A multidisciplinary group of Portland State faculty and community partners will travel to Vietnam and Hawaii to explore future curriculum, research and study abroad opportunities with local scholars and community leaders, thanks to new funding from the Henry Luce Foundation.
The $100,000 grant, announced Feb. 3, is part of ongoing efforts to establish a program in Pacific Islander & Asian American Studies at PSU. Data from PSU's Office of Institutional Research and Planning shows that Pacific Islander and Asian American students currently make up about 16.3% of PSU's undergraduate student population, a number that has been growing each year.
The grant will support place-based research and education that examines the intersections of U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia, U.S. settler colonialism of the Pacific Islands and their impacts on the histories and experiences of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the greater Portland area.
"The history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Oregon is unique, and we are so thrilled to be able to partner with the Luce Foundation to tell that story," said Marie Lo, professor and chair of English.
The project will be co-led by Lo; Betty Izumi, professor of public health and interim associate dean for students and alumni affairs in OHSU-PSU's School of Public Health; and Hau Hagedorn, associate director of PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center, who each bring different perspectives and scholarly backgrounds to the work. The group will expand to include other PSU faculty members and community partners from local Asian American- and Pacific Islander (AAPI)-serving organizations.
From left, Marie Lo, Betty Izumi and Hau HagedornThe group intentionally chose Vietnam and Hawaii for two reasons. First, Portland and PSU have sizable Vietnamese American and Native Hawaiian populations. In the 1970s and 80s, thousands of Vietnamese refugees settled in Portland, making the city home to one of the largest Vietnamese communities among major U.S. cities. Portland also has one of the largest Native Hawaiian (outside of Hawaii) populations in the nation and Hawaii is among the top states represented at PSU.
Second, Hawaii served as an important and complex site during the U.S. war in Vietnam. While Hawaii was both a staging area for the war and a popular rest spot for U.S. service members during the war, what is less well known is that U.S. soldiers trained in Hawaii to simulate conditions in preparation for deployment to Vietnam. Later, Hawaii was a way station for Vietnamese refugees.
The trips to Vietnam and Hawaii will allow the group to explore future research projects, study abroad programs and curriculum integration that link these sites. The project leaders will develop a new undergraduate course that critically examines the links between displacement and dispossession, imperialism and settler colonialism and the diaspora of Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders in Oregon.
Izumi said the grant will allow the group to focus on communities whose demographics and histories have too often been erased or overlooked.
"U.S. imperialism and settler colonialism are not part of traditional public health scholarship," she said. "This grant allows us to explore these histories in Vietnam and Hawaii and incorporate them into public health research and education."
The group will also leverage PSU's relationships and collaborations with AAPI-serving community organizations to better understand the impact of these transpacific migration patterns on the unique communities they serve and identify opportunities to develop community-academic research and teaching partnerships.
"The AAPI community in Portland is diverse and vibrant, but it has been underserved," Lo said. "The Luce Foundation grant supports the development of an innovative and culturally responsive curriculum that showcases PSU’s strength in community-based learning."