Dr. Katsuyo Howard was a counselor, Japanese language teacher and student affairs professional who connected with Fresno State’s early southeast Asian student population.
Dr. Franklin Ng was a historian and Asian studies expert who was hired to coordinate Fresno State’s ethnic studies program and taught the only two Asian studies courses for years.
Now both retired for more than a decade – though they are still fixtures on campus participating in workshops, serving as faculty mentors and working to recruit new Asian faculty – Howard and Ng will be honored for their 70-plus years of combined service to Fresno State and their contribution to the Central Valley Asian community.
The Fresno State Asian American Studies program, also known as ASAM, will honor Howard and Ng with awards in their names — the Dr. Katsuyo Howard and Dr. Franklin Ng ASAM Award. The program is also raising money this month through a crowdfunding campaign to establish a student scholarship in their name.
“Dr. Howard and Dr. Ng have protected, mentored and taught Asian American students for over 40 years each,” said Dr. Jenny Banh, associate professor and coordinator of Asian American studies at Fresno State. “They both exude Asian excellence, which is why we want to honor them with a named award and a goal to have a scholarship named after them.”
Dr. Katsuyo Howard, counselor emerita
Howard, born and raised in Japan to a mother with samurai lineage and a father in politics, came to Fresno State in 1972 as a graduate student to chase a dream of living the hippie life in Yosemite National Park. That was the popular thing for young Japanese at the time, she said with a smile. She worked weekends at the Ahwahnee Hotel while she earned master’s degrees in linguistics and counseling. She later got her doctoral degree in educational leadership from the University of San Francisco.
Her work with Fresno State’s southeast Asian students started soon after Vietnamese students started enrolling at the Lyles College of Engineering at Fresno State followed by an influx of Hmong to the university. Howard focused on serving this group both on and off campus, teaching and training others in multicultural education, and later organizing the first Asian American and Pacific Islander Commencement Celebration to recognize their successes. Howard retired in 2011 but still taught graduate classes in counselor education at the Kremen School of Education and Human Development until 2020.
“I was bridging the gap between the American way of living and at the same time the parents and grandparents so these students could integrate,” Howard said. “That, to me, is our educators’ responsibility. Allow them to see it and that they have the power to work on that.”
Misty Her, deputy superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District, was enrolled in Howard’s Southeast Asian Student Services program when, in Her’s own words, she was a 17-year-old first-generation kid in her freshman year at Fresno State.
Southeast Asian students in the class talked about being the first in their families to go to college. And there, Howard showed them the resources available to them: how to apply for financial aid, where to go when they got in trouble, how to network with professors and more.
“She really, truly was a champion for southeast Asian kids. She didn’t have to do any of this. What amazed me was she knew your name, she knew your story and she knew what was important to you,” Her said. “She truly was a champion, and not just while you were at the university, but she kept up with you in life.”
Phong Yang met Howard when he accompanied Her, who was then his girlfriend and now his wife, to their meetings. She was your accountability partner, said Yang, who is now the associate vice president for strategic enrollment management at Fresno State.
“She always had a smile, was gentle, always positive. She had a way of telling you that you’re destined to do great things and you should try to do more and better,” Yang said. “I always found it hard to not do [better]. You always have to be the best version of yourself because you knew you would run into Dr. Howard on campus. I owe a lot to her. I think she was the parent that I didn’t have at the university because my parent didn’t have the college experience to help me.”
Dr. Franklin Ng, professor emeritus of Asian American Studies
Ng was born in Hawaii and raised in the Chinatown area of Honolulu. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school and to go to college. A high school counselor encouraged Ng to attend college in the mid- to eastern United States. He ended up at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where he earned his bachelor’s degree, then a Master of Arts from Harvard University and his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. Ng missed the commencement ceremony for his doctoral degree so he could make it to Fresno in time to teach Asian American studies during the 1974-75 academic year.
Ng’s background was in African American, Chinese studies and American history. He had never taken an Asian American studies class himself but was interested in Asian Americans as an extension of American and East Asian relations. He was hired at Fresno State to be the coordinator for the ethnic studies program and to teach Asian American studies.
His goal at Fresno State was to ensure that the ethnic studies faculty could have a pathway to earn their doctoral degrees. And he supported, uplifted and mentored Asian students, serving as the adviser for the Amerasia Club for more than 40 years. He retired in 2011, but continued to teach some classes until 2015 and continues to work on recruiting talented Asian faculty to the Asian studies program.
“I tried to give a voice to the Asian students in our Valley,” Ng said. “They have tremendous talent, they just need to be nurtured.”
Ng’s students have gone on to work for the Japanese National Museum, for movie director Ang Lee, for California politicians and East West Players theater in Los Angeles. Others like Kau Vue stayed in the Valley where she teaches political science at Fresno City College and dreams of one day incorporating Asian studies into her teachings.
“I had never taken an ethnic studies course, but I was curious about my identity as an Asian American person,” said Vue, who grew up in Tulare. “He just knew so much. It’s like watching this person who is so knowledgeable, never having to use their notes, and telling us this is what your history in the United States is like. He was so informative and that stayed with me where my Asian American identity just became something that he was able to deconstruct.”
