Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Journal

The Student Resource Building at UC Santa Barbara, finished in 2007, houses a multitude of departments in addition to the Cultural Resource Centers (CRCs). This paper focuses on the history behind student activism, a focus on Asian American student activism, for a resource center for Asian American students. Starting in the late 1980s to early 1990s, the small population of Asian American students and other students of color resulted in students organizing and working with student administrators, including more faculty of color, more focus on student retention, and support for first-generation college students. In March 1998, the Daily Nexus wrote an article that included a quote stating that missing dogs were due to the Vietnamese and Hmong population living in IV. What followed is a series of protests that would ultimately lead to the establishment of the Cultural Resource Centers, housed in the future Student Resource Building. Student activists, to this day, continue to fight for more resources and support in ways that parallel the Asian American activists a few decades prior.