Mary Ting, On Art: Grief, Guanyin & the Elephants

Mary Ting will discuss her artwork in relationship to her family history, Chinese culture and current social environmental issues. Mary will highlight artworks that weave family stories of 1930/40s Nanjing, the witch hunts of the Cultural Revolution, and her mother’s recent passing. Along the way she will re-examine traditional symbols, literary metaphors and talk about grief, social … Read more

Saving Face: The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Myth

Tiger Mom. Asian patriarchy. Model minority children. Generation gap. The mainstream discourse has drawn on many generic concepts to describe the prototypical Asian family, which have given rise to two versions of the Asian immigrant family myth. The first celebrates Asian families for upholding the traditional heteronormative ideology of the “normal (white) American family” based … Read more

We Too Sing America – Deepa Iyer in Conversation with Zohra Saed

Author and nationally renowned activist Deepa Iyer, in conversation with Brooklyn based Afghan American poet Zohra Saed, will discuss her book We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future. Many of us can recall the targeting of South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh people in the wake of … Read more

Navigating Model Minority Stereotypes: Asian Indian Youth in South Asian Diaspora

Though Asian Indians are typically thought of as a “model minority”, not much is known about the school experiences of their children. Positive stereotyping of these immigrants and their children often masks educational needs and issues, creates class divides within the Indian-American community, and triggers stress for many Asian Indian students. In her new book, … Read more

Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Sunset Park

Based on more than a decade of research, Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood charts the evolution of Sunset Park—with a densely concentrated working-poor and racially diverse immigrant population—from the late 1960s to its current status as one of New York City’s most vibrant neighborhoods. Tarry Hum shows how processes of globalization, such as shifts in … Read more

Dadah: A Meditation on Opium

Malaysian American writer Chin Woon Ping will read Dadah: A Meditation on Opium, featured in CUNY FORUM Volume 3:1, which evokes the times and life of the overseas Chinese who grew up in Malacca, Malaysia, once a British port for the opium trade. In prose and poetry, in the form of a linked imaginary historical … Read more