Asian American / Asian Research Institute
The City University of New York
For this symposium, AAARI has invited students, scholars, community organizers, and/or practitioners to share their innovative research and creative works, pedagogical projects, programmatic efforts, and other activities that address the broad scope of “AAPI Identities.”
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.
Join AAARI for a panel discussion for the launch of “One Century after Thind,” a special issue of Ethnic Studies Review, edited by Dr. Soniya Munshi and Dr. Linta Varghese, examining legacies past and present of the U.S. Supreme Court case, United States v Bhagat Singh Thind (1923).
The Dougla experience in Caribbean spaces and the diaspora provides an epistemology of mixedness, particularly as situated within an Indian/ African binary. Prof. Aleah N. Ranjitsingh centers maneuvering as a descriptive and explanatory tool that summarizes how Douglas contemplate their experience of mixedness outside of Caribbean homeland spaces—maneuvering defaults (Blackness), maneuvering ambiguity, and maneuvering privilege.
Prof. Francisco Delgado’s current project examines how Chamorro poets reimagine the landscape of California as an extension of their home island. In particular, through a careful reading of works by Chamorro poets like Clarissa Mendiola and Lehua Taitano, both of whom are currently based out of California, he argues that the nature of Chamorro identity and community is as fluid and vast as the Pacific Ocean itself.
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.