COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT COURSES

Spring 2018

Community Engagement Courses @ IDAAS | Students connect theory from the classroom into practice, engage more thoroughly with the material, and gain a community-minded perspective. Faculty connect research interests with community organizations, and form closer relations with community partners. Altogether, community-based learning provides a connection between academia and the community, with a deeper intellectual engagement that is rooted in real-life application. 

ASAM 082. Racial Politics of Teaching. Yep & C. Fought, PZ, W 7:00-9:50 p.m.

This class examines how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling from sociological, linguistic, and ethnic studies standpoints. Specifically, we will discuss how race and ethnicity are constructed in schooling and ways teachers/educators may refine their pedagogies in relation to race and ethnicity. Students will do a research project.

Community Partner | LAMP: Literacy for All of Monterey Park (LAMP)

Working with the PZ Community Engagement Center and initially funded by the Weingart Foundation, K. Yep initiated a partnership with Literacy for All of Monterey Park (LAMP) starting Fall 2009. LAMP was founded in 1984 with funding by the California State Library and through the efforts immigration attorney and former California assemblyman Michael Eng. LAMP is an adult and family literacy program that furnishes language classes, computer classes, citizenship classes, and individual tutoring. Located in Monterey Park’s public library, sixty-eight percent of LAMP’s client-base for naturalization self-identify as Asian and second-language learners. Monterey Park, a small suburban community east of downtown Los Angeles and in the heart of San Gabriel Valley, was transformed after the 1965 National Origins Act. (Li, 2011). Asians in Monterey Park grew from less than ten percent in 1960 to almost two-thirds of the population in 2010. Currently, one out of three Monterey Park citizens are Asian and seventy-six percent of the city’s population speak a language other than English at home (U.S. Census, 2013). Los Angeles has the second largest concentration of Asians in the United States with close to half a million. In addition to providing tutoring for naturalization exam preparation and ESL, projects have included culturally-relevant palliative care resource books, social autobiographies, annotated playlists, collaborative poetry, and public health population education curriculum.

ASAM 086. Social Documentation and Asian Americans. Mak, PO, W 1:15-4:00 p.m.

Viewing of films and other documentary forms by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) for critique and discussion. Basic instruction in use of digital video technology to document social issues relevant to Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Community- project.

Community Partner | Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC)
Asian Americans have been part of the American story since its earliest days, and are now the U.S.’s fastest-growing racial group with the potential and power to shape our nation and the policies that affect us. Our mission is to advance civil and human rights for Asian Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all.

ASAM 094. Community Health. Vaughn, PZ, T 6:00-8:50 p.m.

This course will explore Indigenous understandings of health with particular attention to the Pacific Islander community. By focusing on holistic understandings of health, students will learn the historical factors leading to health disparities amongst Pacific Islanders, but also will learn of current community efforts and movements to address the intersections of health and self?determination. Through participatory teaching strategies, the class will examine holistic health and analyze the movements centering restoring Indigenous understandings of health. Fulfills PZ social responsibility requirement.

Community Partner | STEP: The Saturday Tongan Education Program

The Saturday Tongan Education Program (STEP) provides free academic support to Tongan youth of all ages in the Pomona Valley and Inland Empire areas. Led by the Pomona College Asian American Resource Center, STEP brings together Tongan students seeking academic help and mentoring from the Claremont Colleges while learning from the Tongan community.

MS 100AA. Asian Americans in Media. Kaneko, PZ, T 2:45-5:30 p.m.

This is a historical survey of Asian American involvement in media production, beginning with the silent film era and ending with contemporary projects in film, video, and new media. In this course, we will focus on the shifting yet continuous participation of Asians in the production of media in North America, and look at how changing political, social, and cultural discourses have shaped media representations of Asians throughout this period.

Community Partner | Visual Communications

Visual Communications (VC’s) mission is to develop and support the voices of Asian American and Pacific Islander filmmakers and media artists who empower communities and challenge perspectives. VC is the first non-profit organization in the nation dedicated to the honest and accurate portrayals of the Asian Pacific American peoples, communities, and heritage through the media arts.  VC was created with the understanding that media and the arts are important vehicles to organize and empower communities, build connections between peoples and generations through the development of AAPI film, video, and media.

ASAM 130. Science, Technology, Asian America. Honma, M 2:45-5:30 p.m.

This course explores the implications of Western science and technology on the Asian American experience. By interrogating how science has been defined in the “West” in relation to “non-Western” peoples, we will explore questions related to epistemology, racialization, migration, education, professionalization, and research, and the political stakes therein.

Community Partner | API FORWARD MOVEMENT

API Forward Movement cultivates healthy, long-lasting, and vibrant Asian and Pacific Islander communities through grassroots organizing. They want a world where Asian and Pacific Islander communities – and all communities of color – have full power to access good health and a healthy environment.

THEA 130. Introduction to Directing. Ortega, PO, TR 9:35 a.m.-12:05 p.m.

This is an introduction to the art and craft of directing for the stage, and related forms that will allow the artist to enhance their vision and eventually formulate their concept into fruition. There will be an emphasis on play selection, detailed script analysis, the director’s concept, collaboration with designers, auditions and casting, actor coaching, rehearsal strategies, and production methods. We will workshop several scenes as well as projects that the students will create. In addition, our student directors will have the opportunity to work with students from a local elementary school to produce a short adaptation of a fairy tale or a fable being taught in their curriculum.

Community Partner | DRAPER CENTER

The mission of the Draper Center for Community Partnerships is to foster mutually beneficial exchanges among community members, students, faculty, and staff in order to support educational outreach initiatives, community-based research and learning, and other community engagement activities.

Community Partner | EAST WEST PLAYERS

Founded in 1965, East West Players is the nation’s longest-running professional theater of color and the largest producing organization of Asian American artistic work.

PSYC 153AA. Asian American Psychology. Goto, PO, TR 1:15-2:30 p.m.

Introduces students to the salient psychological issues of Asian Americans. Taking into account the social, cultural, and historical context of the Asian American experience, this course addresses values and cultural conflict development, acculturation, marriage and gender roles, vocational development, psychopathology, and delivery of mental health services.

Community Partner | PACIFIC CLINICS

Pacific Clinics has provided life-changing and life-saving mental health treatment, substance use disorder treatment, and supportive services since 1926. Mental illness impacts individuals across culture, gender, age, and economic spectrums, so we deliver a range of innovative community-based, culturally and linguistically appropriate programs. Our highly trained, expert staff members are reflective of the communities we serve, and specialize in severe, chronic mental illnesses.