Lecture Series – Page 14 – Asian American / Asian Research Institute

Contemporary Asian American Activism: Building Movements for Liberation

November 24, 2025April 22, 2022 By Diane C. Fujino, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Eddy Zheng and Javaid Tariq

Bringing together grassroots organizers and scholar-activists, Contemporary Asian American Activism presents lived experiences of the fight for transformative justice and offers lessons to ensure the longevity and sustainability of organizing. In the face of imperialism, white supremacy, racial capitalism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, and more, the contributors celebrate victories and assess failures, reflect on the trials of activist life, critically examine long-term movement building, and inspire continued mobilization for coming generations.

Here to Stay: Uncovering South Asian American History

November 24, 2025April 1, 2022 By Geetika Rudra

In Here to Stay, Geetika Rudra, a second-generation Indian immigrant and American history buff, takes readers on a journey across the country to unearth the little-known histories of earlier generations of South Asian Americans.

Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other Model Minorities

November 24, 2025March 18, 2022 By erin Khuê Ninh

In her engaging study, Passing for Perfect, erin Khuê Ninh considers the factors that drove college imposters such as Azia Kim—who pretended to be a Stanford freshman—and Jennifer Pan—who hired a hitman to kill her parents before they found out she had never received her high school diploma—to extreme lengths to appear successful. Why would someone make such an illogical choice? And how do they stage these lies so convincingly, and for so long?

American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

November 24, 2025March 4, 2022 By Naoko Wake

American Survivors is a fresh and moving historical account of U.S. survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, breaking new ground not only in the study of World War II but also in the public understanding of nuclear weaponry.

Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora

November 24, 2025February 25, 2022 By Theodore S. Gonzalves and Mary Talusan Lacanlale

Co-produced by Theodore S. Gonzalves and Mary Talusan Lacanlale, Kulintang Kultura, from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, pays homage to the late Danongan “Danny” Kalanduyan, a talented musician and generous teacher who championed traditional Filipino kulintang gong music in the United States, helping to keep the memory and practice alive.

Refusing Death: Asian and Latina Immigrant Women Activists on Race, Class, and Morality

November 24, 2025December 3, 2021 By Nadia Y. Kim

Prof. Nadia Kim in her new book, ‘Refusing Death,’ chronicles how Asian and Latina immigrant women activists for environmental justice in Los Angeles—namely cleaner, more breathable air—redefine racism and classism as a result of their struggles with environmental racism and classism, and their specific social positionings under neoliberal capitalism and white supremacy.