IN FOCUS: AANHPI Heritage Month

Majority of eligible Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders didn't receive mental health care, food assistance during pandemic

Though Native American and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) experienced negative mental health and economic impacts during the pandemic, for a range of reasons, available assistance programs and resources were underutilized.

Read about how COVID-19 affected NHPIs in California from UCLA Newsroom.

Q&A with Giant Robot founder Eric Nakamura

Founded by UCLA alumnus Eric Nakamura, Giant Robot began as a photocopied zine in 1994, and its eclectic focus on alternative Asian and Asian American culture quickly attracted a large following. The magazine's work and spirit lives on at the Giant Robot store and GR2 art gallery on Sawtelle Boulevard.

Learn more about Nakamura and the film series celebrating Giant Robot's 30th anniversary from UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Celine Parreñas Shimizu to become new dean of UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television

Shimizu is the former dean of arts at UC Santa Cruz and has served on UC systemwide councils on faculty diversity and Asian American Pacific Islander leadership. Shimizu is internationally recognized for her scholarship on race, sexuality and representations in transnational popular culture. As a filmmaker, Shimizu has worked on both documentary and narrative films, and her film "80 Years Later: On Japanese Racial Inheritance" garnered multiple film festival awards.

Read more about Shimizu's work as a scholar and filmmaker from UCLA Newsroom.

A valuable lesson

"Foundation and Futures," a new textbook, is the first-of-its-kind documentation of Asian American and Pacific Islander history and is geared toward American high school students, who rarely learn about the AAPI demographic. The textbook was created by Kelly Fong, lecturer of Asian American studies at UCLA. Fong saw the need for an AAPI text when anti-Asian hate crimes spiked during the pandemic.

Read more about "Foundation and Futures" from UCLA Magazine.

Celebrating Paul Terasaki: world-changing scientist and consummate Bruin

In honor of his father, Mark Terasaki announced a $500,000 endowment to support UCLA Life Sciences graduate education. Paul Terasaki went from spending three years with his family in an internment camp during World War II to becoming a triple Bruin, globally respected UCLA professor and pillar of the campus, scientific and medical communities. He and his family have donated more than $58 million to UCLA to spearhead and support initiatives across campus.

Read more about the endowment in honor of Teraski's legacy from UCLA College.

Meeting the challenge for student success as an AANAPISI campus

"The AANAPISI designation will allow UCLA to tap new sources of funding that will help us foster a welcoming and supportive environment where all students can thrive," said Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt. "This designation is also an important signal to our community that we are committed to working closely with our Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students to address their unique challenges, uplift their voices and ensure their success at UCLA."

Read more about how this designation allows UCLA to better serve AANAPISI students from UCLA Newsroom.

Tadashi Yanai gives $31 million to support hub for Japanese humanities research at UCLA

The majority of the funds will support Japan Past & Present, a multifaceted initiative meant to transform the field of Japanese humanities by promoting equitable access to research and teaching resources and fostering collaboration among scholars throughout the world. Yanai's gift is the largest ever to the UCLA College Division of Humanities.

Read more about Yanai's contributions to UCLA, including the endowment of the Yanai initiative, from UCLA Newsroom.

The spirit of Korea

After working across multiple Korean industries, UCLA alum Bryan Do began crafting premium alcoholic beverages in Korea. He began brewing beer, and more recently created the country's first single malt whiskey. "I wanted to have Koreans drinking the best craft beers in the world, so I introduced many firsts, like the first barrel-aged beer and the first hop farm," Do said.

Read about Do's eventful career and college experience from UCLA Magazine.