Asian American / Asian Research Institute
The City University of New York
AAARI celebrated its 18th anniversary as part of CUNY, and honored leaders and CUNY alumni, Hon. Yuh-Line Niou (NYS Assembly, Manhattan 65th District) and Ms. June Jee (strategic partnership consultant & City College of NY alumna), as well as students award recipients for the CUNY Thomas Tam Scholarship (Biling Chen, Queensborough Community College) and Chynn-CUNY Essay and Morality Essay Contest.
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.
Ms. Biling Chen, a Chemistry major, plans to conduct a weekly volunteer workshop to assist newly-arrived Asian international students at Queensborough Community College with guidance on how to navigate American and college life, and offer tutoring for science, math and English courses. The workshop will be conducted in English to help students practice their speaking skills, and to foster more social connections on and off-campus. Participants will also visit local retirement homes to provide company to Asian immigrant seniors who may feel isolated.
Learn how to find and preserve your family’s history. Whether you’re just getting started or are a pro, get tools and methodologies to discover your family roots and journey. This two-day series of in-depth workshops, presentations, case studies and one-on-one consultations with expert practitioners of Chinese genealogy in America will inspire and teach you how to find out “where you’re really from.”
The CUNY AAFF helps to promote the artistic visual talents and stimulate communication among CUNY students who are separated by the different campuses, and serve as a central location to display their creative works. Past participants have also had their films screened at the Asian American International Film Festival.
