CSU Sociology's Social Justice & Equity Working Group currently includes Jessie Luna, KuoRay Mao, and Lynn Hempel and is open for all members of our community to voice ideas and concerns.
AAPI statement to reaffirm our Call for Racial Justice
May 2021
Department of Sociology, Colorado State University
CSU Sociology reaffirms our commitment to the struggle for racial justice. We condemn recent acts of hate in the U.S. against Asians, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) as well as anti-AAPI discriminatory incidents large and small throughout history. We actively seek accountability for acts of violence against all members of our community, including the continuing erasure of historical injustices and significant contributions made by Asians, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.
The Social Justice and Equity Working Group we formed last summer is committed to raising awareness of the valuable contributions our AAPI colleagues make on campus, in Colorado, and across the United States. Starting May 3 and continuing throughout Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2021, we will feature #SOCspotlights of #AAPIcontributions on CSU Department of Sociology’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. Our website will house these spotlights and additional resources. In Fall 2021, we will host speakers whose work elevates conversations and actions around race and ethnicity and intersects with our department’s research specializations. Throughout the year, we will highlight contributions from colleagues representing other marginalized communities.
We will not be silent. We will not be deterred. We recognize our CSU colleagues who strive to put CSU’s Principles of Community into everyday action. We accept the collective responsibility to create systemic change.
A Call for Racial Justice
June 2020
Department of Sociology, Colorado State University
As people around the world rise up to demand the end of police violence, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy, the CSU sociology community affirms our commitment to the struggle for racial justice. We commit to this within the halls of academia, our classrooms, our university, and in the fight for broader societal transformation.
Members of our community have been deeply affected by recent events, including the violent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others, including women and trans people whose deaths have often been less publicized. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn back the curtain on the stark health, employment, and wealth inequalities facing Black, Brown, Native, and immigrant communities in this country and around the world. Furthermore, Asian Americans are facing dramatic increases in violence, hate crimes, and state surveillance and expulsion. Just as police violence kills, the slow violence of structural inequality kills – yet this violence is often invisible to those in power and to white people.
It is our job as sociologists to tear down this curtain: to maintain the spotlight even after the protests end, to teach about structures of injustice, and to dig deeper within ourselves and our own institution to make transformations. This means pushing to materially redistribute resources and remake CSU to reflect a reality of racial justice. Too often, statements of solidarity ring hollow. They must be accompanied by action, accountability, and deep internal reflection on needed changes. Here at CSU, racist incidents happen semester after semester, and many people of color within our community feel like very little is done. We agree. When the public outrage fades, where are we? What actions are being taken? What changes are being sustained?
As sociologists, we hold great responsibility. Our Sociology Department educates students in our three concentrations, General Sociology, Environmental Sociology and Criminology/Criminal Justice, to critically analyze the structures that create and reproduce injustice in our world. We reaffirm our commitment to centering critical perspectives on inequality, institutional racism and struggles for justice in our curriculum to ensure that all our students – including those who will go on to work in law enforcement and other areas of the justice system – are provided with the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to promote racial justice in our society.
As people who study and teach about social systems and structural inequalities – we have much to contribute and, in addition to our academic work many of us are engaged in important professional, advocacy and service roles within our community. We commit to supporting anti-racism in our community and the world. Anti-racism, as Ibram X. Kendi argues, means actively working to undo the status quo of racism. This is lifelong work, and as such, this statement will be a living document that changes to reflect our Department’s new and ongoing concrete commitments. We are setting up a committee on Equity and Social Justice to bring action items to our department and our university administration. We invite all members of our Sociology community (faculty, staff, students, alumni) to join with us, offer your ideas, and hold us accountable to help create systemic change for an anti-racist world.
Sociology spotlights of Chicano/Chicana, Mexican Americans, and other Latinx communities
National Hispanic Heritage Month September 15 – October 15, 2021
Dr. Victor Rios
“Rios, a Chicano sociologist who once was a gun victim in juvenile hall and a high school drop out, only to become a prominent sociologist and professor. Rios’ research exposes the policies and prejudice of communal and institutional hate, especially where intersectional identities are most vulnerable. Rios is particularly focused on at risk youth, helping […]
Read MoreDr. Patricia Fernandez-Kelly
Dr. Patricia Fernandez-Kelly is Professor of Sociology and Research Associate at the Office of Population Research, at Princeton University. She is also the director of the Center for Migration and Development at the same institution. Fernández-Kelly is a social anthropologist with an interest in international economic development, gender, class and ethnicity, and urban ethnography. This […]
Read MoreDr. Alyshia Gálvez
“I read Dr. Gálvez’s book, Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico, when I was a master’s student here and her work really sparks my interests in studies on immigration, unequal exchange, and the world food system depends on the western hegemonic arrangements.,” says Yue Xu, CSU Sociology Ph.D. student. Dr. Alyshia Gálvez […]
Read MoreDr. Ian Haney López
“Reading Ian Haney López’s work (Dog Whistle Politics) changed the way I understand the relationship between racial politics and peoples’ attitudes toward the government,” says Dr. Jessie Luna, CSU Sociology Assistant Professor. “It has informed my thinking about research a continent away (in Africa), and inspired new ideas for future research.” Dr. López holds an […]
Read MoreDr. Nancy López
“Nancy López’s book Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys is a notable study that incorporates intersectionality and presents the concepts of ‘race-gender experiences.’ Her more recent work provides a strong example of engaged scholarship and public sociology as she develops the concept of ‘street race’ to help guide understandings of the lived experience of ‘race’ that is important to policy […]
Read MoreDr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
“I read Professor Bonilla-Silva’s work during graduate school in the 1990s and it transformed the way I think about racism. Prior to reading and reflecting on his work, I was among those who thought of colorblindness as a way to end racism. His arguments pointed out how colorblindness it itself a form of racism that […]
Read MoreChe Guevara
“His biography was a huge influence on me,” says Kieran Barrett, CSU Sociology M.A. student. “Che wrote works critiquing the unequal social structures pervasive in Latin America and developed ideas of guerrilla warfare as a tool for revolutionary struggle. His great books include The Motorcycle Diaries and Guerrilla Warfare.” Ernesto “Che” Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, […]
Read MoreDr. Alejandro Portes
Dr. Alejandro Portes is Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. He is the author of 250 articles and chapters on national development, international migration, Latin American and Caribbean urbanization, and economic sociology. He has published 30 books and special issues. This information and much more can be found on Dr. […]
Read MoreDr. Amalia Leguizamon
Dr. Amalia Leguizamon is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Tulane University. She is also a core faculty member at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and a member of the Environmental Studies Faculty Advisory Committee. Her research work encompasses the political economy of the environment. Her regional focus is Latin America. She investigates […]
Read MoreEl Centro at CSU
El Centro at Colorado State University offers programs, resources, scholarships, and more.
Sociology spotlights of AAPI contributions
Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month May 2021
Dr. Lisa Sun-Hee Park
Dr. Lisa Sun-Hee Park is Professor and Chair of the Asian American Studies Department at University of California, Santa Barbara. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the politics of migration, race, and social policy. Her work examines the ways in which immigrants and communities of color are not only excluded from the rights and protections of […]
Read MoreDr. Kimberly Kay Hoang
Kimberly Kay Hoang is an Associate Professor of Sociology and the College and the Director of Global Studies at the University of Chicago. She is an award winning scholar, author, and teacher. She received the 2020 Lewis A Coser Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Theory— a mid-career award for Theoretical Agenda […]
Read MoreDr. Nan Lin
Nan Lin‘s main research interests are social networks and social capital, the life stress process (especially social support as resources), social stratification and mobility, and Chinese societies. Current Appointments & Affiliations Oscar L. Tang Family Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Sociology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2011 Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Sociology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2011 Education, […]
Read MoreDr. Yu Xie
Yu Xie is Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Sociology and has a faculty appointment at the Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies, Princeton University. He is also a Visiting Chair Professor of the Center for Social Research, Peking University. His main areas of interest are social stratification, demography, statistical methods, Chinese studies, […]
Read MoreDr. Joon Kim
Dr. Joon K. Kim is a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and a faculty associate in the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University. His research interests include Political Economy of Labor, Immigration, and Race in Asia and the U.S.; Multiculturalism and Diversity; Labor Migration and Civil Society. Since joining CSU faculty in […]
Read MoreDr. Prabha Unnithan
Dr. Unnithan is a Professor of Sociology at CSU. He was born and brought up in Malaysia, completed Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Criminology and Forensic Science in India and received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has been a faculty member at Colorado State University since 1987. In 2019, the […]
Read MoreDr. Michael Omi
Michael Omi is the co-author of Racial Formation in the United States, a groundbreaking work that transformed how we understand the social and historical forces that give race its changing meaning over time and place. The 3rd edition of the book was released in 2015. Since 1995, he has been the co-editor of the book series […]
Read MoreDr. Min Zhou
Min Zhou is a Chinese-born American sociologist. Zhou completed a bachelor’s degree in English at Sun Yat-sen University in 1982, and became a lecturer at her alma mater until 1984, when she began graduate study. She enrolled at the State University of New York at Albany, earning a master of arts and doctorate in sociology […]
Read MoreDr. Raka Ray
“I am a sociologist with interests in gender and feminist theory, postcolonial sociology and the emerging middle classes. My site of research is India. My interest in gender is fundamental to my work as a scholar, even as how I study gender has continually evolved. Here’s a brief description of my areas of work: Social Movements: […]
Read MoreDr. ChangHwan Kim
Professor Kim is a Jackson Baur Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas. He is specialized in the areas of stratification, work and organizations, race and ethnicity, Asian American studies, Korea studies, and quantitative methodology. The common concern of his research is to contribute to the generation of the critical knowledge and information that […]
Read MoreDr. Jeffrey Lin
Dr. Jeffrey Lin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at the University of Denver. His research interests include crime, corrections, inequality, media coverage, and quantitative methods. Professor Lin focuses on the complex interactions between institutions and individuals in the criminal justice system. In particular, Professor Lin is interested in the […]
Read MoreDr. Robyn Rodiguez
“I earned my PhD in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Over the past six decades, UC Berkeley’s Department of Sociology has consistently ranked among the sociology departments in the world. Currently, I am a Full Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis. I am one of only a small handful […]
Read MoreDr. Yến Lê Espiritu
Originally from Việt Nam, Yến Lê Espiritu is Distinguished Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of California, San Diego. An award-winning author, she has published extensively on Asian American panethnicity, gender and migration, and U.S. colonialism and wars in Asia. Her most recent book, Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refuge(es) (UC Press, 2014) […]
Read MoreDr. Pun Ngai
Pun Ngai is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She received her PhD from University of London, SOAS in 1998. She is the winner of 2006 C. Wright Mills Award for her book, “Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace” (Duke University Press, 2005). […]
Read MoreDr. Evelyn Nakano Glenn
“I continue to work on a book length project entitled Foundational Violence: U.S. Settler Colonial Articulations of Racialized and Gendered Citizenship. This project builds on and expands ideas developed in my 2015 article in the inaugural issue of the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. It takes the settler colonial origins of the U.S. seriously as foundational to […]
Read MoreAAPI speakers
Dr. Xiaopeng Pang, professor at the School of Agriculture and Rural Development at Renmin University of China, presented “Women in Rural Governance: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) and Action Research in China" on September 10, 2021, at the LSC and on Zoom. Dr. Pang was a Visiting Scholar in CSU's Department of Sociology and on campus through May 2022.
Dr. Sadeka Halim, professor of sociology at University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and general secretary of the Bangladesh Sociological Association, presented "All Women are not Equal: A Bangladesh Perspective" on April 28, 2022, at the LSC and on Zoom.
APACC at CSU
The Asian Pacific American Cultural Center (APACC) at Colorado State University offers programs, resources, scholarships, and more.
Scholarship resources for AAPI students
The Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies posts Congressional Fellowships and Internships in the Programs section.
Florida State University posts opportunities by identity for national scholarships and fellowships.
The University of Rochester’s Office of Undergraduate Research maintains a listing of summer research programs open to international students.
The University of Minnesota’s Asian Pacific American Resource Center catalogs scholarships such as the Korean Ancestry Grant.
Many thanks to Dr. Stephanie Anderson, Professor and Head of the School of Politics, Public Affairs, & International Studies at the University of Wyoming for compiling and sharing these resources.