Date: Monday, November 4, 2013 Time: 9AM to 5PM
Place: CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Concourse Level, Manhattan
Cody Bachu a senior at Queens College/CUNY majoring in Environmental Science and Environmental Studies. Cody hopes to pursue a career in Sustainable Urban Planning or Urban Systems Engineering in order to meaningfully contribute to innovation for the future, particularly in cities. Cody currently works at the Fifth Avenue Committee as a member of the CUNY Service Corps to assist with Hurricane Sandy housing recovery efforts in Gowanus and Red Hook. Other recent involvements include a collaborative study on the QueensWay development, and interning at NYDesigns’ Green Job Training Program.
John J. Chin, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the department of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College, City University of New York. His research interests include urban public health, urban demographic change, immigration, and the role of community institutions in promoting health in underserved communities. Professor Chin is the Principal Investigator of a recently completed NIH-funded study on Asian immigrant religious institutions in NYC and their potential role in HIV prevention in the communities they serve and a new NIH-funded study on the geography of HIV risk among Asian immigrant female sex workers in NYC.
Jennifer Hayashida is Director of the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College/CUNY. Prof. Hayashida received her B.A. in American Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, and has an M.F.A. in poetry from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. She was a 2009 Poetry Fellow through the New York Foundation for the Arts, and in 2008-2009 she was Writer-in-Residence through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program. She is the recipient of a PEN Translation Fund Grant, a Witter Bynner Poetry Translator Residency, a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and has been a MacDowell Colony Fellow.
Prof. Hayashida is the translator of Fredrik Nyberg’s A Different Practice (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007), and Eva Sjödin’s Inner China (Litmus Press, 2005). Recent work was published in Salt Hill, Chicago Review, and Harp & Altar, with forthcoming book-length translations being published in 2013 by Black Square Editions. Fields of interest include representations of the welfare state and immigrant experience; cross-genre literature and film; translation; Asian American community activism.
Wayne Ho is the Chief Program & Policy Officer of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA), a 90-year-old network of over 200 community and faith-based organizations aiming to promote the social and economic well-being of vulnerable New Yorkers. He is responsible for expanding the policy advocacy, community organizing, and capacity building initiatives to achieve FPWA’s Economic Equity Agenda. Previously, Wayne was the Executive Director of the Coalition for Asian American Children & Families (CACF), the nation’s only pan-Asian children’s advocacy organization. During his tenure, CACF collaborated with other organizations to successfully pass policies to improve language access, reduce bias-based harassment in schools, baseline funding for community-based child abuse prevention programs, and increase discretionary funding for the Asian Pacific American community. He serves on the board of directors of Coro New York Leadership Center, New York Foundation, and Partnership for After School Education. Wayne has been recognized by New York State and City officials, academic institutes, and community organizations for his leadership. He received his Bachelor of Arts from UC Berkeley and his Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Rose Kim is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY. Dr. Kim received her B.A. from the University of Chicago, and Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research interest is racialization, i.e. the process of developing a racialized identity. Dr. Kim recently co-signed a contract with Palgrave-Macmillian for the book prospectus Women on the Role of Public Higher Education: Reflections from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is also developing her dissertation Violence and Trauma as Constitutive Elements of Racial Identity Formation into a book. She has published articles in Amerasia Journal and Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Prior to graduate school, Dr. Kim worked as a reporter for New York Newsday, covering various beats, including public education, immigration and criminal courts. She continues to work as a freelance journalist, covering issues of personal interest.
Peter Kwong is Distinguished Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, Professor of Asian American Studies at Hunter College, and Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is best known for his work on Chinese Americans and on modern Chinese politics. Prof. Kwong sits on the Board of Directors of several organizations: Downtown Community TV; Manhattan Neighborhood Network; International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship; and The New Press, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of New York Foundation.
Trevor Lee is the Assistant Editor of CUNY FORUM (Volume 1:1) and is a Ph.D. Candidate in English at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Trevor holds a B.S. in Education from Baylor University and an M.A. in English from Rutgers University, Camden. His research focuses on Asian American and Pacific Island literature(s), post-colonial studies, and queer diasporas. His working dissertation looks at ways in which early 20th century Asian American writers actively engaged with intersecting issues of immigrant citizenship/exclusion, global feminisms, and queer identities. He has previously taught Asian American courses as an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College/CUNY and was a research fellow for the Asian American / Asian Research Institute – CUNY.
Russell C. Leong is the founding editor of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute’s CUNY FORUM publication, and previously served as the CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at Hunter College/CUNY. During his 33-year tenure as an academic editor at UCLA, he edited the first books and journals on Asian Pacific media and film, on Asian American sexualities, on Asian Americans post 9/ll, and on Asian American transcultural studies. Between 1977-2010, Leong was the editor of the foremost journal in Asian American Studies, Amerasia Journal, published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. There, he served as an adjunct full professor of English and Asian American Studies. His stories (Phoenix Eyes (2000)) and poetry (Country of Dreams and Dust (1993)) received an American Book Award and PEN Josephine Miles Award. Leong, educated in the U.S. and Taiwan in film and comparative literature, is a consulting senior editor for International Projects at UCLA.
Thomas Mariadason is a staff attorney in the Educational Equity Program at the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund (AALDEF). His work focuses on remedying unique disparities in education that affect Asian youth. This includes improving language access and programs for Asian immigrants with limited English proficiency, supporting community-based movements to end bias harassment in schools, and, more recently, equipping students from targeted communities to resist suppressive surveillance and police tactics. As with AALDEF’s other projects, Thomas’ work employs a combination of community lawyering strategies—from policy advocacy and legal representation to know-your-rights work and organizing. Thomas is a graduate of the CUNY School of Law in Queens, NY.
Jackelyn Mariano is a community activist, scholar, and singer/songwriter. She is a graduate of CUNY Hunter College, where she was an active member of the Women and Gender Studies Program, Pilipinos of Hunter (POH), the Asian American Studies Program, and the Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter (CRAASH). She holds a self-designed B.A. in Immigrant Community Organizing made possible through the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. Jackelyn serves as the Deputy Secretary General of BAYAN USA, a national alliance of progressive Filipino organizations that fights for immigrant rights in the US and for genuine democracy and development in the Philippines that is free from foreign political, economic, and social intervention. She is currently a first-year student at the CUNY School of Law, where she looks forward to studying international migration and labor law.
Keith Miyake is a Geography doctoral candidate in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Program at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Keith’s work crosses the fields of political economic geography, environmental justice and environmental governance, critical race and ethnic studies, American studies, and Asian American studies. His dissertation research looks at the institutionalization of environmental and racial knowledges within the modern capitalist state as a spatialized form of biopolitics. Prior to his graduate study, he spent several years working as an environmental engineer, designing and monitoring systems used in the cleanup of various pollutants from the soil and groundwater at sites throughout Southern California.
Keith received his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College, in Claremont, CA. During his undergraduate education, Keith was heavily involved with the Claremont Colleges Asian American studies program and worked to create an Asian Pacific Islander mentoring program at Harvey Mudd. This work heavily influenced his ongoing involvement in social justice activism related to labor, transportation, immigration, and the environment.
Joyce Moy is the Executive Director of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute. She was the first Asian American director of a NYS Small Business Development Center where she helped to secure $25 million in funding for small business. Her area of expertise is entrepreneurship and economic development. She has taught business law and taxation at Queens College, the CUNY School of Law, and at Cornell University School of Law. She is a former practicing attorney. Recently she developed a 45 hour curriculum to train financial counselors embedded in CBO’s which has been adopted as a national model for replication nationwide by Cities for Financial Empowerment.
Soniya Munshi is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College. Her research looks at the racial politics of anti-violence work in New York City, with an emphasis on responses to gender-based violence in South Asian immigrant and diasporic communities in the era of post-9/11 security discourses. Born, raised, and currently living in Queens, Soniya has been involved in critical social justice efforts over the past fifteen years, including with Manavi, Sakhi for South Asian Women, SALGA, the Audre Lorde Project, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, DRUM, and other community-based organizations in NYC.
Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal is an Associate Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice- City University of New York. Dr. Nadal is the author of many publications including Filipino American Psychology: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice (Wiley, 2011) and That’s So Gay! Microaggressions and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community (American Psychological Association, 2013). Dr. Nadal is the Vice President of the Asian American Psychological Association; a Psychologist/Trainer of the New York Police Department, and the President of the Metropolitan New York Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society.
Joey Pressley is Director of Special Projects for Office of Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito. Dedicated to bringing positive social and economic changes to New York’s oppressed and disenfranchised, Joe previously served as the Community Organizer and then Executive Director for New York AIDS Coalition, and Senior Director of Policy and Government Relations for Harlem United Community AIDS Center.
For two decades, he has worked closely with HIV/AIDS advocates, African American and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender and other communities educating hundreds about political processes and facilitating ways in which their needs and issues could be heard. In 2000, he was a candidate for the New York City Council in Brooklyn’s 35th Council District. Joe was awarded a Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University for the 2009-2010 academic year. The Revson Fellowship, which was awarded to seven individuals from an application pool of hundreds, presented an opportunity for mid-career New York City professionals to be involved in two semesters of intensive coursework, research and personal reflection.
Joey, a New York City native, holds a Master’s degree in Urban Policy Analysis and Management from the New School for Public Engagement and a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Social Sciences from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program at Hunter College. He has numerous affiliations and awards.
Amardeep Singh is the co-founder of the Sikh Coalition, the largest Sikh civil rights organization in the United States. He currently serves as its Director of Programs where he oversees the Coalition’s use of litigation, advocacy and community organizing to advance social justice goals.
Amar has represented dozens of Sikh victims of airport profiling, employment discrimination, and hate crimes since the organization’s inception after 9/11. Along with Department of Homeland Security officials, he helped to formulate guidelines governing the searches of Sikh passengers in U.S. airports. His work also led to the formulation of a regulation protecting 1.1 million New York City public school students from bias-based harassment in schools.
He has represented the Sikh community during meetings with the United States Attorney General, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of Transportation, and the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He has been quoted speaking on civil rights issues in the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN during his tenure at the Coalition.
Prior to joining the Coalition, Amar worked as a Researcher in the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch (HRW). While at HRW, he authored its report, “We Are Not the Enemy: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11.” Amar was also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race where he taught a course on the intersection of ethnic identity and the law.
Over the past year, Amar was appointed by President Barack Obama to the White House Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. He was also named a “Best Lawyer Under 40” this year by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. He sits on the Board of Trustees of the Hoboken Public Library.
Betty Lee Sung is a pioneering Chinese American scholar best known for her book, Mountain of Gold (1967). She established the first Asian American Studies courses at the City College of New York/CUNY until her retirement in 1992. Much of her historical research can be found in the “Betty Lee Sung Collection” in the Asian American section of the U.S. Library of Congress. Dr. Sung is the author of seven books, including the 1976 award-winning “Chinese American Manpower and Employment.” During her college teaching career, along with her progressively great responsibilities, she not only managed to earn a doctorate degree from the City University of New York in 1983, but also raised eight accomplished children. Dr. Sung is also a co-founder and Honorary Board Member of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute – CUNY.
Víctor M. Torres-Vélez is Assistant Professor of Africana & Puerto Rican/Latino Studies, Hunter College/CUNY. Dr. Torres-Vélez received his bachelors from the University of Puerto Rico (1996) and his Masters (2003) and Ph.D. (2007) from Michigan State University. He is a critical medical anthropologist by training, who specializes in gender, justice and environmental change. Dr. Torres-Vélez’ interdisciplinary theoretical expertise and interests are diverse. Some of these include: political ecology, development theories, theories of social change, transnationalism, science and technology studies, visual anthropology and contemporary and classical theory. Dr. Torres-Vélez’ regional focus is Latin America and the Caribbean, with an emphasis in Puerto Rico.
Dr. Torres-Vélez’ research explores people’s responses to drastic environmental and public health changes. Particularly, how people make sense of health problems in contexts environmental pollution and widespread chronic diseases. His emphasis on embodied meaning-making practices is used to decipher the triggers behind the emergence of environmental social movements. While Dr. Torres-Vélez’ research in Vieques, Puerto Rico, is a contribution to Puerto Rican studies in particular, the research insights are broader for they illustrate similar processes affecting people and places from across the world.
Currently, Dr. Torres-Vélez collaborates with El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños developing new research agendas.
Planning Committee
Jennifer Hayashida
Russell Leong
Joyce Moy
Sponsor
CUNY Diversity Grant
