Penn Asian American Studies (ASAM)

ASAM would love to hear what you all have to say about first week of classes!
Please comment below 👇

Join us and meet the 2024 - 2025 Panda Express Postdoctoral Fellows in Asian American Studies Sonya Chen and Mark Tseng-Putterman, learn about them and the new courses they are teaching this Fall.

Please RSVP, lunch will be provided for all registrants!

We can’t wait to meet you at the ASAM Welcome Back Lunch on Sept 13 in McNeil Building 2nd floor. Don’t forget to RSVP in our website asam.sas.upenn.edu 💛🩵🧡🩷💚

‼️ ASAM welcomes the Class Of 2028 to our campus this fall!
And we warmly welcome our returning students, wishing them an amazing academic year ahead ‼️

‼️‼️ Introducing our ASAM Undergraduate Research Fellow Grace L. Edwards ‼️‼️
Grace is a rising senior pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Health and Societies, with a concentration in
Race, Gender, and Health, and a minor in Journalistic Writing at the University of Pennsylvania.
She is interested in relationships communities of color have with healthcare: ie. relationships
with healthcare providers (doctors and nurses), stakeholders (lobbyists), healthcare institutions
(hospitals and insurance companies), and systems, as contributors to blights in marginalized
communities. In her free time, she loves taking care of her house plants, swimming, going on
long walks, and reading.

‼️‼️ Introducing our ASAM Undergraduate Research Fellow 2024-2025: Taryn Flaherty ‼️‼️

Taryn is a born and raised Philadelphian and a rising senior, studying history. In the wake of a
proposed basketball arena in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, her project seeks to highlight the
Chinatown community members’ efforts to take agency in their neighborhood.

‼️ Introducing our ASAM Undergraduate Research Fellow Yeeun Yoo ‼️

Yeeun Yoo is a rising junior in the College, studying Urban Studies and Sociology with a minor in
Asian American Studies. She is from Charlotte, NC and in her free time, she likes to collect art
prints and be sceney at bookstores & cafes!
Militarized Masculinities: A Case of Military Conscription, Gender Norms, and Citizenship in
South Korea
She plans to investigate the complex deconstruction and construction of gender norms and
citizenship through mandatory military conscription in South Korea.

Maliha Rahman is a rising senior studying Health and Societies and Biology and minoring in
Asian American Studies and Chemistry. One day, she hopes to pursue a career in which she able
to use all that she learnt by providing equitable health care to immigrant families in the US. Her research project investigates the prevalence and impact of medical misinformation within social media forums catering to the Bangladeshi and Bangladeshi American communities.

‼️Introducing our ASAM Undergraduate Research Fellow- Alana Yang ‼️
Alana (she/her) is a rising senior from Westchester, New York studying political history with
minors in law & society and legal studies & history. She is interested in exploring the
intersection between race and the law and how racialized perceptions of immigrants impact
their ability to engage in education and civic life. On campus, she is involved in Penn’s Model
UN team (Intercol), the Penn Historical Review, MUSE, and the History Undergraduate Advisory
Board.

‼️Introducing our ASAM undergraduate fellow Fariha Nawar ‼️
She is a rising senior majoring in Political Science and English, and minoring in Comparative Literature.
She aspires to be an advocate in the human rights field and is passionate about uplifting marginalized
communities. At Penn, Fariha has been heavily involved in the Asian American community through being founder and former President of Penn Bangla, former
Political Chair of the Asian Pacific Student Coalition, and a member of the ASAM UAB. She has
conducted human rights research for Perry World House’s Borders and Boundaries Project, and
is an SNF Paideia Fellow!

⭐️ Panda Express Postdoctoral Fellows 2024-2025 ⭐️

‼️‼️Introducing our ASAM Fellows 2024-2025 ‼️‼️

ASAM 1170 is being taught by one of the Panda Express Postdoctoral Fellows in Asian American Studies- Mark Tseng-Putterman.
Sign up for the class this fall!

Please enroll in ASAM 1540:
ASIAN AMERICAN AND BLACK COMMUNITIES AND COALITION BUILDING!!

Please enroll in ASAM 1900 being taught by our Panda Express Postdoctoral fellow 2024-2025- Sonya G. Chen!!

On behalf of the Asian American Studies Program (ASAM), we extend our warmest congratulations on your 40th anniversary. Valerie De Cruz has been a great supporter of ASAM—her dedication and passion have been instrumental in our growth and success as well. We are a proud partner of GIC from the very beginning of our program in 1996.

As we look back on our shared journey, we are filled with gratitude and appreciation for the role GIC has played in ASAM and for the entire University. ASAM celebrates you, cherishes our shared memories, and looks forward to the years ahead.
Thank you for being such a pivotal part of our history and congratulations once again!

SNF Paideia Program and Asian America Across the Disciplines Series Spring 2024 present Refugees and Children & Youth with Edwin Desamour, Chief Program Officer, The Lighthouse, and Johnny Irizarry, CLALS Lecturer.

Asian American Across the Disciplines with Frank Abe, Award-winning Writer and Director

Congratulations to our very own Faculty Director Dr. David Eng, Richard L. Fisher Professor of English, who has been selected as one of the members of the committee of scholars that will guide The Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.

“The Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum has established a committee of scholars to guide the museum on content and provide input on the museum’s comprehensive plan to document the full spectrum of the experiences of women in the United States through exhibitions, public programs, research initiatives and education resources.”(...) The 15 members of the committee of scholars include leaders from across various academic disciplines, such as women and gender studies, American history, anthropology, law and others. Together they will review exhibitions and long-distance learning and digital-engagement initiatives (...)”

For more details, visit our website: https://asam.sas.upenn.edu/news/2024/02/18/asam-faculty-director-dr-david-eng-selected-member-committee-scholars-will-guide

SNF Paideia Program and Asian America Across the Disciplines Series Spring 2024 present Race and Immigration with Rorng Sorn, Director of Immigrant/Refugee Affairs and Language Access Services (DBHIDS) and Naw Doh, Burmese/Bhutanese Community Activist.

The Asian American Entrepreneur's class project was featured in yesterday’s Penn Procurement Services newsletter: Fueling Business Growth - Winter Issue.

Please join us for a Food for Thought with Tahseen Shams, Assistant Professor of Sociology.

Please RSVP and join us in person (lunch will be served), or join by zoom!

Second Sunday Culture Films presents Pili Ka Mo‘o and Standing Above the Clouds.

Remarks by filmmakers Justyn Ah Chong and Jalena Keane-Lee, and Rob Buscher, Lecturer, Asian American Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania.

Pili Ka Mo‘o Dir. Justyn Ah Chong with Malia Akutagawa, 2022, 14 min.

Pili Ka Mo‘o follows the Fukumitsu ʻOhana, native Hawaiian taro farmers who live in Hakipuʻu, a traditional land district where ancestors once resided and their bones still remain. When Kualoa Ranch, the large foreign corporation that already owns 95% of Hakipu‘u, acquires and destroys more land that contains precious family burials, the Fukumitsus are tossed into a world of complex real estate and judicial proceedings.

Standing Above the Clouds Dir. Jalena Keane-Lee, 2023, 15 min.

The peak of Maunakea, a shield volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, is one of the world’s most remote places. When the world’s largest telescope is set to be built on the mountain’s peak, the development is met by a grassroots resistance movement led by Native Hawaiian mother-daughter activists, who stand to protect their sacred land.

The films will be followed by remarks by filmmakers Justyn Ah Chong and Jalena Keane-Lee, and Rob Buscher, Lecturer, Asian American Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania.

Second Sunday Culture Films is curated by Kate Pourshariati, Penn Museum Film Archivist, in association with the Wolf Humanities Center’s 2023 - 2024 Forum on Revolution. This screening is presented by Penn Museum and cosponsored by Penn’s Center for Experimental Ethnography, Cinema & Media Studies Department, Program in the Environmental Humanities, South Asia Center, and Wolf Humanities Center.

This symposium aims to forge a deeper understanding of transnational activism in its varied dimensions. It brings together activists and scholars to discuss strategies for organizing and expanding outreach for transnational social justice movements. The workshop will feature one keynote speech and three pivotal discussions: firstly, an exploration of the concept of “elsewhere” through a multicentered relational framework, challenging the traditional dyadic homeland-hostland perspective; secondly, an examination of the evolving connections among queer activists across Asia, delving into the dynamic nature of these relationships; and thirdly, an integration of intersectionality into the analysis of the White Paper movement’s evolution from China to an international stage in winter 2022. This gathering seeks to illuminate the complexities of diasporic consciousness, linked fate, and the construction of multiracial and multinational solidarity in contemporary transnational activism.

The Asian American Studies Program (ASAM) would like to invite you to participate in the event “Existence as Resistance: ASAM Fellows Spring 2024 Symposium,” which will take place on Saturday, March 30th from 10 am to 4 pm EST.

Harvey D**g, a Continuing Lecturer at UC Berkeley, discusses his involvement in the Asian American Studies movement, reflecting on lessons from the past for present activism, exploring campus-community relations, and advocating for increased scholarship in Asian American Studies.

The ASAM program and Department of History invite you to a symposium to mark the centennial of the Immigration Act of 1924 titled “1924: Asian Exclusion and the Making of Immigrant America,” which will take place on February 23, 2024. Hosted by Hardeep Dhillon, Assistant Professor of History at Penn and Eiichiro Azuma, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at Penn.

Our sponsors include:
Penn History, ASAM, Penn Carey Law, Center for the study of ethnicity, race and immigration & Penn Migration Initiative

The Asian American Across the Disciplines Series and The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) present “RESISTANCE, REDRESS, and the DAY OF REMEMBRANCE” by Frank Abe, Lead Author of “WE HEREBY REFUSE Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration.”
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You can also get this book at the event, that too signed by non other than the AUTHOR HIMSELF- FRANK ABE!!

SNF Paideia Program and Asian America Across the Disciplines Series Spring 2024 present Race and Today’s Greece with Eleni Kyrkopoulou, Research Affiliate at the Identity & Conflict Lab at Yale University

ASAM UAB is hosting a Valentine’s Day event on Feb. 14 from 11am to 12:30pm in McNeil 473. We’re going to be crafting gratitude cards that students can give to their friends, family, or professors! Please check our website https: //asam.asa.upenn.edu.