Stephanie Takaragawa (Sociology) builds her classes around the world students already inhabit — the food they eat, the neighborhoods they wander, the pop culture they consume — and then teaches them to read that world like a text.

In past years, the cultural anthropologist led students through the ethnic enclaves of Little Tokyo and Olvera Street to examine how migrant communities build identity from place and took them to Disneyland to study why the park makes people behave the way it does.

This semester she launched “From Chop Suey to the Kogi Taco Truck: Asian American Food and Identity,” exploring what Asian American food reveals about immigration, war, and cultural reinvention, from the unlikely journey of Spam to the invention of the California roll. Her courses, which carry heavy reading loads, are not easy. Students line up anyway.

“I want students to think about how what they’re doing every single day is shaping the culture that they’re in,” said Takaragawa, associate professor of sociology and associate dean for academic programs at Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. “I want them to learn who they are and what they believe in.”

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(Photo in header: Stephanie Takaragawa (Sociology), designs her courses to help students understand that what they do every day shapes the culture around them. Photo by Andrew Castro.)