When the Asian and Asian American Studies Certificate Program (AAASCP) was founded in 1999, it didn’t even have an office. Twenty-five years later, it has graduated over 100 students, who learn about the connections between Asia and the United States, Asian American history, culture and more.
The AAASCP celebrated this milestone at Old Chapel on Saturday night, where 100 attendees gathered to recognize the program through speeches, a panel Q&A, food and performances from various student groups.
The AAASCP program director, C.N. Le, is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Massachusetts. Le said that student advocacy led to the program’s creation in 1999, which was a part of a wider movement of students at American universities pushing for the inclusion of more complete stories of race, power and immigration in higher education.
The program graduates about four to five students each year, which Le said is significant given the funding that it has.
“Being a very small and under-resourced program, I think we do a lot with very little,” Le said, citing the program’s collaborations with other on-campus programs, such as the Center for Multicultural Advancement and Student Success, the Yuri Kochiyama Cultural Center, the Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture Program and the Asian and Asian American Defined Residential Community.
Financial support is a major area of uncertainty for the program. In recent years, it has gotten aid from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Though, the program’s resources vary year to year based on the University’s financial health. Because of funding issues, the AAASCP program doesn’t have any of its own faculty and cannot offer independent courses, relying on courses related to Asian or Asian American studies offered in other departments like sociology and women and gender studies.
“For a while, we got like $1,000 a year from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts,” Le said. “But then … during one of UMass’s periodic financial crises, that funding dried up. So for a while, we weren’t getting any annual funding at all.”
During that time, the program survived on fundraising and grants Le was able to secure for it.
AAASCP 25 Year Celebration at Old Chapel 2/28/26 (Izzy Hill)
Still, Le says that there is a need for a program like this at a university like UMass to educate people on important political, economic and cultural issues that exist between the United States and Asia.
“We try to convey to them just how interconnected we are as a world, as a society, and here at UMass as a campus community. So, it’s about building relationships, not just a curriculum,” Le said, explaining that alumni benefit from cross-cultural and global fluency skills.
These alumni and current students poured into the Great Hall of Old Chapel as the last rays of sun of the day filtered through the stained-glass windows. Chatter filled the room as guests filed in and piled shrimp toast, chicken potstickers, fruit, spring rolls and ube cupcakes on their plates.
One of the first people in the room was Caitlin Calvelo, a current student in the program and its sole program assistant.
A sophomore neuroscience and psychology student, Calvelo says that she found out about the program last year at its film festival event, which she attended with other members of the Filipino Student Association.
“I just feel like Southeast Asians … sometimes are underrepresented, and it was really great seeing that they had a Filipino film with the filmmaker [on Zoom],” said Calvelo. “And just seeing issues like that [represented], because it was about a split family because of immigration … reminded me of my family and my background. So just noticing how important that was to me, that made me motivated to start doing the certificate.”
Calvelo believes that the program is important because of the community it fosters and the empathy it builds towards people’s experiences, whether they are Asian or not.
The event opened with Le delivering remarks and recognizing program assistants like Calvelo that shaped the program to be what it is today.
He went on to introduce the panelists for the event, which included Christopher Dang, residence director of the Asian & Asian American Defined Residential Community, Miliann Kang, professor in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Purna Venugopalan, director of the Asian & Asian American Arts & Cultures program and Catherine Wan, president of the Asian American Students Association.
Alumni Samantha Huynh, staff attorney for MetroWest Legal Services and Qingjian (Q.J.) Shi, senior director of the Asian Business Empowerment Council, were also featured on the panel.
Panel members answered the audience’s questions on finding and creating community, navigating today’s challenges and working on representation and visibility within their respective fields. Alumni of the program also reflected on their experiences within the program and how it has impacted them post-graduation.
AAASCP 25 Year Celebration at Old Chapel 2/28/26 (Izzy Hill)
“It wasn’t until I found myself in this program where I was learning about the history of Asian American experiences that I really felt a fluency in how I could speak about who I was and how I was operating in the world,” Shi said.
Shi urged students interested in the program to participate, citing it as a “rare opportunity to discover who you are.”
Huynh credited the certificate program for helping her learn about laws that excluded Asians from legal status as immigrants in the U.S. As an attorney working in the areas of domestic violence and immigration, Huynh says that that history has influenced the way she thinks about how she helps people fight to gain legal status.
“It’s an interesting space to be when I’m thinking back on our history as people who were once excluded,” Huynh said. “It’s just a reminder of how very arbitrary and violent these systems are and how our oppressions and our fights are intertwined.”
Huynh added that the things she learned in the program weren’t necessarily hard skills, but that they translated to personal growth.
“I really do think it’s … invaluable in the way that you carry yourself in spaces and the way it … guides you and what you want to do and the paths that you take,” Huynh said.
AAASCP 25 Year Celebration at Old Chapel 2/28/26 (Izzy Hill)
After the panel discussion, Calvelo took to the podium to announce performances by student groups, including UMass Nirva, K-Pop Dance Club, UMass Rang, UMass Filipino Student Association’s Tinikling and a group performing a Newari Lakhey dance.
The energy from the audience cheering on dance and song acts was still buzzing in the air when Le delivered concluding remarks.
He expressed hope that UMass can commit more resources to the program so it can broaden its academic offerings, especially offering more courses around Pacific Islanders, globalization, Asian popular culture and courses that study the connections between the Asian American community and other communities of color. He also acknowledged the crucial role students play in the program’s existence.
“Our greatest achievement over these 25 years is not simply a curriculum, it is people,” Le said, adding how proud he was of the individuals who carried what they learned from the program into their fields.
“Our students and alumni embody the idea that Asian and Asian American Studies is not just about studying communities but about strengthening them.”
Grace Chai can be reached at [email protected].
