Fill the Hill 2026
The Asian American Studies program at UW–Madison invites you to join us as we fill Bascom Hill with pink flamingos and raise funds for our program. Donating to Asian American Studies will aid our teaching, research, and student programming.
“As an Anthropology student, the Asian American Studies program has allowed me to explore elements of my identity through historical and contemporary contexts and directly impacts my research interests. In courses such as Contemporary Asian American Identities and Asian American Feminisms, I learned about how discourse surrounding “Asianess” (mis)represented the diverse experiences people categorized as Asian go through and how, despite such categorizational flattening, Asian Americans have and must continue to organize across racial, ethnic, gender, and class lines. I hope to pursue research that supports and uplifts marginalized communities in the United States, and the Asian American Studies program has emboldened me to learn what that support truly looks like.”
—Chan Phung, Class of 2026
“Having an Asian American Studies Program is monumental on a multitude of levels. It means that, as a Hmong American woman, I get to find the pockets of Hmong and Asian representation that my younger self craved, while also learning more about the history, culture, and experiences that have shaped people like me. Something equally important is that this program serves as a vessel of knowledge for those who may not know about the experiences of Asian Americans and all of the cultural significance and sacrifices that come with them, giving me the opportunity to continue sharing what I learn with others in my everyday life and future career.”
—Kashia Her, Class of 2028
Gifts of any size are most welcome and gratefully received. Your donation supports community-building functions, guest lectures, undergraduate scholarships, symposia, and other scholarly activities that enhance our understanding of the Asian diaspora.
Founded in 1991, the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is the oldest Asian American Studies program in the Midwest. Today, our program provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to develop a sustained intellectual focus on Asian American racial formation, history, literature, culture, and social concerns.
Our program advances understandings about Asian American racial formation in the U.S. and increases and deepens students’ ability to critically analyze how race works together with ideas about gender, sexuality, class, and nationality to shape social identities and their status in U.S. society. The program also enhances insights into how Asian Americans are situated in relation to other minoritized groups such as African Americans, Latinxs, and Indigenous peoples in the United States.