The views and opinions expressed on this site and blog posts (excluding comments on blog posts left by others) are entirely my own and do not represent those of any employer or organization with whom I am currently or previously have been associated.
Academic Version: Applying my personal experiences and academic research as a professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies to provide a more complete understanding of political, economic, and cultural issues and current events related to American race relations, and Asia/Asian America in particular.
Plain English: Trying to put my Ph.D. to good use.
Here are some more announcements, links, and job postings about academic-related jobs, fellowships, and other opportunities for those interested in racial/ethnic/diversity issues, with a particular focus on Asian Americans. As always, the announcements and links are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of the organization or college involved.
In its twelfth season, the successful Armed With a Camera (AWC) Fellowship for Emerging Media Artists nurtures the next generation of Asian Pacific American media artists to capture their world, surroundings and outlook on life. Visual Communications works with the Fellows for seven months and provides special training, mentoring and networking opportunities, access to facilities and equipment, plus a cash and rental stipend to create four to five-minute digital shorts that premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and other venues nationwide.
The 2013-2014 Armed With A Camera Fellowship is accepting submissions May 15 – August 2, 2013. Up to 10 artists will be selected for the Fellowship. We will announce the new class of Fellows in September.
Visual Communications (VC) seeks to cultivate a new generation of Asian Pacific American media artists committed to preserving the legacy and vision of VC. The Armed With A Camera Fellowship will award up to ten fellows $1,000 in cash and $1,000 in equipment rental to complete a four to five-minute digital video. Through the Armed With A Camera Fellowship, emerging media artists will capture their world, surroundings and outlook on life as a part of a new generation of Asian Pacific Americans.
Final projects must be shot in digital video format and completed by March 21, 2014. A special program will showcase all completed projects at various VC exhibitions across the city of Los Angeles, including the 2014 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and other venues nationwide. VC will co-own the productions and will also package and distribute completed works. Distribution income will aid in the continuation of the Armed with a Camera Fellowship.
Applicant Eligibility
Eligible applicants must be of Asian Pacific descent and residents of Southern California. If accepted, Fellows must be able to attend mandatory meetings and workshops in Los Angeles. Women, South Asian and Southeast Asian filmmakers are highly encouraged to apply to the AWC Fellowship. If you’re not sure of your eligibility, please contact Visual Communications.
My name is Brianna Werner, and I am a research assistant to Dr. Frances Shen, a faculty member at the University of Illinois Springfield. We are in need of university student participants to complete a survey on the impact of discrimination on Asian American LGB persons.
We are seeking individuals who (1) identify as Asian American, (2) identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and (3) are at least 18 years of age to complete a confidential web-based survey that will ask you about the impact of discrimination on Asian American LGB persons.
The entire study should take approximately 30-40 minutes. The answers you provide will be kept completely confidential. You will not be asked to provide your name on the inventory. This research has been reviewed and approved by the UIS Human Subjects Review Officer, Dr. Lynn Pardie. Dr. Pardie can be reached at 217-206-7230 to answer any questions about your rights as a volunteer participant in this study.
As a thank you, participants who complete the survey can enter into a lottery drawing to win one of four $25 gift certificates or one of four $50 gift certificates.
For more information about the study, and to participate, please go to https://illinois.edu/sb/sec/4852751.
You are invited to participate in a study exploring relationships among People of Color. The requirements are as follows: you must be 18 years of age or older; a Person of Color, and be involved in an interracial relationship for a minimum of one year. Participation in this study is voluntary and anonymous and you will not be compensated.
If you would like to participate or have any questions please contact Magie S. Maekawa at magiemaekawa@gmail.com or click on the following hyperlink: https://csulapsychology.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_ebQFLDRt1n30oHX.
Call for Papers: Submit your manuscript for publication in Race and Social Problems.
We welcome manuscripts that explore, but are not limited to, such topics as criminal justice, economic conditions, education, the elderly, families, health disparities, mental health, race relations, and youth.
To submit a manuscript, please visit www.crsp.pitt.edu/publications/CallForPapers.pdf. Articles in the journal are available for free online at http://link.springer.com/journal/12552. In 2014, there will be a special issue on Asian Americans. You may submit your manuscript to www.crsp.pitt.edu/publications/SpecialIssueCallforPapers2013-2.pdf.
Expected future special issues of Race and Social Problems include the following:
Women of Color, 2015
Race and Religiosity, 2016
Race and Education, 2017
Race and Aging, 2018
Recent news on the higher education scene has turned attention to the Asian American case, or cases we should say. A team of education researchers led by Dr. Robert Teranishi used data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the University of California higher education system to make the case that Asian American ethnic groups are not all performing in the “model minority” way. As some readers know, Asian Americans tend to be grouped together as if they were a racial equivalent to “white†“black†and sometimes “Hispanic.”
When this kind of grouping occurs, scholars and interested citizens look for similarities and differences between racial groups on outcomes like educational attainment, household income, poverty levels, health etc. From this classification approach Asian Americans tend to appear exemplary on a number of outcomes. Take for example, last year’s Pew report on Asian Americans. Using the American Community Survey, Pew shows an aggregate figure for bachelor’s degree attainment and median household income in 2010 for Asian Americans. As the title of their figure states “Asian Americans Lead Others in Education, Income.â€
Teranishi and colleagues’ report disaggregates, that is, splits into smaller groups, the Asian American classification using the same data, and this is what they find. In this first graph we see bachelor’s degree attainment across multiple Asian American groups and we find surprising differences across the board. At the one end, Taiwanese and Asian Indian Americans report over 71% within each group with a bachelor’s degree. At the other end, about 12% of Laotian and 15% of Hmong Americans claim the same educational attainment. So while it is the case that Asian Americans as a group appear to have a lot of education, the reality is that only certain groups are showing this level attainment.
Now let’s look at household income. Using the median household income ($66,000 according to the Pew report) for all Asian Americans, Teranishi et al. disaggregate that figure and show the following.
As you can see, at one extreme, Asian Indian Americans exceed the Asian American household income mean by over $21,000 on average. Hmong Americans are below that same mean by almost the same amount. In fact 9 out of the 15 groups are below the Asian American mean. And 7 of these groups are lower than the white American average.
What this suggests is that Asian Americans are highly diverse socioeconomically. To the extent that the model minority myth is applied to this collection of SES-diverse groups, it masks the evident differences among them. Read the full report here to find out more about the benefits of disaggregation especially in higher education within the University of California system. Similar kinds of analyses were conducted by Dr. Paul Ong and associates who disaggregated homeownership and cash public assistance rates across Asian ethnic groups in several different areas of the US.
The slide show report on some of their findings is here, and the regional reports are here. Like Teranishi et al.’s report, disaggregation of Asian American homeownership, other assets and public assistance shows that the rates of these socioeconomic patterns vary a lot by Asian ethnic group.
Some might ask: then why is the overall Asian American average so high to begin with. The answer is a matter of population size. Look back at the disaggregated figures. Pick out these groups: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. These groups take up 83% of all Asian Americans. Statistically, the other groups are not numerically large enough to alter the educational attainment or household income average of the largest six groups since they take up a greater share of the population. We should remember too, sizable numbers of Asian Americans in the larger groups do not share in the picture of “success†that their same-ethnic peers experience.
In our racialized society, we like our groups to be simple; we prefer to ignore the diverse realities within the groupings we create. By using “Asian American†as shorthand for “the successful minority†we mask major differences in the outcomes that presumably all Asian Americans share. Notably, our social programs often utilize this assumption and give next to nothing for vulnerable Asian Americans. This in turn makes Asian American inequalities invisible.
Hopefully more leaders and concerned citizens will grow aware of the problem we create when we use the stereotype of “the high –achieving, hard-working minority.†Reports and studies, like the one produced by Dr. Teranishi that disaggregate the Asian American data story expand our own understanding that this story is not just diverse culturally, but socioeconomically as well.
As another contributing author to the Asian-Nation team, I would like to introduce Jerry Z. Park.
Jerry Z. Park is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Baylor University. His research interests are in American race relations, religion, social identities, culture and civic engagement, with a focus on Asian Americans. He has published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Social Forces, The Sociological Quarterly, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociological Perspectives, and Journal of Asian American Studies.
He has participated in obtaining the Asian American oversample of the Portraits of American Life Survey Wave I (2006) and has been a regular contributor of the Baylor Religion Surveys (2005-2013). In 2012, he served as an advisory panel member of the Pew Asian American Survey and is currently studying the religious influences in workplace outcomes and in entrepreneurial enterprises through a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Here are some more announcements, links, and job postings about academic-related jobs, fellowships, and other opportunities for those interested in racial/ethnic/diversity issues, with a particular focus on Asian Americans. As always, the announcements and links are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of the organization or college involved.
The Asian American Studies Program at CUNY unexpectedly needs to find an instructor to teach our introductory survey course, Asians in the U.S. (ASIAN 210) for this fall. The course is already scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:00 – 8:15pm; students have registered, so there is unfortunately no leeway in terms of rescheduling.
The ideal candidate is someone from an interdisciplinary (preferably social science) background who can present a knowledgeable and enthusiastic introduction to the field – key texts, concepts, etc. – while also illustrating the relevance of AAS in a contemporary context (e.g. post-9/11 detention and deportation, DACA, Fisher v. UT Austin, etc.).
Very briefly, ASIAN 210 examines historical and contemporary Asian American experience in the context of American historical racial, labor and foreign policy developments and the impact of the current rapid expansion of Asian American communities on America’s social and political order. Here is an example of one instructor’s course description:
In Asian 210, we will read about and discuss the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian Americans living in the United States, looking at the historical origins of what it means to be ‘Asian American,’ as well as the social, political, cultural, and economic implications of this term. Students will learn about concepts having to do with the social construction of race, ideology, class-consciousness, gender, sexuality, pan-Asian solidarity, media representations, political activism, as well as the history and future of the field of Asian American Studies.
In our readings and conversations, we will focus our attention on three different areas: Asian American history (as seen in Ronald Takaki’s Strangers from a Different Shore), theoretical foundations within Asian American Studies (in Wu and Song’s Asian American Studies: A Reader), as well as a wide range of literary works (presented in Hagedorn’s anthology Charlie Chan is Dead 2). In addition, we will screen a number of film- and video-based pieces (documentary, experimental, and feature-length) that expand on issues in the class.
Interested candidates should contact me via email and include their CVs and a cover letter that includes a brief pedagogical statement.
Many thanks,
Jennifer Hayashida, Director
Asian American Studies Program
Hunter College, CUNY
695 Park Avenue, Rm 1338 West
New York, NY 10065
212.772.5660
jennifer.hayashida@hunter.cuny.edu
www.hunter.cuny.edu/aasp
My name is Kayla Tran and I serve as the University of Florida’s Asian American Student Union President. UF has been on the search for our next APIA Director since March, and would greatly appreciate assistance in spreading the word about this job opening.
As you may already know, the southeastern U.S. is a region that has yet to fully access AA resources and expertise, so you can imagine the growing amount of diversity opportunities at our flagship university. The individual to fill this position will have full autonomy of programming and communication with students, faculty and staff to shape the UF APIA community and environment.
The application deadline is Monday June 23, 2013 and a full job description can be found at https://jobs.ufl.edu/postings/41708. A brief summary of the position is below:
The Director of Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Affairs is a vital member of Multicultural and Diversity Affairs in the Division of Student Affairs. This position provides leadership, education, and services for the students regarding multicultural awareness and by creating an inclusive campus community. The Director of APIA Affairs coordinates and plans multicultural and intercultural education activities, trainings and programs for the campus community that educate and promote awareness, understanding and appreciation of diversity and multiculturalism on campus. The Director is also responsible for the support of the Asia
Please help my fellow Gators in whatever means you feel comfortable with: by passing this along to anybody who may be interested, inclusion a communications newsletter, etc.
Thank you in advance for your earnest attention and assistance to this process,
Kayla Tran
Verge: Studies in Global Asias
Senior Editors, Tina Chen and Eric Hayot
Verge: Studies in Global Asias is a new journal that includes scholarship from scholars in both Asian and Asian American Studies. These two fields have traditionally defined themselves in opposition to one another, with the former focused on an area-studies, nationally and politically oriented approach, and the latter emphasizing epistemological categories, including ethnicity and citizenship, that drew mainly on the history of the United States.
The past decade however has seen a series of rapprochements in which, for instance, categories “belongingâ€to Asian American Studies (ethnicity, race, diaspora) have been applied with increasing success to studies of Asia. For example Asian Studies has responded to the postnational turn in the humanities and social sciences by becoming increasingly open to rethinking its national and regional insularities, and to work that pushes, often literally, on the boundaries of Asia as both a place and a concept.
At the same time, Asian American Studies has become increasingly aware of the ongoing importance of Asia to the Asian American experience, and thus more open to work that is transnational or multilingual, as well as to forms of scholarship that challenge the US-centrism of concepts governing the Asian diaspora.
Verge showcases scholarship on “Asian†topics from across the humanities and humanistic social sciences, while recognizing that the changing scope of “Asia†as a concept and method is today an object of vital critical concern. Deeply transnational and transhistorical in scope, Verge emphasizes thematic and conceptual links among the disciplines and regional/area studies formations that address Asia in a variety of particularist (national, subnational, individual) and generalist (national, regional, global) modes.
Responding to the ways in which large-scale social, cultural, and economic concepts like the world, the globe, or the universal (not to mention East Asian cousins like tianxia or datong) are reshaping the ways we think about the present, the past and the future, the journal publishes scholarship that occupies and enlarges the proximities among disciplinary and historical fields, from the ancient to the modern periods. The journal emphasizes multidisciplinary engagement—a crossing and dialogue of the disciplines that does not erase disciplinary differences, but uses them to make possible new conversations and new models of critical thought.
Queries and Submissions should be sent to: verge@psu.edu
Issue 1: Open Issue
The history of scholarship on Asian America, when juxtaposed with the fields of Asian Studies, reminds us how much nations, national movements, and other forms of national development continue to exert powerful effects on the world in which we live. Such movements also remind us of the importance of inter-nationalism, of the kinds of networks that can spring up between states and which can work to disrupt the smooth passage of the planet into a utopian post-national future. The growing interest in the global and the transnational across disciplines thus brings the various Asia-oriented fields and disciplines—history and literature, Asia and Asian America, East and South, modern and premodern—closer together.
This inaugural issue seeks to feature work that illustrates the diverse engagements across disciplines (literature, history, sociology, art history, political science, geography) and fields (Asian Studies and Asian American Studies) that are possible once we begin thinking about the possible convergences and divergences such divisions have traditionally represented. We welcome a range of perspectives; featured contributors include Ien Ang, Dean Chan, Alexandra Chang, Catherine Ceniza Choy, Magnus Fiskejo, Pika Ghosh, Evelyn Hu-Dehart, Yunte Huang, Suk-young Kim, Joachim Kurtz, Meera Lee, Wei Li, Colleen Lye, Sucheta Mazumdar, Tak-wing Ngo, Haun Saussy, David Palumbo-Liu, Sheldon Pollack, Shuh-mei Shih, Eleanor Ty, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom.
Submission deadline: December 1, 2013
Issue 2: Asian Empires & Imperialism (edited by On-cho Ng and Erica Brindley)
The nature of Asian empires in the past, as well as the definition of imperialism in contemporary times, is a topic of ongoing discussion among scholars from a wide range of fields. In this special issue of Verge, we will explore a cluster of issues concerning the mechanics and influence of empires, imperial authority, and imperial types of influence over indigenous cultures and frontiers in Asia, as well as their diasporas abroad and in the USA.
We invite submissions that address one or some of the following questions: How did various imperial efforts interact with local concerns to shape the history of cross-cultural interactions in this region? How did imperial regimes propose to solve the issue of a multi-ethnic empire? What were the roles of specific geographic and economic spheres in Asia (such as those of nomadic, agricultural, maritime, high altitude or lowland, and far-flung/diasporic cultures) in contributing to the distinctive quality of certain empires? How do certain characteristics of imperial administration and control in Asia compare to those of imperial states in other regions of the world?
In addition to questions concerning the long history of Asian imperialism and comparisons with other empires, we also solicit submissions that speak to questions concerning contemporary Asian diasporas and their reactions to various forms of imperialism in the modern age. Questions might address such topics as “Yellow Peril†fears about Asian cultural imperialism; Japanese internment camps as a US response to Japanese imperial expansion in the Pacific; the Tibetan diaspora in South Asia and the Americas as a reaction to contemporary Chinese imperialism; Vietnamese responses to French, Chinese, or American imperialisms, and the treatment of Japanese-Americans in Hawaii in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.
Submission deadline: April 1, 2014
Issue 3: Collections (edited by Jonathan Abel and Charlotte Eubanks)
As a construct and product of powerful institutions from empires, to nation-states, museums, to universities, Asia has long been formulated at the level of the collection. Whether through royal court poetry compilations, colonial treasure hunters, art historians, bric a brac shop keepers, or librarians of rare archives, the role of collecting and classification has been deeply connected not only to definitions of what counts as Asia and who can be considered Asian, but also to how Asia continues to be configured and re-configured today.
With this in mind, this special issue of Verge seeks to collect papers on the history, finance, psychology, politics and aesthetics of collecting Asia in Asia and beyond. This collection hopes not only to bring into relief how “Asia†has been created but also to promote new definitions of Asia. What, for instance, are the historical implications of government-sponsored poetry anthologies in Mughal India, Heian-era Japan, or 20th century North Korea? What do the contents of treasure-houses — at Angkor Wat, Yasukuni Shrine, or Vishwanath — tell us about evolving concepts of art and of the elasticity of cultural and national contours?
When did Japan become a geographical base for the collection of Asia? Who collects Chinese books? How has Indian art been defined by curatorial practices? Why did South Korea begin to collect oral histories in the 1990s? What politics lie behind the exhibition of mainland Chinese posters in Taiwan? How much money do cultural foundations spend on maintaining collections? Where are the limits of Asian collections in geographical and diasporic terms? How do constructions of these collections impact our views of the collective, whether of Tibetan exiles in Dharamsala, Japanese internment camps in Indonesia, global Chinatowns, or adherents of new Asian religions in the Americas and former Soviet Republics?
This issue is interested in the various cultures of collecting Asia and collecting Asians, in the many politics of collecting, in the odd financial restrictions on collectors, in the psychology of collecting, in the anthropology of how communities form around collected objects, and in the sociology around collective histories.
Submission deadline: November 15, 2014
Issue 4: Asian Urbanisms and Urbanizations (edited by Madhuri Desai and Shuang Shen)
In the contemporary age of globalization, the city has gained new importance and attention as a center of information industry, a node of transnational and translocal networks, and a significant site of capital, labor migration and culture (Saskia Sassen, Manuel Castells and David Harvey). While this renewed interest in the city both perpetuates and revises theories of the city as a metaphor of modernity (Walter Benjamin, Georg Simmel), it also opens up questions regarding the uniqueness and relevance of earlier cities and their experience of urbanization. When we move us away from Eurocentric understandings of modernity and time, it becomes increasingly possible to study non-European urbanisms in the past and at present with theoretical rigor and historical specificity.
For this special issue, we invite submissions (around 8000 words) that explore urbanism as a site of comparison and connection among various Asian locales and beyond. We are interested in not just studies of Asian cities and their urban experience but also how “Asia†has been imagined both historically and contemporaneously, through urbanism and urbanization, and how “Asia†as a term of travel is registered in the urban space. This special issue will draw attention to the following questions: As cities become increasingly connected and similar to each other, how do they express their distinct identities as well as articulate their unique histories?
Besides circulation, movement, and networks that have been much emphasized in contemporary studies of the city, how do borders, checkpoints, and passwords function in urban contexts? How does the city articulate connections between the local, the national, and the transnational? How does the Asian experience of urbanization and ideas surrounding Asian urbanism revise, rethink, and in some cases revive Asia’s colonial past? What does the Western perspective on some Asian cities as unprecedented and futuristic tells us about the imagination of Asia in the global context? How do migrant and ethnic communities negotiate with and redefine the public space of the city? How is the urban public shared or fragmented by co-existing ethnic and religious communities? How is the rising cosmopolitanism of these cities challenged through migration and sharply defined ethnic and religious identities? We invite submissions that address these questions within the context of Early modern, colonial and contemporary urbanisms and urbanizations.
There are more than 3.9 million Korean War veterans and over 6.8 million American veterans who served in the Korean War. Now in their 80s, they are beginning to fade away, like their memories. As the weight of age falls heavier upon them, their voices grow quieter as they retreat into silence. With no one asking about their stories, they have no one to tell – until now.
“Fading Away” showcases a series of never before told stories from a group of unique Korean War veterans and refugees through a series of insightful interviews and the use of rare historical film footage, photos and other archival material. These veterans and survivors share their stories in their own words with their sons, daughters and grandchildren with memories of catastrophe, fear, and the pains they vividly remember.
Below is a solicitation for respondents for an online survey about Southeast Asian American college students and recent graduates.
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Dear Dr. Le:
We are conducting a study on the lived experiences of Southeast Asian American undergraduate students and recent graduates to understand how they navigated to and through higher education. The insights gained from this research may have implications for how faculty, administrators, and policymakers create supportive environments for and improve student success among Southeast Asian American students in Massachusetts.
We are using criterion sampling to recruit and identify participants for individual interviews. Interviews will last approximately 2 hours. If you are a Southeast Asian American college student or recent graduate, please fill out this short questionnaire to find out if you qualify to participate in the study.
Participation is totally voluntary and your responses will be kept confidential. After you have completed the questionnaire, we will let you know if you will be selected for interviews. Participants who complete the interview process will be given a $20 gift card as an honorarium. Please email us with any questions or concerns.
