Tag: cuny

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Saving Face: The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Myth

Friday Evening Lecture Series

Please join us for a talk on, Saving Face: The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Myth, on Friday, April 1, 2016, from 6pm to 8pm, at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor, Room 6304.01, Manhattan. This talk is free and open to the general public, and is co-sponsored by the CUNY Graduate Center – Immigrant Seminar Series.

Tiger Mom. Asian patriarchy. Model minority children. Generation gap. The mainstream discourse has drawn on many generic concepts to describe the prototypical Asian family, which have given rise to two versions of the Asian immigrant family myth. The first celebrates Asian families for upholding the traditional heteronormative ideology of the “normal (white) American family” based on a hard-working male breadwinner and a devoted wife/ mother who raises obedient children. The other demonizes Asian families around these very same cultural values by highlighting the dangers of excessive parenting, oppressive hierarchies, and emotionless pragmatism in Asian cultures. In her new book Saving Face, Angie Chung shatters these one-dimensional portrayals of Asian families and reveals the emotional complexities of family relations in a changing economy through the eyes of adult-age Korean and Chinese Americans.

Based on the moving narratives of daughters and sons of immigrant families, Chung explores how the family roles American-born children assume in adaptation to their specific family circumstances have informed the way they view ethnicity and practice culture as adults. Although they know little about their parents’ lives, the author reveals how Korean and Chinese Americans assemble fragments of their childhood memories, kin-scripted narratives, and racial myths to make sense of their family experiences. Chung argues that this process of managing their feelings helps them to ease the emotional and economic strains of immigrant family life and to rediscover love and empathy through new modes of communication and caregiving. However, the book ultimately finds that these adaptive strategies come at a considerable social and psychological cost that do less to reconcile the racial contradictions and economic strains that minority immigrant families face today.

Angie Y. Chung is an Associate Professor of Sociology at SUNY Albany. Dr. Chung has served as visiting professor at Yonsei and Korea University and is currently the 2016 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her areas of expertise include immigration and the second generation, community and urban sociology, gender and family, race and ethnicity, Asian American studies, and qualitative methods. She is currently working on an NSF-funded research project on the politics of economic growth and urban redevelopment in Koreatown and Monterey Park, Los Angeles.

To RSVP for this talk, please visit www.aaari.info/16-04-01Chung.htm. Please be prepared to present proper identification when entering the building lobby.

If you are unable to attend the talk, streaming video and audio podcast will be available online the following week.

Thanks to CUNY AAARI for sharing this announcement.

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AAARI-CUNY Lecture Series: We Too Sing America

From the Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI) at the City University of New York (CUNY):

Please join us for a talk on, We Too Sing America – Deepa
Iyer in Conversation with Zohra Saed, on Friday, March 18, 2016, from 6pm to
8pm, at 25 West 43rd Street, 10th Floor, Room 1000, between 5th & 6th
Avenues, Manhattan. This talk is free and open to the general public.

Author and nationally renowned activist Deepa Iyer, in
conversation with Brooklyn based Afghan American poet Zohra Saed, will discuss
her book We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants
Shape Our Multiracial Future.

Many of us can recall the targeting of South Asian, Arab,
Muslim, and Sikh people in the wake of 9/11. We may be less aware, however, of
the ongoing racism directed against these groups in the past decade and a half.
In We Too Sing America, Deepa Iyer catalogs recent racial flash points, from
the 2012 massacre at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to the violent
opposition to the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and to the Park 51
Community Center in Lower Manhattan.

Iyer asks whether hate crimes should be considered domestic
terrorism and explores the role of the state in perpetuating racism through
detentions, national registration programs, police profiling, and constant
surveillance. She looks at topics including Islamophobia in the Bible Belt; the
“Bermuda Triangle” of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim hysteria; and the
energy of new reform movements, including those of “undocumented and
unafraid” youth and Black Lives Matter.

Deepa Iyer is an activist, writer, and lawyer with a strong
commitment to intersectional, community-based, racial justice issues in the
United States. The former Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading
Together (SAALT), Deepa is currently the Senior Fellow at the Center for Social
Inclusion where she provides analysis, commentary and scholarship on how to
build equity and solidarity in America’s changing racial landscape.

Zohra Saed is a Brooklyn based Afghan American poet. Her
poetry and essays have been published in numerous anthologies and journals.
Zohra is a doctoral candidate at The City University of New York Graduate
Center. As a Lecturer, she initiated the following courses at Hunter College:
Arab American Literature; West Asian American Literature and Film; and Central
Asian Film and Literature.

To RSVP for this talk, please visit
www.aaari.info/16-03-18Iyer.htm. Please be prepared to present proper
identification when entering the building lobby.

If you are unable to attend the talk, it will be live
webcasted on our website, www.aaari.info,
beginning 6:15PM EST, and also available the following week as streaming
video and audio podcast. See you on Friday!

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Attend ClothesLined: Stopping Walmart’s Dirty Supply Chain Moves, June 25 at the Murphy Institute at CUNY!

June 25th, 2015, 4:00 – 6:00 pm
The Murphy Institute
25 West 43rd Street, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10036

Walmart’s unique position as the world’s largest private employer should come with a responsibility to ensure workers’ voices are heard and their freedom of association respected. Walmart’s refusal to accept this responsibility has led workers to organize across national lines to hold the company accountable for its labor practices. Representatives of unions and other worker organizations from India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the US will discuss how to strengthen the ability of workers to improve conditions at the world’s largest supply chain.

Introductory Remarks: Stephanie Luce, The Murphy Institute; Stephanie Ehmsen, Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung – NYC  Office
Overview: “Walmart’s Impact on the Global Supply Chain”
                     Ashim Roy, Asia Floor Wage Alliance
Moderated Discussion: Erica Smiley, Jobs with Justice

Panelists:

Kalpona Akter, Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity
Sunrith Ham, Cambodian Labor Education Center
Sheheryar Kaoosji, Warehouse Workers Resource Center
Organization United for Respect at Walmart (tbd)

The panel discussion will be led by Duan Yi, who  founded the first cooperative law firm in China in 1988 and the pioneering Guangdong Lao Wei Law Firm in Shenzhen in 2005.  Lao Wei – which means “uphold workers’ rights” in Chinese – has a specific mission to safeguard workers’ rights.  Its lawyers have handled more than 2000 cases involving migrant workers from many parts of China.  In recent years, Duan has advised increasing numbers of workers involved in various forms of collective negotiations with employers and has emerged as a key advocate of collective bargaining in China.  He has represented Walmart workers in China in their grievances with the company.  In addition to practicing law, Duan is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Labour and Social Security at Wuhan University and an adjunct Professor at the Renmin University Law School in Beijing.  In 2013, Duan founded an important new “think tank,” the Beijing Mingde Institute for Labor Relations and Employment Research, which has partnered with the CUNY Murphy Institute’s China Program on workshops in China on collective bargaining and collective dispute resolution.

Call to Action:

Annanya Bhattacharjee, Garment Workers Union/Asia Floor Wage Alliance.

Light refreshments will be served.

Click HERE to RSVP

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Asian American / Asian Research Institute 13th Annual Gala

2014 AAARI Gala

Dear AAARI Friend,

10 days and counting until Asian American / Asian Research Institute’s 13th Annual Gala, on Thursday, November 20, 2014, from 6:30pm to 9:30pm, at Jing Fong Restaurant, 20 Elizabeth Street, Manhattan. Come celebrate AAARI’s achievements over the past year and honor our awardees for their leadership, distinguished success, and commitment to the Asian American / Asian community. Meet faculty, staff and students within CUNY, and academic, business, civic and community leaders and organizations outside of CUNY.

Gala Ticket Prices

$150 (General) | $85 (AAARI Member/Senior) | $50 (Student)

Table of Ten Prices 

$5,000 (Diamond) | $3,000 (Ruby) | $2,000 (Pearl) | $1,500 (Jade)

RSVP Deadline: November 17, 2014

For RSVP and more Information, please go to: http://www.aaari.info/2014banquet.htm 

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2014 CUNY Conference on Asian American Economic Empowerment: IGNITE YOUR BUSINESS and PREPARE to SCALE

2014 CUNY Conference on Asian American Economic Empowerment: IGNITE YOUR BUSINESS and PREPARE to SCALE

Date: Monday, September 29, 2014     Time: 9AM to 5PM

Place: CUNY Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue, Concourse Level, Manhattan

RSVP: http://2014economicempowerment.eventbrite.com

Conference Fee (includes Breakfast & Lunch)

$25 (Online until 9/20) | $40 (Online after 9/20, until 9/26)

$50 (At the Door)

For details, follow the link in the title.

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New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics: The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty, by Ya-chen Chan, on Friday, May 9, 2014

Please join the Asian American / Asian Research Institute for a talk on, New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics: The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty, by Ya-chen Chan, on Friday, May 9, 2014, from 6PM to 8PM, at 25 West 43rd Street, 10th Floor, Room 1000, between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan. This talk is free and open to the general public.

Dr. Ya-chen Chen will discuss her new book, New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics: The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty. The past century witnessed dramatic changes in the lives of modern Chinese women and gender politics. The book traces the radical changes in gender politics in China, and the way in which the lives, roles and status of Chinese women have been transformed over the last one hundred years. In doing so, it highlights three distinctive areas of development for modern Chinese women and gender politics: first, women’s equal rights, freedom, careers, and images about their modernized femininity; second, Chinese women’s overseas experiences and accomplishments; and third, advances in Chinese gender politics of non-heterosexuality and same-sex concerns.

Ya-chen Chen is an Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature and Director of Chinese Language Program at Clark University. Dr. Chen is currently a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute. While at Columbia University, Dr. Chen is conducting research on “Queering Chinese Women: LBT Research, Literature, and Cinema in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China.” Dr. Chen was formally a faculty member and Director of Asian Studies at City College of New York – City University of New York. Her academic books include Women and Gender in Contemporary Chinese Societies: Beyond Han Patriarchy; Women in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium; Higher Education in East Asia: Neoliberalism and the Professoriate; Women in Taiwan: Sociocultural Perspectives; and Farewell My Concubine: Same-Sex Readings and Cross-Cultural Dialogues.

To RSVP for this talk, please visit http://aaari.info/14-05-09Chen.htm. Please be prepared to present proper identification when entering the building lobby.

For those unable to attend, watch the live webcast of the talk on our website homepage, beginning at 6:15PM EST, or catch the post-live video and audio podcast online the following week. For updates and to view videos from past events, please visit www.aaari.info.

See you on Friday!

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