Events Archive

Madison's Asian American Media Spotlight

About:
Madison’s Asian American Media Spotlight is brought to you by the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Although we have had many Asian American film series over the years as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival, this standalone festival was started in 2015 by Dr. Lori Kido Lopez and is now in its third year. It was inspired by the knowledge that media play an important role in initiating dialogue and educating audiences about issues in the Asian American community and what it means to be Asian American. The long history of Asian American media production has always been rooted in the desire to empower Asian American communities through storytelling and give voice to those who have been marginalized. These goals are particularly important in Wisconsin, where Asian Americans are a small minority, and where there is no sustained venue for viewing Asian American media. In providing opportunities to screen both contemporary and historical Asian American media, as well as discussions about the films, this event seeks to educate, inform, and inspire through engagements with images of Asian America.

Schedule:

Friday Oct. 13, 7pm at Elvehjem L140
FINDING KUKAN
Q&A with Director Robin Lung

Documentary filmmaker Robin Lung searches for the lost film KUKAN and the truth about the mysterious female figure, Li-Ling Ai, who may have been crucial to its production. As Lung finds out more about KUKAN, an Academy award winning documentary about World War II China from 1941, the significance of Li-Ling Ai’s role slowly becomes clear. Lung discovers the inspirational, intriguing story of a woman who made a mark on film history in a time of enormous prejudice against her gender and race.

Saturday Oct. 14, 7pm at Vilas 4070
COLUMBUS
While visiting to help his ill father, Jin (John Cho) begins a friendship with recent high school graduate Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), who works at the local library in Columbus, Indiana. As they explore the striking modernist architecture that fills the small town, Jin and Casey face their complicated feelings for their families and each other. This beautifully shot, absorbing story is director Kogandaʼs first feature.

Sunday Oct. 15, 7pm at The Marquee, Union South
MIXED MATCH
Q&A with Director Jeff Chiba Stearns and Be the Match Bone Marrow Drive

This eye-opening documentary focuses on mixed race blood cancer patients who must consider their multiracial identities as they struggle to find bone marrow donors because of their complex genetics. Combining personal stories from patients and experts in the field with animated segments that provide context about his discoveries, director Jeff Chiba Stearns explores the important topic of how mixed ancestry can impact medical care.

Thanks to our sponsors, including The Anonymous Fund, Cinematheque, WUD Film Committee, the Asian American Student Union (AASU), and the Mixed Student Union (MSU).

For information about Madison’s 2015 Asian American Media Spotlight.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Lori Kido Lopez
6134 Vilas Hall
LKLopez@wisc.edu

2016 - 2017 Events

Limits of Racebending in the Struggle for Asian American Representation

Lori Kido Lopez

Studies of fandom and fan culture have always centered on the complex feelings of fascination and frustration that motivate audiences. When we consider the way that race is represented in beloved texts, there are clearly political consequences to these emotional connections. But what about texts that are ambiguously racialized, such as cartoons and animated imagery? How have fans of animated worlds been able to convert their racialized fandoms into political actions, and what does this engagement with “racebending” reveal about race and the media? This talk explores the fan-activism surrounding The Last Airbender and connects it to the broader politics of Asian American representation.

Lori Kido Lopez is Assistant Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the Communication Arts Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also an affiliate of the Asian American Studies Program and the Gender and Women’s Studies Department. She is the author of Asian American Media Activism: Fighting for Cultural Citizenship (2016, NYU), and co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Asian American Media. She is the founder of the national Race & Media Conference, and was a recipient of the Outstanding Women of Color Award in 2015.

The Experiences of Gay Hmong Men: An Exploratory Study

WHEN: November 9, 2017, 4:00 PM

WHERE: Room 206, Ingraham Hall

The Chinese Exclusion Act
WHEN: Monday, April 24, 2017, 6-10:30pm (showings at 6:00pm-8:00pm and 8:30pm-10:30pm)

WHERE: Marquee Theater, Union South
CONTACT: For more information, please contact the Wisconsin China Initiative

WHEN: Tuesday, April 25, 2017, 4:00pm
WHERE: Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (University Ave. and Orchard St.)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact the Wisconsin China Initiative

FLIGHT: A Forum & Hip-Hop Workshop
WHEN: Friday, February 17, 2017, 3:30-4:30pm
WHERE: H’Doubler Theater, 3rd Floor, Lathrop Hall, Dance Department
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy

Peggy Choy
Volcanic Arc: Dancing Across Hot Spots
WHEN: Friday, November 11, 3:30-4:30pm
WHERE: H’Doubler Theater, 3rd Floor, Lathrop Hall, Dance Department
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy

The 2nd Annual Judith L. Ladinsky Lecture: Creative Criticism, or Writing as an Other
WHEN: Friday, October 21, 2016
WHERE: 206 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Fall 2016 University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities Burdick-Vary Lecture Series: Asian Americans and the Pleasures of Fantasy

Christine Yano
Kawaii: Fraught Innocence in Asian (American) Commodity Culture
WHEN: Wednesday, September 14, 7:30pm
WHERE: Elvehjem L140, 800 University Ave.
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Leslie Bow at lbow@wisc.edu

Leslie Bow
Fantasy as Microagression?: Racial Caricature, Kawaii-Style, and the Anthropomorphic Asian
WHEN: Wednesday, October 19, 7:30pm
WHERE: Elvehjem L140, 800 University Ave.
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Leslie Bow at lbow@wisc.edu

Charles Yu
How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe: an Evening with writer Charles Yu
WHEN: Thursday, October 27, 7pm
WHERE: 6191 H.C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St.
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Leslie Bow at lbow@wisc.edu

Lori Kido Lopez
Limits of Racebending in the Struggle for Asian American Representation
WHEN: Thursday, December 8, 7pm
WHERE: 6191 H.C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St.
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Leslie Bow at lbow@wisc.edu

Poetry and Translation: A Brown Bag Discussion
WHEN: Tuesday, April 19, 2016
WHERE: 340 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Timothy Yu at tpyu@wisc.edu

Reading with Ouyang Yu
WHEN: Tuesday, April 19, 2016
WHERE: Pyle Center, Room 121
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Timothy Yu at tpyu@wisc.edu

Changes in Hmong American Filmmaking

WHEN: Wednesday, February 17, 2016
WHERE: 206 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Ian Baird at ibaird@wisc.edu

2015 - 2016 Events

More Than Tuition Money: The ‘Asia Orienting’ of the University of Michigan’s Levi Barbour Scholarship for Women from the Orient, 1917-1930 with Victor Jew
WHEN: Thursday, September 24, 2015, 12:00pm
WHERE: 206 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Victor Jew at vjew@wisc.edu

Since 1917, the University of Michigan has supported the Levi Barbour Scholarship for Women from the Orient, a program that brought female students from India, China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines to Ann Arbor for undergraduate, graduate, and professional study. On the surface, this seems like one among many scholarships provided by one Midwestern university, but the early years of the Levi Barbour program encapsulated numerous larger themes that implicated such momentous historical formations as political revolutions in Asian settings, immigration restriction in the United States, as well as the emergence of the “Modern Woman” in the early twentieth century. Based on primary source research in the Barbour Papers at the Bentley Historical Library, this presentation will explore ways to problematize and foreground the many cultural, social, and gendered dimensions of the Barbour Scholarship.

Asian American Studies Speaker Series: Redefining Race: Asian American Panethnicity and Shifting Ethnic Boundaries with Dina Okamoto
WHEN: Monday, April 20, 4:00-5:30pm
WHERE: 6191 Helen C. White Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Yang Sao Xiong at ysxiong2@wisc.edu

This research provides insights about the conditions and mechanisms that encourage distinct ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groups to widen their boundaries to generate a new, collective identity – a concept and process referred to as panethnicity. It traces the complex evolution of “Asian American” as a panethnic label and identity from 1970 to the present, and emphasizes that panethnicity is a deliberate social achievement negotiated by group members, rather than an organic and inevitable process. Complicating assimilation and racialization frameworks, this research elaborates upon (1) how local conditions help to generate a collective identity and status across ethnic groups and (2) how ethnic boundaries are layered and even complementary. Moving beyond past research, Professor Okamoto tests hypotheses about the local conditions shaping dynamics within and between groups that heighten group boundaries and encourage group members to organize as part of a larger collective group. In this talk, Professor Okamoto focuses on an analysis of ethnic and panethnic organizing efforts, and argues that the emergence of a panethnic identity depended, somewhat paradoxically, on different groups organizing along distinct ethnic lines to gain recognition and rights from the larger society. In particular, ethnic organizations provided the foundation necessary to build solidarity within different Asianorigin communities, and ethnic leaders and community members who created inclusive narratives and advocated for policies that benefited groups beyond their own were key actors in generating panethnicity. The results suggest that despite political opportunities, access to resources, and intergroup competition, groups must not only be structured in a way that they can interact, build trust, and share commonalities before organizing upon a panethnic identity, but group narratives must be deployed for panethnicity to be sustained.

Ethnic Studies and #BlackLivesMatter, From Ferguson to Madison
WHEN: Friday, April 10, 2015, 5:30-7:30pm
WHERE: Elvehjem Building, Room L160
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Timothy Yu at tpyu@wisc.edu

Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Department of Afro-American Studies, American Indian Studies Program and Chican@ and Latin@ Stuies Program

UW-Madison faculty members will offer ethnic and indigenous studies perspectives on the Black Lives Matter movement and the issues surrounding it, from policing to racial inequities. A discussion with the audience will follow. This event is free and open to the public.

Asian American Studies Speaker Series: The Troubling and Disappearing Mother, and the Policing of Race: Kultida Woods in Black and Asian American Newspapers, 1996-2010 with Michael Thornton
WHEN: Tuesday, April 7, 4:00-5:30pm
WHERE: 340 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Yang Sao Xiong at ysxiong2@wisc.edu

“Among B-Boys”: Film Screening and Discussion with Director Christopher Woon
WHEN: Thursday, March 26, 2015, 6:00-8:00pm
WHERE: 22 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Ger Xiong at gxiong22@wisc.edu

Among B-Boys is the first documentary on break dancing in the Hmong American community.

“Among B-Boys” explores a movement of Hmong youth with a starting point in the California Central Valley, going back to the early 1990′s in Fresno, CA. Many of these b boys/b-girls are on a quest for respect and even fame through their skills. In this search for success in the breakdancing world, these youth must also navigate their way and strike a balance between their identities as Hmong and B-Boys. The documentary, directed by Christopher Woon aka Paper Son, features Bboys Villn and Mpact of Underground Flow, Sukie and Velocity/Soul Rivals, Charles of Soul Control, Vang of Among B-Boys, Airsteps, Wizardz and more!

Asian American Studies Speaker Series: Defining the Nation Through Empire: Filipino Military Service and the Promise of Benefits with Katrina Quisumbing King
WHEN: Tuesday, March 24, 4:00-5:30pm
WHERE: 340 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Yang Sao Xiong at ysxiong2@wisc.edu

In this talk, Katrina will present her dissertation proposal. She is in the early stages of collecting data. In the project, Katrina selected U.S. colonization of the Philippines and the benefits promised to Filipino veterans as a case to explore how race and nation were constructed through empire and war. She analyze the period between 1934 and 1947—a time when the U.S., having already promised independence to the Philippines, recruited Filipinos to fight the imperial expansion of Japan in World War II. In exchange for their service, the U.S. promised citizenship and military benefits. In 1946, however, the United States revoked these rights. No other national group was denied benefits. By focusing on this puzzling period of war and decolonization, she explores how the competing interests of the state manifest in policies toward Filipinos. Katrina examine historical records pertaining to the promise and revocation of military benefits to Filipino veterans, asking: (1) what was the logic organizing these polices? (2) how did government officials deploy the category of “active military service” in revoking military benefits from Filipinos? And (3) how did they invoke the concepts of race and nation in making these decisions? Thus, Katrina’s dissertation illuminates the categories of difference created by the state in the colonial period, and how these categories continued to define the U.S. national state in the post-colonial era.

Asian American Studies Speaker Series: The World of Suzie Wong: Making a Paradoxical Icon and a Problematic Iconicity with Victor Jew
Screening of “The World of Suzie Wong” (1960)
WHEN: Monday, March 9, 2015, 5:30pm
WHERE: 22 Ingraham Hall

Talk: The World of Suzie Wong: Making a Paradoxical Icon and a Problematic Iconicity
WHEN: Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 4:00-5:30pm
WHERE: 340 Ingraham Hall

CONTACT: For more information, please contact Yang Sao Xiong at ysxiong2@wisc.edu

Sponsored by the Asian American Studies Program

“Who’s Afraid of Suzie Wong?” Have you ever made a reference to “The World of Suzie Wong” (the 1960 film), but never wanted to actually see it because of its abject reputation? Here’s a chance to view the film, talk about it critically, and think about larger issues that it inadvertantly raises. This screening will lead up to the talk by Victor Jew for the Asian American Studies Speaker Series for Spring 2015, “The World of Suzie Wong: Making a Paradoxical Icon and a Problematic Iconicity.” The talk will be on Tuesday, March 10 from 4 to 5:30 pm in 340 Ingraham Hall.

If Fanon Had Facebook: Postcolonial Knowledge, Rhizomes and the Gnosis of the Digital
WHEN: Monday, March 9, 2015, 7-9pm
WHERE: Union South, TITU
CONTACT: For more information, please see Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

Co-sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, the Digital Humanities Research Network, Center for the Humanities, and the A.W. Mellon Foundation

How is racial inequality addressed in the digital sphere through social media? In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon makes a stirring argument that colonialism cannot end without a radical shift in mainstream discourse, and he issues a call to accomplish this through pioneering ideological innovations. But the media environment available to Fanon at that moment was drastically different from the one today. In this talk, Koh will explore the question: what if Fanon had Facebook at his disposal in the 1950s? By invoking “Facebook,” Koh is not limiting this question to that particular platform but wants to gesture towards a larger conceptualization of knowledge distribution in digital ecologies. Koh asks: how would Fanon have reacted to the Internet and social media? How would he have tried to deconstruct and to reconstruct it for his own radical use?

Hunting in Wisconsin Roundtable Discussion
WHEN: Monday, March 2, 2015, 7-9pm
WHERE: 206 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Ian Baird at ibaird@wisc.edu
Co-sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, the Hmong Studies Consortium and the Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies.

Disability, Healing and Justice
WHEN: Thursday, February 12, 2015
WHERE: 2nd Floor Red Gym, 716 Langdon Street
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Chelsea O’Neil at chealsea.oneil@wisc.edu or 608-890-2082
Co-sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Multicultural Student Center, and Open House Learning Community.

3PM Workshop, MSC Classroom
Participants will write under-told, boundary-pushing, life saving stories from their bodies’ fierce wisdom and resilience, to create the deeply necessary stories we need to share the truths of how we’re keeping on living and the amazing lives we’re making. Space is limited! Secure your spot at msc.wisc.edu/register

7PM Performance & Talk-Back, MSC Lounge
Leah will share performance about queer femme of color survivorhood, transformative justice, and disability justice movement and radical healing.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled Sri Lankan cis femme writer, performer, organizer and badass visionary healer. She is the author of the Lambda Award winning Love Cake and Consensual Genocide and co-editor of The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities. With Cherry Galette, she co-founded Mangos With Chili, North America’s performance incubator for Two Spirit, queer and trans people of color performance artists, and is a lead artist with Sins Invalid.

Ki-Achè: Beyond Walls, A Dance Informance With Peggy Choy Dance
WHEN: Friday, January 30, 2015, 3:30-4:30pm
WHERE: H’Doubler Performance Space
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy at pachoy@wisc.edu
Co-sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Afro-American Studies Dept., Anonymous Fund, Brittingham Fund, Dance Dept., Latin Am., Caribbean and Iberian Studies, Office of the Vice Provost & Chief Diversity Officer and Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement.

Peggy Choy presents a showing of new dance work that celebrates intersections between African-American, Asian American and Afro-Caribbean cultural and political histories.

2014 - 2015 Events

Asian Australian, Asian American: Exporting a Literary Culture?
WHEN: Tuesday, November 18, 4:00-5:30
WHERE: 336 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Yang Sao Xiong at ysxiong2@wisc.edu
Sponsored by the Asian American Studies Program

Tim Yu is associate professor of English and Asian American Studies and director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Race and Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Poetry since 1965 (Stanford University Press 2009), which won the Book Award in Literary Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies. His current book project, Diasporic Poetics, examines English-language poets of Asian descent working around the Pacific Rim—in the United States, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia.

The Nobel Fighter: Putting Malala Yousafzai in Context
WHEN: Thursday, October 30, 1:00-2:30pm
WHERE: 6191 Helen C. White Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Leslie Bow at lbow@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsored by the Asian American Studies Program and Go Big Read

Amitabh Pal is managing editor of The Progressive magazine, founded in 1909, and co-editor of the Progressive Media Project, an op-ed service, both based in Madison, Wisconsin. He has interviewed several eminent personalities for the magazine, including Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, and Joseph Stiglitz. His work has been included in school and college textbooks, and he has appeared on BBC, C-SPAN and on television and radio stations throughout the country. Pal is the author of ‘Islam’ Means Peace: Understanding the Muslim Principle of Nonviolence Today (Praeger, 2011).

Light refreshments will be served.

Ethnic Studies in the 21st Century: American Racial Branding, South Asians and Spelling Bee Competitions
WHEN: Thursday, October 16, 2014, 12-1:30pm
WHERE: 336 Ingraham Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Timothy Yu at tpyu@wisc.edu

Sponsor: Asian American Studies Program

Free and open to the public

The Asian American Studies Program is pleased to welcome Professor Shilpa Davé as the first speaker in our speaker series. Feel free to bring your lunch and join us for a research presentation and discussion.

Shilpa Davé is assistant professor of Media Studies and American Studies and assistant dean at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film (University of Illinois Press 2013) and is the co-editor of the collection East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture (NYU Press 2005). Dr. Davé earned her Bachelors degree with Honors in English and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and her Ph.D. in English Literature and Languages from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

LIGHTS TRAUMA REVELATION
A Poetry Reading with Cathy Linh Che, Jess X Chen, and Paul Tran

WHEN: Sunday, August 31, 2 pm
WHERE: A Room of One’s Own Bookstore, 315 W. Gorham St., Madison
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Timothy Yu at tpyu@wisc.edu or see the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1388151141445862/

Sponsor: Asian American Studies Program

Free and open to the public

Inspired by the directorial cue—”Lights, camera, action!”—award-winning poets Cathy Linh Che, Jess X Chen and Paul Tran visit Madison as part of a cross-country extravaganza to read from their first and upcoming books.

From New York City to Seattle, these fearless poets combine the ferocity of oral history, spoken word, and Asian American poetics to extricate new narratives of trauma, exile, colonialism, ecological collapse, and love in the aftermath of war.

Their poems turn from anger to sorrow, mercy to compassion, the erotic to the crowning of one’s own life. Nothing is spared or unexamined. Here is a desire to witness and write it all.

The reading will be introduced by Professor Timothy Yu, director of Asian American Studies at UW-Madison.

CATHY LINH CHE is the author of Split (Alice James, 2014), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. A Vietnamese American poet from Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, she received her BA from Reed College and her MFA from New York University. She has been awarded fellowships and residences from Poets & Writers, The Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, Kundiman, Hedgebrook, Poets House, The Asian American Literary Review, The Center for Book Arts, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency, and a Jerome Foundation Travel Grant. A founding editor of the online journal, Paperbag, Cathy is the Managing Director at Kundiman.

JESS X CHEN is a Chinese American multi-disciplinary poet, illustrator, filmmaker and the author of From the Earthworm to the Night (independent, 2013). Her work has been recognized by the Asian American International Film Festival, Yale Environmental Film Festival, CURA Magazine for Art and Action, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and more. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and studied poetry at Brown University, where she coached the slam team that won “Pushing the Art Forward” at the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI). She co-founded LoveHoldLetGo, a film and theater production collective whose full-length plan, Silence and the Earth, strives to rethink what the Earth and its ravaged landscape might say to its colonizers if it hadn’t been ignored and casted as an exploitable space. It played in over 50 North American cities in 2013 and is now being adapted into a feature film.

PAUL TRAN is a Vietnamese American historian and spoken word poet. He represented Brown University three times at the Wade Lewis Poetry Slam Invitational and the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, where he won “Best Poet” and “Pushing the Art Forward.” He has also received awards and fellowships from Kundiman, The VONA/Voices Writing Workshop, The Asian American Literary Arts and Performance Festival, The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His work combines oral history and performance to examine the violences inherited from the Vietnam War. He has twice coached the Providence youth slam team which competed at the Brave New Voices international poetry slam in Chicago (2013) and Philadelphia (2014), and is currently working on a chapbook called Still Life.

For more on the poets and their work: http://lightstraumarevelation.tumblr.com/

Asian American Studies Certificate Graduation Reception
WHEN: Friday, May 16, 2014, 4:30-5:30pm
WHERE: 6191 Helen C. White Hall, UW-Madison
CONTACT: Asian American Studies Program, aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu or 608-263-2976

Congratulations to our graduates! All certificate students are invited to come support our graduates and meet faculty and staff from the Asian American Studies Program. Graduates may bring up to two guests each. Refreshments will be served and there will be a short presentation of certificates to graduates.

Breaking the Norm Hmong American Student Association Spring 2014 Conference
WHEN: Saturday, April 12-Sunday, April 13, 2014
WHERE: Memorial Union, UW-Madison
CONTACT: For more information, please contact the HASA Spring Conference Committee at hasa.conference@gmail.com
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Associated Students of Madison, Wisconsin Experience Grant, People Program, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Multicultural Student Center, Office of the Provost, and LGBT Campus Center of UW-Madison.

This year’s theme is Breaking the Norm, and its purpose aims to explore contemporary Hmong identity by bringing the community together to educate and challenge individuals on cross-cultural issues that are not often talked about. With that, we hope to raise awareness and create open dialogues including some of these following social issues: interracial relationships, gender roles and oppression, domestic abuse, the Hmong LGBTQ, and more.

Asian Am Films at the Wisconsin Film Fest
WHEN: Thursday, April 3-10, 2014
CONTACT: For more information, please visit the website at: http://guide.wifilmfest.org/2014
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Communication Arts Department and the Arts Institute

American Revolutionary
This documentary traces the extraordinary life of Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs, who is known for her landmark work on behalf of black communities during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Sat, Apr 05 | 6:30 PM UW Chazen Museum of Art Sun, Apr 06 | 1:15 PM UW Chazen Museum of Art

Love Child
This film explores the story of a South Korean couple who let their three-year-old child die while they played online videogames. It provocatively discusses the rise of South Korea as a technological world leader alongside the dangers of internet addiction. Sat, Apr 05 | 1:15 PM UW Union South Marquee Danny Lee, co-producer and 2008 UW Alum, scheduled to appear

To Be Takei
This energizing and entertaining new documentary shows the seeming-ly inexhaustible George Takei, now 76 years-old, who rose to promi-nence with his role as Sulu in Star Trek and has since become an out-spoken LGBT advocate and social media guru. Fri, Apr 04 | 4:30 PM UW Union South Marquee

Hmong Parents Day
WHEN: Saturday, March 29, 2014
WHERE: UW-Madison Campus
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Pa Tou Vue at pvue3@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Department of Counseling Psychology, Office of the Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer, Southeast Asian Student Academic Services, Center for Academic Excellence, Parent Program, L&S Career Services, Center for Educational Opportunity, Cultural Linguistic Services, Center for First Year Experience and UW Parking Services

Bits and Bytes: Tracing Hmong Diasporic Culture and History Through the Digital Humanities
WHEN: Thursday, March 6, 2014, 6:00-7:30pm
WHERE: 206 Ingraham Hall, UW-Madison Campus
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Ian Baird at ibaird@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program and the Hmong Consortium of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UW-Madison

This event will trace the presence and influence of the digital through Hmong cultural production since the mid-twentieth century. The goal of this event is to become aware of projects that digitally explore, archive, and invent Hmong diasporic experiences—and to generate ideas for new projects. We will dedicate time to actively dialogue about your ideas for ways that we might use an array of digital tools to experience and understand Hmong cultural production and history.

Diversity in Diaspora
WHEN: Friday, February 7, 2014, 3:30-5:30pm
WHERE: 206 Ingraham Hall, UW-Madison Campus
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Yang Sao Xiong at ysxiong2@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program

Book Panel Presentation of Diversity in Diaspora
Mark Edward Pfeifer (SUNY-Institute of Technology) and Yang Sao Xiong (UW-Madison)

This anthology wrestles with Hmong Americans’ inclusion into and contributions to Asian American studies, as well as to American history and culture and refugee, immigrant, and diasporic trajectories. It negotiates both Hmong American political and cultural citizenship, meticulously rewriting the established view of the Hmong as new Asian neighbors an approach articulated, Hollywood style, in Clint Eastwood’s film Gran Torino. The collection boldly moves Hmong American studies away from its usual groove of refugee recapitulation that entrenches Hmong Americans’ points-of-origin and acculturation studies rather than propelling the field into other exciting academic avenues.

Diversity in Diaspora represents an essential step in carving out space for Hmong Americans as primary actors in their own right and in placing Hmong American studies within the purview of Asian American studies.

2013 - 2014 Events

The Changing Roles of Hmong Women in Wisconsin
WHEN: Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 6-8pm
WHERE: 206 Ingraham Hall, UW-Madison
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Ian Baird at ibaird@wisc.edu or the Asian American Studies Program at aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program and the Hmong Consortium at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

The panelists will be:
Yer Vang (Madison immigration attorney and lecturer for the course Hmong American Women’s Experiences, UW-Madison)
Yer Yang (Sheboygan high school teacher and Vice-President of the Hmong 18 Clan Council of Wisconsin)
Anne Vang-Lo (Appleton teacher and Education PhD student at UW-Madison studying Hmong women leaders in America)

Panel Discussion on the Go Big Read Book A Tale for the Time Being
WHEN: Tuesday, October 22, 2013, 5:30pm
WHERE: Room 460 Memorial Library
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Timothy Yu at tpyu@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, UW-Madison Center for the Humanities, Department of English, Nelson Institute and Go Big Read

Hip Hop Dance Workshop: Extreme Breakin’
WHEN: Thursday, May 2, 2013, 1:20-3:10 pm
WHERE: 249 Lathrop Hall (2nd floor, west wing)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy at pachoy@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Dance Program, Office of the Vice-Provost and Chief Diversity Office

Ze Motion teach the “power-science” of breaking

Open to UW-Madison students; to reserve place, email: pachoy@wisc.edu

Panel & Dance Showing: “Like Water: Environmental Justice Through the Lens of Science and Hip Hop Dance”
WHEN: Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 12-1:30 pm
WHERE: Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, The Forum, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 330 N Orchard St, Madison, WI 53715
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy at pachoy@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: UW-Madison Office of the Vice-Provost and Chief Diversity Officer, UW-Madison Dance Department, 10th International Breakin’ The Law Urban Dance Festival

Moderated by Peggy Choy, with guest panelists Melanie West (Tiz Media, Illinois), Lainet Garcia-Rivera (Center for Ecology, Milwaukee), and Prof. Patty Loew (Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW-Madison)

Dancers Sekou Heru, Ze Motion and Lacouir Yancey perform in Choy’s new dance work-in-progress

Hip Hop Dance & Martial Arts Fusion Workshop
WHEN: Tuesday, April 30, 2013, 1:20-3:10 pm
WHERE: Lathrop Hall, Studio 249 (2nd floor, west wing)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy at pachoy@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Dance Program, Office of the Vice-Provost and Chief Diversity Office

Guest dancers Ze Motion and Lacouir Yancey will teach breaking, Sekou Heru will teach his Power House Fitness™ (his own fusion of fitness, house style & martial arts) in Peggy Choy’s Afro Asian Improv class.

Open to UW-Madison students; to reserve a place, email: pachoy@wisc.edu

Breakin’ for Wellness: Hip Hop Dance Workshop
WHEN: Monday, April 29, 2013, 6-7 pm
WHERE: 510 Lathrop Hall
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy at pachoy@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Dance Program, Office of the Vice-Provost and Chief Diversity Office

Lacouir Yancey teaches a breaking workshop that integrates body wellness “for the long haul.”

Dance Informance: “Be Like Water: Exploring Martial Arts and Urban Dance Connections with Ecosurvival”
WHEN: Monday, April 29, 2013, Noon -1:30 pm
WHERE: Student Activity Center, Multipurpose Room
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Peggy Choy at pachoy@wisc.edu
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies Program, Dance Program, Office of the Vice-Provost and Chief Diversity Office

Peggy Choy will address the theme of water resources and ecosurvival through martial arts and urban dance. The Peggy Choy Dance Company will show a new work-in-progress, “Like Water” along with hands-on dance workshop.

Dancers: Sekou Heru, Ze Motion, Lacouir Yancey

What Kind of Peace? Hmong Americans in Homeland Conflict a research talk by Dr. Nengher Vang
WHEN: Friday, March 8, 2013, 4-5:30pm
WHERE: 2235 Nancy Nicholas Hall (the re-newed School of Human Ecology Building)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Lynet Uttal, luttal@wisc.edu OR Yer Lor, aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu

Dr. Nengher N. Vang is Assistant Professor of History in the Dept. of History and Political Science at Elizabeth City State University. He received his Ph.D from the University of Minnesota and was visiting instructor in Asian American Studies at UW-Madison and postdoctoral fellow in Hmong Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include Hmong transnational politics, religions, and community development.

Migration, Settlement and Placemaking: Hmong American War Memorials a research talk by Dr. Chia Youyee Vang
WHEN: Monday, March 4, 2013, 4-5:30pm
WHERE: 2235 Nancy Nicholas Hall (the re-newed School of Human Ecology Building)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Lynet Uttal, luttal@wisc.edu OR Yer Lor, aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu

Dr. Chia Youyee Vang is associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she is founder and coordinator of the Hmong Diaspora Studies certificate program. She has conducted extensive research on the politics of U.S. refugee policies and programs and the myriad ways that refugees build communities in host societies. She is author of Hmong America: Reconstructing Community in Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2010).

Hmong Americans’ Movements Against Welfare Reform and for Political Inclusion a research talk by Mr. Yang Sao Xiong
WHEN: Friday, March 1, 2013, 4-5:30pm
WHERE: 2235 Nancy Nicholas Hall (the re-newed School of Human Ecology Building)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Lynet Uttal, luttal@wisc.edu OR Yer Lor, aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu

Mr. Yang Sao Xiong is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at UCLA. His research interests include the study of racial and linguistic inequalities in public schools and the political incorporation of immigrants in the U.S. He serves on the editorial board of the Hmong Studies Journal and the doctoral student editorial review board of the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement.

Advancing Hmong American Education and Career Development: A Psychosociocultural Investigation of 1.5 Generation Hmong American Women a research talk by Dr. Ava Yang
WHEN: Monday, February 25, 2013, 4-5:30pm
WHERE: 2235 Nancy Nicholas Hall (the re-newed School of Human Ecology Building)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Lynet Uttal, luttal@wisc.edu OR Yer Lor, aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu

Dr. Ava Yang holds a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her professional work has included research, teaching, counseling, evaluation, and consultation. Dr. Yang is currently a visiting assistant professor at UW-Madison where she teaches Hmong American studies courses in the Asian American Studies Program.

Dragging Histories: A Feminist Reading of Hmong American Narratives in Gran Torino a research talk by Dr. Ma Vang
WHEN: Friday, February 22, 2013, 4-5:30pm
WHERE: 2235 Nancy Nicholas Hall (the re-newed School of Human Ecology Building)
CONTACT: For more information, please contact Lynet Uttal, luttal@wisc.edu OR Yer Lor, aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu

Dr. Ma Vang is a University of California (UC) President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Riverside in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Southeast Asian Studies Program. Her research focuses on Hmong and Asian American Studies, gender and critical race theory, critical refugee studies and immigration, history, and US imperialism. She received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego.

2004 - 2007 Newsletter - BRIDGES

Our Annual Newsletter BRIDGES
Click here for BRIDGES 2007 (PDF)
Click here for BRIDGES 2006 (PDF)
Click here for BRIDGES 2005 (PDF)
Click here for BRIDGES 2004 (PDF)

News Archive

Peggy Choy’s “Afro-Asian Improv: From Hip Hop to Martial Arts Fusion” pays homage to Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali.
Our class has had visiting guests from the professional boxing world! Duarn “The Storm” Vue, a Hmong-American from Wisconsin is now the World Boxing Federation’s World Champion (Super Featherweight Division). With his trainer, Mr. Murid Mohammad, Vue came to teach our class about boxing basics. He is a member of the Nation of Islam and now occupies the seat of the late Muhammad Ali.
See attached photo.

Associate Professor Peggy Choy Featured in WHA-TV’s Wisconsin Life

Watch the preview for the documentary on Peggy’s great work.

Ethnic and Indigenous Studies Proposal

View the Ethnic and Indigenous Studies Proposal

Certificate Student Michelle Tong awarded 2016-2017 Wisconsin Idea Fellowship

Junior Michelle Tong (along with junior Oona-Ife Olaiya), along with community partner, Bayview Foundation, has been awarded a 2016-2017 Wisconsin Idea Fellowship to support local high school students with tools to achieve academic and personal success. Read more about CAMP Bayview: College Advancement Mentorship Program at the Bayview Foundation

Asian American Studies Program is Hiring a Lecturer for Spring 2016

Lecturer in Asian American Studies

Degree and area of specialization:
Master’s degree required

Minimum number of years and type of relevant work experience:
University/College-level teaching experience desired

Principal duties:
Responsible for teaching Asian Am 240: Topics: Hmong American Experiences in the U.S. (3 Credits) in the Spring 2016 semester. Duties include preparing a syllabus and course materials; presenting lectures and facilitating classroom discussions; preparing, administering and grading papers and exams; and holding office hours. Class size will be approximately 35 students.

To ensure consideration, application must be received by October 30, 2015.

For more information regarding appointment terms and application process, view the position listing.

Please contact Timothy Yu with any questions.

Timothy Yu provides insight and comments on “Yi-Fen Chou’s” identity

Read NBC’s article here
Read Slate’s article here

Call for Submissions and Nominations for Amy Ling Yellow Light Awards

Professor Amy Ling was the founding director of the Asian American Studies Program here at the UW-Madison. The Asian American Studies Program is sponsoring two awards for students, the Amy Ling Yellow Light Award for Integrity, and the Amy Ling Yellow Light Award for Scholarship and Creative Endeavors to honor Amy’s legacy. Student award winners will be recognized (and each will receive a $200 check) at a Fall 2015 Gathering of the Asian American Studies Program.

The document provides eligibility and criteria details for the two awards, including how to submit your scholarly/creative work, as well as how to nominate someone for the integrity award. The deadline for submissions in July 1, 2015. However, we encourage students who wish to submit work to do so at any time before the July 1 deadline.

Questions may be directed to Program Advisory Board Member Eden Inoway-Ronnie (eden.inowayronnie@wisc.edu or 265-5975).

Asian American Studies Program is Hiring a Lecturer for Fall 2014

Lecturer in Asian American Studies

Degree and area of specialization:
Master’s degree required

Minimum number of years and type of relevant work experience:
University/College-level teaching experience desired

Principal duties:
Responsible for teaching Asian Am 240: Topics: Hmong American Experiences in the U.S. (3 Credits) in the Fall 2014 semester. Duties include preparing a syllabus and course materials; presenting lectures and facilitating classroom discussions; preparing, administering and grading papers and exams; and holding office hours. Class size will be approximately 35 students.

To ensure consideration, application must be received by May 15, 2014.

For more information regarding appointment terms and application process, view the position listing.

Please contact Timothy Yu with any questions.

Congratulations to Asian American Studies Certificate Completer, Deborah Hwang!
Here’s to our Fall 2013 Asian American Studies Certificate student, Deborah Hwang, for fullfilling the requirements.

Historic Hire Dedicated to Hmong American Studies

Read the article on the College of Letters and Science News website.

The Asian American Studies Program is hiring lecturers for 2 courses for Spring 2014.

1. Asian Am 240 – Hmong American Experiences in the U.S. http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/pv_077804.html
2. Asian Am 540 – Hmong American Studies http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/pv_077805.html

For more information regarding duties, appointment terms and application process, click on the above links.

Please contact Timothy Yu at tpyu@wisc.edu with any questions.

Warm welcome for our Hmong American Studies assistant professor, Yang Sao Xiong, from the community!

Capital Times article
WKOW news story
AsianAmNews
Badger Herald

Get to know Yang Sao Xiong better with a little Q&A

Asian Am director Timothy Yu is quoted in UW new story about selected Go Big Read book, “A Tale for the Time Being”

Read the article here.

Timothy Yu becomes new director starting July 1, 2013!

Asian American Studies is Hiring 3 Lecturers for Fall 2013
Please see here for more information regarding application procedure and see listings.

Graduate Project Assistant in Asian American Studies Program

We are hiring for a graduate project assistant for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Deadline: July 05, 2013 or until position filled. Any question may be directed to Yer Lor via email or 608-263-2976

Congratulations to Asian American Studies Certificate completers!
Here’s to our Spring 2013 Asian American Studies Certificate students for fullfilling the requirements. Students who have completed the requirements this semester are:
Rebecca Her
Bao Nhia Khang
Rebecca Lundberg
Bao Nhia Moua
Jeffrey Moua
Hattie Reichoff
Mai Choua Thao
Gowshing Xiong
Melissa Xiong
Houa Yang

Congratulations!

Call for Submissions and Nominations for Amy Ling Yellow Light Awards

The two-page document provides eligibility and criteria details for the two awards, including how to submit your scholarly/creative work, as well as how to nominate someone for the integrity award. The deadline for submissions in July 1, 2013. However, we encourage students who wish to submit work to do so at any time before the July 1 deadline.

2012 Awardees were Deb Hwang and Charlie Lee, who both received the Amy Ling Yellow Light Award for Integrity.

Hmong American Studies Position Accepted

Yang Sao Xiong has accepted the Faculty position in Hmong American Studies at UW-Madison and he will be joining us in the Fall of 2013. He will have a joint faculty position with the School of Social Work.

Mr. Yang Sao Xiong is completing his doctoral studies in the Department of Sociology at University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include the study of racial and linguistic inequalities in public schools and the political incorporation of immigrants in the U.S. His dissertation is titled “Hmong Americans’ Political Participation and Incorporation in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, 1980-2011.” He earned his Bachelors degree in Asian American Studies and Sociology from the University of California, Davis. He has written about children of immigrants, social mobility of immigrants, Hmong students in public schools, and poverty in Hmong American communities. He will teach two courses per year about Hmong Americans in the Asian American Studies Program and two courses per year on community organizing, race and ethnicity and community based research methods. His first year at UW-Madison will be as a post-doctoral scholar with an Anna Julia Cooper Fellowship. He will start as an assistant professor in the Fall of 2014.

Congratulations to Asian American Studies Certificate completers!
Here’s to our Fall 2012 Asian American Studies Certificate students for fullfilling the requirements. Students who have completed the requirements this semester are:
Kia Her
Ya Mee Lo
Coua Moua
Choua Xiong
Her Xiong
Xong Yang

Congratulations!

2012 Amy Ling Yellow Light Award Recipients

The Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is proud to announce the recipients of the 2012 Amy Ling Yellow Light Awards:

The Amy Ling Yellow Light Award for Integrity: DEBORAH HWANG and CHARLIE LEE

These awards honor the memory and legacy of Professor Amy Ling, who was the founding director of the Asian American Studies Program and a pathbreaking scholar of Asian American literature. She taught in the Department of English at the University of WisconsinMadison from 1991 until her untimely death in 1998. Her published works include:
– Between World: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry, 1990
– Imagining America: Stories From the Promised Land, 1991
– Visions of America: Personal Narratives From the Promised Land, 1992
– Reading the Literatures of Asian America, 1993
– Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Arts, 2000

These awards are named after her last book, “Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Arts”, an edited collection of interviews and projects with 40 artists brought together by Dr. Ling to present Asian American cultural production. In the introductory chapter of “Yellow Light”, Professor Ling wrote:

“The value of an Asian American perspective, however uncomfortable and unwanted by some, is that it calls to account those in positions of power and shines a light on the discrepancy between word and deed, between democratic ideals and discrimination.”

Each award comes with a copy of Prof. Ling’s book and $200.

The awards will be given to the recipients at the Sept 28 Asian American Studies Welcome Back Gathering.

For more information, please contact luttal@wisc.edu

Assistant Professor in Hmong American Studies

The Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison seeks to hire a tenure-track assistant professor whose scholarship and teaching focus on Hmong Americans, beginning August 2013.

The candidate’s research may be based in any field, including humanities, arts, social sciences, community based studies, education, social work, counseling psychology, or anthropology.

The candidate’s scholarship may engage any methodology.

The successful candidate should pursue an active research agenda, teach four courses per year (including at least two courses on Hmong American topics), and engage actively with the Hmong community, broadly defined.

The tenure home will reside in a department appropriate to area of specialization: appointment will be budgeted in the Asian American Studies Program and the tenure home.

Additional Information:

The ideal candidate will demonstrate an in-depth cultural understanding of Hmong Americans. S/he will be grounded in Hmong American issues, including social justice considerations; will be respectful of Hmong lived experiences; demonstrate an awareness of social issues facing Hmong American communities. Preference will be given to candidates who have the ability to communicate in Hmong. Interest in working with Hmong American communities, in educational development and mentoring of Hmong and Asian American students on campus, and in advancing a vision to help forward long-term campus and local community desire to develop Hmong Studies is preferred.

http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/WebListing/Unclassified/PVLSummary.aspx?pvl_num=74753

Note: This position is NOT definitely in Social Work but we had to name at least one possible tenure department for the PVL. The tenure home will reside in a department appropriate to area of specialization; appointment will be budgeted in the Asian American Studies Program and the tenure home.

HOW TO APPLY: To apply, send cover letter, c.v., writing sample, and three letters of recommendation to Professor Lynet Uttal, Director, Asian American Studies Program, atluttal@wisc.edu To ensure full consideration, application materials must be received by November 28, 2012.

The deadline is November 28, 2012. PVL #74753 University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

2012 Amy Ling Yellow Light Awards
Deadline July 1, 2012

There are two Amy Ling Yellow Light Awards awarded per year. The awards are $200 each. These awards honor the memory and legacy of Professor Amy Ling, who was the founding director of the Asian American Studies Program and a pathbreaking scholar of Asian American literature. For full details about the awards, click here.

Congratulations to Asian American Studies Certificate completers!
Here’s to our Spring 2012 Asian American Studies Certificate students for fullfilling the requirements. Students who have completed the requirements this semester are:
Saengthong Douangdara
Esther Ha
E Her
Hannah Koury
Keavy Knauss
Phong Nguyen
Heather Stroess
Bao Thao
Yeng Kong Thao
Hnub Vang
Choua Xiong
Lisa Xiong

Congratulations!

Graduate Project Assistant

Asian American Studies Program
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Academic Year 2012-2013

We are seeking a graduate project assistant for the 2012-2013 academic year. Check out the full job description and application process.

April 14, 2012
Asian American Studies Program Part of Hmong Parents’ Day 2012
Jan Miyasaki brilliantly represented the Asian American Studies Program to Hmong parents from across the state at the 2012 Hmong Parents’ Day organized by Hmong Research Team in Counseling Psychology, a group of undergraduate and graduate students under the supervision of Prof. Albert Gloria.

April 14, 2012

Matsumura co-authors textbook
Ella Mae Matsumura co-authored a textbook! Atkinson, Kaplan, Matsumura, and Young, Management Accounting, 6th ed. and has introduced some pedagogical innovations on how accounting issues are related to sustainability reporting.

April 14, 2012

Asian American Studies Program Represented at SOAR
Ella Mae Matsumura served last year as a faculty representative to the SOAR program by dining with incoming first-year students to help create a welcoming community for students of color. The dinner included incoming first-year students who were entering into UW-Madison’s foremost student diversity programs, including: PEOPLE, Posse, The First Wave Urban Arts Program; and the Academic Advancement Program (AAP) in Letters & Science, as well as students of color who are not in the diversity programs named above. Thank you for supporting students of color, Ella Mae!

April 14, 2012
Project Assistant Gets Into Medical School
Our 2010-2012 Project Assistant, Paj Ntaub Vang has been accepted to medical school! We will miss you as you continue with your graduate school endeavors!

April 14, 2012
2009-2010 Visiting Professor Gets Tenure-Track Appointment
Nengher Vang, our 2009-2010 visiting professor, will be starting a tenure-track appointment as Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History and Political Science at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina.

April 27, 2012

Asian American Studies Particpation in Ethnic Studies Requirement Committee
On Friday, April 27, a committee that is developing a rubric for assessment of learning outcomes of the Ethnic Studies Requirement gathered instructors who are teach “e” designated courses. This was the 3rd meeting, which to be honest from the get-go has been heavily criticized by faculty because there has never been a formal chance to talk about the meaning and experiences with teaching for the ethnic studies requirement. Although small groups have had great conversations, the formal activity of each meeting has not gotten at core issues. A GREAT BIG KUDOS goes out to Asian American Studies instructors for sticking with it and showing up at this meeting…Leslie Bow, Jan Miyasaki, Peggy Choy, Hemant Shah, Morris Young, Lynet Uttal, Victor Jew. Thank you for showing up at this really busy time of the semester! We were a major presence and Gary Sandefur and Aaron Brower were there to see and listen to us.

4/20/2013

Tenured!! Associate Professor Cindy Cheng was granted tenure!

Congratulations to Asian American Studies Certificate completers!
Here’s to our Fall 2011 Asian American Studies Certificate students for fullfilling the requirements. Students who have completed the requirements this semester are:
Christopher Tzeu Kung Tzu Lo
Minhtuyen Mai
John Leng Xiong
Hleechi Yang
Pa Nhia Yang
Soua Yang

Congratulations!

Dinner with Asian American Student Union a Success!
Hats off to Cindy Cheng and Lillian Tong who told us what it was like for them to grow up Asian American in their parts of the country in the 1970s and 1950s, respectively. There was so much wisdom in their words.

In attendance was Mike Thornton, Hemant Shah, Maya Holtzman, Leslie Bow, Ella Mae Matsumura, Lillian Tong, Victor Jew, Ava Yang, Cindy Cheng, Cecile David, Lynet Uttal and Rodney Horikawa.

Lecturer
Asian American Studies Program
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Spring 2012

We are seeking a lecturer to teach Asian Am 102: Intro to Comparative Ethnic Studies. More details can be found here.

Director Speaks About the Asian American Studies Program
Lynet Uttal, director of Asian American Studies, speaks about the program in Asian Wisconzine: http://www.asianwisconzine.com/0911LynetUttal.html

Congratulations to Asian American Studies Certificate completers!
Here’s to our Spring 2011 Asian American Studies Certificate students for fullfilling the requirements. Students who have completed the requirements this semester are:
Chanel Govreau
Mai Vue Thao
Pha Vang
Zoua Vang
PaHoua Xiong
Darla Yang

Congratulations!

Lecturer
Asian American Studies Program
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fall 2011

We are seeking a lecturer to teach Asian Am 560: Special Topics: Asian American Psychology or Sociology. More details can be found here: http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/pv_066874.html

Come see what one of our certificate student, Chanel Matsunami Govreau created in her exhibit, “Shi: Kimono in Motion.”

Congratulations to Asian American Studies Certificate completers!
Here’s to our Fall 2010 Asian American Studies Certificate students for fullfilling the requirements. Students who have completed the requirements this semester are:
Mee Her
Jessica Pan
Meng Vang
Nancy Vang
Haesung Yang

Congratulations!

Assistant Professor Peggy Choy Featured on the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program News and Events Page
Peggy Choy participates in two part event titled, Power Moves: From Bruce Lee’s Intercepting Fist to Hip Hop and Beyond. For more information and to see pictures, please visit http://apanews.si.edu

Professor Leslie Bow Featured on Wisc.edu Website and Newspaper
Leslie Bow talks about her new book, “Partly Colored: Asian Americans and Racial Anomaly in the Segregated South” and her experiences which prompted her to work on this book. Read more about the interview and her current work at: http://www.news.wisc.edu/18551

Asian American Studies Teaching Assistantship for Spring 2011
EMAIL APPLICATION DEADLINE IS WEDNESAY, DECEMBER 8, BY 5:00 PM

The Asian American Studies Program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is hiring a teaching assistant for Spring semester 2011 for the following course:

Asian Am 102: Intro to Comparative Ethnic Studies
(Instructor: Jan Miyasaki)
33.3% Teaching Assistantship (includes tuition remission and benefits)

Course Description:
This introductory course introduces students to a critical race perspective and thinking comparatively about racial ethnic groups in the United States. The course is cross-listed with the Folklore Studies and Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Programs, and will use an interdisciplinary approach.

Since this semester will be taught by the Asian American Studies Program, preference will be given to a graduate student with interest in Asian American Studies. The course will have 60 students. The Teaching Assistant will attend lectures and lead four discussion sections of 15 students each. The Teaching Assistant will need to be available for pre-class discussions/trainings with the instructor.

Appointment dates: January 7-May 22, 2011

Class times:
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30-3:45
120 Ingraham

Four Discussion sections (15 students each)
1) Mondays, 9:55-10:45, 224 Ingraham
2) Mondays, 1:20-2:10, 4208 Helen C. White Hall
3) Wednesdays, 9:55-10:45, 224 Ingraham
4) Wednesdays, 1:20-2:10, 114 Social Work

The Asian American Studies Program evaluates applicants for teaching assistantships by considering a variety of factors, including:

Expertise in and interest in Asian American Studies is preferred.
Experience in teaching — either from prior teaching experience or demonstrated abilities of facilitating groups and the ability to communicate material clearly and stimulate student interest.
Experience in evaluating student work is preferred.
Current enrollment in a UW-Madison graduate program.

APPLICATION: Please provide the following materials by email:
a. A cover letter including:

Name, address, email, phone number, course number you are applying for.
Current Department and stage (number of years in program, completed prelims, ABD, etc.):
Describe your interest in and reasons why you think you are qualified for this position.
Please include a list of and describe any Asian American studies coursework you have done (or readings you have done on your own).
Your current research interests and/or thesis topic.
Any other information that you think would be relevant to this position and hiring you.

b. Your curriculum vita (resume) (include previous TA experiences at UW with name of course and instructor)
c. The names, emails, and phone numbers of two people who can be contacted for recommendations
d. Any other supporting information you wish to add.

Please email your application in to aasp@mailplus.wisc.edu with the subject line:
ASIAN AM 102 TA POSITION [YOUR-NAME]

FOR QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT Lynet Uttal at 263-4026 or luttal@wisc.edu

EMAIL DEADLINE: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 5 pm or until filled.

PLEASE NOTE: By University regulations, the Asian American Studies Program cannot make an appointment to any full-time graduate student that would result in the person’s total University employment exceeding 50%, without approval of the Dean’s office. If you are offered and accept any appointment on campus after submitting this application, you are obligated to let us know in order to consider this application current and complete.

Victor Jew, Asian American Studies Lecturer Wins the Dr. Brenda Plfaehler Award!!
Victor Jew received a Dr. Brenda Plfaehler Award for having worked with students in the Center for Educational Opportunity (CeO.) He was recognized on April 28, 2010 at 4pm in the Conference Dining Room at the Lowell Hall. Students in CeO (formerly TRIO) nominate people who have made a major impact on their educational achievement at UW-Madison at the time of graduation. Thank you for your commitment to students, Victor!

UW-Madison’s Experience of Racism: What Asian Americans Are Saying
See quotes of experiences of racism from the view of Asian Americans! Share your own stories!

STEREOTYPING: MIDWESTERN ASIAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE ON YOUTUBE!!
John Tao, a student in one of our Asian American Studies courses, produced a video of how UW-Madison Asian Americans respond to the question “Where are you from?”

Watch the clip on YouTube here.

NEW YEAR BABY won 2008 Steep & Brew Audience Award for Best Documentary Film
As part of our 2008 Asian American Film Series in the Wisconsin Film Festival, New Year Baby was chosen by the audience as their favorite documentary film of the festival. Congratulations!