By Jeffrey Day
October 24, 2019
The new Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies at University of California, Davis, is receiving $1 million in state funding to expand research on one of the nation’s largest and fastest growing Asian American communities.
The funding was announced by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, who championed the funding, at an event on campus Thursday, Oct. 24.
“This is a time for celebration,” Bonta said at a gathering of students, faculty and university representatives. Calling to mind his and his family’s own place in Filipino history, he said he was pleased to champion funding for a center that would research the important role Filipinos have played in California and national history. “I hope this is just a down payment for ongoing funding.”
The center, part of the Department of Asian American Studies in the College of Letters and Science, is named for Carlos Bulosan, a Filipino American migrant worker, labor activist and writer best known for his 1946 book America Is in the Heart.
“This allocation provides a crucial early boost to a center focused on an area that deserves more study,” said Robyn Rodriguez, director of the center and chair of Asian American studies. “It gives the center, the first of its kind at a major research university, a very strong start in better researching the second largest Asian American group in the nation.”
