Community service learning is a high-impact practice that nurtures retention and graduation among undergraduates. Professor Yoo is a medical sociologist trained in public health who worked with the Auntie Sewing Squad during the pandemic to create facial coverings. Professor Jeung is a sociologist who cofounded Stop AAPI Hate in March 2020. Through an assessment of students who were involved in these two projects, this paper illustrates the efforts and impact of student involvement with the Auntie Sewing Squad and the Stop AAPI Hate Youth Campaign. The findings showed that both projects created a space where students could integrate Ethnic Studies with the communities they served. In the face of uncertainty, fear, and exhaustion, these two community-service projects became examples of responding with resilience, healing in community, leading with care, and embodying solidarity.

This essay reflects on five decades of growth of the nation’s first Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU AAS), focusing on its primary commitment to community empowerment and critical “community service learning” (CSL) and also highlighting past and present struggles, challenges, and innovations. This collectively written analysis summarizes SFSU AAS departmental approaches to CSL and community-based participatory research and highlights two case studies: (1) refugees from Burma community health needs research and advocacy in Oakland and (2) the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. We conclude by describing how we are applying our model and building support for critical CSL and argue that AAS and ethnic studies must reclaim CSL from the dominant “charity-based” model or risk losing our social justice orientation and commitment to empowerment and self-determination for our communities.