July 2020

Punctuated Equilibrium: Now Everyone is an Immigrant

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OUR LIVES IN 2020 are being shaped by unfamiliar words, customs and concepts. Many of us are experiencing health insecurity, food insecurity, job insecurity, and fear of random violence. These concepts may be new to many of us, but they would have been very familiar to my grandfather Misao and many other immigrants and refugees, … Read more

Coronavirus, the Novel

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“THE CURIOUS THING ABOUT PANDEMICS,” I read in a back issue of The Guardian, “is that novelists don’t seem to know what to do with them.” Well, that is one of the curious things about pandemics. “But when they have written memorably about them,” the critic continues, “it tends to have been as allegories for … Read more

Asian Americans Recognizing Ourselves at a Crossroads

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DURING THE WORST Asian American Heritage Month ever, May 2020, I wondered how I would start my tenure as President of Queens College. I had been named to the position just as the COVID-19 pandemic was underway, invisible and silent, distributed by “super spreaders” who had brought it from both Asia and Europe, albeit without … Read more

Mapping Covid-19’s Transnational Implications for Women Workers

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“We [women in the United States] are the majority of the population, majority of the electorate, majority of the workforce… and yet we’re still doing [the] majority of family unpaid or low paid labor.” — Ai-jen Poo TODAY IS JUNE 30, 2020. More than 125,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus; globally, half a million … Read more

Why Ethnic Studies is Pivotal Today

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“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