The IDAAS offices are located on the first floor of the Lincoln Building, Pomona College.
IDAAS Library
The IDAAS library is a growing collection of books, videos, journals, and senior theses, thanks to the Allen F. Hawley Endowment fund. It is our mission to provide curricular and research support for students and faculty at the Claremont Colleges. Here is the compiled list of the resources housed in our library. We are working on including senior theses in the near future.
Hours:
Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Location: Lincoln 1119, Pomona College.
IDAAS Student Workroom
The student workroom is open to majors and minors and students in Asian American Studies courses. It also houses Yong Soon Min’s art project, Insights.
Insights (2009) by Yong Soon Min
The title, INSIGHTS, refers to the operations of the site as well as the content. The project involves the interactions between two surfaces that are part of the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies (IDAAS) center. The first that viewers encounter is the window located next to the entrance of the room. The window is printed with text composed in colorful circles, with insights or inspirational sayings by Yuri Kochiyama to the third world liberation front, collected by IDAAS faculty, staff, and students as a community-building process. Some of these sayings address specifically Asian American issues and experiences, while others relate to anti- racism, hope, justice, and community. The other surface is the wall that is perpendicular to the window, and can be viewed looking through it. The wall itself is painted black, and installed with a circular pattern composed of mirrors and reflective CDs. Depending on their vantage point, viewers standing in front of the wall can see various reflections on the mirror, including the colored text of the window. INSIGHTS was commissioned by IDAAS on the occasion of the opening of this new space.
IDAAS Seminar Room
The IDAAS seminar room is our classroom, meeting room, and event space all rolled into one. Please contact Madeline Gosiaco if you would like to use it. On the east side of the room, we have our Wall of Events featuring flyers from various events and programs we have spearheaded and co-sponsored. In the southwest corner of the room, Prof. Linus Yamane was at it again, painting the IDAAS logo during his sabbatical in the spring of 2011.
IDAAS Logo
(Excerpt):
“The Presidents of the Claremont Colleges approved the establishment of the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies (IDAAS) during the 1997-98 academic year. In July 1998 IDAAS came into existence. Since I was the only faculty member with tenure, I became its first chair. The department itself occupied two shelves on one of my office bookshelves.
During the summer of 1998 I tried to lay some foundations for the department. Among other things, I thought it would be nice to have a department logo. One day I was visiting the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, and noticed that they had an interesting logo. The logo had these waves going east and west. I asked them who had designed it, and they referred me to James Miho.”
Read the rest of Prof. Linus Yamane’s recount of the story here.