Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI) - The City University of New York (CUNY)

Vina Orden will present on her essay in CUNY FORUM Volume 11:1, examining how narratives in popular media can perpetuate or challenge existing power structures and colonial mentalities. Orden explores this through the complex dynamics behind the pop culture success of comics like The United States of Captain America. Her analysis delves into the diverse creative team behind these comics, including queer, Filipino, First Nation, and South African writers. And she critically questions whether Captain America, despite such diverse creative input, must still operate within a context of imperial power dynamics and the realities of the U.S. nation state.

Francisco Delgado will read and discuss his novella, On Remembering My Friends, My First Job, and My Second-Favorite Weezer CD (TRP: The University Press of SHSU, July 2025). Winner of the 2024 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, the book tells the story of Cody Taitano, a CHamoru man who reflects on his teenage years in 1999 while navigating the complexities of parenthood during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prof. Delgado will explore the novellas themes of race, class, and the enduring nature of friendship, as Cody recalls his first job at McDonalds and the music that shaped his life.

Team Amplify focused on addressing the digital struggles of Asian-owned small businesses, particularly restaurants, that were challenged by the post-pandemic relaunch. The projects core hypothesis was that improving a restaurants digital visibility would increase foot traffic, attract delivery customers, improve brand recognition, and strengthen customer loyalty. The team used Tang Pavilion, a Shanghainese Chinese restaurant in Midtown, as a case study, noting its lack of a central website, outdated social media, and underutilized customer reviews due to limited resources. The strategy involved building a modernized, mobile-friendly website to establish branding and services , enhancing social media with new content, and encouraging customer reviews via a QR code system. Beyond this specific restaurant, the team is developing digital workshops to empower other Asian-owned businesses to manage their own digital presence, focusing on practical tools like setting up Google Business Profiles and improving local search rankings. The project established a strong digital foundation for Tang Pavilion and a framework for continued growth, setting the stage for long-term marketing efforts and community impact.

Team Community Compass addressed the challenges faced by Asian immigrants in New York City with limited English proficiency, who struggle with language and cultural barriers when navigating the healthcare system. Initial community engagement, including a survey in three languages, revealed that while language-specific providers were often accessible, the most significant barrier was the complicated process of navigating insurance and benefits. Recognizing that many existing resources were underutilized, the team developed a Tableau dashboard that functions as an interactive directory for New York Citys Community Based Organizations (CBOs). This solution helps bridge the gap by allowing users to find specific resources based on communities served, location, and service type, answering the who, what, where, and how of accessing aid. The team outlined future plans to improve the dashboard by making it dynamic, creating a video tutorial, and exploring a mobile app or physical assistance tools to ensure the resources reach those who need them most.

Leekyung Kang, the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Queens College School of Arts (Fall 2024), will present on her recent work inspired by Buddhist cosmology's cyclical nature, creating a series of paintings, print, and installation that interrogate the formal aspects of what is architecturally defined as a form of chamber. Beginning with the visual language of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism (, ), Kang plans to incorporate imagery from various religions to illustrate how ancient beliefs interpret ideas of cosmic harmony and divine presence. Drawing from ancient tomb or chamber murals across religions and cultures, her work aims to reconcile diverse elements to refine the articulation of cyclical and transformative existence.

The Asian American / Asian Research Institutes 2025 symposium, co-organized with NYU Steinhardt, explores the intersections of identity, culture, history, and systemic factors in shaping mental health experiences within Asian and Asian American communities. Centered around three key themes, the symposium aims to address both longstanding and emerging challenges while equipping attendees with insights and practical strategies to advance mental health support.

The Asian American / Asian Research Institutes 2025 symposium, co-organized with NYU Steinhardt, explores the intersections of identity, culture, history, and systemic factors in shaping mental health experiences within Asian and Asian American communities. Centered around three key themes, the symposium aims to address both longstanding and emerging challenges while equipping attendees with insights and practical strategies to advance mental health support.

The Asian American / Asian Research Institutes 2025 symposium, co-organized with NYU Steinhardt, explores the intersections of identity, culture, history, and systemic factors in shaping mental health experiences within Asian and Asian American communities. Centered around three key themes, the symposium aims to address both longstanding and emerging challenges while equipping attendees with insights and practical strategies to advance mental health support.

Join us to celebrate the Asian American / Asian Research Institutes 24th anniversary as part of The City University of New York! AAARIs fundraising gala will convene over 200 supporters, community leaders, and advocates committed to uplifting and advancing the Asian American Pacific Islander community. In line with our mission, this years event will honor the remarkable achievements of Asian American women in public service who have paved the way for greater representation, policy innovation, and community empowerment for all.

Join pioneering LGBTQ+ activist Daniel C. Tsang for a special conversation reflecting on his 50 years of activism, including his groundbreaking 1975 article Gay Awareness in Bridge Magazine, one of the first to address LGBTQ+ issues in the Asian American community. Tsang will discuss the evolution of LGBTQ+ rights, his personal journey, and the ongoing challenges facing the community. Moderated by the Museum of Chinese in America's Chief Curator Herb Tam, the event will conclude with a Q and A session for audience engagement.

This panel discusses the "Localized History Project," which addresses the lack of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) history in New York State's Eurocentric, test-driven curriculum. The Project advocates for both a "content and pedagogical revolution" to shift who is perceived as a historian and knowledge creator. The Project is youth-driven, centering young people through Youth Action Boards in various regions of New York, who develop resources for an archive and classroom use. Utilizing oral history, semi-structured interviews, and surveys, the project explores how the absence of AANHPI history impacts youth and aims to create a "living history" that challenges traditional, colonial frameworks of history education. The ultimate goal is to provide a community archive of localized histories to fill educational gaps and inspire revolutionary change.Panel was part of the Association for Asian American Studies 2025 Annual Conference

In Decoding Ambedkar, Prof. Vivek Kumar re-examines Dr. B.R. Ambedkars vast intellectual contributions, challenging his reductive portrayal in Indian academia and media. It contrasts his domestic erasure with the significant global recognition of his ideas on society, politics, and justice. By analyzing his unique theories on the Hindu social order and his engagement with diverse thinkers, the book asserts Ambedkars crucial role as a pioneer in Indian sociology, demonstrating the capacity of Dalit intellectuals to develop profound theoretical frameworks.

Since 2004, the CUNY Asian American Film Festival (AAFF) has celebrated the creativity and vision of student filmmakers from across the City University of New York. With over $15,400 in cash prizes awarded to CUNY students from City College, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Lehman College, College of Staten Island, Queens College, and New York City College of Technology, this is an incredible opportunity to showcase your work and gain recognition. The festival not only promotes the artistic talents of CUNY students but also fosters meaningful connections among peers from different campuses, providing a central platform to display your creative projects. Past participants have also had their films featured at the prestigious Asian American International Film Festival.

Join the Asian American / Asian Research Institute for a special AANHPI Heritage Month screening of the documentary Chinatown Rising, followed by Q and A with co-director Josh Chuck.

Much queer theory in America is based on white male experience and privilege, excluding people of color and severely limiting its relevance to third-world activism. Within the last three decades, chronicles from gay lesbian bisexual transgender intersex queer (GLBTIQ) communities within the South Asian diaspora in the United States have appeared, but the richness and contradictions that characterize these communities have been stifled. Too often, the limitations due to undertheorized South Asian American lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual historiescompounded by a queer canon overwrought with the East/West and tradition/modern equationsrender queer South Asian Americans as a monolithic homogeneous category with little or no agency.

Much queer theory in America is based on white male experience and privilege, excluding people of color and severely limiting its relevance to third-world activism. Within the last three decades, chronicles from gay lesbian bisexual transgender intersex queer (GLBTIQ) communities within the South Asian diaspora in the United States have appeared, but the richness and contradictions that characterize these communities have been stifled. Too often, the limitations due to undertheorized South Asian American lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual historiescompounded by a queer canon overwrought with the East/West and tradition/modern equationsrender queer South Asian Americans as a monolithic homogeneous category with little or no agency.

Much queer theory in America is based on white male experience and privilege, excluding people of color and severely limiting its relevance to third-world activism. Within the last three decades, chronicles from gay lesbian bisexual transgender intersex queer (GLBTIQ) communities within the South Asian diaspora in the United States have appeared, but the richness and contradictions that characterize these communities have been stifled. Too often, the limitations due to undertheorized South Asian American lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual historiescompounded by a queer canon overwrought with the East/West and tradition/modern equationsrender queer South Asian Americans as a monolithic homogeneous category with little or no agency.

How does racism influence the formation and development of organizational life in a racialized community? In this paper, Prof. Simon Yamawaki Shachter extends on Du Boiss concept of double consciousness to explain community organizations roles and development. Combined with the concepts of oppositional consciousness from social movements and decoupling from organization theory, Prof. Yamawaki Shachter builds a processual model of organizational life for racialized communities. He shows how the model explains the development of 19th and early 20th century Chinese organizations in the U.S., and describes how the community formed an incomparably large, sophisticated, interconnected, and politically-active organizational field at such an early point in U.S. history. The organizations that developedbased in historical Chinese migrant organizations that responded to anti-Chinese racismlooked different from past and contemporary Chinese or U.S.-based organizational fields. This case and theoretical model show the types of organizations and stages of development for the organizational life of communities that face racism.

Join Densho and the Localized History Project for a virtual workshop exploring the histories and stories of young Japanese Americans impacted by wartime incarceration. The workshop will share histories of schooling and resistance during Japanese American incarceration, the enduring legacies of this history in New York State, and how Densho utilizes oral histories to preserve, share and pass on this history.

Cherry Lou Sys debut novel Love Cant Feed You (Dutton, 2024) is a heartfelt and poignant exploration of love, sacrifice, and survival in the face of adversity. It follows the journey of a young immigrant woman from the Philippines having to navigate the complexities of a challenging relationship while grappling with the harsh realities of her life. As she faces the emotional and practical struggles of balancing her dreams and personal desires with the needs of those she loves, the story offers a raw and intimate portrayal of the ways love can both uplift and burden us.

This presentation examines survey results from three screenings of The Cost of Living (2023, Sixty First Productions), a documentary highlighting the financial struggles of three families in Flushing. The film is part of the Undo Poverty: Flushing (UPF) collaboratives efforts to combat poverty and reduce stigma through a narrative change approach. The three separate screenings featured subtitles in Chinese, English, and Korean, respectively. UPF also organized community organizing training sessions for local residents during the 2024 grant cycle. The presenter will discuss key findings from the surveys, including community perceptions of poverty, primary concerns, and proposed solutions for addressing financial hardship in Flushing. The presentation will also assess the impact of the community organizing training sessions.

Migrant workers have long been called upon to sacrifice their own health to provide care in facilities and private homes throughout the United States. What draws them to such exploitative, low-wage work, and how do they care for themselves? In Caring for Caregivers: Filipina Migrant Workers and Community Building during Crisis (University of Washington Press, 2025), Valerie Francisco-Menchavez centers the perspectives of Filipino caregivers in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2013 to 2021, illuminating their transnational experiences and their strategies and practices to help each other navigate the crumbling U.S. healthcare system.

Co-editors Nicholas D. Hartlep, Terrell L. Strayhorn, and Fred A. Bonner II will present on Belonging in Higher Education: Perspectives and Lessons from Diverse Faculty (Routledge, 2024), a new book that illuminates autoethnographic stories of belonging in higher education in the United States. These narratives celebrate diverse experiences and offer unique and useful insights about how to foster what foreword author, Michael Eric Dyson, refers to as, deep belonging. This critical volume is essential reading for researchers, faculty, administrators, and graduate students in Education, Sociology, Psychology, Student Affairs, African American Studies, and Asian American Studies. Additionally, it offers crucial insights for individuals who are key stakeholders in foregrounding policy that centers belonging for diverse faculty.

Co-curator Prof. Jayne Cole Southard will present on the exhibition, Legacies: Asian American Art Movements in New York City (1969-2001), an expansive survey of rarely-seen artwork and archival material by artists that constitute and exceed Asian American, a label denoting a cultural and national identity invented in 1968. Utilizing an interdisciplinary and research-driven praxis, Legacies uncovers how artists of Asian descent have historically negotiated identity in America as a set of situated practices and institutional structures amidst transnational diasporas, racial phantasms, and political imaginaries.

This panel presentation introduces an ongoing project to recover and translate the Japanese-language writings of the Issei novelist and teacher Ginko Okazaki (pen-name of Masue Shinozaki Orimo, 1895-1973). Ginko was part of a cohort of highly educated Japanese women who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s. Alan K. Ota, nephew of Ginkos daughter, will present on how the study of Ginkos life and work may offer insights to aspiring artists, activists, and teachers as they confront new forms of oppression and ultranationalism in the 21st century. Andrew Way Leong (UC Berkeley) will present on the ongoing work involved in bringing Ginkos work to a contemporary English-language readership. Talk will feature a pre-recorded reading by Sophie Oda, great-granddaughter of Ginko Ozaki, of a short excerpt from Soil of Salinas.

Prof. Christine Balance, the 2024 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, will present ongoing research and writing from her book project, Making Sense of Martial Law. In it, she studies what the diverse and contradictory poetics of Philippine martial law (1972-1986) perform and reveal about authoritarianism and cultural memory, as illustrated by both U.S.- and Philippines-based performances and productions. Making Sense of Martial Law also aims to illuminate important facets of the relationship between art and politics in dictatorships across the globe.

Join the Asian American / Asian Research Institute, and the Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity (CIED) at the CUNY School of Professional Studies, for a screening of the documentary, But Youre Not Black (2020), directed by Danilelle Ayow. Following the screening will be a discussion with our guest scholar speaker Dr. Aleah N. Ranjitsingh (Brooklyn College), moderated by Dr. Yung-Yi Diana Pan (Brooklyn College).

Popular discourse around British Muslims has often been dominated by a focus on Muslim women and their sartorial choices, particularly the hijab and niqab. Dr. Fatima Rajina takes a different angle and focuses on Muslim men, examining how factors like the global war on terror influenced and changed their sartorial choices and use of language. Rajinas new book denaturalises the ubiquitous and deeply problematic security lens through which knowledge of Muslims has been produced in the past two decades.

Author/professor Aruni Kashyap will read from his new story collection, The Way You Want to Be Loved (Gaudy Boy, 2024).

For October, Filipino American History Month, the Asian American / Asian Research Institute is excited to uplift the voices of student researchers and activists. During this interactive workshop, attendees will hear from Gabriela Sagun, a Ph.D. Student at Duke University studying Security, Peace, and Conflict, with a focus on conflict-related violence against women in the Philippines. Gabriela will speak on the entanglements of U.S. Empire in the Philippines and Filipino-American nurses. We will then hear from Mariah Iris Ramo, Marissa Halagao and Brix Kozuki from the Filipino Curriculum Project, a youth driven activist project in Hawaii. Their course, "Filipino History Culture," is now approved by the Hawaii Department of Education (HIDOE) and will be taught in schools in Fall 2024. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and engage with the speakers' works, and will get a chance to look through the student curriculum.

Prof. Manu Bhagavan will present his biography, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (Penguin, 2023), based on eight years of research and using material in five languages from seven countries and over forty archives. Pandit the most remarkable woman Eleanor Roosevelt had ever met, was a pioneering politician and diplomat celebrated internationally for her brilliance, charm and glamour.

Representatives from Seneca Insurance Company, the Hartford Insurance Company, and director of the Columbia University Masters in Insurance Management program, will discuss careers in the insurance industry and how they are not only an intricate part of everyday life, but also an exciting and rewarding career path for CUNY students.

Catherine Chung and Johnny Nguyen (Asian Women For Health), and Preston Dang (Western University-College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific), will discuss their current collaborative two-year research study project, ACCESS-PD: Advancing Comprehensive Care & Enhancing ServiceStandardsin Parkinsons Disease among Asian Americans.

Poet and editor Russell C. Leong will read from MothSutra, based upon drawings and poetry about an Asian delivery man who rides a bicycle throughout Manhattan as he cycles through his life from East to West. Leong hopes to evoke the inner lives, meditations, hopes and dreams of persons generally invisible to those who order takeout. MothSutra was first read at the Bowery Poetry Club, the University of Hong Kong Black Box Theatre, and the City University of New York. He will be introduced on video by the late Chinese American labor historian, Peter Kwong. A bilingual Q&A session will take place afterwards in English and Chinese.

Born 1941 in Oakland, Californias Chinatown, William Gee Wong is the only son of his father, known as Pop. Born in Guangdong Province, China, Pop emigrated to Oakland as a teenager during the Chinese Exclusion era in 1912 and entered the U.S. legally as the son of a native, despite having partially false papers. 'Sons of Chinatown' is Wongs evocative dual memoir of his and his fathers parallel experiences in America.

Since 2004, the CUNY Asian American Film Festival (AAFF) has recognized and awarded over $14,900 in cash prizes to student filmmakers enrolled at the City University of New York, including City College, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Lehman College, College of Staten Island, and Queens College. The CUNY AAFF helps to promote the artistic visual talents and stimulate communication among CUNY students who are separated by the different campuses, and serve as a central location to display their creative works. Past participants have also had their films screened at the Asian American International Film Festival.

For this symposium, AAARI has invited students, scholars, community organizers, and/or practitioners to share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, and other activities that address the broad scope of AAPI Identities."

For this symposium, AAARI has invited students, scholars, community organizers, and/or practitioners to share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, and other activities that address the broad scope of AAPI Identities."

For this symposium, AAARI has invited students, scholars, community organizers, and/or practitioners to share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, and other activities that address the broad scope of AAPI Identities."

For this symposium, AAARI has invited students, scholars, community organizers, and/or practitioners to share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, and other activities that address the broad scope of AAPI Identities."

For this symposium, AAARI has invited students, scholars, community organizers, and/or practitioners to share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, and other activities that address the broad scope of AAPI Identities."

Hong Kong was a key battlefield in Asia's cultural cold war. After 1948-1949, an influx of filmmakers, writers, and intellectuals from mainland China transformed British Hong Kong into a hub for mass entertainment and popular publications. Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War discusses how Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the U.S. fought to mobilize Hong Kong cinema and print media to sway ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and across the world. Central to this propaganda and psychological warfare was the emigre media industry. This period was the golden age of Mandarin cinema and popular culture. Throughout the 1967 Riots and the 1970s, the emergence of a new, local-born generation challenged and reshaped the Cold War networks of migr cultural production, contributing to the gradual decline of Hong Kong's cultural Cold War. Through untapped archival materials, contemporary sources, and numerous interviews with filmmakers, magazine editors, and student activists, Dr. Po-Shek Fu explores how global conflicts were localized and intertwined with myriad local historical experiences and cultural formation.

On a hot summer day, Wang Guiping attended her divorce trial at the Xiqing Peoples Tribunal. Taking an unfaithful spouse to court would, Guiping thought, help her end a hopeless relationship and actualize her lawful rights upon divorce. Later that day, Guiping would find herself betrayed not only by her husband, but by the court system and her own legal counsel. Taking this case as a point of departure, Ke Li recounts decades-long research on divorce litigation in rural China in her book Marriage Unbound. Ultimately, this talk articulates a firm belief: divorce, seemingly prosaic, offers a unique window onto phenomena of great importance to sociologists, political scientists, sociolegal researchers, and China scholars.

Based on his new book, this presentation explores the recent history of Chinese immigration within the United States and the fundamental changes in spatial settlement that have relocated many low-skilled Chinese immigrants from New York Citys Chinatown to new immigrant destinations. Using a mixed-method approach over a decade in Chinatown and six destination states, sociologist Zai Liang specifically examines how the expansion and growing popularity of Chinese restaurants has shifted settlement to more rural and faraway areas. Liangs study demonstrates that key players such as employment agencies, Chinatown buses, and restaurant supply shops facilitate the spatial dispersion of immigrants while simultaneously maintaining vital links between Chinatown in Manhattan and new immigrant destinations.

In The Children of this Madness, Gemini Wahhaj pens a complex tale of modern Bengalis, one that illuminates the recent histories not only of Bangladesh, but America and Iraq. Told in multiple voices over successive eras, this is the story of Nasir Uddin and his daughter Beena, and the intersection of their distant, vastly different lives.

There is a growing consensus that the discipline of sociology and the social sciences broadly need to engage more thoroughly with the legacy and the present day of colonialism, Indigenous/settler colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism in the United States and globally. In Disciplinary Futures, edited by Nadia Y. Kim and Pawan Dhingra, a cross-section of scholars comes together to engage sociology and the social sciences by way of these paradigms, particularly from the influence of disciplines of American, Ethnic, and Indigenous Studies.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing group in the United States and include approximately 50 distinct ethnic groups, but their stories and experiences have often been sidelined or stereotyped. Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects offers a vital window into the triumphs and tragedies, strength and ingenuity, and traditions and cultural identities of these communities. Edited by Theodore S. Gonzalves, the book invites readers to experience both well-known and untold stories through influential, controversial, and meaningful objects. Thematic chapters explore complex history and shared experiences: navigation, intersections, labor, innovation, belonging, tragedy, resistance and solidarity, community, service, memory, and joy.

Hyunhee Park offers the first global historical study of soju, the distinctive distilled drink of Korea. Searching for sojus origins, Park leads us into the vast, complex world of premodern Eurasia. She demonstrates how the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wove together hemispheric flows of trade, empire, scientific and technological transfer and created the conditions for the development of a singularly Korean drink. Sojus rise in Korea marked the evolution of a new material culture through ongoing interactions between the global and local and between tradition and innovation in the adaptation and localization of new technologies. Parks vivid new history shows how these cross-cultural encounters laid the foundations for the creation of a globally connected world.

C.C. Wang (1907 to 2003) is best known as a preeminent twentieth-century connoisseur and collector of pre-modern Chinese art, a reputation that often overshadows his own art. "C.C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction" recenters Wangs extraordinary career in his own artistic practice to reveal an original quest for tradition and innovation in the global twentieth century. Spanning seven decades, the catalog focuses on the artists distinctive synthesis of Chinese ink painting and American postwar abstraction.

Chandra Bhan Prasad is an Indian scholar and political commentator. He is editor of Dalit Enterprise Magazine and has been widely quoted by the world press on issues of caste and the treatment of Dalits in India. Prasad is the co-author author of Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs (with D Shyam Babu and Devesh Kapur), Dalit Phobia: Why Do They Hate Us?, What is Ambedkarism?, and Dalit Diary, 1999-2003: Reflections on Apartheid in India.

Abandoned Women and Boudoir Resentment: The Feminine Voice in Chinese Literature