Event

Rethinking Activism: A conference on the changing dynamics of activism encompassing underrepresented groups within Asian America.

This conference will discuss the intersection of varying identities that construct the current landscape of activism in Asian America rethinking the ways that activism is expressed, understood, and for whom it is meaningful.  Our keynote speaker and panelists will address the historical definitions and current issues of activism in light of the LGBTQ and underrepresented immigrant communities at the local and national levels. We invite students, scholars, and activists across the API spectrum to come together and examine the changing avenues, opportunities, and challenges for initiating political and social change in the future of Asian America.

Saturday, April 5, 2014
Arch Building RM 208

8:30 AM Registration
9:30 AM 1Love Movement Workshop
10:30 AM seaQuel Workshop
12:00 PM Lunch
12:30 Keynote: Dr. Moustafa Bayoumi
2:00 PM Pane with Community Leaders: Dr. Jan Ting (Temple), Juliet Shen (Fascinasians), Biju Mathew (NY Taxi Alliance), Manar Waheed (SAALT). Nina Ahmad (Mayor's Commission)
5:00 PM Performance by Yellow Rage

Bios

Moustafa Bayoumi

Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the critically acclaimed How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (Penguin), which won an American Book Award and the Arab American Book Award for Non-Fiction. The book has also been translated into Arabic by Arab Scientific Publishers. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine,  The Guardian, The National, CNN.com, The London Review of Books, The Nation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Progressive, and other places. His essay “Disco Inferno” was included in the collection Best Music Writing of 2006 (Da Capo). Bayoumi is also the co-editor of The Edward Said Reader (Vintage) and editor of Midnight on Mavi Marmara: the Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How It Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestine Conflict (O/R Books & Haymarket Books). With Lizzy Ratner, he also co-edited a special issue of The Nation magazine on Islamophobia (July 2-9, 2012). He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Sun-Times, and on CNN, FOX News, Book TV, National Public Radio, and many other media outlets from around the world. Panel discussions on How Does It Feel To be Problem? have been convened at The Museum of the City of New York, PEN American Center, Drexel Law School, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and the book has been chosen as the common reading for incoming freshmen at universities across the country. Bayoumi is a professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
 His new book, This Muslim-American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror, will be published this year by NYU Press.

Nina Ahmad

N. Nina Ahmad, Ph.D., is the President of PrymeJenomix, LLC, an emerging ophthalmic biotechnology company based in Philadelphia, PA and was appointed to the Philadelphia Community Foundation’s Board in 2011. Involvement in her local community is expansive. Nina was a founding member of the Asian Mosaic Fund giving circle, and continues to serve on its advisory committee.  Nina also sits on the Diversity Committee of William Penn Charter School (oldest Quaker School in the United States) and was one of the founding members of Asian Pacific Americans for Progress, a grassroots internet-empowered, national network of individuals who are committed to progressive action. Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia recently appointed Nina as the Chair of the Mayor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs.

Juliet Shen

Juliet Shen is an internet newshound, writer, loud and proud feminist, critical thinker, and cat lover. She speaks in memes and specializes in asking tough questions and challenging progressive communities to be better. A longtime netizen, Juliet speaks mainly through her blog, Fascinasians, on gender and racial justice. Juliet moonlights as a technical writer and editor with a focus on neuroscience. You can catch her online at @Juliet_Shen and at her website, Fascinasiansblog.com.

Sarath Suong

Sarath Suong is a co-founder and current Co-Director of the Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) and Southeast Asian Queers United for Empowerment and Leadership (seaQuel). Born in the Thai Refugee camp Khao I Dang, his family fled Cambodia during the civil war and eventually immigrated to his hometown of Revere, Massachusetts. To cope with the violence, pain, and injustices facing Southeast Asian (SEA) Americans, he became a community organizer, centered around the unique intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Sarath loves his family, friends, young people, and is the biggest X-Men fanatic you'd ever meet. You can email him at sarath@prysm.us.

Jan Ting

Professor Ting was Assistant Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. from 1990 to 1993.  Before joining the Temple Law School faculty, he was a tax attorney at the Pepper Hamilton law firm in Philadelphia.  From 1994 to 2001 he was Director of the Graduate Tax Program at Temple.  The National Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (NAPALSA) named Professor Ting the "2003 Asian American Law Professor of the Year".
In 2006, he was the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from the state of Delaware, after winning the Republican primary election.  He lost in the general election to U.S. Senator Tom Carper.  Professor Ting serves on the board of directors of the Center for Immigration Studies, and blogs at newsworks.org/ting.
He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Oberlin College, where he majored in history, and received an M.A. degree in Asian Studies from the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii.  He is married, with two married daughters and three grandchildren.

Jan C. Ting is Professor of Law at the Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He joined the faculty of law in 1977, and teaches in the areas of citizenship and immigration law and tax law.  His articles in those areas have been published in both law reviews and newspapers.  He has provided commentary to the media including the PBS News Hour and National Public Radio, and has been interviewed and quoted often in the print media.  He has testified before the 9/11 Commission and the Judiciary Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, most recently on February 11, 2014, and the U.S. Senate, most recently on March 20, 2013. 

Manar Waheed

Manar joined SAALT as Policy Director in August 2012, where she engages in policy work around immigration, civil rights, and gender equity as they relate to the South Asian community. Prior to working at SAALT, she worked with Legal Services of New York City where she provided direct services to domestic violence survivors who were primarily from immigrant communities. Additionally, Manar co-taught a seminar on domestic violence and legal intervention which included the impact of media and television on violence at Wagner College and, from 2009 to 2012, she served on the board of the Muslim Bar Association of New York. Prior to living in New York, Manar worked with the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, where she provided technical assistance on cases in which battered women were charged with crimes and participated in national trainings focusing on domestic violence in immigrant communities. Her note on domestic violence in Pakistan was published in the Brooklyn Journal of International Law in 2004. Manar received her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in June of 2004 and her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1999. To reach Manar, please email manar@saalt.org.

seaQuel

Southeast Asian Queers United for Empowerment and Leadership (seaQuel) – empowers LGBTQ and heterosexual Southeast Asian youth allies with leadership development and mentorship so that they can organize community events that bring diverse communities together, foster coalition building, and address the intersection of oppressions.

Yellow Rage

Michelle Myers and Catzie Vilayphonh are founding members of the spoken word group Yellow Rage, a dynamic duo of Philly-based Asian American female spoken word poets. Yellow Rage gained national attention when they performed on the first season of the critically-acclaimed HBO television series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, which first aired in December 2001; the show can currently be seen on the Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Season One DVD. Yellow Rage has produced 2 CDs: Black Hair, Brown Eyes, Yellow Rage, Volume 1, and Yellow Rage, Handle With Care, Volume 2. Michelle has also published a solo poetry book titled The She Book, Volume 1. The profits from book sales have been donated to Odanadi, an anti-trafficking organization based in Mysore, India.

  For more than thirteen years, Yellow Rage has made a positive impact through their poetry. Drawing from their own unique experiences, individual political ideologies, and personal life philosophies as Asian American women, Michelle and Catzie's group and solo poems address issues which explore the intersections of race, culture, gender, community, and self. Core issues examined by Yellow Rage include human trafficking, sexual slavery and modern-day slavery; anti-Asian violence; domestic violence; cross-cultural conflict and misunderstanding; cultural commoditization; racism and sexism; mixed race identity; class divisions; and self-identity. At the heart of Yellow Rage's poetry is a desire to present a perspective that challenges ignorance and hatred and holds people of any race, gender, ethnicity, religious belief, etc., accountable for ideas and behaviors which in turn facilitate divisiveness rather than understanding. Through anger, pain, joy, celebration, sarcasm, and humor, Catzie and Michelle strive to facilitate honest dialogue with their poetry and hope to move themselves and others forwards to recognize the humanity of others and acknowledge the human desire for peace, healing, happiness, and love. Employing multiple poetic forms and delivery styles--including hip hop-influenced rhyme, character depictions, theatrical monologue, song, and free verse-- Yellow Rage seeks to connect people, bridge cultures, and initiate a movement of positive and progressive change.