The Asian Studies program has recognized seven Pomona College students for excellence in academics this spring. Thanks to an anonymous gift, the program introduced six additional student prize awards to complement the Chanya Charles Butts ’90 Senior Thesis Prize.
“The Asian Studies steering committee decided to use these funds to create student prizes and to make grants that could be used for travel to conferences or for summer research and internships,” says Samuel H. Yamashita, Henry E. Sheffield Professor of History and Asian Studies program coordinator. “Recognizing our students’ achievements and opening new doors for learning is critically important to their success, both at Pomona and beyond the Gates. We are grateful for the gift of additional resources to make this possible.”
Seven prize winners were announced on May 23:
Wonjai Lee ’25 received the Chanya Charles Butts ’90 Senior Thesis Prize for “The 1965 Basic Treaty: A Path-Dependent Event in Modern Korea-Japan Relations,” which he wrote under the direction of Tom Le, associate professor and chair of politics, as first reader and Albert Park, Bank of America Associate Professor of Pacific Basin Studies at Claremont McKenna College, as second reader.
Alexandra Scott ’25 won the Fourth-year Prize for a paper titled “Snacks, Subscriptions, and the State: Analyzing Japan’s Nation Brand through Bokksu Snack Boxes,” which she wrote for Yamashita’s seminar Food and the Environment in Asia and the Pacific in fall 2024. The paper also won a Library Undergraduate Research Award this spring.
The class “allowed me to take my passion for food . . . and transform it into a scholarly work that I could feel proud of,” Scott says. This summer she is working as a project manager for The Global Chamber, an international organization that supports company growth through cross-border trade and investment. She plans to use the prize funds to attend Stanford University’s Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama, Japan.
The winner of the Third-year Prize, Emma Tom ’26, wrote “Dissecting Binaries: Ghibli Women in Private & Public Spaces” for Le’s course Studio Ghibli.
Annalise Chang ’27 won the Second-year Prize for her work in the course International and Interethnic China, taught by Yanshuo Zhang, assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures. A second winner, Holden Tsai ’27, was nominated for his work in Le’s course International Relations of East Asia.
Tsai says the prize may make it possible for him to build on his research into Taiwanese educational policy. “My time in Asian Studies has shown me the need to devote scholarly attention to what can often be an under-appreciated field,” he says. “I will certainly take this conviction with me into my future goals of working at the intersection of international law and diplomacy.”
Two students won First-year Prizes: Kiki Grace ’28 for her work in Le’s course International Relations of East Asia and Shixiao Yu ’28 for her performance in Chinese Language and Gender, taught by Jun Lang, assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures.
Founded in 1936, “Our Asian Studies is the oldest program of its type at a U.S. liberal arts college,” says Yamashita. It is an interdisciplinary program that includes faculty from throughout The Claremont Colleges. Graduates have gone on to careers in fields such as higher education, business, law, medicine and diplomacy.