With the help of a Mellon Foundation grant – the first of its type in Nevada – UNLV will expand the study of race, place, and culture of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in Las Vegas.

The Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies in the College of Liberal Arts will utilize the $800,000 in funding to create the Neon Pacific Initiative over the next three years. The initiative, beginning in January 2024, is designed to enhance the department’s Asian American Studies curriculum and elevate public scholarship through research, teaching, community partnerships, internships, and more.

“We have a real chance with this grant to move our program and faculty to the top of institutions that conduct place-based research about Asian Americans within cities and suburbs,” said Mark Padoongpatt, associate professor and director of Asian and Asian American Studies and principal investigator of the grant.

“What we do really well is study places through culture – food, sports, popular culture. We study what that means for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and how that allows them to thrive in spaces like Las Vegas. It’s nice to be recognized for that work.”

A Key Moment

The grant underscores the value of the humanities and social sciences at a time when decision-makers across the country are debating the merits of liberal arts and calling for programs and funding to be scaled back, said Jennifer Keene, dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

“This Mellon grant is significant for the college at this critical moment because it demonstrates a strong commitment from an external partner to the sustainability of liberal arts education,” she said.

“The Neon Pacific Initiative will help us further explore and understand the human condition through the lived experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”

How It Works

The initiative consists of five key components:

1. Curriculum development – Faculty will create more classes and revise existing ones to focus more on place, particularly Las Vegas, and its role in the Asian American experience. An exchange program with the University of Guam will expand UNLV’s Pacific Islander focus and allow students at each institution to take classes at the other university, Padoongpatt said.
2. Storytelling workshops and symposia – The “My Own Story” workshop will be designed for AAPI students to reclaim their narratives. Students will work with a writer, producer, and director to tell their stories and perform them at the end of the workshop. In addition, three workshops will bring together scholars and journalists to discuss collaborative ways to make research more appealing to a broader audience.
3. Community partnerships – Each semester, about eight students will be placed in paid internships and participate in faculty mentoring. Community partners include: Indigenous AF, NUWU Art, the Healthy Asians & Pacific Islanders Medical Center, and KNPR.
4. Podcast & Advisory Board – The podcast series will serve as the centerpiece of research and public scholarship about AAPI people in Las Vegas, Padoongpatt said. An accompanying website will house podcast episodes, archival research material, photos, and video footage. He also plans to create an advisory board made up of senior researchers in Asian American Studies who study place and race in the U.S.
5. A two-year postdoctoral position for a researcher who studies race, space, and culture in Asian America will round out the initiative.

Dream Realized

Padoongpatt said receiving the funding is the fulfillment of a career aspiration to grow AAPI studies and elevate the reputation of his department. “If leading scholars think about who studies culture and place in Asian America, I want them to think of UNLV.”

He is especially proud that The Mellon Foundation sought out UNLV's Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies department to apply for the grant. “They were working on a portfolio on AAPIs and heard about our research. They mentioned my work and my book [Flavors of Empire] as something they were interested in,” he said.

The grant aligns with many of UNLV’s Top Tier 2.0 goals and underscores the importance of its designations as a Minority-Serving Institution, Hispanic-Serving Institution, and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution, Padoongpatt added.

“We want to ensure that the content we’re teaching and researching is reflective of our mission and helps us move from having minority bodies to creating bodies of knowledge.”