Rutgers University is home to a wide diversity of scholars actively engaging in research on Asia and its diasporas, reflecting the large and complex Asian/American population of New Jersey. Thus, we are uniquely positioned to take a leading role in reshaping conversations on the region. Our faculty and graduate scholars come together here as one of the few sites in the United States to integrate research across Asian, Asian diasporic, and Asian American studies. The Initiative’s ongoing goal is to transform Rutgers into a hub of scholarship on Asia and its diasporic and hemispheric locales by leveraging existing faculty expertise across a wide range of Asia regions and academic disciplines and programs. Facilitating scholarly collaborations across campuses and forging new ones across national borders, we seek to move beyond traditional, Cold War area studies models. Through our focus on Asia, we aim to reframe regional and trans-regional conversations and foster new ways of thinking through area studies in an era of unprecedented crises, globalization, and nationalism.