Why Ethnic Studies is Pivotal Today

“Where do we belong in this unfolding story of America?” WITH THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC and the Black Lives Matter protests, I am powerfully reminded that Ethnic Studies remains more important than ever1 and that much more work still needs to be done. COVID-19 and the Civil Rights protests have underscored longstanding inequalities in the United … Read more

2019-2020 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

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.

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The Political Activism of Sikhs in Canada and the United States

Dr. Prema Kurien will discuss differences in the civic and political activism patterns of Sikhs in Canada and the United States. Dr. Kurien’s talk draws on an ongoing research project examining how differences in the social, political, and religious opportunity structures of Canada and the United States, as well as the characteristics of groups, shape the political incorporation of religious minorities. South Asians comprise the largest “visible minority group” in Canada.

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2013-2014 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

Vivian Louie Hunter College/CUNY Department of Urban Affairs and Planning Fall 2013 Course: Social Contexts of Education Course Syllabus: PDF What is the relationship between schools and society? How can schools respond to society’s transformations, for example, labor market and demographic shifts, and address educational inequality? There have been major transformations in the school populations … Read more

2012-2013 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

Russell C. Leong Hunter College/CUNY Department of English / Asian American Studies Program Spring 2013 Course: Asian American Literatures: NY and LA New York – “the Big Apple” – and L.A. – “the Big Orange” – have spawned writers as well as their novels, essays, creative non-fiction and poetry since the settlement of the two … Read more

2011-2012 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

Paul Ong is Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare and Asian American Studies at the UCLA School of Public Affairs. In Fall 2010 and Fall 2011, Prof. Ong served as the City University of New York’s Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Russell C. Leong is the founding editor of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute’s CUNY FORUM publication, and previously served as the CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at Hunter College/CUNY.

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