Asian American Studies

"Sharing Comfort and Care" explores the intergenerational and intercultural sharing of stories related to migration, health care, and food. We focus on two of the most underrepresented groups within the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) category, namely Cambodians and NHPIs. California is home to the largest Cambodian American community and second largest Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (NHPI) community in the United States.

During the academic year 2020-2021, student and alum researchers from across Southern California and beyond conducted oral history interviews with AAPI community members, created digital "story maps" highlighting their lives, and collected family and community recipes.

“Sharing Comfort and Care" is a project led by faculty and staff at the University of California, Irvine, in collaboration with The Cambodian Family and Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, and funded by the California Humanities.

A partnership with the Department of Asian American Studies involving the training of a cohort of 25 students to document and preserve the histories of the AAPI community in Santa Ana through archival research, oral history, and story-mapping, and video. This project has received funding from the UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence.

VOICE is a project that aims to present the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in Orange County – home to the third largest AAPI community in the United States. As a result of the pandemic, AAPI communities have experienced a disproportionate amount of hostility. We want to showcase how the community is impacted on a multitude of levels, given the already challenging pandemic, personal circumstances, and language barriers by incorporating a technique known as Photovoice. Our team of student researchers captures thought-provoking pictures to document the story of how COVID-19 impacted the AAPI community. Explore our selection of images, categorized neatly under each theme.