Save Cantonese at City College of San Francisco!
URL for this page: tinyurl.com/savecantonese
Last updated: January 3, 2022, at 5 PM PT. Most recent updates will be highlighted in orange.
Cantonese classes, which have been offered at City College since the 1960s, are at risk and need to be prioritized more. We need your support to save Cantonese and to keep providing an essential resource to our community. For more information on why this is important and what our demands are, see our petition at tinyurl.com/savecantonesepetition.
There are currently 5 waitlist spots open for Continuation of Beginning Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10B: CRN: 31777). Register now if you’re interested! And if the waitlist fills up again, remember you can always reach out to us at SaveCantoneseAtCCSF@gmail.com.
If you need help registering, see: Registration Quick Add update 11-17-21.pdf
We are disappointed that there is only one Cantonese class being offered at CCSF for the Spring 2022 semester. This class is Continuation of Beginning Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10B: CRN: 31777), and the class registration reached capacity with a full waitlist before the last priority registration groups even had their chance to register. This shows the demand for Cantonese classes, and unfortunately, it means that anyone who tries to register will be unable to. If you are interested in signing up for the Cantonese class for Spring 2022 and were not able to register before it got filled up, please reach out to us at SaveCantoneseAtCCSF@gmail.com, and we will do what we can to try to help get you in! We were able to get those who reached out to us for the Fall 2021 semester enrolled, so please don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to get in this time!
In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of Cantonese classes and ensure that there are enough class offerings to meet the demand of the community,we still need to advocate for a Cantonese certificate program and for the financial well-being of CCSF overall.
KALW just released a podcast episode featuring Save Cantonese at CCSF co-founders and leaders Julia Quon, Lauren Chinn, and Melissa Chow! Read here or listen here to learn about how our movement started and why it’s so important to preserve Cantonese classes for our community.
Sign up to volunteer with us at tinyurl.com/savecantonesevolunteer
The situation continues to change, and the fastest way for us to disseminate updated information will be via this document. Bookmark tinyurl.com/savecantonese and stay tuned for updates! Note that we will soon be moving to a dedicated page on savecantonese.org. Stay tuned!
If you have taken Cantonese in the past, plan to take Cantonese in the future, speak Cantonese, have Cantonese-speaking friends or relatives, serve a Cantonese-speaking population, or care about Cantonese for any other reason, please email SaveCantoneseAtCCSF@gmail.com a testimonial explaining why the Cantonese program at City College is important to you. We welcome any format (video, audio, text, etc.) that works best for you.
Share about this with your family and friends and other networks, post in all your Facebook groups and social media and WeChat groups, and ask them to get involved!
Check out https://linktr.ee/CCSFStudentCoalition for more background on the budget cuts and ways to get involved
There have been a lot of no-shows in the Chinese classes, including in last night’s Beginning Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10A: CRN: 71996). Tonight is the first meeting of the Intermediate Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10C: CRN: 71997) class, and we expect there may be more no-shows. In case you're not already registered for one of the classes, we want to let you know that Professor Grace Yu has confirmed that she will be accepting class add requests. If you are interested in taking one of the Cantonese classes and were not able to register before they got filled up, please follow the procedure below as soon as possible to add the class:
Please reach out to us at SaveCantoneseAtCCSF@gmail.com if you have any questions at all!
Both the Beginning Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10A: CRN: 71996) and Intermediate Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10C: CRN: 71997) classes are full! The beginning class even has a full waitlist. If you are interested in signing up for the beginning Cantonese class and were not able to register before it got filled up, please reach out to us at SaveCantoneseAtCCSF@gmail.com, and we will do what we can to try to help get you in!
Please note that this does NOT mean our fight is over! This is only a temporary reprieve (and only thanks to the continued sacrifice of our CCSF faculty) due to the agreement that goes through Spring 2022. In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of Cantonese classes, we still need to advocate for a Cantonese certificate program and for the financial well-being of CCSF overall.
The Fall 2021 class schedule has been released and there are two Cantonese classes in the Fall 2021 semester! There will be Beginning Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10A: CRN: 71996) and Intermediate Conversational Cantonese (CHIN 10C: CRN: 71997). It is very important that we fill these classes to capacity to demonstrate to the school that these classes are important. We have one year to prove to CCSF that Cantonese classes are wanted and necessary in the city of San Francisco. Additionally, registration helps with funding of the college. Please note, anyone can take these classes all around the Bay Area, California, and beyond because Cantonese Conversation Classes at CCSF will be taught remotely.
Register Now
If you need additional help registering, check out services at Asian Pacific American Student Success Program (APASS) who have counselors that speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Vietnamese and more. The Multicultural Retention Services Department consists of five academic retention programs that provide support services (counseling, tutoring), academic classes (English, math, college success), and other program-specific activities primarily to underprepared, underrepresented students, although our department’s ‘open door’ policy allows all CCSF students to receive services.
During the CCSF Special Board of Trustees meeting on May 10, the tentative agreement between AFT 2121 (the CCSF faculty union) and the board was ratified, preserving all full-time faculty positions and most part-time faculty positions at the cost of 4-11% salary cuts to all faculty. In addition, Trustee President Shanell Williams offhandedly mentioned during public comment that a Cantonese class would be offered for the fall. HOWEVER, this is not yet official until the class schedule comes out on May 17, and this does not address our petition demands for 4 Cantonese classes per semester and a Cantonese certificate that would help ensure the long-term sustainability of the program. We need to continue to put pressure on the Board of Supervisors to provide funding for City College, on the Board of Trustees to increase the budget for classes (particularly for the World Languages and Cultures Department), and on the World Languages and Cultures Department to prioritize Cantonese within their allotted budget.
We would also like to thank and acknowledge the team at Save Cantonese at Stanford for their guidance throughout this process. Their fight for Cantonese aligns with ours and is part of a larger battle to fight for language and cultural preservation. Please consider also supporting Save Cantonese at Stanford by checking out their website at savecantonese.org!
Please don't hesitate to reach out to us at SaveCantoneseAtCCSF@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, or encouragement! We're in this together!