: Social and Geographic Perspectives
- URBST 202 – Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration
- URBST 216 – Immigration in Metropolitan New York
- URBST 224 – The Changing Neighborhoods of Queens
- URBST 273 – Labor and Globalization
- URBST 326 – Cities and Diasporas
AACS Faculty Advisory Committee
Caroline K. Hong (English)
Murphy Halliburton (Anthropology)
Andrew Amstutz (History)
Khanh Le (Linguistics and Communications Disorders)
Soniya Munshi (Urban Studies) (*Faculty Advisor/Director of AACS)
AACS Affiliate Faculty Members
Padmini Biswas (Urban Studies)
Seo-Young Chu (English)
Kimiko Hahn (English)
Amy Hsin (Sociology)
Madhulika Khandelwal (Urban Studies)
Do Lee (Urban Studies)
Nerve Macaspac (Library and Information Science)
Amy Wan (English)
Learn about QCAP, one of our campus partners!
AACS works closely with the Queens College AANAPISI Project (QCAP). Funded by a 5-year, Title III, Part A grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI) Program, QCAP addresses the specific needs of our AAPI students by strengthening and expanding on existing student services at Queens College via a range of programs for all QC students, including academic support, mental health resources, and community engagement.
For more information, go to QCAP’s website here: https://qcap.commons.gc.cuny.edu/about-us/
