The College of Liberal Arts added a new minor in global migration studies this fall after eight faculty members spent three years trying to bring it to campus.
Human development professor Heather Rae-Espinoza said the minor aims to help students better understand connections between global migrant populations and their impacts on different societies.
“The significance of the global migration studies program is people becoming increasingly aware of the world that we live in … understanding who’s here and what those [people’s] experiences are so we can reflect upon the kind of society we want to create,” Kris Zentgraf, professor and chair of the sociology department, said.
According to Rae-Espinoza, five people have expressed interest in the minor but no one has declared it yet.
Rae-Espinoza said that no new classes were created for the minor because professors selected current courses, which typically do not fill to capacity, for the requirements.
“There’s always a class we’ll be able to do, no matter what semester,” Rae-Espinoza said. “And there’s not a specific order, so we can even rearrange the order depending on the classes available.”
Because the minor is an interdisciplinary program, classes span over several majors such as Africana studies, Italian, history and teacher education.
Some classes for the minor also overlap with as many as five majors: human development, sociology, Asian and American studies, Chicano and Latino studies, and international studies, according to a Cal State Long Beach press release.
“We’re fine with overlap … I’m really happy to sit down with students, look at their major and figure out what classes they can transfer in,” Rae-Espinoza said.
She also said that as part of the minor’s requirements, students are expected to specialize in two different migrant populations after taking the initial migration and modernity class.
Some classes that can be taken for the minor include Asian and Pacific American film and sociology of migration and immigration, according to Rae-Espinoza and Zentgraf.
Rae-Espinoza said that all migrants can’t be grouped in the same category.
“Some people are looking for a better education, and some people are avoiding genocide,” Rae-Espinoza said. “There are very different dynamics that shape migrant populations.
Zentgraf said that the new global migration minor can complement several majors, from sociology and history to health care and business.
“The more you can understand the world around you, the better you can be at what you do,” Zentgraf said.
Other collaborators who helped to create the minor include sociology professors Neilan Barnes and Gary Hytrek, women’s gender and sexuality studies professor Maythee Rojas and former CSULB international studies professor Julie M. Weise.
