Hung Cam Thai
Fall 2019: CUNY Graduate Center, Sociology
Spring 2020: Hunter College/CUNY, Urban Policy & Planning
International Migration (ASIAN 39001)
This seminar focuses on the lives of young adults coming of age in Asian America as they interface with the major social institutions of American life, most notably the labor market, family, work, and schooling. We start with key theoretical perspectives and socioeconomic trends throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to understand the “old” immigration and the “new” immigration, move onto a few case studies about how young adults in contemporary Asian America are situated in these theories, and end with some speculations about the future of Asian America.
AAARI Friday Evening Lecture Series (March 29, 2019)
Keeping Up with the Nguyens: When Poor Immigrants Return to the Homeland
AAARI Friday Evening Lecture Series (November 8, 2019)
Blurred Lines: The Pursuit of Superiority in the Vietnamese Diaspora
The CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor will perform teaching, research, and guidance duties in area(s) of expertise as noted below; and share responsibility for committee and department assignments, performing administrative, supervisory, and other functions as assigned.
The Tam Visiting Professor will be based at one of the four CUNY campuses participating in the search, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Queens College or the Graduate Center. He or she will teach one class a semester at that campus and will engage with students and faculty members during the appointment. The Tam Visiting Professor will participate in public events designed to raise the visibility of scholarship in Asian American studies. This will include working closely with the Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI).
This distinctive position presents an opportunity for a leading scholar to work in New York City’s diverse and dynamic environment while also working with AAARI and CUNY faculty to develop and enrich the CUNY research agenda in Asian American studies. Visiting faculty are individuals with a primary commitment to another accredited college or university who possess advanced scholarship or professional achievement.
Author Bio
Hung Cam Thai is professor of sociology and Asian American studies at Pomona College, where he is former chair of Asian American studies, former director of the Pacific Basin Institute, and former chair of sociology. Prof. Thai is the 2019-2020 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College/CUNY. He received a sociology Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Prof. Thai's first book, For Better or for Worse: Vietnamese International Marriages in the New Global Economy (Rutgers, 2008), is a study of international marriages linking women in Vietnam and overseas Vietnamese men living in the diaspora. His second book, Insufficient Funds: The Culture of Money in Low Wage Transnational Families (Stanford, 2014), won the American Sociological Association’s 2015 Best Book Award on Asia from the Asia/Asian America Section, and the 2016 Best Social Sciences Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. Insufficient Funds examines how and why transnational families in the Vietnamese diaspora spend, receive, and give money.
A recipient of fellowships from the Haynes Foundation, Hirsch Foundation, Freeman Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, National University of Singapore, and the Institute of East Asian Studies at Berkeley, Prof. Thai has given more than 100 invited lectures and conference papers in 17 countries. He is currently writing a book about different forms of social exclusions, systems of social categorization, and symbolic superiority in contemporary Vietnam.
