Courses dealing with Asian Pacific Americans exist at MSU, but this semester marks the first time students are able to elect the studies as a specialization.

Faculty, staff and students have been trying to heighten Asian-American awareness at MSU for the past 20 years said Maggie Chen Hernandez, director of the Multicultural Center. Specializations already exist for several other minority groups on campus, such as Chicano, Latino and black studies.

Andrea Louie, associate professor of anthropology, announced during the Asian Pacific American Student Organization welcome reception Monday the dream of an Asian Pacific American Studies specialization was finally realized.

"This specialization is about the experiences of people of Asian decent in the U.S. as opposed to in Asia," said Louie, one of the driving forces behind the program.

Chen Hernandez said cultural awareness was a problem in the past and today.

"Back then, in the '80s and '90s, people considered people who looked like us as international," she said. "There was a limited understanding of who Asian Americans were."

Social relations senior R.J. Quiambao said he tries to clear up any misconceptions by referring to himself as an American of Filipino descent rather than a Filipino American.

"There's this kind of dichotomy in my identity," he said. "I'm American because I was born here, but I'm Filipino because that's how I was raised."

Faculty, staff and students hope the new specialization will help clear up any confusion.

"The specialization focuses on issues arising from experiences of immigration and living as a minority in the U.S.," Louie said.

She stresses the new program shouldn't be ignored because student participation is the only way it will grow and gain opportunity to hire more professors and create more classes. She also said some students nationwide "have gone on hunger strikes in order to establish programs on campus in APA studies."

The first Asian-American studies program in the United States for undergraduate students originated at San Francisco State University, and since then, other universities have made strides to create them around the nation.

"We're in the 21st century," said Louie Lainez, complex coordinator for the Office of Racial Ethnic Student Affairs in the Brody Hall complex. "It's a changing America, and it's no longer a black-or-white issue. We're learning about the struggles and tribulations of Asian Americans and what these contribute to the changing face of the U.S."

The specialization can be catered to majors in a variety of subjects, and classes are offered in the departments of sociology, history, English and writing, rhetoric and American culture.

A program like this might also help Asian-American youth and young adults cope with being a part of two cultures, chemistry senior Hardik Dalal said.

"It's going to help because growing up with Asian parents, I was always taught with Asian values," he said. "But once you get to college, it's a completely different life and you can't use the same values Asian parents have.

"Issues like interracial dating - there's other people going through it all over the country."

Asian-American studies also would help teach Asian-American students about understanding Asian parents, Lainez said.

"It'll give students the opportunity to understand where their parents are coming from, their parents' struggle," he said. "It gives a child the exposure to experience what their parents faced when they first came to the United States."

Not only will it help students cope with identity issues, it also will help to clarify American history, Louie said.

"I teach a section of (Integrative Studies in Social Sciences) 335, a section that focuses on Asian-American history, and I always ask students, 'Have you heard of Japanese internment or have you heard about the betrayal of the U.S. government when it pulled out of Vietnam and left the Hmong people behind?'" she said. "There are a lot of events you don't learn about in mainstream history classes that involve Asian Americans and other people of color."

Chen Hernandez said she felt this specialization would finally provide that type of awareness for the MSU community.

"It's a whole different paradigm of really understanding how the United States came to be," she said.