Discover how an Interdisciplinary Minor in Asian and Asian American Studies can change your world!

  • Operation Babylift: An Adoptee’s Perspectives on the Vietnam War
    Operation Babylift Mahli Xuan Mechenbier was adopted from South Vietnam through Operation Babylift after an American missionary nun found her next to a road outside of Saigon. Often categorized as a “humanitarian mission” by the United States government, Operation Babylift—which evacuated over 3,000 children during and after the Fall of Saigon—can also be characterized as controversial […]
    Posted on March 7, 2023

AAASI’s Illuminating Resilience Project

Want to see the work some students have done with the mental health and arts initiative involving the COVID-19 pandemic?

See this page, linked here!

“Academic Integrity at Stake: The Ramseyer Article – Four Letters” edited by Alexis Dudden

Alexis Dudden is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. Her most recent book, Troubled Apologies, interrogates the interplay between political apology and apologetic history among Japan, Korea, and the United States.She is currently working on a project examining Japan’s territorial disputes. [...]

Visit https://apjjf.org/2021/5/ToC2.html to read more!

Asian Americans are not silent. So many of us in the community are actively fighting injustices and anti-racism. However, historically, we have always been silenced, which gives the incredibly false interpretation that all Asian Americans are passive & do not care. Let's talk.

Join UConn Faculty, Staff, Graduate, Undergraduate, and Alumni Asian Americans to unlearn and relearn about each other.

Recording of the event

We thank the over 800 attendees for coming to this event!

Resources to continue the conversation:

Announcing the First Vorasane Scholarship Awards

With great excitement, we are proud to announce the inaugural winners of the Nom and Boulieng Vorasane Scholarship – Lynna Vo and Georgia Mikan.

Lynna is a Sophomore in Human Development and Family Sciences with an Early Childhood Development Specialization applying to the School of Education.

Georgia is a Junior in the Pre-Teaching Elementary Education program in the School of Education specializing in teaching History and Geography in Social Studies.

Read more…

Announcing the Spring 2022 Artist-in-Residence: Ali Asgar Tara

Ali Asgar Tara (they/them/she/her) is a Bangladeshi transgender artist currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Tara combines video, text, drawing, and community performance to create political, site responsive, and cross-disciplinary collaborations. Twitter @aliasgarart

Tara’s scholarship and art are reflective of their past & present experiences in a very different social, cultural, political, and educational environment. Tara’s current research-based art practice looks at the narratives of queer liberation in the context of the global north and juxtaposes it with their experience and understanding of queerness from the global south and argues how the neoliberal global market economy depoliticizes queerness as an Identity.

This semester, they will lead regular encounters through the Decolonial Critic Lab, a bi-weekly meeting/discussion, designed to provoke critical discussion among the student and the faculty community of UConn which aim to examine the connection between decolonial methods and how Asia has been constructed, represented, mediated, and conceptualized by artists and curators across the globe at the end of the 20th century and early 21st century. Please email jason.o.chang@uconn.edu for information on

Spring 2022 AAASI Artist in Residence

virtual attendance.

The AAASI Activist-In-Residence Program Adds Another Member

We welcome JHD (Jennifer Heikkila Díaz) as the 21-22 Activist in residence.

JHD (she/her or they/them) identifies as Korean American, Asian American, and biracial. For over two decades, she/they has worked in coalition with students, families, and school-based staff, pursuing educational equity–most of those years as a teacher, in school administration, and instructional coaching, and some of those years in education nonprofit work. She/they has had the privilege of supporting and partnering with thousands of students, families, teachers, and school leaders.  Currently, JHD works at New Haven Promise as the Chief of Talent & Operations and at Fund for Teachers CT as a Program Officer.  She/they is part of the CT Anti-Racist Teaching & Learning Collective, and is the co-founder of aapiNHV. She/they spends as much time as possible with young people, including her/their children, Magdalena and Gabriela.

Their residency will support K-12 teacher outreach and resource development for the Make Us Visible CT campaign to build capacity in the Connecticut school system to develop a robust and inclusive Asian American and Pacific Islander curriculum.

We're proud to continue Mike Keo's residency as well.

Meet Mike Keo, founder of the #IAMNOTAVIRUS Campaign was also a founding member of the Make Us Visible CT which successfully campaigned in the Connecticut state legislature to mandate the State Department of Education to create a K-8 Asian American and Pacific Islander model curriculum.

Read about the campaign, and find our resources here.

Upcoming Events

  1. Sep 25 Sikh Studies Week - Sikhism 101 4:30pm
  2. Sep 26 Sikh Studies Week - Diasporic Peregrinations: Journeys of a Burmese Sikh 4:00pm
  3. Sep 27 Sikh Studies Week - History of Sikhs in Connecticut 5:00pm
  4. Sep 28 Sikh Studies Week - Traditional Kirtan Performance 6:00pm
  5. Sep 29 Sikh Studies Week - Visual Cultures of ‘Communal’ Violence in India: Media Failures and Activist Artists 4:00pm
  6. Sep 29 Intimacy, Gender, and Anticolonial Internationalism 5:00pm
  7. Oct 12 The 3rd Mark Twain Distinguished Writer-in-Residence Program 6:30pm
  8. Jan 24 Fellow’s Talk: Victor Zatsepine 12:15pm

Helpful Links

Asian American Cultural Center: https://asacc.uconn.edu/

 

Association for Asian American Faculty and Staff (AAAFS): https://asacc.uconn.edu/organizations/faculty-staff-organizations/

 

Office of Diversity and Inclusion: https://diversity.uconn.edu/

Meet The Director!

Jason Chang
Associate Professor of History and Director of the AAASI
(Bri Diaz/UConn Photo)

Welcome to the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute. Read Jason Chang's message here.

 

Contact Us

For more information about the program, please contact Jason Chang, Director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, at
jason.o.chang@uconn.edu or (860) 486-5717.
Office: Beach Hall 417

For all other inquiries, please contact the CLAS Business Center at bsc@uconn.edu or (860) 486-1231.

Location:

417 Beach Hall
354 Mansfield Rd. U-1091
Storrs, CT 06269-1091

Room 425 (Conference Room)
Room 422 (Stephanie Lumbra)

Follow AAASI on Twitter

FOCUS ON FACULTY & INSTITUTE INITIATIVES

UConn Alum, Ryan Verano on Student Union lawnAn interview conducted by Jason O. Chang, director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, with Ryan Verano ’18 (CLAS), a UConn economics major and Asian American studies minor, on his mission in the healthcare field.

Read the interview here.