Event

The Asian American Studies Program (ASAM) invites you to join the ASAM Undergraduate Research Fellows (2024-2025) as they host:  

Towards Our Collective Liberation Symposium

 Friday, April 11 from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm EST

 Please RSVP here!

Eric C. Wat, author and LGBTQ activist will be the keynote speaker of this symposium.

This year’s theme, Towards Our Collective Liberation, explores how Asian American communities subvert stereotypes, transcend identity politics, and reimagine themselves outside the structures that have defined them. Identity politics in the Asian American community have reduced our struggles, resistance, and revolutionary history to the broad and apathetic language of “representation.” Towards Our Collective Liberation calls us to reject identity politics and find solidarity in the stories the American empire has overgeneralized and forgotten. The efforts for liberation in the Asian American community include fighting alongside the coalitions galvanized by other communities of color and colonized folks of the world. Through this symposium, we hope to achieve this by complicating identity, fostering coalition-building, and amplifying diverse narratives through storytelling. 

Program 

9:30 Breakfast and Registration 

10:00 Welcome Remarks 

10:30 Panel 1: Redefining Medicine: Myths and Misconceptions 

Panelists: Anjali Vora (Columbia), Pritha Dewanjee (Temple), Esther Castillo (Bridging Worlds Consulting) 

12:00 Lunch 

12:30  Keynote Leture: Eric C. Wat 

2:00 Coffee Break 

2:15 Panel 3: Voices of Resistance, Lessons from the People: Connecting Grassroots Organizing and Anti-Imperialist Academia 

Panelists: Hanna Cho & Yunmi Choi (Nodutdol), Samee Ahmad (South Asian Left Activist Movement SALAM), Amira Jarmakani (SDSU), Amanda Najib (NYU) 

4:00 Closing Remarks  

Check the full program and more details here!