On the final week of Asian American history month, I was invited to speak to the Filipino American history class of Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, a professor and the chair of the Asian American Studies department at UC Davis and a founder of the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies.
But what I found noteworthy is what I experienced as I walked through campus.
I just could not believe the number of Asian Americans at UC Davis.
The place seemed to be exploding with diversity.
Since 2015, the freshman admits at Davis have been around 29 percent to 32 percent Asian American each year. By comparison whites have been around 20 percent. Hispanics around 17 percent. Blacks were consistently around 3 percent only. Native American admissions were so low that they couldn’t come up with a percentage that wouldn’t be absolutely embarrassing. Instead, the UC website expressed Native American freshman admits in individual whole numbers: 123 in 1015, 133 in 2016, 143 in 2017, and 134 in 2018.
So yes we have diversity, but it’s far from perfect.
Asians make up 13 percent of the state and are more than double the population at UC Davis. Blacks are the converse, 6.1 percent of the state and half of the student body. Same goes with Latinos, around 37 percent of the state and about half the student body at Davis.
