Asian American Students in Asian American Studies: Experiences of Racism-Related Stress and Relation to Depressive and Anxious Symptoms

Although Asian American Studies courses have existed for many decades, there is little empirical, particularly quantitative, research on their effects. This study was designed to investigate the experiences of Asian American students who take Asian American Studies courses, focusing particularly on the extent to which students perceived and were affected by racism-related stress and the relation of that stress to mental health variables previously identified as relevant to Asian American college students. Findings indicated that Asian American students who chose to enroll in Asian American Studies courses experienced higher levels of racism-related stress at the time of enrollment as compared to students who had never enrolled in an Asian American Studies course. Furthermore, although students who take Asian American Studies do not report significantly greater anxious or depressive symptoms than students who do not take them, the experience of sociohistorical racism for enrolled students was significantly related to the experience of anxiety at the time of enrollment. However, after taking a single course, the significant relation between sociohistorical racism-related stress and anxiety was no longer significant, in spite of increases in racism-related stress.