Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

Elaine Kim on a reckoning with race many years in the making

June 23, 2021
Laura Smith

Elaine Kim, founder of Berkeley Ethnic Studies departmentBefore Elaine Kim came to Berkeley as a Ph.D. student in 1968, she was used to being the only Asian person in the room. Kim, who is Korean American, was born in New York and raised in a predominantly working class white suburb of Washington, D.C., the daughter of a migrant farmworker mother and waiter-turned-diplomat father.

She would go on to be the...

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/summer-2021/elaine-kim-reckons-w…

The Asian American wealth gap, explained in a comic: By Lok Siu, cultural anthropologist and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley

June 21, 2021

The Asian American wealth gap, explained in a comic: By Lok Siu, cultural anthropologist and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley

Read the Vox article: https://www.vox.com/identities/22530103/asians-americans-wealth-income-gap-crazy-rich-model-minority

https://www.vox.com/identities/22530103/asians-americans-wealth-income-gap-crazy…

L&S celebrates the commemoration of Juneteenth as a national holiday

June 18, 2021

JuneteenthUC Berkeley embraces the declaration of Juneteenth as a national holiday. In the College of Letters & Science, we celebrate this momentous occasion, affirming our pursuit of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice across all aspects of...

[Washington Post] Don’t wait for billionaires to sell their stock. Tax their riches now, say Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman

June 15, 2021
By Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman

The Supreme Court can’t object to levies on their unrealized capital gains, say Berkeley Economics professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in a Washington Post Op-ed.

Read the article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/14/wealth-tax-capital-gains-billionaires/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/14/wealth-tax-capital-gains-billi…

[Vox]: Billionaires are racing to sidestep President Biden’s plan to raise their taxes

June 15, 2021

In a Vox article, Professor Gabriel Zucman, Director of the UC Berkeley James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality discusses his research and the $1.8 trillion plan to raise taxes.

Read the article: https://www.vox.com/recode/22437084/joe-biden-wealth-tax-...

https://www.vox.com/recode/22437084/joe-biden-wealth-tax-plan-billionaires-capit…

Gabriel Zucman, L&S Economics Professor, Named 2021 Carnegie Fellow

April 28, 2021
Michelle Phillips

Gabriel Zucman, L&S Economics Professor, named 2021 Carnegie FellowGabriel Zucman, associate professor of economics at the UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science, associate professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, and director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality, has been selected as one of 26 recipients...

‘Berkeley Model’ for Combating Antisemitism on College Campuses Poised to Go Viral

June 7, 2021
Gwyneth K. Shaw

Antisemitism video's initiative is to demystify and educateAn education program developed at UC Berkeley aimed at stamping out antisemitism on campus is finding a national audience, with help from a $25,000 grant and a video that strives to put a complex history into simpler terms.

The ...

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/berkeley-antisemitism-initiative-campus-edu…

What Pedro De Anda Plascencia '21 Wants His Fifth-Grade Self to Know

June 3, 2021

Pedro De Anda Plascencia '21 holds English and political science degreesPedro De Anda Plascencia recently graduated with two degrees in English and political science from the College of Letters & Science. He is an Achievement Award Program (TAAP) Scholar in UC Berkeley's Class of 2021. Following is an excerpt from his speech delivered at this spring's TAAP...

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/announcements/caa-announcements/pedro-de-anda-plasce…

Aurora Lopez, John Gardner Public Service Fellow, on her path to UC Berkeley

May 26, 2021
Anne Brice, Berkeley News

How having the ‘wrong’ address almost cost one graduate everything: Aurora Lopez, John Gardner Public Service Fellow, on her path to UC Berkeley

Lopez is going to move to Washington, D.C., where she she plans to pursue a congressional fellowship with the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations or work for the U.S. Department of State.

Read the story:

https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/13/graduation-...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/13/graduation-profile-aurora-lopez/

Julie Thao is finding ways to heal trauma in her Hmong community

May 14, 2021
Ivan Natividad

Julie Thao '21Julie Thao graduates this year with a bachelor’s in Asian American and Asian diaspora studies from the Department of Ethnic Studies, and a minor in global public health. Here, Thao reflects on the impact of violence and war on her family, and why Hmong American history is ignored.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/14/im-a-berkeleyan-julie-thao-is-finding-ways-…