By Amerasia Journal blog, on May 11th, 2012 
A note on President Barack Obama’s historic statement this week affirming his support of marriage equality from long-time Amerasia Journal editor Russell C. Leong:
When President Obama told ABC’s Robin Roberts, “I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” my mind flashed back to the 2006 special issue Amerasia Journal did on the marriage equality debate.
In this issue, edited by Amy Sueyoshi and myself, we published an article by famed editor and writer Helen Zia. In the 1990s, she found herself in Missoula, Montana, working on a story about white supremacists. She arrived in time for the Montana’s first gay pride parade.
“I expected the event to be the high point in an otherwise somber trip,” said Zia. “I wanted to go, to be part of it and show my
support.” Instead, she found herself to be the only person of color as far as she could tell. The crowd gave her wide berth, and Zia walked the whole march as if enclosed in a bubble. She considered raising a banner proclaiming, “I may be Asian but I’m a lesbian, too!”
Zia’s account of her experience in “Where the Queer Zone Meets the Asian Zone: Marriage Equality and Other Intersections” is part of a special issue which brings together for the first time the views of Asian Americans on the same-sex marriage debate, six years before President Obama voiced his support of it.
Today, Zia acknowledges that people have become more accepting, thanks to the work of generations of gay and lesbian and Asian activists. Part of it may be due to people like Zia, who have been willing to push through the barriers and speak on these issues. For that change in attitude, Zia credits the likes of Kevin Chang in Hawaii and Doris Ling Cohan in California, judges who ruled that banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and discriminatory. Asian Americans like Stuart Gaffney with his partner John Lewis, and spouses Jennifer Lin and Jeannie Fong were part of the Marriage Equality Bus that brought the issue of same-sex marriage to Wal-Mart parking lots across the country. Asian Americans were the chief plaintiffs in the first lawsuits filed challenging state bans on same-sex marriage.
According to statistics from the UCLA Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation, Law and Public Policy, almost 40,000 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders identify themselves as living with a same-sex partner. Furthermore, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders comprise 3 percent of individuals in same sex couples in the United States, with California, Hawaii and New York hosting the greatest populations.
We support President Obama for speaking out.
Russell C. Leong
Senior International Editor
Ordering information for “Asian Americans in the Marriage and Equality Debate” below the fold…
Continue reading Amerasia Journal on Marriage Equality and Asian America
By Barbra, on May 9th, 2012 Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!
This month commemorates the challenges faced by and the contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islanders. It first started in the form of Asian Pacific Heritage Week, which was designated as the first ten days of May. This “week” was chosen specifically because, as cited by The Law Library of Congress,
May 7, 1843 is the date on which the first Japanese immigrants arrived in the United States while on May 10, 1869 the first transcontinental railroad in the United States was completed with significant contributions from Chinese pioneers.
It was later changed to become the month it is today, starting in 1992. For more info, you can check out President Barack Obama’s 2012 proclamation here and the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month website.
 For over 40 years, Amerasia Journal has played a part in helping to build and continue the visibility, as well as preserve the histories, of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In honor of this month and in recognition of our complex stories and struggles, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press is pleased to be able to offer 50% off all back issues of Amerasia Journal. This means that each copy will cost $7.50 plus applicable sales tax for California residents and shipping & handling. Purchase multiple issues and get an even deeper discount – 4 issues for $25. This offer excludes the two most current issues – 38:1 Los Angeles Since 1992 and 37:3 Transoceanic Flows.
Check past the jump for a partial list of some of the back issues we have available (click on links for the journal index). You can also view a list of most of the available issues on our website and on our Metapress site.
To order, contact the AASC Press Office by phone 310-825-2968 or via email at aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu. Continue reading Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
By Amerasia Journal blog, on April 30th, 2012 
Our friends at the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum (PIEAM) are holding the second annual Pasifika Living Arts Showcase on May 5-6 in Long Beach, CA. PIEAM collaborated with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Amerasia Journal this past February for Teaching the Pacific, which helped launch our recent special issue on Pacific Islander Studies, “Transoceanic Flows: Pacific Islander Interventions across the American Empire.” Below is the press release for the Pasifika Living Arts Showcase; further information on the two-day event can be found at the PIEAM website.
Long Beach, CA – The Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum (PIEAM) presents its 2nd Annual Pasifika Living Arts Showcase on May 5-6, 2012, 12-5pm. This is a free event and will be held at PIEAM and at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA).
Pasifika Living Arts Showcase will feature hands-on workshops and performances by traditional artists and cultural specialists representing the Pacific Islands diverse cultures. Demonstrations include the art of tattoo, weaving, wood carving, traditional dances, fire knife, coconut candy making, taro pounding, ukulele music, fish net throw, storytelling, face painting, cooking, artifacts display and much more. Audience members will have an opportunity to participate in each arts demonstration. This will be on a first come first serve basis. In addition, there will be a film screening of Skin Stories and Rising Waters: Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific and a contemporary youth art show in partnership with Pacific Talent Academy. All master artists and demonstrations will be documented to use for educational programs and school outreach.
Community vendor tables will be selling one-of-a-kind art pieces, crafts, and food. Each vendor table will offer a traditional hands-on-activity for participants. Come try on traditional Yapese grass skirts, twirl poi balls, learn to weave, get your face painted, and much more. Also, PIEAM museum tours will be on-going.
“The event is an opportunity to document Pacific Islands’ living arts, educate, inspire and create generation of artists to come,” says Brenna Barrett, PIEAM museum director.
If people are unable to attend but would still like to participate, follow our free live webstreaming at www.pieam.org/pasifikalivingartsshowcase.
PIEAM’s mission is to incorporate the diverse cultures of the Pacific Islands, into a permanent collection, educational programs, rotating exhibits, and living arts.
The museum is located at 695 Alamitos Avenue. The main entrance faces Alamitos Avenue just south of 7th Street. Free museum parking is available at 644 Alamitos Avenue next to Café Viva or at MOLAA, 628 Alamitos Avenue.
By Amerasia Journal blog, on April 23rd, 2012  Our colleagues at the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies will be marking the twentieth anniversary of the Los Angeles Uprisings on Thursday, April 26, 2012 with a special event entitled 1992 Los Angeles “Riots”: Making Sense of the Fires.
Thursday, April 26, 2012, 6:00 PM-7:30 PM
Haines Hall 135
Director Darnell Hunt, author of Screening the Los Angeles “Riots” and guest editor of the recently published special issue of Amerasia Journal, “Los Angeles Since 1992: Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Uprisings,” and Bunche Center Visiting Scholar Jordan Camp will lead a discussion of media images of the 1992 Los Angeles disturbances. The events were triggered twenty years ago on April 29, 1992, when not-guilty verdicts exonerated police officers caught on videotape brutally beating black motorist Rodney King. The events —which the Los Angeles Times proclaimed “the worst riots of the century” — resulted in at least 51 deaths, more than $1 billion in property damage, and thousands of arrests.
How will 20th anniversary media retrospectives frame this important moment in American history? Read more here for Professor Hunt’s thoughts, and join us for screenings and a spirited discussion.
Co-sponsored by the UCLA Academic Advancement Program (AAP).
By Amerasia Journal blog, on April 19th, 2012 
Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AAARI-CUNY) is holding a day-long conference on April 27, 2012 entitled “The Power of Place—Asian American Neighborhoods, Politics & Activism Today.” The 2012 AAARI annual conference brings together urban sociologists, student activists, and community professionals to discuss current issues that impact Asian Americans. These issues include:
* The Future of Ethnic Neighborhoods from New York to Los Angeles
* Comparative Approaches to Look at Gentrification in Boston, Philadelphia and New York
* Putting Asian Americans on the Map and Redistricting
* Student Activism, Occupy Wall Street and the Danny Chen case
* Standing Up for the Dream Act and Immigration
For more information, please see: http://www.aaari.info/2012power.htm.
In anticipation of this conference, Amerasia Journal would like to share the Table of Contents from our Volume 34, Number 3 (2008) issue entitled: ”How Do AsianAmericans Create Places? Los Angeles and Beyond.”
Table of Contents
Introduction: How Do Asian Americans Create Places?: From Background to Foreground by Russell C. Leong and Kyeyoung Park
A Profile of the Asian American & Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Population in Los Angeles County & the United States by Melany Dela Cruz-Viesca
 Three Worlds mural of the Wat Thai Temple, Silicon Valley. Photograph by Jiemin Bao From Wandering to Wat: Creating a Thai Temple and Inventing New Space in the United States by Jiemin Bao
Recreating Hmong History: An Examination of www.youtube.com Videos by Eric Yang
Boundaries of Gender and Ethnicity: Gujarati Hindu Women in Artesia’s “Little India” by Surekha Acharya and Lalit N. Acharya
II. Creating Communities
Rethinking Residential Assimilation: The Case of a Chinese Ethnoburb in the San Gabriel Valley, California by Min Zhou, Yen-Fen Tseng, and Rebecca Y. Kim
Constructing a Vietnamese American Community: Economic and Political Transformation in Little Saigon, Orange County by Linda Trinh Võ
Los Angeles Chinatown: Tourism, Gentrification, and the Rise of an Ethnic Growth Machine by Jan Lin
The Contested Nexus of Los Angeles Koreatown: Capital Restructuring, Gentrification, and Displacement by Kyeyoung Park and Jessica Kim
 Little India, Artesia, California. Photograph by Charles Ku, 2001
In support of the “Power of Place” AAARI-CUNY Conference, we are making this issue available for a special blog price of $10 per book ($10 includes shipping and handling and applicable sales tax!). Offer good until May 15, 2012. Copies of the issue can be obtained by ordering via phone, email or mail. Please contact the UCLA AASC Press for more detailed ordering information.
UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press
3230 Campbell Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546
Phone: 310-825-2968
Email: aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu
Blog: http://www.amerasiajournal.org/blog/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AmerasiaJournal
Amerasia Journal is published three times a year: Winter, Spring, and Fall. Annual subscriptions forAmerasia Journal are $99.99 for individuals and $445.00 for libraries and other institutions. The annual subscription price includes access to the Amerasia Journal online database, with full-text versions of published issues dating back to 1971.
Instructors interested in using “Los Angeles Since 1992″ or other issues of Amerasia Journal in the classroom should contact the above email address to request a review copy.
By Amerasia Journal blog, on April 1st, 2012  The UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press and Amerasia Journal mark the twentieth anniversary of the Los Angeles Uprisings with a special issue…
Amerasia Journal 38:1 — “Los Angeles Since 1992: Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Uprisings”
Twenty years after the events that unfolded on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992, academics, journalists, and artists continue to try to make sense of what occurred then and what kind of impact they have had to this day. ”Los Angeles Since 1992″ explores what issues and questions have emerged over the past two decades, with attention to the Asian American, African American, and Latino communities that inhabit the city together. Edited by David K. Yoo (Director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center) and Darnell Hunt (Director of the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies), the special issue revisits how Sa-I-Gu (4-2-9 in Korean) was experienced from a diverse set of perspectives, as well as how its aftereffects are felt even now.
“Los Angeles Since 1992″ presents new reflections and research by scholars known for their work on the Uprisings, in addition to journalists and writers who covered them as they happened. The issue includes:
* A roundtable on Sa-I-Gu and its legacy featuring members of the influential Critical Race Studies Program at the UCLA School of Law: Devon Carbado, Cheryl Harris, Jerry Kang, and Saúl Sarabia
* Commentaries from leading academic, community, and cultural voices: Edward Chang, Mary Yu Danico, Erin Aubry Kaplan, Taeku Lee, Russell Leong, Edward Park, Jervey Tervalon
* Journalistic accounts that cast a much needed critical eye on mass media accounts of the Uprisings by the dean of Korean American journalism K.W. Lee, one-time Los Angeles Times reporter Rose Kim, and photojournalist Ben Higa
* New research that uncovers lesser known points of view on the Uprisings and Koreatown by Kyeyoung Park and Victor Viesca
* A review of literature and cultural works on the L.A. Uprisings by Jean-Paul deGuzman, and book reviews by Gary Pak and Richard Kim
For additional thoughts on the twentieth anniversary of the L.A. Uprisings, see Professor Hunt’s post on the Bunche Center site.
Copies of the issue can be obtained by ordering via phone, email or mail. This issue of Amerasia Journal costs $15.00 plus shipping and handling and applicable sales tax. Please contact the UCLA AASC Press for more detailed ordering information.
UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press
3230 Campbell Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546
Phone: 310-825-2968
Email: aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu
Blog: http://www.amerasiajournal.org/blog/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AmerasiaJournal
Amerasia Journal is published three times a year: Winter, Spring, and Fall. Annual subscriptions for Amerasia Journal are $99.99 for individuals and $445.00 for libraries and other institutions. The annual subscription price includes access to the Amerasia Journal online database, with full-text versions of published issues dating back to 1971.
Instructors interested in using “Los Angeles Since 1992″ or other issues of Amerasia Journal in the classroom should contact the above email address to request a review copy.
By Barbra, on March 21st, 2012
 Credit: Robert Gumpert, 1982 I will tell you something about stories,
They aren’t just entertainment,
Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off
illness and death.
You don’t have anything
If you don’t have the stories.
-Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
(as quoted in Where Women Tell Stories)
March is Women’s History Month.
This month, which included International Women’s Day on March 8th, is about celebrating women’s history, experiences, and issues. A vital part of knowing and understanding this history are sharing the stories and experiences of Asian American women. In honor of this, Amerasia Journal is pulling out two very special issues from our archives and offering them for a discounted price.
 Credit: Mary Uyematsu Kao Issue 35:1 Where Women Tell Stories, and its continuation into Issue 35:2 Subjugated to Subject: Through Class, Race, and Sex, present explorations into what it means to be a woman and the intersections between gender, race, and class. Where Women Tells Stories features articles, such as ” ‘Stirrin’ Waters’ ‘n Building Bridges: A Conversation with Ericka Huggins and Yuri Kochiyama,” co-written by our very own Mary Uyematsu Kao, and Katie Quan’s “Memories of the 1982 ILGWU Strike in New York Chinatown.” Subjugated to Subject offers illuminating articles such as Stephanie Santos’s “The Death of Eugenia Baja: Feminicide and Transnational Feminist Organizing among Filipina Migrant Workers” and “Flying in the Face of Race, Gender, Class, and Age: A Story About Kazu Iijima, One of the Mothers of the Asian American Movement on the First Anniversary of her Death” by Karen Ishizuka. More info on these issues can be found in previous posts here and here.
 
From the introduction of Where Women Tell Stories by co-editor Stephanie Santos:
Jacqui Alexander wrote that to address liberal feminism’s ingrained sexual and racial mythologies, feminists must “become fluent in each other’s histories.” In this issue, we attempt to contribute to this greater fluency, initiating dialogue by bringing in the herstories of Asian American women.
It is our hope that by bringing out these issues and making them more affordable, we will help to raise this fluency and continue the dialogue that was started in these issues.
Happy Women’s History Month, everyone!
We are offering special Women’s History Month pricing on these issues – $8 for one copy and $15 for both (plus shipping + handling). Please call 310/825-2968 to order or email aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu. Act soon – this offer is only good through the end of the month.
Stay up-to-date and be notified of special offers and new releases with Amerasia Journal and the UCLA Asian American Studies Press, by liking Amerasia on Facebook or following the Press on Twitter (@uclaaascpress).
Educators please contact aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu if you would like to use these issues or any material from them for the classroom or for research.
By Amerasia Journal blog, on February 22nd, 2012 
Amerasia Journal 38:1 — “Transoceanic Flows: Pacific Islander Interventions across the American Empire”
The first extended treatment devoted to Pacific Islander Studies in Amerasia Journal, “Transoceanic Flows: Pacific Islander Interventions across the American Empire” addresses the geographical expanse and methodological diversity that characterize this field. UCLA Professor Keith L. Camacho guest edits this special issue of Amerasia Journal based on a 2009 symposium he organized entitled “Unlearning the American Pacific.” “Transoceanic Flows” surveys the broad geographies and demographies of the Pacific Islands, including the peoples and places of Guam, Hawai‘i, New Zealand, Sāmoa, and beyond. Covering a broad range of topics from football and Pacific Islander masculinities to an anthropological account of African American perspectives on race in Hawai‘i, there is methodological diversity and intellectual rigor and vigor reflected in memoir, poetry, visual art, and cross-genre creative work situated within cultural studies, critical theory, and anthropology.
“Transoceanic Flows” includes:
* Critical essays and new research from leading and emerging scholars in the field, such as Christine DeLisle, Vicente Diaz, John Eperjesi, Michelle Erai, Nitasha Sharma, and Nicole Starosielski.
* Creative writing by renowned Samoan artist Dan Taulapapa McMullin and award-winning poets Craig Santos Perez and ku‘ualoha ho‘omanwanui.
* Dialogues on the role of Pacific Islander Studies in undergraduate and graduate curricula, including contributions from the coordinators of the UCLA Hawai‘i Travel Study Program and students involved in the UCLA’s Graduate Coalition of the Native Pacific.
* Reviews of notable new books in Pacific Islander Studies
The UCLA Asian American Studies Center will be celebrating the launch of “Transoceanic Flows” and education initiatives in Pacific Islander Studies in conjunction with the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum (PIEAM) in Long Beach, California, on Saturday, February 25, 2012. For information on the event, please visit: http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/archives/techpacific.asp.
This issue of Amerasia Journal costs $15.00 plus $5.00 for shipping and handling and 9.75 percent sales tax for California residents. Make checks payable to “Regents of U.C.” VISA, MASTERCARD, and DISCOVER are also accepted; include expiration date and phone number on correspondence. The mailing address is: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 3230 Campbell Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546.
Phone: 310-825-2968
Email: aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu
Blog: http://www.amerasiajournal.org/blog/
Annual subscriptions for Amerasia Journal are $99.99 for individuals and $445.00 for libraries and other institutions. The institutional price includes access to the Amerasia Journal online database, which has full-text versions of all Amerasia Journal issues published since 1971. Amerasia Journal is published three times a year: Winter, Spring, and Fall.
Instructors interested in using “Transoceanic Flows” or other issues of Amerasia Journal in the classroom should contact the above email address to request review copies.
By Amerasia Journal blog, on February 14th, 2012 The UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Amerasia Journal are pleased to announce that Ms. Yuko Konno, Department of History, University of Southern California is the 2011 Winner of the Amerasia Journal Lucie Cheng Prize for her essay, “Localism and Japanese Emigration at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” Ms. Konno was nominated by her adviser, Professor Lon Kurashige.
An excerpt from reviewers comments stated that: “Konno presents a case study of the Wakayama prefecture of Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and relies on government documents that recorded overseas emigration including individual passport applications. Incorporating other kinds of local sources, the author is able to reconstruct a relatively fine-grained understanding of the contexts in which inhabitants of various villages chose to migrate. The focus on the village-level in Japan also allows Konno to explain how Japanese negotiated the changes in immigration policies in the United States as well as to the shifts in international relations. Those shifts included migration to other countries such as Mexico, the Philippines, Australia, and China, and material presented provides some interesting glimpses of how this one corner of Japan sent people to far-flung places across the globe.”
The Lucie Cheng Prize recognizes exceptional graduate student essays in the interdisciplinary field of Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. The winning article is published in Amerasia Journal, and $1,000 awarded to the recipient.
The Lucie Cheng Prize honors the late Professor Lucie Cheng (1939-2010), a longtime faculty member of UCLA and the first permanent director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center (1972-1987). Professor Cheng was a pioneering scholar who brought an early and enduring transnational focus to the study of Asian Americans and issues such as gender, labor, and immigration.
For more information about the Lucie Cheng prize, see: http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/ajprize/
By Amerasia Journal blog, on October 24th, 2011  “The Accidental Sociologist in Asian American Studies”
Featuring Professor Min Zhou, UCLA
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 7:00PM
Chinese American Museum
(El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument)
425 N. Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
The UCLA Asian American Studies Center Endowed Chairs Research Series and the Chinese American Museum are presenting a book talk and signing featuring UCLA Professor Min Zhou, who holds the Walter and Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in U.S./China Relations and Communications at UCLA. The event marks the recent publication of Professor Zhou’s book, The Accidental Sociologist in Asian American Studies, the latest offering of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press’ “Professor in a Pocket” series. The Accidental Sociologist in Asian American Studies recounts Min Zhou’s personal journey as a transnational scholar critically examining the ever-changing experience of Chinese/Asian Americans. She will discuss how contemporary patterns of Chinese immigration, settlement, and integration differ from those of the past and how Chinese Americans are positioned in 21st-century U.S. society. Particular attention will be paid to the San Gabriel Valley at the event.
For those interested in Professor Zhou’s recent work, please see the following short essays, which provide some background on her views regarding immigration and ethnicity:
“From the Perpetual Foreigner to the Quintessential American” (on the appointment of Gary Locke to the post of U.S. Ambassador to China), from Common Ground News Service (September 20, 2011)
“Ethnicity Matters — And So Do Contexts”, from Voices in Education: The Blog of Harvard Education Publishing (September 27, 2011)
Books will be available for purchase. The talk will be followed by a reception and a tour of the Chinese American Museum.
Please RSVP with Mengning Li at mli@aasc.ucla.edu
For parking information visit: www.elpueblo.lacity.org/elppark1.htm.
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