ASIANS, FROM THE BEGINNING OF our settlement here, have had to write ourselves onto the script of a nation that has, for the most part, excluded our collective histories and occluded our individual voices. Because no one ever “gave America to us,” freely, we have had to collectively find it, rock by rock, wave by wave, one migrant at a time stumbling across the barbed wire of Arizona sands or steadfastly towing our bodies to reach the darkened shore of Rockaway Beach, Queens, or the foggy shores of San Francisco Bay. Yet after we found it, we had to build a city—no, rather a barrio or an enclave upon the rock.
2015
Dadah: A Meditation on Opium
Following is an excerpt:
My Meditation
MY MEDITATION ON OPIUM is drawn from close personal experience. A beloved cousin died of a heroin overdose. A revered granduncle, brother of my maternal grandmother, became an addict who died penniless, wasted, and sick. During my father’s last days, he staved off the pain of cancer by swallowing opium pellets purchased illegally from the streets. Growing up in Malacca, Malaysia, one was surrounded by opium all around—in next door neighbors’ waftings from their evening pipe, in shady dens and opium houses visible at marketplaces and alleyways, and in crime scenes attributed to purveyors and desperate addicts of dadah (the Malay word for heroin) in the nation’s capital. Moving to Vermont, I see that opium has followed me here too, with addiction and crime reaching alarming proportions, so much so as to prompt the governor to announce it publicly at his recent State of the State address.
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From Bihar to Brooklyn, to Berlin: A Quest for Sustainability and Soul
Black like coal. From the air and into my being. One could not wipe it away. Beads of sweat drew streaks of coal dust that stubbornly stuck to damp skin. Did I wash my hands? asked my grandmother before allowing me to eat. Yes. But I could not scrub away the grit embedded under my nails. Did I wash my feet? Yes, but now the towels were gray. Did I wash my mouth? Yes, and with a gargle that could not shake the ooze stuck in my nose. I associated that coal with visits to my grandfather’s home during Dhunbad summers in Bihar, India. His cement home was made ugly by the industry that supported his comfortable life from the 1950s to 1970s.
Smokin’ Houston
Following is an excerpt:
Driving in the night heat and humidity of Houston,
We passed a secluded mansion,
Spiked and wired walls around,
Mysteriously quiet.
My eyes caught the PRC emblem
In a flash of street light.
My country?
Weird, like in a wet dream.
“It must be the heat.” I dabbed the sweat on my forehead.
I had rolled down the windows,
Turned off the air-con,
Figured it would cool down with the night breeze.
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Journey to the West: Poems and Stories of Chinese Detainees on Ellis Island
Following is an excerpt:
In 1985, during the renovation of the immigration station at Ellis Island in New York City, preservationists uncovered more than 400 square feet of inscriptions in eleven languages on the walls, columns, partitions, and doors left by detained aliens sometime between 1901 and 1954. There were messages of hope and despair. One Italian immigrant wrote, “Damned is the day that I left my homeland.” There were also drawings of boats, birds, flags, and people. Others simply put their hand on the wall and drew its outline as evidence that they had been there.
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Envisioning the Next Revolutions: How Today’s Asian American Movements Connect to Worldwide Activism
Following is an excerpt:
In the early 1990s, I ended my article, “The Four Prisons and the Movements of Liberation,” about the state of Asian American activism with a series of questions: Will we fight only for ourselves, or will we embrace the concerns of all oppressed people? Will we overcome our own oppression and help to create a new society, or will we become a new exploiter group in the present American hierarchy of inequality? Will we define our empowerment solely in terms of individual advancement for a few, or as the collective liberation for all people?
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Artist Profile
Following is an excerpt:
Rahul Mehra was born in New Delhi and educated in Zambia, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. Art has been his passion since his early years. He is influenced by the vibrancy of the Indian subcontinent’s colors and pigments—reds and vermilions juxtaposed between the ochre and the yellow with the blue. Moreover, his works are deeply connected to themes found in Indian mythology and the social milieu of the subcontinent.
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Betty Lee Sung: Teaching Asian American Studies at CUNY An Interview
Following is an excerpt:
This interview was conducted on April 23, 2015 at the home of Prof. Betty Lee Sung.
Wong: Thank you for sitting down with us to be interviewed for CUNY FORUM Volume 3:1. What is your current opinion on the state of Asian American Studies on the East Coast in 2015, and in particular within The City University of New York (CUNY)? You stated in your essay for CUNY FORUM Volume 1:1 back in 2013 that Asian American Studies at CUNY was “barely holding its head above water.” Has your view changed within the past two years?
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Forty-Five Years of Asian American Studies at Yale University
Following is an excerpt:
I. Forty-Fifth Anniversary of Asian American Studies at Yale
It is a great honor and pleasure to be invited back to Yale and to participate in this important conference.
This gathering has historic significance. It was forty-five years ago during the Spring semester of 1970 when the first class in Asian American Studies was offered at Yale. It was the first Asian American Studies class offered by any Ivy League college and, along with the first class offered at City College of New York,1 one of the first two that was taught east of the West Coast.
Full PDF article download: 2015 CUNY FORUM – Don T. Nakaniski
Prema Ann Kurien: An Interview with CUNY FORUM
Following is an excerpt:
This interview was conducted via e-mail by Russell C. Leong in March 2015 for CUNY FORUM.
Sociology, Religion, and Migration
Leong: You have stated that sociologists of religion rather than sociologists of immigration, have different approaches to the role of religion in shaping migration patterns. How do you situate yourself as a sociologist who studies both religion and immigration?
Kurien: Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to discuss my work. I started out as a sociologist of immigration with no training in the sociology of religion. Religion was not on my radar at all, and I stumbled onto the importance of religion in shaping patterns of migration by accident during my dissertation research. I have since found it to be central to all my projects, even ones where I had decided not to focus on religion! I think this makes me different from most other sociologists of immigration who generally do not include religion in their analyses. I still see myself as a sociologist of immigration first, but someone who understands how religion can interact with migration and settlement processes through a variety of direct and indirect mechanisms. My interest in how religion can impact the lives of migrants and their children in indirect ways distinguishes me from most sociologists of religion, who tend to focus on religious institutions or on people’s religious beliefs and practices.
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