Coordinator’s Report for 2011-2012

By Elaine Kim

Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies has faced many challenges trying to address the needs and interests of an ever-increasing number of students from ever more diverse ethnic groups in tight budget times. But thanks to a talented pool of teachers and very committed majors and students, we have been continuing to flourish in our efforts to strengthen both our transnational and diasporic emphases and our links to local diasporic communities.

In the 2011-12 academic year, we added some exciting new classes, including AAS 138: Gender, Sexualities, and Racialization in South Asian (Indian) Cinematic Discourses, taught by Huma Dar; AAS 143: Asian Americans and Health, offered by Winston Tseng; AAS 144: Religions of Asian America, taught by Chris Chua; and an AAS 190 experimental course on Muslim Writers in the Diaspora, taught by Huma Dar and featuring not only writers from North America and the Middle East but also from South and Southeast Asia and Europe. Keiko Yamanaka taught AAS 150: Gender and Generation in the Asian American Family, and AAS 151: Asian Immigrant Women Workers was fielded by Young Shin, JD, the Executive Director of Asian Immigrant Women Advocates.

Next year we will be continuing the AAS 138 course on South Asian Cinema and adding another Asian popular culture class, Hallyu: South Korean Popular Culture, taught by Hannah Michell. If our budget requests are granted, there will be two more AAS 190 experimental classes, Filipino and Philippine Performance Art, offered by Joi Barrios, and Sikh Studies, taught by Jane Singh. Award-winning novelist Fae Ng, who will also be teaching AAS 173: Creative Writing. Jere Takahashi will teach AAS 165: Research Methods, focusing on the use of video in research and assisted by graduate student Peter Kim, who directed Streetside Productions for East Bay Asian Youth Center in Oakland. In Takahashi’s place, Lisa Hirai Tsuchitani will teach AAS 122: Japanese American History.

We are thrilled to welcome a new ladder rank faculty member, Lok Siu, who will join us in fall semester and teach 131: Asian Diasporas and Asian America in spring.

I have truly enjoyed serving as the AAADS coordinator and wish everyone the best in the future.