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

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

The American suburb conjures an image of picturesque privilege: manicured lawns, quiet streets, andmost important to parentshigh-quality schools. These elite enclaves are also historically white, allowing many white Americans to safeguard their privileges by using public schools to help their children enter top colleges. Thats changing, however, as Asian American professionals increasingly move into wealthy suburban areas to give their kids that same leg up for their college applications and future careers.As Natasha Warikoo shows in Race at the Top, white and Asian parents alike will do anything to help their children get to the top of the achievement pile. She takes us into the affluent suburban East Coast school she calls Woodcrest High, with a student body about one-half white and one-third Asian American. As increasing numbers of Woodcrests Asian American students earn star-pupil status, many whites feel displaced from the top of the academic hierarchy, and their frustrations grow. To maintain their childrens edge, some white parents complain to the school that schoolwork has become too rigorous. They also emphasize excellence in extracurriculars like sports and theater, which maintains their childrens advantage.Warikoo reveals how, even when they are bested, white families in Woodcrest work to change the rules in their favor so they can remain the winners of the meritocracy game. Along the way, Warikoo explores urgent issues of racial and economic inequality that play out in affluent suburban American high schools. Caught in a race for power and privilege at the very top of society, what families in towns like Woodcrest fail to see is that everyone in their race is getting a medalthe children who actually lose are those living beyond their towns boundaries.

Muyisa (The Temple of Non-Duality) holds a long-kept secret that has been handed down through generations of monks. One day, a mother who lost her daughter at the Itaewon Halloween Crush, visits the temple unexpectedly and discovers the secret.

Join the Asian American / Asian Research Institute for a panel discussion for the launch of One Century after Thind, a special issue of Ethnic Studies Review, edited by Dr. Soniya Munshi (Queens College/CUNY) and Dr. Linta Varghese (Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY), examining legacies past and present of the U.S. Supreme Court case, United States v Bhagat Singh Thind (1923). Building on discussions in the special issue, we will continue examinations of caste in the South Asian diaspora, the criminalization of migrants, and the racialized citizenship debates in the early 20th century as part of U.S. state-making.

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (19051961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywoods most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photoswith a touch of defianceOrientally yours. Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wongs tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wongs rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich. Challenging the parodically racist perceptions of Wong as a Dragon Lady, Madame Butterfly, or China Doll, Huangs biography becomes a truly resonant work of history that reflects the raging anti-Chinese xenophobia, unabashed sexism, and ageism toward women that defined both Hollywood and America in Wongs all-too-brief fifty-six years on earth.

Prof. Edward T. Chang will present on University of California, Riversides traveling exhibition to preserve and share the history of Americas first Koreatown Pachappa Camp a community of Korean migrant workers in Riverside who contributed to the citys citrus development. Among those workers was Koreas most influential independence activists, Dosan Ahn Chang Ho, who helped foment Koreas democratic movement.

As early as the Civil War, a dozen Filipino men living in Massachusetts enlisted in the Union army. In the 1900s, Filipino pensionados studied at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other colleges. After the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Filipino medical, military, and other professionals settled in and around Greater Boston in Cambridge, Lexington, Malden, and Quincy. To support their communities, Filipino immigrants founded civic organizations such as the Philippine Medical Association of New England, Pilipino-American Association of New England, and Philippine Nurses Association of New England. Since 1976, parents have been volunteering at Iskwelahang Pilipino (Filipino school) to encourage their American-born childrens pride for Filipino traditions. Included are never before seen photographs of the Aquino family during their time in exile. This book highlights the rich histories of Filipinos in Greater Boston and aims to inspire more works that document this immigrant community that has grown in the early 21st century to over 25,000 people.

Novelist Wendy Law-Yone, tracks Aung San Suu Kyis transformation from daughter of a national hero to materfamilias of Myanmar, placing her firmly within the context of the Burmese Buddhist notions of nationhood and motherhood and explaining her continuing role as the figurehead of the nations struggles. The result is a unique portrait of a living legend, rendered by a compatriot and contemporary. Once deified by the international community for her advocacy of democracy and human rights, yet later vilified for her denial of the Burmese militarys genocidal campaign against the Rohingya, Aung San Suu Kyis image survives largely untarnished within Myanmar. Her supporters refer to her as Amay Suu (Mother Suu). Heir to the political and spiritual legacy of her father, General Aung San, independence hero and martyr, she remains the lodestar of nationalist aspirations, and matriarch for a nation in distress.

In Creating Identity, Prof. Jayashree Kambl examines the romance genre, with its sensile flexibility in retaining what audiences find desirable and discarding what is not, by asking an important question: Who is the romance heroine, and what does she want? To find the answer, Kambl explores how heroines in ten novels reject societal labels and instead remake themselves on their own terms with their own agency. Using a truly intersectional approach, Kambl combines gender and sexuality, Marxism, critical race theory, and literary criticism to survey various aspects of heroines identities, such as sexuality, gender, work, citizenship, and race.

Since 2004, the CUNY Asian American Film Festival (AAFF) has recognized and awarded over $14,300 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.

Join APA VOICE, the Asian American / Asian Research Institute, and other partners for a candidate forum for New York City Council District 1, representing neighborhoods including Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Two Bridges, NoHo, SoHo, and Financial Distinct.

In this talk based on his upcoming book supported by the Betty Lee Sung Research Endowment Fund, Prof. Kit Myers explores how the orphan figure; birth and adoptive families; and sending (Asian) and receiving (United States) nations have been configured in transnational adoption discourse and law. Looking at popular television, legal journals, and congressional hearings, Prof. Myers considers how racialized notions of love, life, and death inform the best interest of the child determinations in transnational adoption policymaking. What sorts of already existing violent structures and representations are operating in order to activate and facilitate transnational adoptions? How has transnational adoption, as a loving act, produced violent outcomes?

At this symposium, students, scholars, and/or practitioners, within and outside of CUNY, will share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, models for organizing and activism, and other activities at CUNY that address critical issues in Asian American studies and/or communities.

At this symposium, students, scholars, and/or practitioners, within and outside of CUNY, will share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, models for organizing and activism, and other activities at CUNY that address critical issues in Asian American studies and/or communities.

At this symposium, students, scholars, and/or practitioners, within and outside of CUNY, will share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, models for organizing and activism, and other activities at CUNY that address critical issues in Asian American studies and/or communities.