News and Announcements
Mae Ngai and David Henry Huang spoke in Issue 3 of Columbia’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Newsletter, Justice – Equity – Rights, to talk about the impact of COVID-19 on Asian-American communities, including the historical forces that have shaped the “model minority” and “perpetual foreigner” stereotypes; the need for bystander training and intersectional allyship; whether art can catalyze social change; and more.
Mae Ngai is featured in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in which John Oliver discusses the large and diverse group of people who fall under the term “Asian American”, the history of the model minority stereotype, and why our conversations on the subject need to be better-informed.
CSER faculty member and Sociology Professor Jennifer Lee (a leading expert on immigration, the new second generation, and race relations) reflects on her trajectory through Columbia as both an undergraduate and grad student, as well as a faculty member, on The Dean’s Table Podcast with Fredrick Harris.
Columbia News interviews CSER Media Assistant and Columbia College junior, Shailha Alam, in a Q&A about her work as programming director for Diverso, a student-run nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the face of entertainment by empowering the next generation of underrepresented storytellers.
CSER’s Co-Director, Mae Ngai, has published an article in The Atlantic that details the history of racism in the Asian American experience. Professor Ngai notes, “If we don’t understand the history of Asian exclusion, we cannot understand the racist hatred of the present.”
CSER’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, Deborah Paredez, wrote an article for NPR Music in honor of what would be Selena Quintanilla Perez’s 50the birthday. Professor Paredez also participated in a round table for NPR’s Alt.Latino. Despite dying at the young age of 23, Selena is more popular than ever. Professor Paredez speaks about how to preserve and protect the Mexican singer’s precious legacy.
In the latest Columbia Faculty Snapshot, Marie Myung-Ok Lee speaks about her upcoming novel, The Empire Hero, which touches on Anti-Asian racism. Read more about Marie’s work: https://buff.ly/3upprh6
The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers has selected Karl Jacoby (CSER Co-Director) to be a part of its 23rd class of Fellows: 15 talented academics, literary artists, and independent scholars. The Fellows were selected from a pool of 506 applicants from 48 countries. Professor Jacoby will be at the Cullman Center working on a history of the U.S.-Mexico War and the making of the U.S.-Mexico border in Scar of Empire: The American Conquest of Northern Mexico and the Creation of the U.S.-Mexico Border.
Amy Hungerford’s (Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences) recent statement to A&S faculty and staff highlighted CSER faculty Marie Myung-Ok Lee and Mae Ngai as faculty of color who are actively and publicly working towards an inclusive society against the rise of anti-Asian violence since the emergence of COVID-19. Professor Myung-Ok Lee and Professor Ngai will be panelists in a Columbia event called, We Have to Reimagine: Conversation About Anti-Asian Racism/Violence.
CSER Writer-in-Residence, Marie Myung-Ok Lee has published an article titled, “The U.S. Military’s Long History of Anti-Asian Dehumanization,” in Gen, a publication from Medium about politics, power, and culture. It is about American soldiers bringing back stereotypes that became embedded in American Culture once they returned home.
CSER Adjunct Professor Elizabeth OuYang is quoted in The Washington Post for her work as a civil rights attorney specialized in combatting hate crimes. As schools reopen, OuYang describes how some Asian American families are fearful of sending their children back due to the rise of anti-Asian racism. Parents and kids have shared stories of strangers harassing them, yelling at them to “speak English” or “go back to your home country.” As a result, families in New York City are fearful of children’s solo commutes to school, opting to keep them at home to learn remotely.
OuYang directs an annual hate crime prevention art project for the nonprofit OCA-NY Asian Pacific American Advocates in New York City.
CSER Adjunct Professor Ed Morales has recently published the following articles: For CNN, Morales describes the change to eliminate the use of “alien immigrant” in President Biden’s immigration announcement. He makes reference to CSER Co-Director Mae Ngai’s Impossible Subjects. For The New York Times, Morales writes a playlist to honor the passing of Johnny Pachecho.
CSER’s Writer in Residence, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, was quoted in an NBC News article arguing for the need for more education in Asian American Studies and history as a recent wave of racist violence is targeted against Asian seniors.
“We’re constantly in a cultural war where we have to fight even to see representation,” said Lee. “It’s a doubly bittersweet idea that Covid is being blamed on us, and yet our suffering and losses are not being acknowledged. Mainstream culture won’t pay attention until it’s made to pay attention. Asian Americans need to be their own advocates.”
CSER Faculty Claudio Lomnitz, Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology, has released his new book, Nuestra América: My Family in the Vertigo of Transition (Other Press, 2021). Named a “Most Anticipated Book of the Year” by Kirkus Reviews, this immigrant family memoir is a riveting study of the intersections between Jewish and Latin American culture that recounts history with psychological insight and the immediacy of a thriller. Listed below are news and events surrounding the release of Professor Lomnitz’s book:
Nuestra América was selected in the “Briefly Noted” section of The New Yorker.
Professor Lomnitz spoke about his book at length in the following book discussions: Harvard Bookstore with Jesús Velasco, Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor with Jean Comaroff, and Skylight Books in Los Angeles with Graciela Montaldo. University of Michigan’s campus paper amply reviewed Professor Lomnitz’s book discussion with Jean Comaroff, titled Not Next To: The Jewish Diaspora Holding the Center of History.
He will further speak about his new book with Claire Messud at the Brooklyn Library and Leon Botstein at Left Bank Books in St. Louis, respectively, on February 24, 2021.
On February 26, 2021, two radio programs, “Write the Book” and LA Review of Books, will air on February 26, 2021, where Professor Lomnitz discusses his book further.
Sayantani DasGupta’s course for CSER, Abolition Medicine, is featured in The Columbia Spectator as a new course inspired by COVID-19, pushing students to think themselves out of the pandemic. Read Here >>
CSER Lecturer Ed Morales has been recently published in The New York Times, The Nation, and The Washington Post. Morales wrote a review titled, “A journey across America to look at the heart of the Latinx community” in The Washington Post; an article about the privatization of Puerto Rico in The Nation; and an appraisal remembering Miguel Algarín, a founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in The New York Times.
CSER Writer-in-Residence, Marie Myung-Ok Lee wrote a piece about anti-Asian violence for ZORA, the BIPOC channel on Medium. Read it here >>
CSER Faculty, Claudio Lomnitz, was elected member of Mexico’s Colegio Nacional, which is a great honor. The Colegio Nacional has existed since 1943, and it has a maximum of 40 members, divided equally among the hard sciences, the biological and medical sciences, the social sciences, and arts and letters. It is a lifelong membership. Read article here >>
Carla Fredericks, Columbia Law School alumna, scholar, lawyer and advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ rights in governance, development, and global policy has been appointed as the new Executive Director of The Christensen Fund. Carla Fredericks currently serves as Clinical Professor and Director of the American Indian Law Clinic at Colorado Law.
As an enrolled citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation of North Dakota, Ms. Fredericks will be the first Native American to lead The Christensen Fund, and the first Native person to lead a private foundation of its size. She will assume her role in January 2021.
We congratulate Carla Fredricks and wish her every success in this new exciting path and look forward to continuing collaboration for Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
The Institute for the Study of Human Rights, through its Indigenous Peoples Rights Program, will participate at the International Congress of Cultural and Creative Industries 2020. The Congress is organized online by the Ministry of Culture of Jalisco and The Office of UNESCO in Mexico. CSER Professor Elsa Stamatopoulou, will give a keynote address on 28 October on “Cultural Rights in the Covid Crisis”. For accessibility reasons, all activities of the congress will be transmitted live on Cultura Jalisco (Ministry of Culture of Jalisco) Facebook Page >>
