CSUSM's APIDA Community Doing Its Part to Help Stop the Hate
The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 stirred up an alarming degree of hate against people of Asian descent throughout the United States.
In response, in March 2021, Cal State San Marcos formed a workgroup charged with identifying the needs of Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA) students at the university and offering recommendations. That group produced a report that, among other recommendations, created the APIDA Success Initiative.
A couple years later, the faculty and staff behind the initiative are reporting laudable progress toward their goals. The most impressive development is that they have secured more than $1 million in grant funding, including a $600,000 grant from the Stop the Hate (STH) program through the California Department of Social Services.
The STH funding, which started last year and will run through 2025, marks the first time that CSUSM has received money from the organization. As part of the grant, CSUSM started a project called Unifying APIDA Communities Together, or U-ACT.
“The grant funding that CSUSM received connects us to a statewide movement to bring greater visibility to APIDA communities that have been underserved, overlooked and have faced discrimination – and support them collaboratively in repairing harm and bringing healing,” said Dr. Theresa Suarez, a sociology professor who’s the project director and principal investigator for U-ACT.
Joining Suarez on the U-ACT team from CSUSM are Dr. Madeline Lee, associate professor of social work; Dr. Christina Holub, associate professor of public health; Dr. Sara Constantinescu, project coordinator; Dr. Grant Muāgututi’a, assistant professor of liberal studies, consultant and community liaison; Joshua Galea'i, consultant and community liaison; Lia Mauga, consultant and community liaison; and Cheryl Landin, assessment lead.
Through U-ACT, CSUSM is partnering with various nonprofit organizations to help them offer free intervention and prevention services in communities and neighborhoods within the university’s service area. Two of the most prominent are ’Umeke, which is dedicated to the preservation, perpetuation and education of Hawaiian culture; and Save Our Streets (SOS), which focuses on reducing community violence by engaging all Oceanside youth through athletics and performing arts within a context of Samoan cultural values to promote healh, wellness, healing and safety.
Two other noteworthy grants are $400,000 from the National Institutes of Health (with Holub as principal investigator) to support Pacific Islander community health and $375,000 from the California State University system to launch the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Student Achievement Program at CSUSM.
Members of the original APIDA Student Success Workgroup team (including Suarez, Lee, Landin and Mae Talicuran) co-wrote a proposal in collaboration with the Office of Inclusive Excellence that secured funding for the latter program in spring 2024. It’s designed to provide culturally responsive services to enhance student educational experiences and promote higher education success for low-income, underserved and first-generation AANHPI students and other underrepresented students.
Collectively, the grants are funding campus support and activities, language and cultural preservation/revitalization, and research and archiving for the APIDA community.
Suarez said she is seeing positive effects from the work enabled by the grant funding – both on and off campus.
“We do notice that our community partnerships are strengthening with time as we demonstrate CSUSM’s commitment to belonging to our region – and not just the other way around, of insisting people feel belonging to a university,” she said. “Some may never become students here, for any number of reasons, but our region should know that CSUSM cares for communities and neighborhoods.”
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