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

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. 

This year Eric C. Wat, author and LGBTQ activist, is the keynote speaker of the 2025 Peter and Carole R. Ou Annual Lecture in Asian American Studies and will present:

Radical Imagination in Times of Chaotic Rupture: Lessons from the AIDS Movement in the New Century

Talk description:

AIDS movement in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community shows us that creativity, community and joy are still possible in the darkest of times. In fact, they might be the key to our survival. In this keynote presentation, Eric C. Wat will share images and stories from his book Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles and engage in a discussion about mutual aid and community care, "groundtruthing" as a resistance against misinformation and dehumanization, and intergenerational organizing that is driven by the optimism and creativity of young people. Even when so much is being torn down around us, it just leaves us more room to build back something better than what was there before.

Program 

9:30 am  Breakfast + Registration                            

10:00 am  Welcome Remarks | Fariha Khan (Penn)                

10:30 am  Redefining Medicine: Myths and Misconceptions 

Panelists: Anjali Vora (Columbia), Pritha Dewanjee (Temple), Esther Castillo (Accesso Care)

Facilitated by: Grace Edwards & Maliha Rahman 

12:00 pm  Lunch  

12:30 pm  Peter and Carole R. Ou Annual Lecture in Asian American Studies:

Radical Imagination in Times of Chaotic Rupture: Lessons from the AIDS Movement in the New Century by Eric C. Wat  

Q&A Facilitated by: Taryn Flaherty 

2:00 pm  Coffee break  

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

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

Facilitated by: Fariha Nawar & Yeeun Yoo    

4:00 pm Closing Remarks | Rupa Pillai (Penn)  

Check the full program and more details here!