About Us
Foundations and Futures: Asian American & Pacific Islander Multimedia Textbook is the most comprehensive collection of AAPI histories and experiences freely available online for high school students, lifelong learners and the general public. It represents a national movement bringing AA and PI stories into every home and classroom around the world. Combining distinguished scholarship, open access technology, and ethnic studies pedagogy, Foundations and Futures nurtures historical empathy and opens unlimited possibilities for building a more inclusive, equitable, and democratic future for all.
Foundations and Futures was born from a need to celebrate the hidden lives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and provide a fuller understanding of American history and the contemporary world through our diverse experiences. The scapegoating of Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic reminded us that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have remained little understood despite centuries of history as part of the United States and its reaches across the Pacific. Over 50 years of scholarship had flourished since the emergence of Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies in the 1960s. However, most of that knowledge never reached classrooms across America to nurture historical understanding and empathy and to temper flows of misinformation.
The UCLA Asian American Studies Center, founded in 1969, was part of the first wave of Asian American Studies programs and, together with the Asian American Studies Department, represents the largest hub of Asian American Studies teaching and research in the nation. The AASC makes this public contribution as a collaboration with scholars, subject experts and curriculum developers across the US and Pacific. This was made possible with dedicated staff and support of the California API Legislative Caucus along with foundations, generous individuals and other funders.
Foundations and Futures will continue to translate decades of Asian American and Pacific Islander scholarship and research into a publicly accessible resource. Chapters will not only narrate how Asian American and Pacific Islander communities are intimately part of our country’s story, but will provide a lens to understand American history in illuminating ways that can engender a future with “liberty and justice for all.”