Resources and Opportunities
AAS offers a wealth of opportunities to help you achieve your educational, personal and professional goals during your academic journey at SFSU. With funding and scholarship opportunities to aid educational costs, we aim to make learning affordable and accessible. We also highlight courses with unique opportunities to get involved in the community through community service or producing scholarly and creative works. Also, check out the work our students and faculty are doing every day in the community as activists and leaders.
Funding and Scholarships
Our department works to make education affordable by offering funding and scholarship opportunities, in addition to the need-based financial aid offered by the University. These opportunities make it possible for our AAS students and the entire campus community to thrive. Learn more about current opportunities below.
The Asian American Studies Department (AAS) is pleased to announce two Laura Lai Scholarship/Student Assistantships to work on the AAS K-12 Curriculum Project. The students will receive a joint scholarship and student assistantship, with the respective amounts to be determined.
The purpose of the scholarship is to support graduate students in Asian American Studies who demonstrate a strong commitment to making positive contributions to society. In the absence of qualified graduate applicants, the award may be granted to undergraduate students pursuing Asian American Studies. Recipients may receive the scholarship more than once, but no more than two times.
Apply to the Henry & Haruye Ng Endowed Scholarship in Asian American Studies
The Anantha Sudhakar Memorial Scholarship was established in honor of Associate Professor Emerita of Asian American Studies Anantha Sudhakar. It recognizes her deep commitment and extraordinary dedication to social justice and the education of undergraduate and graduate students. She embodied the best qualities and values of Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies.
Minnie Loo and Adam Kertz established the Mark B. Kertz & Minnie Loo Scholarship Endowment in Asian American Studies to honor her husband and his father Mark B. Kertz, at his alma mater, San Francisco State University. The scholarship awards shall encourage studens who are pursuing interdisciplinary studies in Asian American Studies to pursue a future career in public service. The students shall have a commitment to advancing inclusion for Asian Americans and increasing awareness of the Chinese American experience.
In honor of Paul Whang's dedication to helping youth, the Paul Whang Memorial Fellowship Endowment encourages and provides support to college students interested in working with low-income youth in Asian American communities.
Student Organizations
Get Involved in Campus Communities
Student Activities & Events partners with students to support organizations and clubs, facilitate programs and events that create community, develop the whole person, and foster a deep sense of connection to each other and our campus. Welcome to your Student Life Experience at San Francisco State!
Community Service Learning/Internships
Community service-learning and academic internship courses provide unique opportunities for AAS faculty and students to serve diverse Asian American communities; they have resulted in positive strides toward promoting racial equality, civic responsibility and social justice.
AAS 301 is one of the only courses in the nation devoted to studying issues concerning Asian Americans of mixed racial and ethnic heritages. Taught by Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis, students have produced picture books that have been donated as a fundraiser at a Mixed Heritage and Transracial Adoptee Children’s Book Fair. Through the narratives reflected in these picture books, Asian American children of mixed racial and ethnic heritages can see themselves represented, which helps to cultivate a sense of belonging and encourages language skill development.
Temari and Joseph’s Talent Show
The AAS Department at SF State, in collaboration with TACT, the Square and Circle Club and the SF Public Library, strives to educate the general public about APIA cultural, historical and literary contributions to American society. AA S 512 students wrote biographical profiles of prominent APIAs that are catered toward the reading levels of children. After researching the historical streets and public spaces in San Francisco, they produced a map of “APIA Stars,” with each star representing a site on San Francisco’s map. Through this multi-collaborative approach, these students have empowered public institutions, such as the SF public library, to advocate for and engage in more cultural events to educate public audiences at a younger age. By focusing on the contributions of pioneering APIAs, the general public can learn to dismantle harmful and superficial stereotypes painted and perpetuated by the mass media.
Refugees from Burma and Bhutan, Mongolian undocumented families and Bayview Hunter’s Point residents often face post-resettlement challenges, including access to employment and healthcare. AAS 595 students work with local organizations, such as Burma Refugee Family Network (BRFN), to host health fairs and conduct needs assessments for diverse communities in the Bay Area. The results from these projects highlight the importance of ethnic heterogeneity in identifying barriers to accessing essential services, and have produced reports that have been used for strategic planning, grant writing and community education. Non-profit organizations have leveraged these findings to raise over $350,000 in funds. In addition, the results have also helped reform policies to implement more effective evidence-based interventions addressing health disparities in marginalized communities, as well as strengthen the social ties with these organizations for the continuation of these projects.
The Nichi Bei Foundation has led more than 2,000 people on five Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimages, reconnecting the community to the forgotten legacy at the former Immigration Station, where up to 85,000 persons of Japanese descent were detained between 1910 and 1940. Launched in 2014, the Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage reconnects participants to their family legacies with the help of partners such as the California Genealogical Society. Held in partnership with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and the National Japanese American Historical Society, the pilgrimage also honors those who rediscovered the forgotten Immigration Station barracks in the 1970s, and those who took up the preservation efforts shortly thereafter. In the 2024 pilgrimage, AAS 681 partnered with NichiBei Foundation to provide support for the pilgrimage. Students directed participants to the registration table, loaded and unloaded and passed out lunch, assisted speakers by holding up posters for displayed, completed setup and breakdown of chairs, and documented the experience through photography. For many AAS 681 student volunteers, this was also their first time visiting Angel Island and learning first-hand the history of the barracks. As AAS 681 intern Jewel De Fremery reflected, pilgrimages “aim to strengthen community ties through empowerment via the dispersal of knowledge. In organizing an event at this historic location and hosting a genealogy booth so people could trace their family histories, AAS 681 and Nichi Bei enabled many people to discover previously unknown information, creating personal and community ties through mutual learning.”
Identity Based Resources
| Asian American and Pacific Islander Retention and Education (ASPIRE) | ASPIRE is a collaboration between the AAS Department and Student Affairs and Enrollment Management (SAEM), which offers support services to high-need Asian American and Native American Pacific Islanders (AANAPI) and low-income degree-seeking undergraduate students and strengthen academic outcomes. |
| Black Unity Center | The Black Unity Center provides Black students, through cross-campus community collaborations and an intersectional, African-centered environment, with transformative, impactful and socially conscious programs that allow them to grow academically, interpersonally, culturally and professionally, in order to advance their recruitment, matriculation, retention and graduation. |
| Dream Resource Center | DRC supports the undocumented student population and students living in mixed-status homes. All undocumented students are welcome to take advantage of services regardless of DACA, ABA 540/SB 68 and/or CA Dream Act eligibility. |
| Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network | DVAN sponsors a project at San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies titled DVAN@SFSU. The project is designed to advance mutual educational goals and the promotion of Vietnamese American diasporic literary arts and other cultural productions through the mentorship and support of SFSU undergraduates in the humanities and the arts. |
| Equity and Community Inclusion | Equity & Community Inclusion works collaboratively with campus partners (including student clubs and organizations) to close the educational equity gap in support of our Graduation Initiative 2025 goals. |
| Guardian Scholars Program | Through advocacy, support and empowerment, the SF State Guardian Scholars Program creates a vibrant community to engage current and former foster youth to attain college degrees, stable housing and career-path employment. |
| Queer & Trans Resource Center | The Queer & Trans Resource Center offers LGBTQQIA-related events, services and resources to students. The Queer & Trans Resource Center also serves as an umbrella organization linking various student organizations, such as Queer Alliance, Pride Committee, and CEASE/SAFE Place that work to create events and resources for the LGBTQQIA community on campus. |
| Project Connect | Exists to empower and involve the student body to promote higher education and facilitate graduation for low-income and historically underrepresented communities. |
| Project Rebound | Project Rebound supports formerly incarcerated on their journey through successful reintegration in a college setting. |
| Richard Oakes Multicultural Center | The Richard Oakes Multicultural center is a space for cultural events and discussions and also provides a collaborative and supportive environment that promotes a multi-ethnic, culturally conscious university that affirms the human and intellectual heritage of all people. |
| Safe Zone Program | The Safe Zone is a voluntary program of trained faculty, staff and administrators. A person displaying the program symbol has completed a training to develop a greater awareness of issues affecting students of all genders and sexual identities and anyone negatively impacted by heterosexism and homophobia. |
| The SAFE Place | The SAFE Place is a survivor-focused, trauma-informed program that provides FREE and CONFIDENTIAL support services to survivors of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, stalking and sexual harassment (sexual violence) while working with campus partners to end sexual violence. The SAFE Place serves all members of the SF State community, including students, staff and faculty. |
| The Queer & Trans Resource Center | Rooted in the ancestral legacy of queer activists and visionaries and SF State's commitment to social justice and community engagement, the Queer & Trans Resource Center endeavors to offer LGBTQQIA-related events, services and resources to students. |
| Veterans Services | Veterans Services helps current and former members of the United States Armed Forces attain their educational goals. Current members of the military, veterans and dependents of service-related disabled or deceased veterans are encouraged to browse this website to learn more about the application process and educational benefits at SF State. |
| Women’s Center | The Women’s Center serves to address issues that concern the lives of our female-identifying students and staff with resources on sexual assault, domestic violence, housing insecurity and more. |