The views and opinions expressed on this site and blog posts (excluding comments on blog posts left by others) are entirely my own and do not represent those of any employer or organization with whom I am currently or previously have been associated.
Academic Version: Applying my personal experiences and academic research as a professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies to provide a more complete understanding of political, economic, and cultural issues and current events related to American race relations, and Asia/Asian America in particular.
Plain English: Trying to put my Ph.D. to good use.
As another contributing author to the Asian-Nation team, I would like to introduce Jerry Z. Park.
Jerry Z. Park is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Baylor University. His research interests are in American race relations, religion, social identities, culture and civic engagement, with a focus on Asian Americans. He has published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Social Forces, The Sociological Quarterly, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociological Perspectives, and Journal of Asian American Studies.
He has participated in obtaining the Asian American oversample of the Portraits of American Life Survey Wave I (2006) and has been a regular contributor of the Baylor Religion Surveys (2005-2013). In 2012, he served as an advisory panel member of the Pew Asian American Survey and is currently studying the religious influences in workplace outcomes and in entrepreneurial enterprises through a grant from the National Science Foundation.
I have compiled and organized a course guide about Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders for the public sociology blog Sociological Images. The guide contains links to Sociological Images posts, organized by theme. Hopefully it will be useful for instructors teaching courses in sociology, anthropology, ethnic studies, and related fields. I will be updating it periodically as new posts on the topic get published.
As another contributing author to the Asian-Nation team, I would like to introduce Justin Lockenwitz.
Justin graduated from UMass Amherst with a degree in Political Science and an Asian/Asian American Studies Certificate. Currently he is enrolled in a Master’s program in Intercultural Relations at Lesley University. He is also an office manager for a business research center at MIT Sloan and plans to pursue a career in International Education.
Welcome aboard, Justin. It’s great to have you be a part of the expanding Asian-Nation team and I and my readers look forward to reading your posts!
As another contributing author to the Asian-Nation team, I would like to introduce Eric Hamako.
Eric Hamako has been involved in Mixed-Race student- and community-organizing since 2000. Currently completing his doctorate in Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Eric studies how community education can support Mixed-Race people’s political movements and ways to incorporate stronger anti-racist frameworks into those educational efforts. Eric has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Stanford University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Ithaca College, and the Smith College School for Social Work. As an independent trainer & consultant, Eric has presented on Multiraciality and other social justice issues to universities, professional associations, and community organizations across the United States.
Welcome aboard, Eric. I am very happy you’re a part of the expanding Asian-Nation team and I and my readers look forward to reading your posts!
Hot on the heels of my earlier announcement about the first of Asian-Nation’s new contributing authors, I would now like to introduce Leighton Vila.
Leighton Vila is a Ph.D. Sociology student at Virginia Tech. He studies Asian American identity in the Pacific and U.S. South. His research interests include Colonial Mentality, Mental Health, and ethnic “Authenticity.” He has presented on Filipino Ghost Stories, Hawaiian Authenticity, and Asian Americans in the Hip Hop Scene.
Welcome aboard to Leighton — I am very happy you’re a part of the expanding Asian-Nation team and I and my readers look forward to reading your posts!
As regular readers to this site and blog may know already, Asian-Nation has been online for over 11 years now. I have been very proud of the work that I have done on this site and still feel very strongly in using it to bring sociological and academic theories, concepts, historical examples, and data to give as wide of an audience as possible a more comprehensive understanding and appreciation of Asian Americans. I am also very gratified when visitors to Asian-Nation — Asian American and otherwise, students and general readers — tell me how informative, useful, and even enlightening my articles and posts are to them personally.
I only wish I could post more often than I currently do. Alas, with my normal day-to-day schedule, I have only had time to post once or twice a week lately. With that in mind, I have begun inviting some of my colleagues and former students to become contributing authors on this blog. They all come from different backgrounds, but all of them share my passion for applying academic knowledge to better interpret and make sense of issues, news, and current events that relate to Asian Americans and to contribute to the public sociology movement.
I will be introducing them to you in the coming weeks and the first new contributing author to Asian-Nation is Calvin N. Ho.
Calvin N. Ho is a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His academic work uses ethnography to explore questions of immigrant transnationalism and diasporic engagement, particularly among overseas Chinese. In addition to Asian-Nation, Calvin also blogs at The Plaid Bag Connection, which aims to bridge the gap between the Asian American blogosphere and Asian bloggers elsewhere in the West. He hopes to bring a transnational comparative dimension to all of these projects.
Believe it or not, this month marks the 10 year birthday of my website and blog, Asian-Nation.org. I hope you’ll forgive me if I take a few minutes to reflect on where Asian-Nation has been as it enters its second decade on the internet.
The Origins of Asian-Nation
Around 10 years ago, I was finished with my graduate school course work and was trying to finish my dissertation (‘ABD’ or ‘all but dissertation’ in grad school lingo). My wife, daughter, and I had just moved from the hustle and bustle of New York City to the calmer and less expensive environs of Albany NY where I lived previously when I was doing my graduate course work at SUNY Albany.
I just started a full-time job as a Research Associate at the Center for Technology in Government (an applied research center at SUNY Albany) in which I analyzed how state government agencies used information technology to improve their public services. The internet was also just beginning to realize its potential as a medium for groups and individuals to express themselves and to claim their voice in U.S. society.
I was also eager to kick start my dissertation-writing and my research on different forms of assimilation among Asian Americans. Also, I was (and still am) a firm believer in doing “public sociology” — making academic research and data relevant and directly applicable to addressing important real-world issues that people and our society face and in the process, not being afraid to take a stand on controversial issues, as long as I used objective data and examples to support my viewpoints.
With these factors in mind, I also saw a need for Asian Americans to represent ourselves in mainstream U.S. society, rather than allowing others to represent us however they wanted. In other words, I wanted to directly educate people about the Asian American experience myself instead of having them rely on distorted portrayals and ignorant stereotypes that were unfortunately common.
Throughout my life, I frequently found myself in the position of being one of the few Asians (or even pople of color) around. In those situations, I sometimes had to be a “spokesperson” for the entire Asian American community and educating people a little bit about Asian American history, culture, and issues at a time. So I figured, why not leverage the power of the internet to create an online resource where I can do just that as many people and as wide of an audience at once?
Putting It All Together
So I decided to create a website and on April 26, 2001, I registered the domain name Asian-Nation.org. Why did I name the site “Asian-Nation?” There was not one specific reason and actually, I chose that name somewhat on a whim and as a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. Basically I liked the sound of it and it generally represents the contributions that Asians have made to the history and culture of U.S. society.
My initial plans were modest — I was only going to put up a few articles on different aspects of Asian American history and culture. But the more I got into it, the more material and information I decided to include until I organized them into the structure that currently exists right now — roughly six main categories of static HTML articles (the articles in the “Ethnic Groups” category were added in 2008). Here’s one of the earliest versions of my front page banner:
Back in 2001, blogs were not as common and popular as they are now but nonetheless, in my “Issues” category, I had an article that I titled “Behind the Headlines” in which I regularly updated and commented on current events and news items related to Asians and/or Asian Americans, so it was basically an early form of blogging. In fact, the first such entry I wrote was in April 2001 titled, “War and Conscience” about Kansas Senator Bob Kerry’s participation in the Viet Nam War. In 2004 I switched my blogging from just static HTML entries over to the WordPress software that I use now.
Here’s to the Next 10 Years and Beyond
Over these past 10 years, I have received approximately 4,000,000 visitors (that averages to about 33,000 a month). My site statistics tell me that on average, each visitor stays a little less than 4 minutes on the site and views about 3.5 pages. But what is more important than the numbers are the reactions and messages I get from visitors, a few of which I list in the “What Others Are Saying” section of my main page. I always feel invigorated when readers from all backgrounds tell me not just how much they like my site but also that it’s opened their eyes to stuff they’ve never heard or learned about before.
As I celebrate Asian-Nation’s 10th birthday, I hope to continue to educate people one at a time about the history, experiences, culture, and contemporary issues of Asian Americans (and immigrants and people of color as well) and hope that people will still find it to be a useful information resource and perhaps even an enlightening experience for them.
Here are some more announcements and links out that have come my way relating to Asians or Asian Americans. As always, links to other sites are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of their contents.
Essay Writer Needed: Vietnamese Student Studying in U.S.
My name is Veronica Majerol and I am an editor of the New York Times Upfront, a newsmagazine that is ready by almost a million teens across the U.S. One of the columns I edit is called “Voices,” in which we aim to publish an essay written by a teen (15 to 19 years old) who can share a personal experience that also sheds light on a larger global or national issue.
Right now, we are looking to publish an essay written by a teen from Vietnam who is studying in the U.S. We are interested in hearing about the student’s reflections on the war in Vietnam and America’s part in it (based on what the student has learned about it, since he/she would have been born well after the war) versus his/her feelings about the U.S. today and relations between the two countries.
Though we cannot guarantee that any one submission would be published, if a first draft looks promising, I would work with the student (via phone, email) through multiple drafts till it is ready for publication. The student would also be paid $100 if the piece is published, and it would be a great resume builder. I would love to know about possible candidates at your earliest convenience. I would need to have a brief phone chat with interested candidates before they start writing so I can explain the exact parameters of the essay.
Thank you in advance for your help. I look forward to hearing from you both.
Veronica Majerol
New York Times Upfront
557 Broadway
New York, NY 10012
212-343-4752
The National Science Foundation (NSF) East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students (EAPSI) is a flagship international fellowship program for developing the next generation of globally engaged U.S. scientists and engineers knowledgeable about the Asian and Pacific regions. The Summer Institutes are hosted by foreign counterparts committed to increasing opportunities for young U.S. researchers to work in research facilities and with host mentors abroad.
Fellows are supported to participate in eight-week research experiences at host laboratories in Australia, China, Japan (10 weeks), Korea, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan from June to August. The program provides a $5,000 summer stipend, round-trip airfare to the host location, living expenses abroad, and an introduction to the society, culture, language, and research environment of the host location.
The 2011 application is now open and will close at 5:00 pm local time on November 10, 2010. Application instructions and information concerning benefits, eligibility, and tips on applying are available online at www.nsfsi.org.
NSF recognizes the importance of enabling U.S. researchers and educators to advance their work through international collaborations and the value of ensuring that future generations of U.S. scientists and engineers gain professional experience beyond this nation’s borders early in their careers. The program is intended for U.S. graduate students pursuing studies in fields supported by the National Science Foundation. Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply for the EAPSI.
Applicants must be enrolled in a research-oriented master’s or PhD program and be U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent residents by the application deadline date. Students in combined bachelor/master degree programs must have matriculated from the undergraduate degree program by the application deadline date.
The first Summer Institutes began in Japan in 1990, and to date over 2,000 U.S. graduate students have participated in the program. Should you have any questions, please contact the EAPSI Help Desk by email at eapsi@nsfsi.org or by phone at 1-866-501-2922.
The goal of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) Research & Development (R&D) Fellowship and Internship programs is to promote quality and distinction in educational measurement and related fields through support of significant research by early-career scientists and graduate students and exposure to methodologies within the ETS environment.
These programs provide opportunities for talented scholars and students from diverse backgrounds – especially traditionally underrepresented groups such as African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, and American Indians – to pursue scientific research under the guidance of ETS senior scientists and psychometricians. These programs encourage research in areas such as educational measurement, psychometrics, validity, natural language processing and computational linguistics, cognitive psychology, learning theory, linguistics, speech recognition and processing, teaching and classroom research, statistics, international large scale assessments, and assessment design and development.
Summer Internship Program in Research for Graduate Students
Selected interns participate in research projects under the guidance of ETS mentors in Princeton, NJ. Graduate students who are currently enrolled in a full-time doctoral program in one of the areas listed above and who have completed a minimum of two years of coursework toward their PhD or EdD prior to the program start date are eligible to apply. The deadline for applying for the summer internship program is February 1, 2011.
Harold Gulliksen Psychometric Research Fellowship Program
During the academic year selected fellows study at their universities and carry out research under the supervision of an academic mentor and in consultation with an ETS research scientist. During the summer, fellows are invited to participate in the Summer Internship Program for Graduate Students working under the guidance of an ETS researcher. The program is open to applicants who are enrolled in a doctoral program in psychometrics or statistics, have completed their course work toward the PhD, and are at the dissertation stage. The deadlines for applying for the Harold Gulliksen program are December 1, 2010 for the preliminary application materials and February 1, 2011 for the final application materials.
Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Selected fellows conduct research under the mentorship of ETS senior researchers in Princeton, NJ. The program is open to early-career scholars who hold a PhD or an EdD in one of the areas listed above. The deadlines for applying for the postdoctoral fellowship programs are January 1, 2011 for the preliminary application materials and March 1, 2011 for the final application materials.
Sylvia Taylor Johnson Minority Fellowship in Educational Measurement
Selected fellows conduct research under the mentorship of ETS senior researchers in Princeton, NJ. The program is open to candidates who have received their PhD or EdD within the past ten years in one of the areas listed above and who are US citizens or permanent residents.
To Apply and For More Information:
The application process for 2011 will open on November 1, 2010. No applications will be accepted prior to this date. Apply online at the ETS Fellowship and Internship Programs Website. Contacts: E-mail: internfellowships@ets.org, Phone: (609) 734-5543.
Thanks to your positive responses, we are moving ahead with a special journal issue of Theory in Action highlighting Sociologists in Action (SIA) and public sociology with the permission of Sage/Pine Forge! The issue will include 3 pieces from SIA that the editors Kathleen Odell Korgen, Jonathan White, and Shelley Michelle White have selected and a number of new manuscripts by those of you who wish to participate.
In your “Abstract” file type “For the SIA special edition” — don’t forget to include keywords for the manuscript. This way your manuscript will make it to my desk as I will be personally involved. Due date for submissions: December 1, 2010. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me directly and once more thank you for your interest and support.
Best to all,
Dr. John Asimakopoulos
Associate Professor of Sociology
City University of New York
Executive Director & Editor in Chief
Transformative Studies Institute -Theory in Action
39-09 Berdan Avenue
Fair Lawn, NJ 07410 USA
www.transformativestudies.org
jasimakopoulos@transformativestudies.org
International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas Conference
The International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO) and the Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong are organizing an international conference on Chinese Overseas: Religions and Worldview. Scholars and researchers interested in presenting papers or organizing conference panels on religions, worldview and philosophy in relation to the Chinese overseas are welcome to participate in this conference. Details are as follows.
Conference theme: Chinese Overseas: Religions and Worldview
Rationale: While various aspects of the history and cultural life of the Chinese overseas (Chinese diasporas) have been well studied, their religious life and worldview have not been systematically studied. For instance, we know very little about the religious life of the Chinese in Latin America, and for that matter in North America and Europe. Living in multicultural environments, the Chinese overseas are participants of many religions: Chinese popular religion, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Bahai and others. In fact some aspects of the Chinese popular religions as practiced in different societies have also been localized as a result of interacting with the non-Chinese cultural and religious practices. This conference will provide a forum for discussing the religious life and worldview (including, for example, Confucianism) of the Chinese overseas.
Venue: The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Shatin, NT, Hong Kong
Date: June 21-22, 2011
Title and abstract deadline: 31 December 2010
Panel proposals deadline: 31 December 2010. [For panel presentations, paper titles and abstracts should be sent via the panel chair]
Registration fee: US $90 for ISSCO members
US $100 for non-members
Accommodation: Two types of accommodation will be arranged: (a) student hostels; (b) hotels near CUHK (depending on hotels, the price per night ranges from USD $80 to $130 per night). Details will be supplied later. Conference secretariat (contact persons): Dr. TAN Chee-Beng (cbtan@cuhk.edu.hk) and Dr. WU Keping (kepingwu@cuhk.edu.hk).
