Asian American / Asian Research Institute
The City University of New York
For October, Filipino American History Month, the Asian American / Asian Research Institute is excited to uplift the voices of student researchers and activists with presentations from Gabriela Sagan and members of the Filipino Curriculum Project on Filipino activism for women and school curriculum in Hawai’i.
Jackelyn Mariano will discuss her research and community activism among diasporic Filipino social movements, particularly the Malaya Movement’s broad anti-fascist coalition building during the Philippine elections, and the Justice for Jollibee Workers campaign that has challenged the fast-food corporation’s systemic abuse of workers’ rights.
Vicki Zheng (Baruch College) aims to support Asian American commuter students’ transitions to college by addressing mental health and cultural challenges. She partnered with Apex for Youth to launch a Discord channel for academic and social support, with plans to expand to more campuses in 2023-2024.
Co-editor Rose Kim will discuss the origins of the book and read from her chapter, “Twenty Years at CUNY: A Political Coming-of-Age.” Prof. Kim will be joined by contributor Linda Luu who will read from their chapter, “Resistance Everywhere We Went: The Fight for Asian American Studies at CUNY.”
Kaitlyn Chan, a sophomore at Brooklyn College double-majoring in biology and psychology, interviewed AAPI activists and supporters about the actions that they were taking to combat the recent rise in anti-Asian hate; their experiences with discrimination, racism, and prejudice in school and the workplace; and their thoughts on the lack of Asian American representation in politics and media.
This talk will address how US racism pivots as much on nativist injustices – suffered mostly by Latinx, Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI), and Middle Eastern ethnics – as it does on injustices specific to Black Americans. Prof. Nadia Kim evidences the point by way of research on Latinx and AAPI immigrant activism, as well as an analysis of the rise of Donald Trump. Although sociology has certainly given a nod to nativistic racism, mostly in relation to the Latinx population, its core theories, frameworks, and methodologies have not centered “the citizenship line”; as such, it has not defined sociology the way the color line has. Yet, the racialized insider/outsider axis has long separated “us white Americans” from the brown brother, terrorist, war-time enemy, socioeconomic threat (e.g., academic threat), exotic seductress, anchor-baby maker, and maternity tourist. As this list of representations reveals, gender, class, and the body are also interrelated with race, and all are vital to the remaking of citizenship by the mostly Mexican and Filipin@ immigrant activists whom Prof. Kim studies in Los Angeles. Not only would a citizenship-centered sociology best grasp their efforts and the implications thereof, but, in my view, would have also predicted the arrival of the Trump era, the other focus of her talk.