Friday, May 17, 2024 | 9:30am to 4pm
CUNY School of Law
2 Court Square, Long Island City, NY 11101
RSVP: Register
Coined in 1968, “Asian American” captures a vast and heterogenous racialized group that includes diverse ethnicities, religions, and cultures. The addition of “Pacific Islander” recognizes shared sociopolitical, historical, and phenotypic similarities among those who fall under the category, AAPI. The communities that encompass this racialized label include immigrants to the U.S. with origins from South (e.g. India, Bangladeshi, Pakistani); Southeast (e.g. Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia); and East (e.g. Korea, Japan, China) Asia; and also include members from broader Asian diasporic communities (e.g. Indo-Caribbean, Japanese-Peruvian, Chinese-Mexican), as well as those who are indigenous to the Americas (e.g. Native Hawai’ian, Samoan, Saipanese); become Americans through international adoption from Asian countries; or are mixed race.
What is AAPI? There are differences among separate communities, but there are also similarities that bind us as a people. In recent years, differences, including religions, political ideology, color, class, and citizenship status among Asian Americans in the United States and Asia have created notable fissures. It is thus ever timely for scholarly and community-based interventions to help us revisit the questions of who are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; the complicated sociohistory and current iteration of AAPI studies; and broad concerns that affect “AAPIs” as a racialized entity. Because CUNY is in New York City, home to the most diverse AAPI population in the U.S., we are well-situated to not only examine but critically interrogate what it means to be AAPI, and the separate identities that comprise this larger umbrella identity. As a whole, inclusive of mixed race individuals, AAPIs are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in New York City (and the U.S.), currently making up a combined 11% of the city. This racial and ethnic demographic shift has been reflected at CUNY, with an increase to 23% of students identifying as Asian.
For this symposium, the Asian American / Asia Research Institute has invited students, scholars, community organizers, and/or practitioners to share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, and other activities that address the broad scope of “AAPI Identities,” including:
- AAPI Identities through Education
- Storytelling and Research
- Diversity in the AAPI Diaspora
Program
9:30am to 10am – Registration and Breakfast
10am to 11:30am – Welcome & Keynote
- Yung-Yi Diana Pan, Interim Executive Director, AAARI-CUNY
- Dean Sudha Setty, CUNY School of Law
- Keynote Speaker: Betty Yu, Native New Yorker Educator, Artist & Activist
11:30am to 11:45am – Break
11:45am to 12:45pm – Concurrent Panel Sessions
- NYS AANHPI K-12 Curriculum and Beyond
- Identities in K-12 Education
- Multifaceted Identities: AAPI Students in Greek Letter Organizations and Online Identity
- TBA
12:45pm to 2pm – Lunch & Networking
2pm to 3pm – Lightning Talks/Workshops
- Session 1 (2pm to 2:30pm)
- Session 2 (2:30pm – 3pm)
3pm to 3:15pm – Break
3:15om to 4:30pm – Close Out Session
Co-sponsor
CUNY School of Law
