Special Issue: “Generations.” Asian American Literary Review. (Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2012).

“Are there any continuities,” wonders scholar Min Hyoung Song, “between the earlier generation of writers which first raised the banner of an Asian American literature and a later generation of writers which inherited it?”

This is the question AALR’s Spring 2012 issue on “Generations” poses to 29 writers, poets, playwrights, spoken word performers, scholars, and publishers of various generations, regions, and ethnic and artistic communities. What emerges is a vital survey of generational continuities and divergences-not to mention some necessary reevaluation of how “generations,” “Asian American,” and “Asian American literature” might be understood. Respondents include Genny Lim, David Mura, Velina Hasu Houston, Giles Li, Gary Pak, Neelanjana Banerjee, Fred Wah, Anna Kazumi Stahl, Sunyoung Lee of Kaya Press, and Allan Kornblum of Coffee House Press, among others.

Other issue features include: Maxine Hong Kingston interviewed by Min Hyoung Song; Miguel Syjuco interviewed by Brian Ascalon Roley; Afaa Michael Weaver interviewed by Gerald Maa; a dialogue on “Asian American form” between Karen Tei Yamashita, Sesshu Foster, R. Zamora Linmark, Ray Hsu, Timothy Yu, Larissa Lai, Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, and Srikanth Reddy; new poetry by Dilruba Ahmed, Ed Bok Lee, R. Zamora Linmark, Wing Tek Lum, and Afaa Michael Weaver; an email to Monique Truong from The New York Times; new writing by Ed Park; translations of work by Hiromi Itō and Carlos Yushimito del Valle; reviews of Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel and Richard Yates, the new edition of Sui Sin Far’s Mrs. Spring Fragrance, Srikanth Reddy’s Voyager, and Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth.

Special Issue: “Asian Americans in Global Cities: Los Angeles – New York Connections and Comparisons.” AAPI Nexus: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — Policy, Practice and Community. (Volume 10, Number 2, Fall 2012).

This special AAPI Nexus issue examines Asian American experiences in global cities through comparative studies of Los Angeles and New York. The demographic facts are astonishing — more than a quarter of the sixteen million Asian Americans reside in either of the two greater metropolises where they comprise more than a tenth of the total population in each region. Consequently, it is difficult to fully understand and appreciate Asian American experiences without studying these two global cities.

The comparative approach offers great analytical potential because it can generate insights into what phenomena transcend regions and patterns that are produced by factors and forces common to Asian Americans regardless of location and fundamental global-city processes. The comparative approach can also identify phenomena that are unique to each region, such as outcomes of specific local and regional structures and dynamics. . . .

Our hope is that this issue will be a stimulus to further theorizing and empirical analyses of Asian Americans in global cities including those beyond Los Angeles and New York. . . . Scholarly research, however, is not sufficient. Our goal was to compile a set of articles that contributes to engaged practices. . . . We believe that this principle should be integral to future comparative work.

List of articles:

• Shih, Howard and Melany De La Cruz-Viesca. “A Tale of Two Global Cities: The State of Asian Americans in Los Angeles and New York.”

• Nakaoka, Susan. “Cultivating a Cultural Home Space: The Case of Little Tokyo’s Budokan of Los Angeles Project.”

• Sze, Lena. “This is Part of Our History: Preserving Garment Manufacturing and a Sense of Home in Manhattan’s Chinatown.”

• Le, C.N. “New Dimensions of Self-Employment among Asian Americans in Los Angeles and New York.”

• Rotramel, Ariella. “We Make the Spring Rolls, They Make Their Own Rules: Filipina Domestic Workers’ Fight for Labor Rights in New York City and Los Angeles.”

• Chang, Benji and Juhyung Harold Lee. “Community-Based? Asian American Students, Parents, and Teachers in Shifting Chinatowns of New York and Los Angeles.”

Yep, Kathleen S. 2012. “Peddling Sport: Liberal Multiculturalism and the Racial Triangulation of Blackness, Chineseness and Native American-ness in Professional Basketball.” Ethnic and Racial Studies. 35(6):971–987.

• Abstract: Abstract Deploying liberal multiculturalist discourse, the media depicts professional basketball as a post-racial space where all talented players, regardless of their race, can thrive if they work hard. An analysis of the construction of non-white players in the 1930s and in 2010 demonstrates sport as modulated by racially charged discourse. As part of a liberal multiculturalist frame, the coding of basketball players as hero, threat and novelty serve to privilege whiteness and replicate racialized and gendered images that can be traced to the 1930s. In doing so, the article highlights how liberal multiculturalism involves racial triangulation and the simultaneous processes of hyper-racialization and de-racialization.

Kiang, Lisa, Jamie Lee Peterson, and Taylor L Thompson. 2011. “Ethnic Peer Preferences Among Asian American Adolescents in Emerging Immigrant Communities.” Journal of Research on Adolescence. 21(4):754–761.

• Abstract: Growing diversity and evidence that diverse friendships enhance psychosocial success highlight the importance of understanding adolescents’ ethnic peer preferences. Using social identity and social contact frameworks, the ethnic preferences of 169 Asian American adolescents (60% female) were examined in relation to ethnic identity, perceived discrimination, and language proficiency. Adolescents with same- and mixed-ethnic friends reported significantly greater ethnic centrality than those with mostly different-ethnic friends. Adolescents with same-ethnic friends reported significantly higher perceived discrimination and lower English proficiency than those with mixed- and different-ethnic friends. Open-ended responses were linked to quantitative data and provided further insight into specific influences on peer preferences (e.g., shared traditions, homophily). Results speak to the importance of cultural experiences in structuring the friendships and everyday lives of adolescents.

Narui, Mitsu. 2011. “Understanding Asian/American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Experiences from a Poststructural Perspective.” Journal of Homosexuality. 58(9):1211–1234.

• Abstract: This study explores the college experiences of nine Asian/American gay, lesbian, and bisexual students and, specifically, the impact of concealing or revealing their sexual orientation on their emerging sense of self. By utilizing a Foucauldian, poststructural theoretical perspective, the researcher found that the students navigated multiple discourses, and their decisions about revealing their sexual orientation were based on relationships formed within those discourses. These decisions, in turn, helped many of the students grasp their emerging agency within the dominant discourse. To conclude, the researcher discusses the implications of these findings for higher education as a whole.

Diaz, Maria-elena D. 2012. “Asian Embeddedness and Political Participation: Social Integration and Asian-American Voting Behavior in the 2000 Presidential Election.” Sociological Perspectives. 55(1):141–166.

• Abstract: Despite the abundance of electoral research, a recurring finding is that Asian-Americans in multivariate analyses are less likely to vote compared to all other Americans. Yet Asians have high levels of education and income, the strongest predictors of voting behavior. This article goes beyond individual-level characteristics and examines how the ways in which Asian-Americans are connected to communities moderate individual-level characteristics and influence their electoral participation. Using hierarchical generalized linear modeling, variability in Asian-American voting behavior is studied with 2000 Current Population Survey voting data and county data primarily from the 2000 U.S. Census. The main findings are that social integration, either by highly assimilating communities or through ethnic organizing, facilitates political incorporation and electoral participation. Where neither condition exists, Asian-Americans are less likely to vote.

Pih, Kay Kei‐ho, Akihiko Hirose, and KuoRay Mao. 2012. “The Invisible Unattended: Low‐wage Chinese Immigrant Workers, Health Care, and Social Capital in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley.” Sociological Inquiry. 82(2):236–256.

• Abstract: This study investigates the factors affecting the availability of health insurance, the accessibility of health care, and the dissemination of the relevant information among low-wage Chinese immigrants in Southern California by relying on the concepts of social and cultural capital. Using community-based research and in-depth interviews, our study suggests that a severe shortage in health care coverage among low-wage Chinese immigrants is influenced by the lack of employment with employer-provided health insurance within the Chinese “ethnoburb” community. Although the valuable social capital generated by Chinese immigrant networks seems to be sufficient enough to provide them with certain practical resources, the lack of cultural capital renders the social network rather ineffective in providing critical health care information from mainstream American society.

Zonta, Michela M. 2012. “The Continuing Significance of Ethnic Resources: Korean-Owned Banks in Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 38(3):463–484.

• Abstract: Mirroring the geographic expansion of the Korean population and Korean-owned businesses beyond long-established enclaves, Korean-owned banks can increasingly be found in areas where the presence of mainstream banks is more visible and competition is potentially stronger. Yet, despite competition, Korean banks continue to expand and thrive. By focusing on the recent development of Korean banking in Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC, this article explores the role of ethnic resources in the expansion of Korean banking outside their protected market. Findings suggest that ethnic resources and ties to ethnic enclaves are still important in supporting the ethnic economy in environments characterised by weaker ties and increasing competition by mainstream businesses.

Spencer, James H., Petrice R. Flowers, and Jungmin Seo. 2012. “Post-1980s Multicultural Immigrant Neighbourhoods: Koreatowns, Spatial Identities and Host Regions in the Pacific Rim.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 38(3):437–461.

• Abstract: Recent trends in migration across the Pacific Rim have suggested that neighbourhoods have become important sources of community identity, requiring a re-evaluation of the relationship between urban places and immigrants. Specifically, we argue that the notion of ethnic enclaves may not fit well with some of the newer, post-1980s immigrant populations in Pacific Rim cities. Using data from the cases of Los Angeles, Tokyo and Beijing, we argue that Korean settlement in these cities represents a new kind of immigrant neighbourhood that links Korean migrants with other migrant communities, consumers in the broader region and local government interests to produce places that mitigate increasingly multicultural and multi-ethnic urban hierarchies in their localities. This role has become particularly important regarding real estate and economic development strategies.

Yoon, In-Jin. 2012. “Migration and the Korean Diaspora: A Comparative Description of Five Cases.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 38(3):413–435.

• Abstract: The international migration and settlement of Koreans began in 1860 and there are now about 6.8 million overseas Koreans in 170 countries. Each wave of Korean migration was driven by different historical factors in the homeland and the host countries, and hence the motivations and characteristics of Korean immigrants in each period were different. The diverse conditions in and government policies of the host countries also affected the mode of entry and incorporation of Koreans. A contrast is drawn between the ?old? and the ?new? Korean migrations. The former consists of those who migrated to Russia, China, America and Japan from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. They were from the lower classes, pushed out by poverty, war and oppression in the homeland. Few returned to the homeland but preserved their collective identities and ethnic cultures in their host societies. The new migrants to America, Europe and Latin America since the 1960s, however, come from middle-class backgrounds, are pulled by better opportunities in the host countries, travel freely between the homeland and host countries, and maintain transnational families and communities. Despite these differences, overseas Koreans share common experiences and patterns of immigration, settlement and adaptation.

Call for Papers: North American Chinese Sociologists Conference

Call for Papers
The 2012 North American Chinese Sociologists Association (NACSA) Annual Conference
Denver, Colorado, August 16, 2012

The 2012 NACSA Annual Conference will be held on August 16th in Denver, Colorado, following the great tradition of our association to hold a one-day mini-conference prior to the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association (August 17-21, 2012). The aim of this year’s conference is broadly defined to be two-fold: to promote scholarly research on Chinese society, culture, economy, and immigrant life in the greater Chinese Diaspora, and to continue building bridges and guanxi among scholars of Chinese heritage and non-Chinese ancestry in North America, Asia, and other parts of the world.

Theme(s)
The themes of this year’s conference are open. We call for submissions of regular papers/panels and will let themes emerge from the submissions. We encourage scholars and graduate students from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the greater Chinese Diaspora to submit papers/panels in either English or Chinese.

Sessions
The 2012 mini-conference plans to hold 8 concurrent sessions and a plenary session.

Submission Deadline: Early May, 2012 (email hao@jhu.edu if you need more time). Submit your paper or abstract via email to: Lingxin Hao (hao@jhu.edu).

Individual papers: Complete papers or paper abstracts will be considered. Paper abstracts may be 1-2 pages but must contain sufficient detail and evidence of timely completion for the program committee in its decision making. Papers to be presented at the ASA are eligible for this submission. List the authors’ and coauthors’ names, organizational affiliations, and email addresses.

Panels: Any NACSA member can organize a panel. Each panel should consist of three presenters and a discussant. The panel organizer must submit a proposal specifying the theme of the panel along with the
summaries/abstracts of the papers selected. List all panelists’ names, organizational affiliations, and email addresses.

Submissions may be in English or in Chinese. The program committee assumes that the language used in individual papers/abstracts or panel proposals would be the same as the language used in presentation at the
annual conference. Papers should be formatted in Word or pdf and sent as an attached file.

Acceptance Announcement: Mid May, 2012
Email announcements to all organizers/discussants/authors about the tentative panels to which their presentations are assigned. A formal acceptance letter will be provided to all the authors for their
travel funding application and/or visa application purposes.

Visit http://www.nacsa.net/ for a tentative annual conference program after June 15 of 2012.

Full Paper Submission Deadline: August 1, 2012
A full paper is to be submitted to the organizer/presider/discussant of the assigned session.

Contact Persons:
Professor Lingxin Hao
President of NACSA
Department of Sociology
Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218, U.S.A.
Tel. 410-516-4022; Email hao@jhu.edu

Registration Fee
The registration fee for each participant is US$15 for regular and associate members, US$10 for students. Fees may be paid in form of a personal check or a bank draft, payable to “NACSA,” via regular mail prior to Augest 1, 2010 or on site in Atlanta. Checks should be sent to the treasurer: Professor Yang Cao, Department of Sociology, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC, 28223, U.S.A.

Travel Funds
All participants will be responsible for their own traveling to and from the conference. NACSA would be happy to assist you in applying for travel funds.

Membership Renewal
Current members should renew their 2011 membership. The membership fee is $15 for regular member, $10 for associate member, $5 for student member, and $300 life-time member. Both current and new members may fill out their membership forms (see attached) and mail them with their membership dues in checks or bank drafts, payable to “NACSA,” to Professor Yang Cao, Department of Sociology, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC, 28223, U.S.A.

Summer Institute: Global Migration and Health

7th Summer Institute on Global Migration and Health
Los Angeles, California, USA
June 25-29, 2012

The 7th Summer Institute on Migration and Global Health is an international event that offers researchers, faculty, graduate students and professionals working with migrant communities around the world, a unique opportunity to learn about different health issues that affect mobile populations. International experts will present on the relationship between migration and global health from public health, public policy, and social science perspectives.

The five-day course includes a combination of lectures, workshops, and field trips, offering an exceptional opportunity to learn and to create professional networks.

Date: June 25-29, 2012
Place: Monday- Wednesday: The California Endowment, Los Angeles Conference Center
Thursday: University of California Los Angeles
Friday: Consulate of Mexico in Los Angeles

Registration Fee: Early Registration (by May 28th): Students $290, Professionals $450
After May 28th: Students $350, Professionals $540
Poster session: Deadline to submit abstracts to Liliana.Osorio@sdcounty.ca.gov: May 14, 2012

The event will be in English. For more information and to register please visit our website.

Call for Submissions: Asian American Studies

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, a refereed scholarly journal based in Taipei, Taiwan, is planning a special issue on Asian American Studies.

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies
Vol. 39 No. 2 | September 2013

Special Topic Call for Papers: “Phantom Asian America”
Deadline for Submissions: January 31, 2013

Since its emergence in the late 1960s, Asian American studies has gained ground in the academy, and yet the term “Asian America”itself remains in doubt. Where is Asian America? Who are Asian Americans? What constitutes Asian American experience and who is qualified to speak for and about Asian Americans? Why does “Asian American” remain an appealing identity category despite its inherent vagueness?

The special topic “Phantom Asian America”invites essays that probe into histories, literatures and other modes of cultural expression to reflect on the making and meaning of Asian America. We invoke the image of the “phantom” to highlight not only the instability and permeability of Asian America but also the haunting power and affecting forces of Asian American experiences.

Issues of concern may include: Is Asian America a “phantom” entity? How has the presence of Asian Americans as “spectral” others infiltrated Asia and America and caused changes in social structures and cultural coalitions? Is “Asian American” (as both an identity category and an instituted discipline/discourse) haunted by its own ghostly others? Who are the “phantom figures” occupying the margins of Asian America and what are their stories? With what strategies could we excavate the “phantom histories”-histories repressed and untold-about Asian America?

“Phantom Asian America”also welcomes articles that meditate on the “phantastic” lure of Asian American identity in transnational contexts. How have Asian American cultures been circulated and received around the globe? How could we re-appraise Asian American histories and cultures in a world of shifting borders and
transnational links? What does it mean to teach and undertake Asian American studies outside the United States, especially in Asia? Is “Asian American” a substantive presence in Asia or a phantom of Asia’s desire for globality? This special topic encourages contributors to move beyond a narrowly defined Asian America to explore its “phantomistic” circumferencesand permutations, with attention to the networks of power and affect between, as well as beyond, Asia and America.

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published two times per year by the Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan. Concentric is devoted to offering innovative perspectives on literary and cultural issues and advancing the transcultural exchange of ideas. While committed to bringing Asian-based scholarship to the world academic community, Concentric welcomes original contributions from diverse national and cultural backgrounds.

Each issue of Concentric publishes groups of essays on a special topic as well as papers on more general issues. The focus can be on any historical period and any region. Any critical method may be employed as long as the paper demonstrates a distinctive contribution to scholarship in the field. Please visit our website for more information and submission guidelines.

Campaign for Asian American Studies at Williams College

Dear Supporters,

Please take a few seconds to sign a letter of support to bring attention to faculty, Committee for Educational Policy, and administration the importance of Asian American Studies at Williams College by clicking here and forwarding this to your respective organization.

I am emailing you on behalf of the Campaign for Asian American Studies at Williams. As a member of the AAPI community, I am asking you for your support of our efforts.

We understand the lack of resources available on this campus, but after more than 20 years of fighting to stabilize this intellectual endeavor at Williams only to feel from both administration and faculty that this study is not a priority. We are willing to work with the administration and the CEP to institutionalize AA Studies in the curriculum either by creating a separate program or to combine with an already existing department. We need your support to show the faculty and administration that there is widespread support for AA Studies. If we can prove to them that individuals outside of the Williams community see its significance in the Williams curriculum, they will be more likely to open up to our suggestions as we work together towards our goal.

AA Studies is an ethnic study, not an area studies such as Asian Studies. The understanding of the Asian American experience both in America and across the globe is a legitimate and growing intellectual field since the 60s. We are trying to convince the CEP, administration, and faculty to recognize its significance given our current resource-limited situation. We cannot do this without your and your organization’s help. The Asian American experience includes a broad group of individuals including South Asians, South East Asians, East Asians, and those from the Middle East.

We need your and your organization to help stand with us. It only takes one electronic signature from each person in your organization for us all to make a difference in the Williams curriculum. Please forward this email to your organization at large. If you would like more information about what we are all about, please check out aastudieswilliams.wordpress.com. Also, please urge your members to sign our petition here.

Thank you.
Campaign for Asian American Studies at Williams

Teaching Fellowships in China

OYCF Teaching Fellowships 2012-13

The Overseas Young Chinese Forum (“OYCF”), a non-profit organization based in the United States, is pleased to announce that it is now accepting applications for its Teaching Fellowships, which sponsor short term teaching trips by overseas scholars or professionals (Chinese or non-Chinese) to universities or other comparable advanced educational institutions in China. The subjects of teaching include all fields of humanities and social sciences, such as anthropology, art, communication, economics, education, geography, law, literatures, philosophy, political science, sociology, etc.

OYCF will grant thirteen fellowship awards to support short term teaching trips during the Academic Year of 2012-13, including five OYCF-Ford fellowships in the amount of $2,500 each and nine OYCF-Gregory C. and Paula K. Chow fellowships in the amount of $2,000 each. The application deadline is August 15, 2012. Awards will be announced on September 15, 2012.

If you have a Ph.D., J.D., J.S.D. or a comparable graduate degree from, or is currently an advanced doctoral candidate (having passed the Ph.D. qualification examination and finished at least three years of graduate studies) in a university in North America or other areas outside China, and are interested in teaching a covered subject in a college or graduate school in Mainland China, please find online the Information and Application Procedures for the OYCF Teaching Fellowships at http://www.oycf.org/Teach/application.DOC. Ph.D. students are highly encouraged to apply because an independent teaching experience will add significant weight in the resumes and help build strong connection with China’s academia. We also give preference to advanced Ph.D. student applicants who would combine this teaching opportunity with their dissertational research in China.

As noted therein, preference will be given to teaching proposals that include comparative or interdisciplinary perspectives; are about subjects that China is in relative shortage of teachers; or will be conducted at universities in inland provinces and regions. This year, we dedicate at least 3-4 fellowships as the Central or Western Region Teaching Fellowships to teaching fellows who plan to teach in an inland province or autonomous region. Accordingly, teaching proposals specifically designed for teaching in these regions are especially welcome.

To submit your application, you will need an application form, a brief letter of interest, curriculum vitae or resume, a detailed course syllabus, an invitation letter from your host institution in China. Detailed instruction and application form can be found at the above web link. For more information about OYCF or its teaching program, please visit http://www.oycf.org. For questions concerning OYCF Teaching Fellowships or their application process, please contact Qiang Fu at qf6@soc.duke.edu.

Black Power, Yellow Power, and the Making of Revolutionary Identities, by Rychetta Watkins (University Press of Mississippi)

Images of upraised fists, afros, and dashikis have long dominated the collective memory of Black Power and its proponents. The “guerilla” figure-taking the form of the black-leather-clad revolutionary within the Black Panther Party-has become an iconic trope in American popular culture. That politically radical figure, however, has been shaped as much by Asian American cultural discourse as by African American political ideology. From the Asian-African Conference held in April of 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, onward to the present, Afro-Asian political collaboration has been active and influential.

In Black Power, Yellow Power, and the Making of Revolutionary Identities, author Rychetta Watkins uses the guerilla figure as a point of departure and shows how the trope’s rhetoric animates discourses of representation and identity in African American and Asian American literature and culture. In doing so, she examines the notion of “Power,” in terms of ethnic political identity, and explores collaborating-and sometimes competing-ethnic interests that have drawn ideas from the concept.

The project brings together a range of texts-editorial cartoons, newspaper articles, novels, visual propaganda, and essays-that illustrate the emergence of this subjectivity in Asian American and African American cultural productions during the Power period, roughly 1966 through 1981. After a case study of the cultural politics of academic anthologies and the cooperation between Frank Chin and Ishmael Reed, the volume culminates with analyses of this trope in Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Alice Walker’s Meridian, and John Okada’s No No Boy.

The Oriental Obscene: Violence and Racial Fantasies in the Vietnam Era, by Sylvia Shin Huey Chong (Duke University Press)

The Oriental Obscene is a sophisticated analysis of Americans’ reactions to visual representations of the Vietnam War, such as the photograph of the “napalm girl,” news footage of the Tet Offensive, and feature films from The Deer Hunter to Rambo: First Blood Part II. Sylvia Shin Huey Chong combines psychoanalytic and film theories with U.S. cultural history to explain what she terms the oriental obscene: racialized fantasies that Americans derived largely from images of Asians as the perpetrators or victims of extreme violence.

Chong contends that these fantasies helped Americans to process the trauma of the Vietnam War, as well as the growth of the Asian American population after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the postwar immigration of Southeast Asian refugees. The oriental obscene animated a wide range of political narratives, not only the movements for and against the war, but causes as diverse as the Black Power movement, law-and-order conservatism, second-wave feminism, and the nascent Asian American movement. During the Vietnam era, pictures of Asian bodies were used to make sense of race, violence, and America’s identity at home and abroad.

Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas, by Esther Kim Lee (Duke University Press)

Showcasing the dynamism of contemporary Korean diasporic theater, this anthology features seven plays by second-generation Korean diasporic writers from the United States, Canada, and Chile. By bringing the plays together in this collection, Esther Kim Lee highlights the range of themes and styles that have enlivened Korean diasporic theater in the Americas since the 1990s. Some of the plays are set in urban Koreatowns. One takes place in the middle of Texas, while another unfolds entirely in a character’s mind. Ethnic identity is not as central as it was in the work of previous generations of Asian diasporic playwrights.

In these plays, dramas of diaspora and displacement are likely to be part of broader stories, such as the difficulties faced by a young mother trying to balance family and career. Running through those stories are themes of assimilation, authenticity, family, memory, trauma, and gender-related expectations of success. Lee’s introduction includes a brief history of the Korean peninsula in the twentieth century and of South Korean immigration to the Americas, along with an overview of Asian American theater and the place of Korean American theater within it. Each play is preceded by a brief biography of the playwright and a summary of the play’s production history.

The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema, by Gina Marchetti (Temple University Press)

The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens looks at the way in which issues of race and sexuality have become central concerns in cinema generated by and about Chinese communities in America after the mid-1990s. This companion volume to Marchetti’s From Tian’anmen to Times Square looks specifically at the Chinese diaspora in relation to ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual identity as depicted in the cinema.

Examining films from the United States and Canada, as well as transnational co-productions, The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens includes analyses of films such as The Wedding Banquet and Double Happiness in addition to interviews with celebrated filmmakers such as Wayne Wang. Marchetti also reflects on how Chinese identity is presented in a multitude of media forms, including commercial cinema, documentaries, experimental films, and hybrid digital media to offer a textured look at representations of the Chinese diasporic experience after Tian’anmen.

Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian American Manhoods in the Movies, by Celine Shimizu (Stanford University Press)

Depictions of Asian American men as effeminate or asexual pervade popular movies. Hollywood has made clear that Asian American men lack the qualities inherent to the heroic heterosexual male. This restricting, circumscribed vision of masculinity—a straitjacketing, according to author Celine Parreñas Shimizu—aggravates Asian American male sexual problems both on and off screen.

Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian American Manhoods in the Movies looks to cinematic history to reveal the dynamic ways Asian American men, from Bruce Lee to Long Duk Dong, create and claim a variety of masculinities. Representations of love, romance, desire, and lovemaking show how Asian American men fashion manhoods that negotiate the dynamics of self and other, expanding our ideas of sexuality. The unique ways in which Asian American men express intimacy is powerfully represented onscreen, offering distinct portraits of individuals struggling with group identities. Rejecting “macho” men, these movies stake Asian American manhood on the notion of caring for, rather than dominating, others.

Straitjacket Sexualities identifies a number of moments in the movies wherein masculinity is figured anew. By looking at intimate relations on screen, power as sexual prowess and brute masculinity is redefined, giving primacy to the diverse ways Asian American men experience complex, ambiguous, and ambivalent genders and sexualities.

Video Contest: Asian American Justice Center

Asian American Justice Center (AAJC) and the American Community Survey (ACS) Public Service Announcement Video Contest

ABOUT THE ACS: The Census Bureau administers the ACS, which provides detailed information for many Asian American population groups that can’t be obtained anywhere else. The government needs information about you that will affect resource distribution for many services Asian American families need, including schools and roads. Your PSA video submission will help spread the word on the importance of the ACS in building better communities for Asian Americans and encourage others to participate if they receive the survey.

Contest Guidelines:

• Your video must address why the ACS is important for the Asian American community and/or the individual’s Asian American family (see attached for more information)
• Your video must note in some fashion that the information provided by respondents to the ACS is confidential and protected by law (i.e. the Census Bureau cannot share your information with anyone else, not even other federal agencies.)
• Your video must incorporate an image of the American Community Survey somehow
• Your video must be 90 seconds in length
• Please submit the following information in an e-mail body accompanying your entry attachment: name, phone number, e-mail, brief explanation of your submission
• Please submit original work only
• Entries must be submitted in any of the following formats: AVI, MPG, WMV, and MPEG
• Signed release forms are required for copyrighted images or materials. Release forms are also needed for “subjects,” whether private or public citizens
• Multiple entries may be submitted
• Must be 18 years of age to participate

Grand Prize of $1,000
Two Runner-Up Prizes of $500

Deadline for Submissions: April 16, 2012. Submit all entries to: psacontest@advancingequality.org. By submitting a PSA entry to: psacontest@advancingequality.org I consent to the following terms & conditions:

In consideration for submitting my video submission to the contest, I hereby grant, consent and authorize the Asian American Justice Center, its affiliates, licensees, successors, assigns, legal representatives, agents, employees and contractors (“AAJC”) the irrevocable and unrestricted right to use, reuse, publish and republish such video/PSA for any purpose and in any manner or medium (e.g. print or electronic medium such as publications, marketing materials and Web content), and to alter the same without any restriction, as AAJC may determine in its sole discretion. AAJC reserves the right to not publish or otherwise use your video in the event AAJC determines, in its sole discretion, that your video contains inappropriate language, content, etc. I hereby release AAJC from any and all claims and liability relating to such video/PSA.

For more contest rules and information click here.

Networking Event: Asian Americans in Boston

Asian|Boston Media Group (ABMG) is proud to announce the 5th Asian|Boston Networking Event, the ABNE-V. At this event, we will also be unveiling the first annual ‘ABMG Awards.’ This program was established to recognize Asian Americans, who reside and contribute to New England and New York, via excellence in their respective fields of media, high-technology, medicine, education, etc.

ABMG’s inaugural award will be in the media division, and will be presented during the event. It’s an honor to announce that the recipient of the first annual ABMG’s ‘Distinguished Asian-American in Media’ award is . . . WHDH-TV’s 7News Reporter, Susan Tran.

The ABNE-V and ABMG Awards Ceremony will be held on Thursday, April 26th, at Hei La Moon Restaurant in Chinatown. Time: 6:30pm-9:30pm. Interested in being a Presenter at the ABNE-V? ‘Presenters’ are individuals or businesses that do short 3-minute promotions for their particular cause, ideas, new business ventures, etc. (Please see below for guest ticket info and how to become a ‘Presenter’). We will be honored to see you at the ABNE-V.

Best regards,
Leo Anthony

Location:
Hei La Moon Restaurant
88 Beach St
Chinatown, Boston (617) 338-8813

There is a parking garage adjacent to the restaurant.

Event Details:

• Please RSVP by Monday, April 23rd, to info@asianboston.com
• $20 per person at door. Includes buffet dinner
• Cash Bar
• For group or student discounts, please contact Ted at woo77@comcast.net

How to Become a Presenter:
Please send a Presenter request with your business topic to Ted at woo77@comcast.net.

About Asian|Boston Media Group
Asian|Boston Media Group (AB|MG) is the first media company for the entire Asian community of the northeastern United States, with an ever-growing national/international interest. It is our goal to utilize the most reputable resources in order to deliver products of unparalleled quality. Our market is the most rapidly growing demographic in the United States, and we are expanding accordingly.

Call for Applications: Vietnamese American Social Justice Training

We’re excited to announce the call for applications for Hai Ba Trung School for Organizing, 2012! This is a progressive training program for young Vietnamese Americans. Please forward widely.

Hai Bà Trưng School for Organizing, 2012

The Hai Bà Trưng School for Organizing is a training program for young organizers, ages 18-25. As a participant, you’ll have the opportunity to explore what it means to be a progressive Vietnamese American, learn the basics of organizing theory and skills, and connect to local Vietnamese American organizers doing social justice work. The training will focus on best practices and challenges unique to organizing in the Vietnamese community.

The training will be held from June 22 to June 24, 2012 (Friday-Sunday) in Los Angeles and Orange County. In alignment with election season, this year’s training may explore electoral organizing and its challenges and opportunities for the Viet community. Click here to download the application. The deadline to submit applications is no later than: Friday April 27, 2012 by 5pm to hbt.organize@gmail.com.

The School’s planning committee is made up of Vietnamese American progressives with experience in organizing youth, low-wage workers, immigrants, and women from diverse communities. We have worked in non-profit organizations as well as volunteer groups, and believe in building the capacity of the Vietnamese American community to work for social justice. For questions, email us at hbt.organize@gmail.com.

Fellowship: Japanese American Citizens League

The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the nation’s oldest and largest Asian American civil and human rights organization, is now accepting applications for the 2012-2013 JACL Mike M. Masaoka Congressional Fellowship.

The Mike M. Masaoka Fellowship Fund was established in 1988 to honor Mike M. Masaoka for a lifetime of public service to the JACL and the nation. Masaoka was the JACL’s national secretary, field executive, national legislative director of the JACL’s Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the JACL Washington, D.C. Representative. He worked tirelessly to advance the cause of Japanese Americans during difficult times in our history. He was instrumental in the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and for the abolition of many discriminatory laws against Asian Americans. He passed away in 1991.

The Fund was set up by good friends of Mike Masaoka. Dr. H. Tom Tamaki of Philadelphia administered the program for the JACL for twenty years since its inception in 1988. The JACL Washington, D.C. office now administers the Masaoka Fellowship.

The JACL Masaoka Fellows are placed in the Washington D.C. Congressional offices of members of the U.S.House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate for a period of six to eight months. The major purpose of the Masaoka Fellowship is to develop leaders for public service. The current Masaoka Fellow is Mackenzie Walker, who is working in the office of Congresswoman Judy Chu of California.

Floyd Mori, National Executive Director of the JACL, stated: “The Mike M. Masaoka Fellowship is a wonderful program which gives young people the opportunity to work in the office of a member of Congress and to learn the workings of government firsthand. The friends of Mike Masaoka had great foresight in establishing the Fund for the Fellowship to develop leadership.”

National JACL President, David Kawamoto, said: “We encourage young members of the JACL who are college graduates to apply for this Fellowship which offers a unique experience for service in the nation’s capital. We anticipate that these young people will be our future leaders in the JACL.”

Interested college graduates may find further details and application materials at our website. Applicants must be current members of the JACL. Applications should be submitted to the JACL Washington, D.C. office as per instructions on the website. The deadline for applications is May 20, 2012. The announcement of the selected Fellow is expected to be made by July 1, 2012.

Fellowship: National Gay & Lesbian Task Force

National Gay & Lesbian Task Force: 2012 Summer Academy Fellowship

Application Deadline: Monday April 30, 2012. Decisions will be made and communicated by June 29. Placement dates are July 30–November 9, 2012.

What is the Academy for Leadership and Action?

The Task Force’s Academy for Leadership and Action (the Academy) prepares leaders to fill the staff, board, and volunteer roles critical to the success of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement. Through direct action we strive to win immediate policy gains, develop leadership and long-term organizational capacity and build stronger alliances between secular and religious communities.

The Task Force is committed to building a social justice movement where everyone can be their full selves. We work with individuals and communities that reflect the full spectrum of LGBT people and their allies. We bring a racial and economic justice analysis to all of our movement building work and makes explicit the connections to struggles against systematic oppression. The Academy for Leadership and Action’s ultimate goal is to build movements, leaders and organizations that transform society.
What is the Summer Academy Fellowship?

This isn’t your average fellowship — this is your chance to create change! The Academy Fellowship is a paid social justice fellowship that’s furiously intense. The program provides the first-hand real-world experience working for social justice that is necessary for becoming a professional organizer. You’ll learn to disseminate a progressive worldview that connects LGBT issues to struggles against racism, classism, ableism, and spiritual oppression; to build relationships with a broad-cross section of other LGBT movement leaders, especially in communities of faith and communities of color; and to mobilize mass numbers of people for direct action targeted at achieving immediate political gains for the LGBT community.
Stipend and Placement

Fellows are paid a net stipend of $500 per week. The 2012 term runs for 15 weeks, from July 30–November 9, 2012. Position placement varies and fellows will need to be able to travel for long periods of time. This year potential placements and travel locations are New York City, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Maine, and Washington. Fellows are responsible for their own housing and living expenses.

Applications must be received by Monday, April 30. Decisions will be made and communicated by June 29. Questions can be sent to: Causten Wollerman, cwollerman@thetaskforce.org. Selection of fellows is based on the demonstrated critical thinking and values as observed in the application and interviews.

Call for Papers: Immigration Conference, France

Comparative and Multi-sited Approaches to International Migration
12-14 December 2012, Paris, Ined
Deadline for submission: 1st June 2012

The objective of the conference is to promote a multi-sited and comparative approach to international migration, explicitly bringing together researchers and research evidence from different parts of the world. The conference will focus on quantitative approaches to international migration that deal simultaneously with processes in places of origin and destination. Papers are welcomed across a number of areas and regions, with those that address significant policy concerns especially welcome.

Keynote speakers:

• Cris Beauchemin (Ined, France)
• Eleonora Castagnone (Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerchesull’Immigrazione, Italy)
• Katherine Donato (Vanderbilt University, USA)
• Amparo González-Ferrer (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain)
• Georges Groenewold (Nidi, the Netherlands)
• Douglas Massey (Princeton University, USA)
• Valentina Mazzucato (Maastricht University, The Netherlands)
• Emilio Parrado (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
• Bruno Schoumaker (Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
• Hania Zlotnik (Population Division-DESA, United Nations)

Time magazine is compiling their annual list of the Top 100 Most Influential People of 2012 and is giving people the opportunity to vote on whether each of their nominees should be included in the Top 100 list.

Think Jeremy Lin should be included? I certainly cast my vote for “definitely!” Among their list of nominees, there are several Asians and Asian Americans, so if you’re so inclined, cast your vote for those who you think should be included in Time’s list. The deadline for voting is Friday, April 6.

Growth Since 2000

• The Asian American population (monoracial and mixed-race) grew from 11.9 million in 2000 to 17.3 million in 2010. This represents an increase of 45.6% since 2000. This proportional increase from 2000 is the highest of all the major racial/ethnic groups (in comparison, the Latino/Hispanic population grew 43% from 2000 to 2010.

Increases Within Each Ethnic Group

• Among the six largest Asian ethnic groups (monoracial and mixed-race), who collective make up over 87% of the total Asian American population, Indians experienced the largest increase — 67.6% — since 2000. All Asian ethnic groups (monoracial and mixed-race) that had a population of at least 1,000 in 2000, Nepalese experienced large increases in their population — from 9,399 to 59,490 in 2010, an increase of 533%. Overall, the largest Asian ethnic group is the Chinese at 3.8 million (monoracial and mixed-race).

Huge Increase in Mixed-Race Asian American Population

• Mixed-race Asian Americans (those who self-identified as having some Asian ancestry) increased from 1.6 million in 2000 to 2.6 million in 2010, an increase of 60%. Of all mixed-race Asian Americans, 61% self-identified as half White and half Asian.

Geographic Distribution

• In terms of total numbers, the state with the largest Asian American population, not surprisingly, is California — 5.6 million Asian Americans lived in the Golden State in 2010 and they represented 14.9% of California’s total population. But the state with the highest proportion of its residents being Asian American is Hawai’i — 57.4% of the Aloha State’s population is Asian American. The state that experienced the biggest increase in its Asian American population from 2000 to 2010 is Nevada — from 112,246 to 242,916, an increase of 114%.

  The first map below shows the proportion of Asian Americans by county in 2010. The second map shows the growth of Asian American residents by county in 2010.

Again, you can read more findings from the 2010 Census about the Asian American population in the Census Bureau’s recently-released summary report, The Asian Population: 2010.

Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community Since 1870, by Huping Ling (Stanford University Press)

Numerous studies have documented the transnational experiences and local activities of Chinese immigrants in California and New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Less is known about the vibrant Chinese American community that developed at the same time in Chicago. In this sweeping account, Huping Ling offers the first comprehensive history of Chinese in Chicago, beginning with the arrival of the pioneering Moy brothers in the 1870s and continuing to the present.

Ling focuses on how race, transnational migration, and community have defined Chinese in Chicago. Drawing upon archival documents in English and Chinese, she charts how Chinese made a place for themselves among the multiethnic neighborhoods of Chicago, cultivating friendships with local authorities and consciously avoiding racial conflicts.

Ling takes readers through the decades, exploring evolving family structures and relationships, the development of community organizations, and the operation of transnational businesses. She pays particular attention to the influential role of Chinese in Chicago’s academic and intellectual communities and to the complex and conflicting relationships among today’s more dispersed Chinese Americans in Chicago.

Uncle Swami: South Asians in America Today, by Vijay Prashad (The New Press)

Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center, misdirected assaults on Sikhs and other South Asians flared on streets across the nation, serving as harbingers of a more suspicious, less discerning, and increasingly fearful world view that would drastically change ideas of belonging and acceptance in America.

Weaving together distinct strands of recent South Asian immigration to the United States, Uncle Swami creates a richly textured analysis of the systems and sentiments behind shifting notions of cultural identity in a post 9/11 world. Vijay Prashad continues the conversation sparked by his celebrated work The Karma of Brown Folk and confronts the experience of migration across an expanse of generations and class divisions, from the birth of political activism among second generation immigrants to the meteoric rise of South Asian American politicians in Republican circles to the migrant workers who suffer in the name of American capitalism.

A powerful new indictment of American imperialism at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Uncle Swami restores a diasporic community to its full-fledged complexity, beyond model minorities and the specters of terrorism.

Samurai among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life, by Diane C. Fujino (University of Minnesota Press)

An iconic figure of the Asian American movement, Richard Aoki (1938–2009) was also, as the most prominent non-Black member of the Black Panther Party, a key architect of Afro-Asian solidarity in the 1960s and ’70s. His life story exposes the personal side of political activism as it illuminates the history of ethnic nationalism and radical internationalism in America.

A reflection of this interconnection, Samurai among Panthers weaves together two narratives: Aoki’s dramatic first-person chronicle and an interpretive history by a leading scholar of the Asian American movement, Diane C. Fujino. Aoki’s candid account of himself takes us from his early years in Japanese American internment camps to his political education on the streets of Oakland, to his emergence in the Black Panther Party.

As his story unfolds, we see how his parents’ separation inside the camps and his father’s illegal activities shaped the development of Aoki’s politics. Fujino situates his life within the context of twentieth-century history—World War II, the Cold War, and the protests of the 1960s. She demonstrates how activism is both an accidental and an intentional endeavor and how a militant activist practice can also promote participatory democracy and social service.

The result of these parallel voices and analysis in Samurai among Panthers is a complex—and sometimes contradictory—portrait of a singularly extraordinary activist and an expansion and deepening of our understanding of the history he lived.

Chinese Mexicans: Transpacific Migration and the Search for a Homeland, 1910-1960, by Julia Maria Schiavone Camacho (University of North Carolina Press)

At the turn of the twentieth century, a wave of Chinese men made their way to the northern Mexican border state of Sonora to work and live. The ties–and families–these Mexicans and Chinese created led to the formation of a new cultural identity: Chinese Mexican. During the tumult of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, however, anti-Chinese sentiment ultimately led to mass expulsion of these people.

Julia Maria Schiavone Camacho follows the community through the mid-twentieth century, across borders and oceans, to show how they fought for their place as Mexicans, both in Mexico and abroad. Tracing transnational geography, Schiavone Camacho explores how these men and women developed a strong sense of Mexican national identity while living abroad—in the United States, briefly, and then in southeast Asia where they created a hybrid community and taught their children about the Mexican homeland.

Schiavone Camacho also addresses how Mexican women challenged their legal status after being stripped of Mexican citizenship because they married Chinese men. After repatriation in the 1930s-1960s, Chinese Mexican men and women, who had left Mexico with strong regional identities, now claimed national cultural belonging and Mexican identity in ways they had not before.

Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco’s Chinatown, by Guenter B. Risse (Johns Hopkins University Press)

When health officials in San Francisco discovered bubonic plague in their city’s Chinatown in 1900, they responded with intrusive, controlling, and arbitrary measures that touched off a sociocultural conflict still relevant today. Guenter B. Risse’s history of an epidemic is the first to incorporate the voices of those living in Chinatown at the time, including the desperately ill Wong Chut King, believed to be the first person infected.

Lasting until 1904, the plague in San Francisco’s Chinatown reignited racial prejudices, renewed efforts to remove the Chinese from their district, and created new tensions among local, state, and federal public health officials quarreling over the presence of the deadly disease. Risse’s rich, nuanced narrative of the event draws from a variety of sources, including Chinese-language reports and accounts. He addresses the ecology of Chinatown, the approaches taken by Chinese and Western medical practitioners, and the effects of quarantine plans on Chinatown and its residents.

Risse explains how plague threatened California’s agricultural economy and San Francisco’s leading commercial role with Asia, discusses why it brought on a wave of fear mongering that drove perceptions and intervention efforts, and describes how Chinese residents organized and successfully opposed government quarantines and evacuation plans in federal court. By probing public health interventions in the setting of one of the most visible ethnic communities in United States history, Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco’s Chinatown offers insight into the clash of Eastern and Western cultures in a time of medical emergency.

The House on Lemon Street: Japanese Pioneers and the American Dream, by Mark Rawitsch (University Press of Colorado)

In 1915, Jukichi and Ken Harada purchased a house on Lemon Street in Riverside, California. Close to their restaurant, church, and children’s school, the house should have been a safe and healthy family home. Before the purchase, white neighbors objected because of the Haradas’ Japanese ancestry, and the California Alien Land Law denied them real-estate ownership because they were not citizens. To bypass the law Mr. Harada bought the house in the names of his three youngest children, who were American-born citizens. Neighbors protested again, and the first Japanese American court test of the California Alien Land Law of 1913—The People of the State of California v. Jukichi Harada—was the result.

Bringing this little-known story to light, The House on Lemon Street details the Haradas’ decision to fight for the American dream. Chronicling their experiences from their immigration to the United States through their legal battle over their home, their incarceration during World War II, and their lives after the war, this book tells the story of the family’s participation in the struggle for human and civil rights, social justice, property and legal rights, and fair treatment of immigrants in the United States.

The Harada family’s quest for acceptance illuminates the deep underpinnings of anti-Asian animus, which set the stage for Executive Order 9066, and recognizes fundamental elements of our nation’s anti-immigrant history that continue to shape the American story. It will be worthwhile for anyone interested in the Japanese American experience in the twentieth century, immigration history, public history, and law.

Vanishing Filipino Americans: The Bridge Generation, by Peter Jamero (University Press of America)

Documentation of Filipino American history is largely limited to the Manong Generation that immigrated to the United States during the early 1900s. Their second-generation children — the Bridge Generation — are now in their sixties, seventies, and eighties; however, the literature is silent regarding their life in America.

Vanishing Filipino Americans explores the Bridge Generation’s growing up years; their maturation as participants in Filipino youth clubs; their development of a unique subculture; their civic participation; and their triumphs and struggles in America’s workforce. Jamero begins the process of documenting the experiences and contributions of these second-generation Filipino Americans, addressing a significant void in the history of Filipinos in America.

Asian American Racial Realities in Black and White, by Bruce Calvin Hoskins (Lynne Rienner Publishers)

What does it mean for an Asian American to be part white or part black? Bruce Hoskins probes the experience of biracial Asian Americans, revealing the ways that our discourse about multiracial identities too often reinforces racial hierarchies.

Hoskins explores the everyday lives of people of Asian/white and Asian/black heritage to uncover the role of our society s white-black continuum in shaping racial identity. Mixing intimate personal stories with cutting-edge theoretical analysis, he directly confronts the notion that multiracial identity provides an easy solution for our society s racial stratification.

Conference: Applied Research

AAPIPRC Organizes National Conference on Applied Research

Stakeholders from the non-profit sector, government, and higher education are coming together in the first national conference to focus on collaborative policy research for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). The conference is sponsored by the Asian American and Pacific Islander Policy Research Consortium (AAPIPRC) and will take place on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 from 1-6pm at the National Education Association in Washington, D.C.

“This conference is a first step towards a powerful collaboration that will help ensure that future national policies actually take our communities into consideration in a meaningful way,” says Lisa Hasegawa, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.

Public policy impacts our daily lives, from immigration and health coverage, to neighborhood infrastructure and media institutions. Yet, there is currently no think tank focused specifically on how policy impacts AAPI communities. This conference fills that gap by promoting research that complements the existing work of advocacy, service and policy groups, while creating a pipeline for scholars interested in applied research.

“There is great need to elevate the local concerns of our growing and diverse AAPI populations to the national level,” says Tarry Hum, Associate Professor at City University of New York. “This is an opportunity to explore research collaborations that will address national policy issues from the perspectives of AAPI communities.”

There will be a special pre-conference at 10:30am for students and youth. “I’m hoping to connect my past work experience and current schooling to community-based policy and advocacy,” says Ami Patel, an Asian American Studies graduate student at UCLA, who previously organized and advocated for green jobs and tuition relief.

Co-sponsors include the National CAPACD, the White House Initiative on AAPIs, the National Education Association, and the Association for Asian American Studies.

Free registration is available at: http://www.aapiprc.com/

Founded in 2010, the Asian American and Pacific Islander Policy Research Consortium is dedicated to producing knowledge that advances the field of Policy and Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies in the United States. The consortium’s members are the CUNY Asian American / Asian Research Institute, UMass Boston Institute for Asian American Studies, UC AAPI Policy Multi-campus Research Program, and UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

Online Survey: Social Experiences of Asian American Women

Call for Asian American women (ages 18 or older) to participate in a survey and a chance to win an Amazon.com gift certificate

My name is Pauline Chan, a graduate student in the Counseling Psychology doctoral program. I am a second generation Chinese American and am working on my dissertation under the direction of Dr. Belle Liang. The study focuses on the social experiences of Asian American women. The study has been approved by the Boston College Office for Research Protections Institutional Review Board (Protocol #12.172.01A).

I am writing to ask Asian American women to participate in my online dissertation research survey and to offer an opportunity to be entered in a random drawing for an Amazon.com gift certificate for participation in the survey (5 $20 gift certificates and 2 $50 gift certificates available).

To participate in the study, participants must:

• Be 18 years or older, and
• Self-identify as a woman who is Asian American or a member of an Asian American subgroup

In this survey participants will be asked questions about social experiences in different contexts, social attitudes, culture and well-being. The survey will take approximately 35-45 minutes to complete and may be found at the following link:
https://bclynch.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5ovPhtb1hD7Ra0A

In exchange for their time, participants will be given an opportunity to enter a random drawing for an Amazon.com gift certificate when they have completed the survey. Participants who complete the survey will also be offered access to the results of the study once it is completed.

The survey responses are completely anonymous. Any name or email information given will not be linked in any way to the responses and will only be used for the purposes of distributing the gift certificates. Any individual demographic information will also remain confidential and will not be linked to any names or email addresses. Participation is completely voluntary and participants may withdraw from the study at any time.

As there are limited studies about the Asian American experience, all participant responses will be helpful in contributing to our knowledge about Asian Americans. It is my hope that the results of the study will provide insights that will help to improve the life experiences of Asian American women.

If you have any questions, please contact me at chanpa@bc.edu or 617-966-4001. You can also reach my dissertation advisor, Belle Liang, at liangbe@bc.edu or 617-552-4079. Thank you in advance for your help and your time.

Conference: South Asian Youth Leaders

Apply Now for Rise Up!
SAALT Young Leaders Institute
May 5-8, 2012 | Washington, DC
Application deadline: March 23, 2012

Are you a South Asian American college student who wants to change your campus and community? Apply to participate in Rise Up! today!

What is Rise Up! and why should I apply?
Rise Up! is a great way to build your leadership skills, meet fellow students looking to positively impact their communities, and learn how to be an effective advocate and communicator on and off campus. There is no fee to participate and travel and lodging expenses are covered by SAALT!

Rise Up! is an opportunity for 15 South Asian American college students from around the country to come together for a four day convening in Washington, DC on May 5-8, 2012.

What can you expect?

• Learn how federal policy is made and how you can impact it
• Explore important issues such as civil rights, immigration, and political participation
• Develop skills around documentation of community stories and advocacy
• Gain insight from experienced community-based leaders who will offer their advice and guidance
• Go back to your campus with an action plan to document community narratives and create policy change

Application deadline is March 23rd. Email info@saalt.org for more information.

Positions: Korean American Immigrant Rights

About NAKASEC
The National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC) is a dynamic grassroots-based organization empowering the Korean American community through education, advocacy and community organizing. We seek to project a national progressive voice and build the movement for social change. Our current program areas include Immigrant Rights, Economic Security, Youth Organizing & Leadership Development, and Civic Engagement & Voter Empowerment.

NAKASEC Seeking a Qualified Applicants for Two Positions

Postion #1: Program Associate (Immigrant Rights, Civic Engagement)
Priority Deadline: March 23, 2012

Position Description
NAKASEC is looking for a hard-working individual to become part of its team as a Program Associate supporting its Immigrant Rights Project and 2012 Civic Engagement & Voter Empowerment program. This is a Full-Time Position based in Washington, DC. Major Responsibilities Include:

• Be part of a team to develop and implement national grassroots mobilizing campaigns that includes community education, organizing, and media & online communications
• Build and maintain relationships with organizations and community members in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast region
• Assist in the coordination of a national, non-partisan voter education and mobilization campaign including educational materials development and voter research as well as supporting local field efforts for the 2012 Elections
• Research, analyze, and produce materials on relevant policy issues
• Represent NAKASEC at constituent and coalition partner meetings, events and conferences
• Support the executive director in administrative activities as necessary including producing and maintaining relevant grant reports and other documentation

Required Qualifications

• Commitment to immigrant rights, civil rights, and social justice issues
• Experience working on community issues and/or civic participation initiatives
• Results-oriented, organized and strong attention to detail
• Works well in teams but can also take initiative and work independently
• Strong written and verbal communications and interpersonal skills
• Proficiency in Korean language strongly preferred

An ideal candidate will possess previous experience in community organizing, issue-based campaign development and/or a willingness to learn; be creative; demonstrated flexibility; and willing to work some evenings and weekends. Ability to drive is a plus. Reports to: Deputy Director

To Apply:
Please send a cover letter, resume, writing sample and salary history and requirement to Morna Ha, Executive Director, mha@nakasec.org. Please write “Program Associate Search” in the subject line. Please note that due to the volume of applications we receive, we are able to only respond to those applicants whom we are interested in interviewing. No phone calls please.

NAKASEC offers a competitive salary commensurate with experience and full health & dental benefits. We are an equal opportunity employer. NAKASEC has offices in Washington DC and Los Angeles and local affiliates in Los Angeles (the Korean Resource Center) and Chicago (the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center) and works in partnership with community based organizations across the nation. Visit www.nakasec.org and/or our Facebook page for more information.

Priority deadline by March 23, 2012. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

= = = = = = = =

Position #2: Communications Intern – Spring and Summer 2012

Position Description
NAKASEC is looking for a Communications Intern for Spring and Summer 2012. He/She will assist the Deputy Director in communications and media activities and will play a critical role in the communications team implementing traditional and social media strategies. This is a full-time position, unpaid based in Washington, DC. College credit can be made available.

Major Responsibilities Include:

• Monitoring national and regional news on issues that NAKASEC and affiliates work on, compiling daily news clips for internal staff distribution and bookmarking articles online
• Updating and maintaining a database of mainstream, regional, ethnic and online journalists, producers and bloggers
• Tracking press work, creating paste-ups of placements and updating monthly media reports
• Creating and maintaining an editorial calendar for media strategies
• Assisting with drafting materials such as press releases, media advisories, biographies, pitch letters and or other correspondence
• Uploading relevant media articles and placements to Facebook, Twitter and website
• Support Deputy Director and project teams to ensure timely progress of work
• Providing general office support

Qualifications

• Commitment to immigrant rights, civil rights, and social justice issues
• Results-oriented, organized and has strong attention to detail
• Willingness to learn, ability to follow instructions, take initiative, multi-task, work quickly and be flexible
• Be a team player
• Excellent written, oral and interpersonal skills
• Ability to speak, write and understand intermediate Korean
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite (primarily Word and Excel) and Web 2.0 experience
• Bachelor’s degree or current enrollment in an undergraduate or graduate program, preferably in communications

Reports to: Deputy Director

To apply:
Please send a cover letter, resume and two writing samples to Jane Yoo, Deputy Director, jyoo@nakasec.org. Write “Communications Intern Search” in the subject line. College credit can be made available – check with your school administration for details.

Writing samples should be no longer than three pages. An article, press release or similar type of communications writing sample is preferred. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please note that due to the volume of applications we receive, we are able to only respond to those applicants whom we are interested in interviewing. No phone calls please. We are an equal opportunity employer.

NAKASEC has offices in Washington DC and Los Angeles and local affiliates in Los Angeles (the Korean Resource Center) and Chicago (the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center) and works in partnership with community based organizations across the nation. Visit www.nakasec.org and/or our Facebook page for more information. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

Scholarships: Asian American Government Network

Asian American Government Executives Network (AAGEN)
Scholarship Program 2012

The mission of AAGEN is to promote, expand and support Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) leadership in Government. In accordance with AAGEN’s mission, the scholarship program has been designed for students in their continuing education to better prepare themselves for positions of leadership and trust in the Federal, State and Local governments.

Two (2) scholarships for $1,500.00 and two (2) scholarships for $1,000 will be awarded in 2012. The AAGEN scholarship is a one-time award; former AAGEN scholarship winners are not eligible.

POLICIES, PROCEDURES, AND RULES
The Scholarship Program is administered under the general direction of the Board of Directors (BoD), but its day-to-day management is the responsibility of AAGEN’s Chairperson or the latter’s designee.

The applications for the scholarship will be accepted until April 1, 2012. The application form can be found at the AAGEN website www.aagen.org. Notification of the awardees will be made prior to each year’s annual AAGEN Leadership Conference. Announcement and presentation of the awards will be made by the Scholarship Awards Committee at the annual AAGEN Leadership Conference.

Scholarship checks will be made out to the college or university the recipient will be attending. These checks will be directly deposited into the student’s account.

SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS COMMITTEE
The AAGEN Scholarship Awards Committee has the responsibility for receiving, reviewing and judging the applications. The Committee, comprised of three members, will have a period of four (4) weeks for its deliberations. It shall prepare and submit a written recommendation of its choices for scholarship awards to the Chair of AAGEN by May 1st of each year. It shall be the latter’s responsibility to relay promptly the recommendations to the Board of Directors. The BoD’s concurrence of the Awards Committee’s recommendations shall be binding. If there is a protest from any BoD member on a particular proposed ‘awardee’, the full BoD and the Scholarship Awards Committee must come to a resolution within 2 weeks, or the award will not be made.

ELIGIBILITY FOR AWARDS
All persons submitting applications in the AAGEN Scholarship Program should be aware that the program is governed by the following requirements:

1. The application, supported by documentation (transcripts from an accredited post-secondary school for current students or from high school for students starting at a college or university), must show a record of academic excellence, service at the local, state and/or federal government, and a seriousness of purpose in pursuing post-secondary education/training goals
2. The applicant must provide information about courses which will be taken and how they will improve the applicant’s ability to serve at the local, state, and/or federal level
3. The applicant must support the principles advanced by AAGEN
4. The applicant must be a U.S. citizen or legal U.S. permanent resident

SCORING CRITERIA
Applications will be evaluated based on five (5) criteria listed below.

1. Relationship of courses to be taken (or field of study) with service at the local/state and/or federal government levels
2. Demonstration of academic achievement and excellence with a copy of either standardized test scores (SAT, ACT, GRE) and/or a 3.3 or better grade point average
3. School, employment or extra-employment activities that demonstrate a seriousness of purpose in serving at leadership positions in the local/state and/or federal government levels
4. Letters of nomination and recommendation from a school counselor, teacher, public official or an AAGEN member, who knows the applicant well and is qualified to recommend the applicant. The letters should convey information about the applicant and his/her ability to serve in leadership positions at the local, state or federal government. These letters should not be written by a family member of the applicant
5. Each applicant is required to respond to at least three of five questions listed below. Each essay must be typed or submitted on a disk or a flash drive or by e-mail; double-spaced, and contain no more than 500 words

FIVE ESSAY TOPICS
Please respond to any three of the five questions listed here. Each essay should contain no more than 500 words. Please submit these with your application.

1. What does public service mean to you and how does it relate to your future goal of serving in leadership positions at the local, state and/or federal level?
2. What experience from your own life has influenced your development into ethical leadership?
3. What are the challenges to increasing APA/minority representation and diversity in public service leadership? What solutions would you propose?
4. What are the two special attributes or capabilities that set you apart from other applicants in leadership situations?
5. What leader at the local, state or federal level has inspired you to public service?

Please send the complete electronic application package to:
Scholarship Awards Committee
Chair: Dr. Glenda Nogami
Glenda.nogami@streufert.net

FURTHER INFORMATION
If you have any questions or for additional information, please leave a message at 717-215-9782.

Conference: Asian Americans and National Policy

Expanding the Asian American and Pacific Islander Voice in National Policy
Wed. April 11, 2012
1-6pm
Location: National Education Association
1201 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20036

Registration deadline is Monday April 2nd

Public policy impacts our everyday lives, from immigration and health coverage, to neighborhood infrastructure and media institutions. Stakeholders from the nonprofit sector, government and higher education are coming together to discuss opportunities, challenges and alternatives for collaborative applied research. Detailed schedule to come.

**Special pre-conference at 10:30AM for students and youth**
Register at: http://www.aapiprc.com/
FMI: aapipolicy@gmail.com

Sponsors:
Asian American and Pacific Islander Policy Research Consortium
CUNY Asian American / Asian Research Institute
UMass Boston Institute for Asian American Studies
UC AAPI Policy Multi-campus Research Program.
UCLA Asian American Studies Center

Co-Sponsors (as of March 2, 2012):
National CAPACD
White House Initiative on AAPIs
National Education Association
Association for Asian American Studies

Workshop: Southeast Asian Leadership & Advocacy

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
Now Accepting Applications for SEARAC’s Leadership & Advocacy Training!

SEARAC is now accepting applications for our 14th annual Leadership & Advocacy Training. This training is open to any applicants who are Southeast Asian American or who work with Southeast Asian American communities across the country. The training will be held from July 15-17 in Washington, D.C. The application is available online. Apply today!

Why should I attend? Learn about issues in education, health care, immigration, and aging that affect Southeast Asian Americans. Learn how to develop an advocacy ask. Visit Washington, D.C. and your member of Congress. Be part of an amazing nationwide network. Make friendships for life.

Who should attend? Southeast Asian Americans who want to learn more about policy and advocacy. The training is open to people of all ages. In the past, we’ve had professionals, young professionals, elders, staff of community-based organizations, and high school, undergraduate, and graduate students attend. The training is tailored to Southeast Asian Americans, but is also open to anyone working with the Southeast Asian American community.

How much advocacy and policy experience should I have? The SEARAC training is geared toward those who are starting out in their knowledge of advocacy and policy. No prior knowledge of advocacy and policy is required. Knowledge of the issue areas we cover (education, health care, immigration, and aging) is helpful but not required.

How much does it cost? SEARAC makes the training as affordable as possible for our participants. Our stipends cover most of the costs of travel, lodging, and food, but participants may need to cover a small portion of their own travel. If you are accepted, we ask for a $75 deposit to hold your place, and it will be refunded once you complete the training.

When is the application due? SEARAC will accept applications until Sunday, April 29 at midnight PDT.

For more information visit the SEARAC Leadership & Advocacy Training page here. Questions? Contact Riamsalio (Kao) at riamsalio@searac.org or by phone at (202) 667-4690.

Call for Supporters: Mixed-Race Bone Marrow Documentary

My name is Nelson Medina and I am the Producer of Marketing and Distribution of the documentary Mixed Match, which is being produced by Meditating Bunny Studio Inc., a Vancouver-based independent production company founded by filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns.

Mixed Match is a feature-length documentary that explores the need to find mixed ethnicity bone marrow and cord blood donors to donate to multiethnic patients suffering from life threatening blood diseases such as leukemia. This live action and animated film focuses on the main characters’ struggles to survive against incredible odds.

We are fundraising $25,000 through IngieGoGo, to cover expenses in the production and post-production stages. We would be most appreciative of your support in spreading awareness to this fundraising campaign.

We feel that Mixed Match might capture the interest of the audience of Asian Nation, as the film highlights the stories of many part-asian multiethnic patients. This is a film that will help spread awareness of the challenges faced by mixed people with blood diseases, as well as encourage people to join the bone marrow registry and donate core blood to increase the likelihood of finding multiethnic marrow matches.

The fundraising website can be found at www.indiegogo.com/mixed-match. For more information about the film, please visit www.mixedmatchmovie.com. The trailer can be seen at http://youtu.be/bI2gMNSUqKU. Electronic press kits are available by request.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Best regards,
Nelson Medina
Producer of Marketing and Distribution for Mixed Match
Meditating Bunny Studio Inc.

Since this site focuses on Asians and Asian Americans, I am particularly glad to see that the list includes numerous women from Asia and a couple of Asian Americans as well, specifically Kamala Harris (Attorney General of California) and Ai-Jen Poo (community activist for immigrant domestic workers).

In reading their descriptions, it is clear that while many of their contributions may benefit women most immediately, their work uplifts us all as human beings. Keep up the good work and the good fight, ladies.

Thais in Los Angeles, by Chanchanit Martorell and Beatrice “Tippe” Morlan (Arcadia Publishing)

Los Angeles is home to the largest Thai population outside of Thailand. With a relatively recent history of immigration to the United States dating to 1965, reports estimate that 80,000 Thais make their home in Southern California. In spite of its brief history in the United States, the Thai community in Los Angeles has already left its mark on the city. While the proliferation of Thai-owned businesses and shops has converted East Hollywood and some San Fernando Valley neighborhoods to destinations for cultural tourism, the Thai community in Los Angeles County reverberates still from global attention over the 1995 El Monte human trafficking case. The great popularity of Thai cuisine, textiles, and cultural festivals continues to preserve, enrich, and showcase one of Asia’s most distinctive cultures.

The Persistence of Cambodian Poverty: From the Killing Fields to Today, by Harold Kerbo (McFarland Publishing)

Since the tragedies of the “killing fields” and the rule of the Khmer Rouge, the global community has largely ignored the social issues plaguing Cambodia. Though the infamous killings have largely stopped, poverty and corruption are rampant in contemporary Cambodia. This book includes a short history of Cambodia and covers the systemic nature of Cambodian poverty, the economic success stories of Vietnam and Laos, the corruption in Cambodia, and hopes for its future. Intended for the general reader, this book is particularly relevant to those interested in the broader issue of eliminating world poverty.

Writing from These Roots: Literacy in a Hmong-American Community, by John M. Duffy (University of Hawai’i Press)

Writing from These Roots documents the historical development of literacy in a Midwestern American community of Laotian Hmong, a people who came to the United States as refugees from the Vietnam War and whose language had no widely accepted written form until one created by missionary-linguists was adopted in the late twentieth century by Hmong in Laos and, later, the U.S. and other Western nations. As such, the Hmong have often been described as “preliterates,” “nonliterates,” or members of an “oral culture.” Although such terms are problematic, it is nevertheless true that the majority of Hmong did not read or write in any language when they arrived in the U.S.

For this reason, the Hmong provide a unique opportunity to study the forces that influence the development of reading and writing abilities in cultures in which writing is not widespread and to do so within the context of the political, economic, religious, military, and migratory upheavals classified broadly as “globalization.”

Drawing on life-history interviews collected from Hmong refugees in a Wisconsin community, this book examines the disparate political and institutional forces that shaped Hmong literacy development in the twentieth century, including, in Laos, French colonialism, Laotian nationalism, missionary Christianity, and the CIA during the Vietnam War. It further examines the influences on Hmong literary in the U.S., including public schooling, evangelical Christianity, ethnic self-help organizations, and media discourses about Hmong refugees.

In relating the particulars of the Hmong story, the author asks broad questions–still urgent and unresolved–about the nature of literacy development: How do people learn to read and write? What are the forces that nourish, compel, sustain, deny, or redeem literacy? What processes are at work when a majority of people within a given culture, begins, for the first time in its history, to acquire and use written language? And, finally, in what ways do minority peoples–refugees, immigrants, and others–claim the possibilities of literacy for themselves, using it as an instrument to compose identities, cultures, and conceptions of the world? Writing from These Roots offers a theoretical perspective on these and other questions concerning literacy development, one rooted in the symbolic interactions of peoples, cultures, and nations.

Laotian Daughters: Working toward Community, Belonging, and Environmental Justice, by Bindi V. Shah (Temple University Press)

Laotian Daughters focuses on second-generation environmental justice activists in Richmond, California. Bindi Shah’s pathbreaking book charts these young women’s efforts to improve the degraded conditions in their community and explores the ways their activism and political practices resist the negative stereotypes of race, class, and gender associated with their ethnic group.

Using ethnographic observations, interviews, focus groups, and archival data on their participation in Asian Youth Advocates—a youth leadership development project—Shah analyzes the teenagers’ mobilization for social rights, cross-race relations, and negotiations of gender and inter-generational relations. She also addresses issues of ethnic youth, and immigration and citizenship and how these shape national identities.

Shah ultimately finds that citizenship as a social practice is not just an adult experience, and that ethnicity is an ongoing force in the political and social identities of second-generation Laotians.

Facing the Khmer Rouge: A Cambodian Journey, by Ronnie Yimsut (Rutgers University Press)

As a child growing up in Cambodia, Ronnie Yimsut played among the ruins of the Angkor Wat temples, surrounded by a close-knit community. As the Khmer Rouge gained power and began its genocidal reign of terror, his life became a nightmare. Teenaged Ronnie was left orphaned, literally buried under the bodies of his family and friends. In this stunning memoir, Yimsut describes how, in the wake of death and destruction, he decides to live.

Escaping the turmoil of Cambodia, he makes a perilous journey through the jungle into Thailand, only to be sent to a notorious Thai prison. Fortunately, he is able to reach a refugee camp and ultimately migrate to the United States, another frightening journey to the unknown. Yet he prevailed, attending the University of Oregon and becoming an influential leader in the community of Cambodian immigrants. Facing the Khmer Rouge shows Ronnie Yimsut’s personal quest to rehabilitate himself, make a new life in America, and then return to Cambodia to help rebuild the land of his birth.

Casting Call for Reality Show: Small Business Owners

Family-Owned Businesses That Need to Get Back on Their Feet: New Cable Series Looking for You

Major Network launches nationwide search for struggling family-owned businesses in need of help.

January 9, 2012: A major production company announces a nationwide search for struggling, family-owned businesses that are fighting to survive. This new, 1-hour series will feature a team of two experts who will provide life-saving solutions to faltering family businesses across the country. From amusement parks to dry cleaners, from junk yards to bakeries, the team of experts will delve into what is not working and provide the business a life-saving opportunity, and a new chance at success.

Metal Flowers Media is currently searching for family owned businesses across the country that are fighting to stay alive in this turbulent economy. The company must be in serious trouble, with monumental problems that they can’t seem to overcome, and must be open to taking advice from a team of experienced, credentialed business experts. Candidates must be US citizens, and over the age of 18.

For more information, or to apply for the chance to be featured on the series, please email us at beatriz@metalflowersmedia.com for more information, or log on to facebook.com/metalflowersmedia

This is a wonderful opportunity for the right individuals! Please forward to anyone or anybody you think could benefit and to anyone interested reply ASAP as we are on a tight deadline. Time is of the essence! Also, please feel free to call/email if you have any questions or concerns.

Beatriz Flores
Casting Dept.
818 396 7565
beatriz@metalflowersmedia.com

Summer Workshop: Re-envisioning Asian American Art, NYU

Re-envisioning American Art History: Asian American Art, Research, and Teaching
Date: July 9-28, 2012
Application Deadline: March 1, 2012

Asian/Pacific/American Institute (A/P/A Institute) at NYU will be hosting the upcoming 2012 NEH Summer Institute entitled “Re-envisioning American Art History: Asian American Art, Research, and Teaching.” Participants will understand the pivotal developments and critical issues in Asian American art history and visual cultural studies and will be given access to specialized archives that will enhance their research and teaching in the humanities.

If you are a college teacher, museum educator, independent scholar, or graduate student, click here to learn more about the application process.

Internships: Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership

CAPAL Federal Internships (10+ Placements) and Scholarships (3 awards) for Public Service

The Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan educational and professional organization dedicated to building leadership and public policy knowledge within the Asian Pacific American (APA) community. Its mission is to promote Asian Pacific American interests and success in public service careers, to provide information and education on policy issues affecting the APA community, and to serve the APA community at large.

Internship Opportunities:
Each summer, CAPAL places over 10 summer interns in the federal government. These internship positions are open to ALL MAJORS, and are suited for individuals looking to gain real-world federal government experience. CAPAL has partnerships with federal agencies including Agricultural Research Services, Forest Service, and Rural Development.

Each CAPAL intern will be awarded a $2,000 stipend to support the successful completion of his/her internship. Up to $500 travel stipends are available. Depending on interests and placement, duties could vary from policy or scientific research, project coordination and management, business, law, communication, and more. Applicants are asked to specify their preferences on the application, and those selected will be placed based on their interests and skills. Agricultural knowledge is not required. These internships are suitable for all students interested in government and public policy.

Location: Washington, DC, California, Oregon, Washington, and additional locations nationwide.

Applications for internships are available online. Offers will be extended on a rolling basis. Applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early. The submission deadline is March 9, 2012.

Scholarship Opportunities:
CAPAL will also be awarding 3 scholarships to outstanding Asian Pacific American (APA) college undergraduate and graduate students who will be interning in the Washington DC area for the summer. The scholarships are intended to enable APA individuals with leadership potential to work full-time and learn about ways to influence public policy in their local communities. Recipients of the CAPAL scholarships are responsible for securing their own internships.

The SunTrust Scholarship (2)
$3000 stipend and $1000 housing/travel stipend
(preference to students with financial need)

The Asha Jaini Scholarship
$2000 stipend

Applications for scholarships are available online. Offers will be extended on a rolling basis. Applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early. The submission deadline is March 9, 2012.

Internship and Scholarship Requirements: Demonstrates commitment to public service, including service to the Asian Pacific American community; GPA of 3.0 or higher; US Citizen; Current undergraduate or graduate student.

For more information, please visit www.capal.org.

All documents must be submitted by March 9, 2012. The online application, along with submission of your resume, letters of recommendation, and academic transcript(s) are all required for your application to be considered. Email scholarships@capal.org with any questions you may have.

Conference Call for Papers: Immigrants and Civil Society, Finland

16th Nordic Migration Research Conference & 9th ETMU Days
13-15 August 2012
University of Turku, Finland

The focus of much research of immigrants in the Nordic countries has been on the economic circumstances and state policies regarding migration and integration. Far less attention has been devoted to the role of the institutions of civil society in facilitating or impeding the incorporation of newcomers into Nordic societies. The theme of this conference is intended to be a response to that imbalance in research priorities.

The conference organizers are inviting papers that address issues related to the incorporation of newcomers into receiving societies in the developed world, with special emphasis on the Nordic countries, and on issues related to fair means of inclusion. These topics are broad and can be approached from a variety of thematic and methodological perspectives. Furthermore, the conference also welcomes all proposals within the broader field of ethnic and migration studies. The conference language is English.

The preliminary conference program can be viewed at http://www.etmu.fi/etmudays/nmrc2012/program.html.

Keynote speakers:
* Professor Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University, USA
* Dr. Phillip Connor, Pew Research Institute, USA
* Professor Leo Lucassen, Leiden University, the Netherlands
* Professor Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Linköping University, Sweden
* Dr. Marja Tiilikainen, University of Helsinki, Finland
* Dr. Salla Tuori, Åbo Akademi University, Finland

Paper submission:
The workshops listed below have been accepted in the conference program. The organizers are now soliciting papers for these workshops. The abstracts describing the contents of each workshop can be found at http://www.etmu.fi/etmudays/nmrc2012/workshops.html.

1. Changing family formation practices among ethnic minorities in the Nordic countries
2. Childhood and migration in a Nordic context
3. Counting immigrant religions
4. Cultural diversity and education
5. Democracy, resistance, civil society – New platforms and strategies for democratic transformation
6. Differential inclusions in the Nordic societies? Feminist postcolonial and critical migration studies perspectives on immigration
7. Gender, migration and social change
8. Housing and residential segregation of immigrants
9. Immigrants’ access to mass media and civil society: Perspectives from the Nordic countries
10. Immigration and the duty of civility
11. Integration in the intersection of public school and institutions of civil society: A workshop about migrant children’s integration processes
12. International students and civil society
13. Intersections of gender, race and ethnicity: Categorisations and lived experiences
14. Migrants and ethnic minorities in Nordic labour markets
15. Migration, religion, social dynamics
16. Multiculturalism and civic culture
17. Newcomers’ communities in the history of the Nordic region
18. Nurturing human capital: The role of higher education institutions redefined
19. Refugees in the Nordic countries – policy and practice
20. The role of immigrant organizations in the integration process: Historical perspectives
21. Transnationalism and diasporas in a Nordic context
22. What attitudes to scholars from abroad in Nordic Higher Education?

Please submit your paper abstract using the online submission form. Please note than in the submission form you can either select one of the above-mentioned workshops or suggest your own workshop idea. In case no workshop is selected or
suggested, the organizers will group presentations that fit together thematically.

Abstract guidelines:

• Save the abstract file in RTF or DOC format, using your last name as the file name
• Do not use accented characters like ä, å or ö, etc. in the filename; replace them with a, o, or equivalent
• Abstracts should be written and presented in English
• The maximum number of words is 150-200 (body text) plus title and affiliations
• The maximum size of the uploaded abstract is 1400 kilobytes
• In case you have difficulties deciding on the workshop, please choose the option “other” on the workshop session list

The abstracts will be published in the Conference Programme and Abstracts Book.

Deadlines:
The closing date for paper proposals is 15 April 2012. Acceptances of workshop proposals will be announced on 7 May 2012.

Contact:
For more information, please contact Dr. Johanna Leinonen at johlei[at]utu.fi. For any questions regarding registration, payments, or accommodation, please contact the Congress Office at congress[at]utu.fi.

Conference organizers and partners:
ALPO – Developing Integration in Finland (European Social Fund – Ministry of the Interior)
European Migration Network (Finland)
FiDiPro Project Multiculturalism as a New Pathway to Incorporation (University of Turku)
Institute of Migration (Turku)
Network for Research on Multiculturalism and Societal Interaction (MCNet, University of Turku)
Nordic Migration Research (NMR)
Post-Secular Culture and a Changing Religious Landscape (PCCR, Åbo Akademi)
Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations and International Migration (ETMU)

Conference: Immigration and Poverty, U.C. Davis

Immigration and  Poverty: Economic and Social Connections, Policy Approaches
May 17-18, 2012
University of California, Davis
Sponsored by the UC Davis Economy, Justice, and Society Program and the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research

The mobility of people across national boundaries is an exceptional economic force and catalyst for social and cultural change, but it is also a source of significant policy challenges. This interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars studying the connection between migration and the economic development of individuals, markets, and states in both sending and receiving countries.

The first day of the conference will feature cutting-edge research by economists, sociologists, and demographers. The research will address three themes: “International Migration and Global Poverty,” “Immigration, Jobs and Wages,” and “Undocumented Immigrants and Their Assimilation.” The second day of the conference will examine “Immigration Policy: Current Limits and Potential for Reform” with a moderated discussion among immigration experts from the fields of law, economics, and sociology.

Conference admission is free with preregistration. Interested students, faculty, researchers, policy makers, and journalists are invited to attend. For more details and online conference registration, visit the conference website.

Conference: Birthright Citizenship, Univ. of MD

The Center for the History of the New America Announces its Inaugural Conference

Born in the USA: The Politics of Birthright Citizenship in Historical Perspective

March 29 & 30, 2012
University of Maryland at College Park

Co-Sponsors:
Institute for Constitutional History, University of Maryland Office of Equity and Diversity, University of Maryland Office of Undergraduate Studies, & The University of Maryland Law School

Next March, an interdisciplinary group of prominent academics, lawyers, jurists, journalists, and political figures will assemble in College Park for the Center for a New America’s first major conference. Their goal: to place in historical perspective the current debate as to whether the United States ought to reconsider birthright citizenship, which grants automatic citizenship to most persons born on the soil of the United States.

Birthright citizenship is part of the Constitution, having been put there by the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868. It has given the United States one of the most liberal citizenship regimes in the world, and it has helped to build America’s reputation as a land of immigrants, where anyone can come to seek opportunity, liberty, and equality in a regime of laws that does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, or national origins.

Some who want to eliminate birthright citizenship argue that it has acted as a perverse incentive for immigrants to seek illegal entry to the United States. It permits illegal immigrants to think that they can find a route to permanent residence and security in the United States by giving birth to children on American soil. Their children, who become American citizens upon birth, the argument goes, will “anchor” the illegal parents to America, thus rewarding behavior that ought to be punished.

The state of Arizona is at the forefront of this campaign against birthright citizenship, as it is for other aspects of the campaign against illegal immigrants. In the short term, anti-illegal immigrant forces in the state hope to trigger a legal challenge to a nineteenth-century Supreme Court ruling that declared that a child born to non-citizens on American soil is in fact an American citizen. In the long term these forces hope to stimulate a national campaign to amend the Fourteenth Amendment.

As with many issues regarding immigration, the debate sometimes proceeds with a lot of passion and without a strong knowledge of history. Here are some questions that would benefit from a robust exploration: First, how aware were the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment about the immigration question? To the extent to which they were, what were their thoughts about immigration and birthright citizenship? What do we know of the original intent of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause? Second, why did the Supreme Court in 1898 uphold birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens? And why in some cases were Native Americans treated differently with regard to birthright citizenship?

Third, how well or how poorly did birthright citizenship work for America, in regards both to legal and illegal immigration, over the course of American history after 1868? On balance, has birthright citizenship been a source of cohesion or discord, of Americanization or cultural balkanization, in American life? Fourth, from the contemporary perspective, what evidence can be marshaled to show that illegal immigrants today are motivated to come by the promise of birthright citizenship for their children? And, finally, what would be the consequences to the Constitution, to personal liberties, and to immigration of a successful effort to remove birthright citizenship from the Fourteenth Amendment?

2011 Pulitzer Prize Winner Eric Foner of Columbia University will open the conference with a keynote address. Other confirmed participants include former Solicitor General of the United States Walter Dellinger; Fourteenth Amendment experts Peter Schuck (Yale Law School), Garrett Epps (University of Baltimore Law School), and Mark Graber (University of Maryland Law School); noted historians Gary Gerstle (Vanderbilt University), David Gutierrez (UCSD), Linda Kerber (University of Iowa), Mae Ngai (Columbia University), and William Novak (University of Michigan School of Law); New York Times journalists Marc Lacey and Nina Bernstein; sociologist Alejandro Portes (Princeton University); and legal scholars Linda Bosniak (Rutgers Law School), Christina Burnett (Columbia Law School), Ayelet Shachar (University of Toronto Law School), and Rebecca Tsosie (Arizona St. Law School). More participants will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

Call for Authors: Multicultural America Encyclopedia

We are inviting academic editorial contributors to Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, a new 4-volume reference to be published in 2013 by SAGE Publications. Click here to download a zip file that contains the complete article list (Excel file), submission guidelines, entry guides, and sample article. The deadline for submissions is August 1, 2012. We hope you will consider participating in this exciting new project.

Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia presents state-of-the-art research, ready-to-use facts, and multimedia pedagogy. The approximately 950 signed entries (with cross-references and further readings) will cover issues in historical and contemporary ethnic and multicultural studies.

The print 4 volumes and the online edition with 100 videos will include information relevant to the following academic disciplinary contexts: the demographic and cultural balance of the United States today and tomorrow; arts and media; business and economics; criminal justice; education; family studies; health; immigration; media; military; politics; science and technology; sports; and religion. From A-to-Z, this work covers the spectrum of defining and illuminating multiculturalism. The goals of this encyclopedia are to help readers gain a better understanding of:

• The historical development of multicultural America
• The contemporary American multicultural mosaic
• The possible future trajectories of American multiculturalism

In writing, contributors should consider their entries’ contribution to these three goals. Where appropriate, entries should include data from and references to the 2010 United States census.

This comprehensive project will be marketed to academic and public libraries as a print and digital product available to students via the library’s electronic services. The General Editor, who will be reviewing each submission to the project, is Dr. Carlos E. Cortes, Professor Emeritus of History, University of California, Riverside.

If you are interested in contributing to this cutting-edge reference, it is a unique opportunity to contribute to the contemporary literature, redefining sociological issues in today’s terms. SAGE Publications offers an honorarium ranging from SAGE book credits for smaller articles up to a free set of the printed product for contributions totaling 10,000 words or more.

If you would like to contribute to building a truly outstanding reference with Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, please send me your selections from the list of articles and I will confirm availability.

Thanks very much,
Lisbeth Rogers
Author Manager
multicultural@golsonmedia.com

Call for Submissions: Anti-Racist Classroom Teaching Activities

The editor of a forthcoming book, “Teaching Anti-Racism in Contemporary America,” seeks submissions that describe and analyze classroom activities focused on anti-racist pedagogy for inclusion in the text.

The book includes contributions and essays from a number of scholars, including Joe Feagin, Kathleen Blee, Noel Cazenave, David Pellow, Rose Brewer, and many others. Classroom activity submissions should be of high caliber and engage students to think critically about racial politics in the 21st Century. Questions and contributions should be sent to the editor, Kristin Haltinner, at halt0033@umn.edu.

Fellowship: Leadership Training< NY

New York Governor Cuomo invites talented professionals interested in public service to apply to the Empire State Fellows Program. We are writing to ask that you distribute this opportunity widely within your
networks.

The Empire State Fellows Program is a full-time leadership training program that will prepare the next generation of talented professionals for careers as New York State policy-makers. The first class of Empire State Fellows will serve from September 2012 to September 2014. Each Empire State Fellow will receive compensation commensurate with experience plus benefits. At the end of the fellowship, a performance review process will identify fellows that will be given the opportunity to continue to serve as leaders in New York State government after completing the program.

New York Governor Cuomo will appoint each Empire Fellow to work directly with a Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, or other high-level policy maker. Work assignments will offer Fellows unparalleled experience collaborating with senior officials and participating in the policy-making process. While taking part in the work of government, Empire Fellows will participate in educational and professional development programs that will prepare them to confront the increasingly complex policy challenges facing New York State.

Applications for the Empire State Fellows Program must be received no later than June 1, 2012. Additional information about the Empire State Fellows Program is available on our website at www.newnyleaders.com.

Call for Supporters: Asian American Movie

My name is Joyce and I’m an Asian-American writer, actress and filmmaker. I’m getting in touch with you today to tell you about my newest feature film.

It’s called The Real Mikado and you can check out the campaign here: http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Real-Mikado-A-Feature-Film

The film is about an out of work Asian-American actress in New York who runs out of money and moves back in with her parents in the suburbs of Detroit. The town is facing a budget crisis and wants to shut down the community theater. She agrees to direct a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera The Mikado to try and save it. It’s a fun but poignant coming-of-age comedy.

Right now, I’m working on securing funding via the IndieGoGo platform. I would be so grateful if you could consider writing a post about the film, sharing it with your followers, or even donating. I noticed you write often about Asian-American identity and I think we can all agree it’s about time for a film featuring an Asian-American character who isn’t just an ethnic side kick or massage parlor worker.

Any help you can give to this film would be greatly appreciated. I know how busy you are, so thank you for taking the time to read this and for checking out the project.

This past week, several public incidents have solidified the sad fact that many Americans still think that we are already in a colorblind society and as such, they can basically say anything they want about Jeremy, including offensive references to him as a Chinese American. Unfortunately there have been several examples of racial insensitivity in the past couple of weeks, but in this post I will focus on two in particular.

First, after the Knicks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in which Jeremy scored 38 points, FoxSports.com columnist Jason Whitlock tweeted “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.” Whitlock later apologized for the remark, but you can’t unring that bell — clearly he thought it was perfectly acceptable to invoke the emasculating racial stereotype about Asian men having small penises.

But wait, there’s more.

A few days later, after Jeremy committed nine turnovers in a game that the Knicks eventually lost, thereby snapping their 7-game winning streak, the following headline made it onto ESPN’s mobile website (screenshot below): “Chinks in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 Turnovers Cost Knicks in Streak-Snapping Loss to Hornets.”

The headline was apparently taken down after being public for 35 minutes but again, the damage was done — the editors at ESPN apparently had no idea or did not care that the term “chink” is a blatantly racist term against all Asian Americans but particularly and deeply offensive to Chinese Americans. I might expect people outside the U.S., such as Spain’s national basketball team, not to know that the term “chink” is racist, but it is very disappointing to learn that many Americans still think it’s perfectly fine to use in reference to a Chinese American.

Disappointing, but unfortunately not really surprising.

That is because many Americans already believe, consciously or unconsciously, that we are already a colorblind society. As such, they have been taught, socialized, and desensitized to naively think that all racial groups are equal now, that no racial discrimination ever takes place nowadays, and therefore, it’s fine to casually use terms such as “chink” in everyday conversation.

These particular incidents may not be as blatantly offensive as the racial taunts Jeremy encountered back when he played for Harvard, but they nonetheless illustrate a woeful level of ignorance and lack of sensitivity about Asian Americans, our history, and our community.

Imagine what the public’s reaction would have been if Jason Whitlock was referring to a Black player and his remark invoked the racial stereotype about Black men having large penises. What would the public’s reaction had been if ESPN went public with some headline that referred to a Black player using the ‘N’ word? I think it would be safe to say that the American public would be shocked, outraged, and furious if these hypothetical examples occurred in reference to a Black player.

To Whitlock’s and ESPN’s credit, they both apologized and in ESPN’s case, fired the person responsible for the website headline and suspended one of their sportscasters, Max Bretos, who repeated the “chink in the armor” phrase on air. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly and decisively ESPN acted in regard to these incidents. In the past, more than likely, ESPN would have taken days to issue a half-hearted apology and probably would not have disciplined any of their staff involved. I suppose ESPN’s actions in this matter do represent an encouraging sign of progress.

Fortunately, there are others in the mainstream media who “get it” — those who understand the contradiction and inequality that exist when such racial/ethnic stereotypes are in reference to, say Blacks, versus when they reference Asian Americans. Specifically, leave it the crew at Saturday Night Live to use comedy and satire to deftly illustrate this contradiction:

So I suppose that it does represent progress that when these types of racially ignorant incidents happen, the mainstream media nowadays does recognize it and take disciplinary action (or use satire to point out the absurdity of such ignorance) more quickly than in the past. Now if we can just get to the point where such incidents don’t happen in the first place.