The UCLA Asian American Studies Center is very proud to announce that Professor Lois M. Takahashi has been promoted to Full Professor in UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning of the School of Public Affairs. Professor Takahashi has actively participated in the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Asian American Studies Center throughout her UCLA career.

Professor Takahashi received her Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Southern California, an M.S. in Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, and an A.B. in Architecture from UC Berkeley.  Her research interests include social capital and health among APIs, access to social services for populations in need (e.g., homeless individuals and persons living with HIV/AIDS), the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome, and community participation and environmental governance in Southeast Asian cities (especially Bangkok, Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam).

Dr. Takahashi’s first book on the NIMBY syndrome, which was entitled, Homelessness, AIDS, and Stigmatization: The NIMBY Syndrome in the United States at the End of the Twentieth Century, was published in 1998 (Oxford University Press).  Her second book, Rethinking environmental management in the Pacific Rim (2002, with Amrita Daniere) assessed the roles of community participation, state intervention, and nongovernmental organizations in managing urban development and environmental degradation in Bangkok, Thailand (Ashgate Publishing). She
also has 45 published articles and book chapters. She is currently working on a book that analyzes the disruptive dimensions of social capital for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders living with HIV/AIDS.

Professor Takahashi is co-PI on a grant with Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team (APAIT) in Los Angeles on a UC California HIV Research Program grant that is studying HIV and viral hepatitis co-infection among Asians in Los Angeles. She is also working with APAIT and Guam Communications Network (Long Beach/San Diego) to evaluate their HIV prevention capacity building programs targeting Asian and Pacific Islander groups in Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego.

Please distribute widely and encourage your students to apply:

UC Riverside is pleased to announce a new Ph.D. Program in
Ethnic Studies.

Beginning September 1, 2008, the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Riverside will accept applications for new students seeking admission into the Ph.D. Program in the Fall of 2009.

The UCR Ethnic Studies Ph.D. is an autonomous comparative interdisciplinary doctoral program where students can focus on one or more of three graduate areas of specialization:
(1) Theories of Race and Power,
(2) Cultural Politics and Production, and
(3) The State, Law, and Social Transformation.

The comprehensive program prepares students to enter public agencies or the private sector as applied researchers and policy experts, or to pursue careers in academia as researchers and university professors.

GRADUATE FACULTY:
Victoria Bomberry - Native American Literature & Anthropology
Jayna Brown - Black Literature and Performance
Edward T. Chang - Asian Americans & Race Relations
Ralph L. Crowder - African American History
Paul Green - Law, Race, & Education
Jodi Kim - Asian American Literature and Culture
Anthony Macias - Chicano History & Popular Culture
Alfredo Mirandé - Law, Race, Class, & Gender
Jennifer R. Nájera - Race & Ethnicity, Chicana Feminism
Armando Navarro - Chicano Politics & Social Movements
Robert C. Perez - Native American History & Culture
Dylan Rodriguez - Prison Industrial Complex

Edward Taehan Chang
Professor of Ethnic Studies
UC Riverside
Riverside, Ca 92521
951-827-1825
951-827-4341 (fax)

UCLA AASC Releases 10th Edition of Asian American and Pacific
Islander Community Directory for Los Angeles and Orange Counties

August 7, 2008

For Immediate Release

Media Copies:
Contact Letisia Marquez lmarquez@support.ucla.edu; (310) 206-3986

General Info:
Contact Meg Thornton meg@ucla.edu; (310) 825-1006

The UCLA Asian American Studies Center has released the 10th Edition
of its Asian American and Pacific Islander Community Directory for
Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Funding for the directory was
provided by Nielsen Media Research and Toyota Motors Corporation.

For the past three decades, Asian American and Pacific Islander
(AAPI) organizations have been one of the fastest growing service
sectors in California. Los Angeles and Orange Counties, in
particular, are home to the nation’s largest and most diverse
concentration of Asian American and Pacific Islanders. According to
the U.S. Census Bureau, the AAPI population is projected to grow to
20 million by the year 2020. This trend sets the agenda for leaders
and activists to develop essential and responsive community
organizations that will advocate for and address AAPI needs.

The highly acclaimed community directory was first published in 1980
by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center’s Student and Community
Projects (SCP) Unit, and has sought several major goals: forge
stronger campus - community bridges for partnerships; strengthen
community-based research; provide timely and updated information to
service providers and their constituents; and offer greater knowledge
about our AAPI communities.

The 352-page Community Directory provides an updated, annotated, and
indexed listing of more than 1,000 community-based organizations,
media, museum and arts institutions, Asian American Studies programs,
and other groups serving and representing Asian Americans and Pacific
Islanders in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

The directory is a useful resource tool for educators, mainstream and
ethnic media, social services staff, elected officials, policymakers,
and business people to link them with the large AAPI community
infrastructure. It is also intended to be a useful resource tool for
college students, offering:

o Community internships available for students
o “College/University Academic and Research Programs and Student Services” section
o Links to scholarship and fellowship resources

New additions in this 10th Edition Directory include:
o Census and Population information
o Glossary of services provided by Organizations
o Maps locating ethnic enclaves

The 10th edition of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community
Directory, (ISBN: 978-0-934052-44-3) can be ordered through the UCLA
Asian American Studies Center for $20 per copy (plus shipping and
handling charges):

(1) Order through the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press
(pay by credit card):
http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/aascpress/comersus/store/comersus_index.asp

(2) Order by mail
UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press
Box 951546, 3230 Campbell Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546
(310) 825-2968
Make check payable to “UC Regents”

Bulk order discounts are available. Submit inquiries to aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu
Or call (310) 825-2968

Targeted Asian Group or Constituency/ies
Asian American and Pacific Islander
South Asian/Indian
Bi-/Multi-Racial
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Indian
Filipino/Pilipino
Pakistani
Japanese
Sri Lankan
Korean
Southeast Asian
Pacific Islands
Hmong
Pacific Islanders
Indonesian
Chamorro / Guamanian
Khmer / Cambodian
Fijian
Laotian
Marshallese
Singaporean
Native Hawaiian
Thai
Samoan
Vietnamese
Tongan

Service Areas
Advocacy
Legal Assistance
Arts / Culture
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer
Child Care / Children & Youth
Media
Community / Civic
Mental Health Counseling
Crime Prevention
Employment Training
Crisis Intervention
Professional / Business Network
Directories
Refugee Assistance
Political Organizing
Research
English / English as a Second Language
Scholarships
Health Education
Senior Citizens & Elderly Care
Health / Medical Treatment
Social Services
Housing
Substance Abuse
Information & Referral
Veterans
Labor / Workers Center
Women
Language Translation & Interpretation
Victims Assistance

The UCLA Asian American Studies Center is very pleased to announce that Dr. Vinit Mukhija has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning. An active member of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center’s Faculty Advisory Committee, he also has an appointment with the Department of Asian American Studies.

Professor Mukhija’s research focuses on affordable housing in developing countries, and Third World-like housing conditions in the United States. He is interested in the globalization of ideas and institutions of housing and land development. His research evaluates the potential and pitfalls of institutions from developed countries - such as Transfer of Development Rights, inclusionary housing, property rights, and mortgage finance - in housing delivery in developing countries, and the relevance of housing ideas and frameworks from developing countries - such as incremental development, micro-finance, informality, and collective upgrading - in developed countries.

He argues that comparative approaches deepen and transform our understanding of urbanization and development, and help reveal unexpected avenues for policy and social change. In addition, he is interested in research on institutional actors performing contrary to conventional wisdom, including effective public sector programs and successful collective action endeavors. Such contrarian approaches also help increase the range of options available to policymakers. His first book, Squatters As Developers?: Slum Demolition and Redevelopment in Mumbai, India (King’s SOAS Studies in Development Geography. 2003), is based on extensive fieldwork in Mumbai, and makes these arguments by following a case study of a cooperative of slum-dwellers.

Professor Mukhija’s fascination with Mumbai is ongoing. His current project examines how the city’s redevelopment programs for slums, chawls (tenements), and mills are changing and why. He is particularly interested in how the housing benefits of low-income residents are affected by the changes. The project has received seed-funding from UCLA’s Ziman Center for Real Estate and the International Institute.

Another project is focused on colonias, border region settlements that lack infrastructure and decent housing, and trailer parks in California. The objective is to assess upgrading policies and needs in these areas, and examine the potential of frameworks from developing countries. This work is funded by the California Policy Research Center and UCLA’s Institute of Industrial Relations. Professor Mukhija is exploring the possibility of extending the research to California’s Central Valley in partnership with the California Rural Legal Assistance, an organization dedicated to the civil and human rights of the rural poor. Finally, he is also evaluating the effectiveness of existing inclusionary housing programs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. The project, funded by the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation, will provide lessons for inclusionary housing policies in the city of Los Angeles.

Professor Mukhija is trained as an urban planner (Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Urban Planning and Development), urban designer (University of Hong Kong), and architect (University of Texas, Austin, and the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi). Some of his past research and consulting projects have been funded by the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the World Bank.

Professor Mukhija regularly teaches courses on Housing in Developing Countries, Land Use Planning, and the Physical Planning Studio. He has also taught a comprehensive project on increasing housing density in Los Angeles. a seminar on Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district, and an international and comparative workshop in Mumbai.

*************
For Immediate Release
July 29, 2008

Contacts: Wei Chi Poon, wcpoon@library.berkeley.edu, 510-642-2220 or Lillian Castillo-Speed, csl@library.berkeley.edu, 510-642-3947

One of Two Major Asian American Photograph Collections Recently Processed and Made Available for Research

The Ethnic Studies Library at the University of California, Berkeley has recently completed the processing of a major archive of San Francisco Chinatown photographs. This is one of two significant photograph collections that the library owns. These two collections are most likely the two largest Asian American photograph collections held in a public institution. The Kem Lee Photograph Archive project received funding for two years from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to process approximately 200,000 images. The images document San Francisco‚s Chinatown from the 1940s to the 1980s. The electronic finding aid for these images is in the Online Archive of California, which is maintained by the California Digital Library. The second major photograph archive contains over 240,000 images and was produced by Henry Woon, who documented Asian Americans in San Francisco and the East Bay from the 1950s to about 2000.

Mr. Kem Lee was an artist, a freelance professional photographer and a photojournalist for several Chinese community newspapers, such as Chinese World, Chinese Times and Young China, and official photographer for the Miss Chinatown U.S.A. and New Year pageant parades in San Francisco. Because he was also the owner of a photograph studio in Chinatown, he had an unparalleled opportunity to capture all aspects of the Chinese American experience in San Francisco, including beauty contests, businesses and businesspeople, family association events, festivals, movie stars, political and student organizations, prominent Chinese Americans, and wedding and family portraits. In particular, he captured one of the most important historical events for the Chinese American community, the naming of China as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Henry Woon was an amateur and freelance photographer and photojournalist for East West newspaper and Asian Week. In 1956, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, having majored in political science with a minor in art. After graduating from Technical High School, Mr. Woon joined the Army during World War II. During the Korean War, he re-entered the Army again as an Army Chinese interpreter. He experienced the harsh realities of racial prejudice and war in the army. The prejudice made him realize the importance of documenting the Asian American community and the people of color of the Bay area and how they contributed to the richness of the country they loved. In contrast to the Kem Lee archive, the Woon archive includes a broad coverage of various ethnic groups and topics in the Bay Area, including book talks at libraries, community street fairs, war protests, family association events, prominent people and politician visits, and UC Berkeley student and alumni activities among other topics.

Together the Lee and Woon photographic archives record the history of Asian American life in the Bay Area for a period of over sixty years. They also constitute a public record of events in this unique ethnic American community, whose history, though reminiscent of the history of many other groups in our nation of immigrants, has not yet been well-documented. Kem Lee and Henry Woon documented their struggles, their political growth, their changing culture, and their vanishing generations. They also preserved their accomplishments, their milestones, their faces, their family relationships, and their collective pride in their community.

There is a growing demand for Asian American primary documents, such as photographs, in university courses and among worldwide researchers. The completion of the project to process the Kem Lee photographs goes a long way to meet that need. However, the Ethnic Studies Library is actively seeking funding to process and preserve its second major photograph collection, the Henry Woon archive.

Please contact the Asian American Studies Librarian, Wei Chi Poon at <mailto:wcpoon@library.berkeley.edu> wcpoon@library.berkeley.edu or 510-642-2000 for more information on how you can help the Ethnic Studies Library tell „the rest of the story.‰

The Ethnic Studies Library is a unit of the Ethnic Studies Department. It serves the curricular needs of the students, faculty and staff of the department while providing a repository for archival materials critical to research in Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Native American Studies, and Comparative Ethnic Studies. The year 2009 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Ethnic Studies Department and the collections of the Ethnic Studies Library.

–end–

“UCLA Professor Thu-huong Nguyen-vo Gains Tenure “

UCLA Professor Thu-huong Nguyen-vo has been promoted to Associate Professor, Step I with tenure in the Asian Languages and Cultures (ALC) Department, Asian American Studies Department (AAS), and the Southeast Asian Studies Interdepartmental Program (SEAS IDP).

Professor Nguyen-vo is an active member of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, and served as co-editor of a special issue of the Center’s Amerasia Journal, “30 Years AfterWARd: Vietnamese Americans & U.S. Empire,” along with UC San Diego Professor Yen Espiritu. She has served as Vice Chair of the Asian American Studies Department and is this year’s recipient of the C. Doris and Toshio Hoshide Distinguished Teaching Prize in Asian American Studies.

Professor Nguyen-vo’s teaching and research interests focus on women, literature, political and cultural practices in the current phase of globalization. She is the author of The Ironies of Freedom: Sex, Culture, and Neo-liberal Governance in Vietnam (Univerisity of Washington Press, 2008), which examines the practices of commercial sex, the governmental policies that address it, and its narration in popular culture to explore how neoliberal freedoms are imagined and governed. The book finds that as Vietnam marketizes and integrates into the global economy, the government bolsters its own power by governing differentially according to gender and to class, using both choice and repression, in order to provide different types of consumers and workers for the neo-liberal global economy. More broadly, the book suggests neoliberalism requires such paradoxical governance. This project won two awards-the UC President’s Fellowship in the Humanities, and the Andrew Mellon/Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship in 2004-2005.

A political scientist, Dr. Nguyen-vo’s current research project explores how our sense of the material has been altered by two interrelated phenomena of our time: ’spectralization’ of global capitalism and large-scale migration. Materiality in such contexts remains pivotal, but it must be understood in a different way. Vietnam and its diasporas present a rich case in which the history of materialist thinking from a century of colonial and nationalist modernization, industrialization, Marxist revolution, interacts with the new spectral economy and migration in a compressed timeframe. This book project investigates how people re-imagine the material in their understanding of self and history in this new context of globalization in Vietnam and migration in the US by looking at consumption and work among Vietnamese workers, literary representations of them in fiction, poetry and public protest that contest neocolonial government policies; as well as Vietnamese American memorial practices, and Vietnamese American fiction dealing with memory and history.

Born in Saigon, and raised in Vietnam and the US, Professor Nguyen-vo received her B.A. in Asian Studies from CSULB, and her PhD in Political Science from UC Irvine. Prior to coming to UCLA in 2001, she held a position at CSULA.
–
Don T. Nakanishi, Ph.D.
Director and Professor
UCLA Asian American Studies Center
3230 Campbell Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546
phone:310.825.2974
fax:310.206.9844
e-mail:dtn@ucla.edu
web site for Center: http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/default.asp

UCLA Graduate Division

Administrative Officers, Deans, Department Chairs, Directors, Vice Chancellors and Asian American Studies Faculty

Dear Colleagues:

It is with mixed emotions that I inform you that after more than 18 years of distinguished leadership of the Asian American Studies Center (AASC), Professor Don T. Nakanishi will conclude his service as director, effective July 1, 2009.  After a 35-year career at UCLA, Don will retire in September 2009 to begin work for the advancement of East Los Angeles, where he was born and raised, while continuing to write and to be engaged in political and educational issues.

I want to personally thank Don for his outstanding leadership of the AASC, which is widely acknowledged to be the nation‚s premier research center in the field of Asian American Studies.  During Don‚s tenure as director, the AASC has become an established leader in scholarship, public policy, academic programs, archival development, community-campus partnerships and publications.  The AASC Press publishes Amerasia Journal, the leading scholarly journal in Asian American Studies, which Don co-founded as a Yale undergraduate in 1970, the policy journal AAPI Nexus, and other books and pamphlets.  Don has been the driving force behind these remarkable achievements for almost two decades.  His collegial and consultative leadership style is highly praised by his colleagues and his personal attributes of compassion, dignity and integrity are prized by all who know him.

Don assumed the directorship of the AASC in 1990 and holds faculty appointments in the Department of Education and the Department of Asian American Studies.  He is a world renowned authority on Asian American politics whose expertise is sought by mainstream journalists as well as fellow scholars.  During his stewardship of the Center, the number of campus specialists in Asian American Studies has grown significantly, from six professors to over forty in 25 departments including the newly established Department of Asian American Studies.  Don has also been instrumental in the growth of the Center‚s endowment which now exceeds $6 million, and includes three endowed chairs, research funds, graduate fellowships, undergraduate scholarships, and academic prizes.

Don has been extraordinarily effective in building bridges from UCLA to the surrounding community and to national organizations and groups.  During his tenure as Director, AASC collaborated with Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics to develop the Asian Pacific American Public Policy Program, the nation‚s first think tank on Asian American issues.  He is a founder of Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, served as president of the Association of Asian American Studies, and chaired the Asian American Politics Caucus of the American Political Science Association.  Don has also played an active role in developing Southern California‚s infrastructure of social service agencies, civil rights organizations, museums, historical societies, media and cultural groups, and business associations that serve and represent the Asian American and Pacific Islander population.

A. Magazine identified Don as one of the 100 Most Influential Asian Americans in the United States during the decade of the 1990s and the Smithsonian Institution appointed him to a 25-member national Blue Ribbon Commission to plan for the future of the Smithsonian during the 21st century.  President Bill Clinton appointed him to the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund Board of Directors, which administered the nation-wide public education and research program that was established under the 1988 Civil Liberties Act that provided a national apology and reparations for the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in concentration camps during World War II.  In 2004, he received the Academic Senate‚s Fair and Open Academic Environment Award.  In November 2008, he will receive the prestigious Yale Medal from his alma mater.

As we continue our work with Don throughout the upcoming academic year, please join me in thanking him for his outstanding leadership and commitment to UCLA.  As one of his colleagues recently noted, Don has been a high impact leader who combines a powerful and clear vision with an extraordinary ability to bring out the best in others.  We are truly privileged to have been the beneficiaries of his leadership and his exceptional dedication.

Professor Paul M. Ong, of Asian American Studies and the School of Public Affairs, will chair the search committee for a new director.

Sincerely,

Claudia Mitchell-Kernan
Vice Chancellor Graduate Studies
Dean Graduate Division

The AAAS May 2008 newsletter is now out. We have sent the newsletter through email to members who have listed their email addresses on their membership forms. The newsletter is also available on our website: http://aaastudies.org/newsletters/index.html

AAAS BOOK AWARDS
Call for nominations

The Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) is currently accepting nominations for the AAAS Annual Book Awards. The Association offers awards for titles of merit published in 2007. Categories include: Social Science, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, History, Engaged Scholarship, and Poetry/Prose.  The category of Engaged Scholarship is open to various kinds of publications and is not restricted to book publications.

The Award recipients receive acknowledgement from the Association for Asian American Studies Executive Board and general membership. Award presentation will be held at our 2009 annual meeting (April 22-26, 2009 at the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel in Honolulu, HI). The Committee Chair honoring the recipient with an etched plaque commemorating the author and work. Award winners will also be announced in the AAAS quarterly newsletter and on the AAAS website.

The appropriate Book Award Committee will review titles in consideration for the 2007 awards. Each Committee is selected by the Executive Board of the Association for Asian American Studies and is composed of three members who specialize in Social Science, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, History, Engaged Scholarship, and Poetry/Prose.

Decisions from the Book Award Committees will be made in December 2008. The Secretariat will notify Award recipients and publishers by January 2009. The award will be presented to the author at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian American Studies in Honolulu, HI.

Books published in 2008 will be awarded at our 2010 conference (Austin, TX).

MEMBERS:
If you would like to nominate a title published in 2007, please contact Stephanie Hsu (ssh13@cornell.edu) with the author and book title no later than June 30, 2008. It is acceptable to nominate oneself or a colleague for the award.

PUBLISHERS:
1. Complete AAAS 2007 Book Award Nomination application (http://www.aaastudies.org/book/index.html)

2. Ship five (5) copies of the nominated title, along with your specification for title category, to the address below:

AAAS Book Awards
Secretariat
Association for Asian American Studies
420 Rockefeller Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-2502

Your completed application and copies of the work must be post-marked no later than June 30, 2008 in order to be considered for the 2007 AAAS Book Award.

Honolulu, Hawai`i - The Department of American Studies at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa is pleased to announce that Theodore S. Gonzalves has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. The University of Hawai`i Board of Regents approved University President David McClain’s recommendation for promotion and tenure on May 29, 2008.

Since his appointment in the Fall of 2002, Professor Gonzalves has taught more than 400 students enrolled in 32 undergraduate and graduate-level courses. He cross-lists courses with the Department of Ethnic Studies and maintains an affiliation with the Center for Philippine Studies and the Program in International Cultural Studies. Before coming to Honolulu, Gonzalves taught on nine California colleges and universities between 1992 and 2002.

Professor Gonzalves’ numerous publications include a well-received anthology of interviews and essays titled Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists (Meritage Press, 2007). He is currently finishing work on a monograph titled Seditious Play: Performing in the Filipino Diaspora (Temple University Press, forthcoming), and a collection of essays focusing on the work of the renowned visual artist and educator, Carlos Villa.

Professor Gonzalves’ awards and recognition include a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar postdoctoral fellowship as well as being named a Visiting Scholar and Artist to the American Academy in Rome.

Professor Gonzalves earned a Ph.D. in comparative culture at the University of California at Irvine, a master’s degree in political science from San Francisco State University, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Santa Clara University. Born and raised in Fort Ord, California, Gonzalves currently lives in Honolulu, Hawai`i.

–

DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI`I AT MANOA
1890 EAST WEST ROAD, MOORE 324
HONOLULU HI 96822
(808) 956-8570 Office
(808) 956-4733 FAX