EVENT DETAILS

HOMESCAPES WARSCAPES SERIES: Creating Asian American Studies: Activism, the Viet Nam War, and the Academy

Event Videos

http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/13712

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQhyjsca9aU&feature=youtu.be

Creating Asian American Studies: Activism, the Viet Nam War, and the Academy

September 27, 2016
9:30 a.m. - 10:50
Donald Bren Hall 1100
University of California, Irvine

Asian American Studies majors, minors, and graduate students are welcome to
attend a luncheon with our guest speakers from 11:00-12:30. RSVP required by
Sept. 25th to Jasmine Robledo (robledj1@uci.edu)

Looking Like the Enemy: Asian American Identity and the Vietnam War“In the United States, there has prevailed a generic hegemonic mindset that ‘all Asians look alike.’
"During the Vietnam War, all Americans of Asian ancestry not only looked alike, they looked
suspiciously like ‘gooks,’ the epithet that generally and uncritically associated persons of Asian
ethnicities with the enemy. My talk explores how this instantiation as both enemy and citizen
created a particular perspective on the war, which in turn strengthened the formation of a distinctly
political identity as Asian Americans.” - Karen L. Ishizuka

Karen L. Ishizuka is a third-generation American of Japanese descent who was part of the Asian
American movement in Los Angeles. She is the author of Lost and Found: Reclaiming the Japanese
American Incarceration, as well as many published articles, and coeditor of Mining the Home Movie:
Excavations in Histories and Memories. An award-winning documentary film producer and museum
curator, she helped establish the Japanese American National Museum and received her Ph.D. from the
University of California, Los Angeles.

Bridging Academia and Activism: My Personal and Professional Journey with
Asian American Studies
“As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Asian American Studies and the 30th anniversary of the
Southeast Asian Archive at UCI, I am honored to reflect and share stories about my personal and
professional journey (as a student and now, as a researcher and teacher) and the lessons I have
learned about the power of activism to bridge and transform knowledge into compassionate practice
and action for greater good.” - Dr. Tu-Uyen Nguyen

Dr. Tu-Uyen Nguyen is an Associate Professor in the Asian American Studies Program at California
State University, Fullerton (CSUF). She received her undergraduate B.S. and B.A. degrees in
Biology and Comparative Literature from UC Irvine, and her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Public
Health (Community Health Sciences with a minor in Medical Anthropology) from UCLA. As an
undergraduate student at UCI, she volunteered during her freshman year with advocacy organizations,
Project Ngoc/ Pearl, Boat People S.O.S., and Refugees International.

Co-sponsors include:
Humanities Commons
Center for Critical Korean Studies
Gender and Sexuality Studies
Anthropology
Art History
The Korea Law Center