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Steps Along the Curved Road

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Following is an excerpt:
In October 1986, an invited gaggle of fifty faculty and students convened at Cornell University for a historic East Coast Asian American Scholars Conference to lay the initial groundwork for an Asian American Studies network “East of California.” Resolutions unanimously passed by participants included statements of support for institutionalizing an Asian American Studies program at UMass Boston and an Inter-College Research Institute in Asian American Studies at the City University of New York, along with a call to reconvene in the future to assess the progress of East Coast Asian American Studies programs.1 Russell Leong, then editor of UCLA’s Amerasia Journal, was one of two non-East Coast participants. We greatly appreciate Russell’s fresh invitation from CUNY FORUM after all these years.

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The Hidden Story of What Drives Success: Institutions and Power

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For all the comparisons between groups, both historical and in the present day — who’s up, who’s down, who’s got the winning formula, who doesn’t — the real point goes missing. The hidden story of what drives success has to do with the power of institutions to shape what opportunities groups have or don’t have, and what they can do. That said, we do not often bring into the dialogue that institutions and policies do matter. And that’s why this loop — the fascination with why some groups are motivated to do well and others are not — keeps replaying.

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Passages: Tribute to Yuri Kochiyama (1921–2014)

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Yuri Kochiyama: Rites of Passage
One of the unspoken rites of paSsage for a third generation Japanese American (Sansei) from the 1970s Los Angeles Asian Movement was to visit the Kochiyama Family in New York City. For many a Sansei getting their feet wet in the Asian Movement, the Kochiyama’s embraced us as family and introduced us into a whirlwind of all kinds of people. The Kochiyama’s apartment might well have been described as “Movement Central.”

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Momotaro/Peach Boy: A Portfolio

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Momotaro/Peach Boy is a portfolio of nine prints based on the popular Japanese folk tale about a baby boy who emerges from a giant peach and grows up to become a hero. The prints in this series form the pages of a fictional narrative, inspired by family memories of the forced internment of Japanese Americans and the experiences of Japanese American GIs in World War II. Each of the prints incorporate photographs of my father, grandfather and son, as well as cartoon characters, material from the National Archives, traditional Japanese motifs and illustrations appropriated from magazines and children’s books.

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My Winter Travels on the Sea

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Boat—a tool for my journey on the sea and also my second oceanic ancestor. I never imagined that I would ever travel alone on the sea. In the beginning I just wanted to rebel against my parents because they stopped me from studying in Taiwan. Further, it had always been my childhood dream, inspired by my youngest great-uncle, to travel alone on the waters. Rebellion was not something easy on our island within the tribe I belonged, despite my being the only son of my father. However . . . .

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Second Generation Asian America: Inheriting the Movement

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Each generation of Asian Americans faces its unique set of alienations: invidious stereotypes resulting in a unique double-consciousness. Such “two-ness” was akin to the conflicted feelings of generations of African Americans whose worth was earlier measured through the eyes of others, as W.E.B. Du Bois points out.

For Asian Americans, such stereotypes included that of the perpetual foreigner, model minority, job-stealer, and alien, which have recurred during generations and waves of immigration. Other names — entitled, whitewashed, ghetto, terrorist — are newer. These perceptions made by others had also created a sensation of “double-consciousness” among Asian Americans.

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The University of Pennsylvania’s Asian American Studies Program: Reflections

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Eiichiro Azuma
In March of 2013, the University of Pennsylvania’s Asian American Studies (ASAM) celebrated its fifteenth-year anniversary. We are a small but vibrant ethnic studies program that not only mirrors the traditional ethnic studies vision of uniting scholarship, student activism and community service, but also endeavors to constantly adapt to the shifting intellectual needs of UPenn’s undergraduate student body. Our inception was inseparable from student activism and community support back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Currently, ASAM consists of four standing faculty members with a full-time Associate Director. All faculty are tenured — Grace Kao in Sociology, David Eng and Josephine Park in English, and myself in History. We belong to our respective home departments, as ASAM does not have its own faculty line. Dr. Fariha Khan, a specialist in South Asian American folklore, has a dedicated role as Associate Director, and also teaches core courses for the program. ASAM offers a minor in Asian American Studies, and we have contributed to the diversification of undergraduate curriculum in UPenn’s School of Arts and Sciences. Comprised of those who pursue the minor, our Undergraduate Advisory Board takes the initiative in organizing student-led conferences, lectures, and other events while advising faculty from the student perspective. ASAM has a close partnership with the Pan-Asian American Community House, a student service division that is a part of the Vice Provost for University Life.

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A Guide to Responding to Microaggressions

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In recent years, academic literature has focused increasingly on the subject of microaggressions. Microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental actions (whether intentional or unintentional) that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward members of oppressed or targeted groups1 including: people of color, women, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) persons, persons with disabilities, and religious minorities. Some scholars today argue that racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination are no longer as blatant as they may have been in the past. Instead, people may demonstrate their biases and prejudices in more subtle ways, otherwise known as microaggressions. The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to discuss how different types of microaggressions affect people’s lives, and (2) to provide a hands-on guide to strategies, approaches, and interventions to address microaggressions.

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Culture and Historic Preservation: Recommendations for New York City Chinatown’s Future

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In Fall 2008, the Chinatown Working Group was formed to create a community-based plan to ensure appropriate development for New York City’s Chinatown and its surrounding areas — parts of Lower Manhattan that are not currently protected by zoning. The CWG is comprised of 46 stakeholders, including community organizations, property owners, tenant groups, and Manhattan Community Boards 1, 2 and 3. In Spring 2013, with funding from LMDC, the CWG selected the Pratt Center/Collective team as their planning consultant to create recommendations and implementation strategies in the areas of Affordability; Culture & Historic Preservation; Economic Development; and Zoning & Land Use. Pratt Center/Collective concluded their research and report in December 2013.

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Lonesome Journey: The Korean American Century

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Our Collective History
The story of organized Korean immigration is over one hundred years old now, but much of it remains to be told to the outside world. A singular irony is that its beginning chapter, spanning the first seventy-five years, is still missing, although its current pages brim with shining tales of one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the United States.

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