Advertise on podcast: Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI) - The City University of New York (CUNY)

Born to Chinese immigrant parents, the Moy siblings grew up in an America that questioned their citizenship and denied their equality. Sophisticated and self-consciously modern, they challenged limitations and stereotypes in the United States and sought new opportunities in Chinas tumultuous republic. Sometimes the risks they took paid off, but their occasional recklessness also led to infidelity, divorce, bankruptcy, and worse. Those in China faced pressure to collaborate with Japanese occupiers, making choices that had serious consequences for their siblings in the United States.Charlotte Brookss gripping tale follows the family back and forth across the Pacific and through two world wars, Chinas Nationalist and Communist revolutions, and the Cold Warevents that the siblings and their spouses helped shape. The Moys incredible story offers a kaleidoscopic view of an entire generations struggle for acceptance and belonging.

Prof. Yuchen Chen will present on their project examining Chinese immigrants and real estate entrepreneurs in West Queens, exploring their placemaking practices in the emerging new Chinatown. Prof. Chen focuses on how Chinese ethnic media platforms mediate these processes and introduces the concept of infrastructure to understand diasporic identity and placemaking. By shifting the focus to the materiality of digital platforms, the study reveals how they facilitate the circulation of people and cultures within the Chinese diaspora.

Prof. Prithi Kanakamedala will present on their project examining the life of George DeGrasse and his family, who lived on land in New York City donated by Aaron Burr in the early nineteenth century. DeGrasse, listed as being born in Calcutta, India, and often claiming to be Burrs former servant, becomes the focus of a reevaluation in light of new research suggesting Burr may have had a secret Black and Indian family in the Caribbean. This work explores the possibility that the DeGrasse family represents an early Indo-Caribbean presence in New York, and will culminate in a digital site and book chapter as part of a broader book project.

In their study, Prof. Esther Son explores the mental health challenges and barriers to accessing services faced by Asian American/Asian college students at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, particularly after the pandemic. Focusing on ethnic variations, the research uses a mixed-methods approach, combining online surveys and Photovoice, to better understand these students unique experiences with mental health and service utilization. By identifying key challenges, the study aims to improve access to mental health services and promote greater equity for Asian American/Asian students on campus.

Prof Sally Wen Mao will present on Sally Forth, Sad Girl!, a novel-in-progress following a Chinese American poet living in an artist residency in Shanghai. The story explores themes of solitude, diasporic wandering, heartbreak, and art-making as the protagonist connects with fellow artists and seeks adventure. Professor Mao will read excerpts from the novel-in-progress and present some of the results of the novel research she conducted over the past year, supported by the AAARI research support award.

Editor Meqin Wang, with contributors Midori Yamamura, Vicki Kwon and Stephanie Benzaquen-Gautier, will present on Contemporary art and ecological Transformation in East and Southeast Asia (Manchester University Press, March 2026), an edited volume that examines how contemporary art in East and Southeast Asia confronts environmental destruction, ecological degradation, and social injustice in the backdrop of global ecological crises. The book explores how contemporary art in the region confronts environmental destruction and social injustice amid global ecological crises. It introduces the concept of artistic remediation, showcasing how artists intervene in and respond to ecological challenges through various creative practices. These methods range from creating thought-provoking artworks and fostering non-human agency to advocating for biodiversity, promoting eco-education, and protesting against capitalist extractivism.

Dr. Yonghao Yan examines the development of contemporary ceramics in Jingdezhen, a prefecture in Jianxi, China, and the evolving creative practices at Jingdezhen Ceramic University. Through their own artistic projects, Dr. Yan explores how ceramic art intersects with moving-image practices, including documentary filmmaking, experimental video, and ceramic-based animation. By analyzing selected worksboth institutional and personalshe aims to demonstrate how image and material inform and transform one another, revealing new possibilities for contemporary ceramic expression.

Prof. Jayashree Kambl will present on her essay in CUNY FORUM Volume 11:1, focusing on love and gender roles in the recent globally successful films Godzilla Minus One and Past Lives. Prof. Kambl delves into how Godzilla unexpectedly challenges traditional cinematic depictions of romance and gender, offering fresh perspectives on themes of identity and geocultural representation. Both films show how popular culture can shape our understanding of history, belonging, and societal dynamics. She also goes beyond the article to invite connections between the philosophy of romance in Past Lives and its Korean-Canadian-American director Celine Songs 2025 movie, Materialists.

Family Amnesia (Daylight Books, 2025) is a visual tribute and love letter honoring author Betty Yus Chinese American family roots in the United States. The art book explores her familys multi-generational resilience and resistance through mixed-media collages, her grandfathers photographs, and own captured images and archival material.

Prof. Zai Liang's presentation focuses on the substantial challenges faced by small businesses in Manhattan Chinatown and the subsequent transitions they have made in the post-Covid pandemic era. Attendees will gain insights into the key findings conducted during Summer 2025 by the specialized research team from SUNY Albany, in collaboration with the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation.

Prof. Aleah Ranjitingh will present her research on Chinese-Caribbean immigrants in the United States, and the ways in which they understand self in terms of race and ethnicity. Centering on identity formation as persons of Chinese descent, but also with a distinct ethnic identity as voluntary immigrants from the Caribbean (Rogers 2001), Prof. Ranjitsingh is interested in interrogating: identity and identification choices in the U.S.; how and if Chinese-Caribbean immigrants understood and experienced anti-Asian hate and discrimination at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic; and if mixed race Chinese immigrants also maneuver mixedness and racial defaults (Barratt and Ranjitsingh 2001).

Japans global appeal is undeniablebut how well do official narratives match what international audiences actually want? Drawing on his role as a Cool Japan Producer for the Japanese Cabinet Office, Benjamin W. Boas highlights the need to shift from a government-branded Cool Japan paradigm to the more participatory, fan-driven Your Japan. He examines whats working (content exports, inbound-tourism touchpoints, local city branding) and what still misses the mark (top-down campaigns, language access, and diversity). Boas shares behind-the-scenes examples from NHK WORLD programs and community-level projects in Nakano, and addresses todays so-called overtourism, arguing that many pain points are really problems of mismanagement. In contrast to top-down efforts, grassroots phenomena are filling the gap: from overseas anime fandoms to the growth of riichi (Japanese) mahjong clubs in New York City, organic cultural movements are shaping Your Japanthe personal Japan fans embrace on their own terms. He concludes with practical recommendations for educators, policymakers, and creatives on aligning domestic priorities with overseas expectations.

In Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of a Chinese American Community (Stanford University Press, 2024), historian William Gow argues that Chinese Americans in Los Angeles strategically used their performances in both Hollywood films and Chinatown tourist attractions to influence perceptions of race and national identity during the Chinese Exclusion Era. Drawing on oral histories and archival research, the book reveals how these performances were tied to restrictive immigration laws, beginning with the 1875 Page Act. By focusing on the experiences of everyday peoplefrom movie extras to merchantsPerforming Chinatown uncovers the long-overlooked history of how Los Angeless Chinatown and Hollywood shaped each other and, in turn, shaped Asian American identity.

Vina Orden will present on her essay in CUNY FORUM Volume 11:1, examining how narratives in popular media can perpetuate or challenge existing power structures and colonial mentalities. Orden explores this through the complex dynamics behind the pop culture success of comics like The United States of Captain America. Her analysis delves into the diverse creative team behind these comics, including queer, Filipino, First Nation, and South African writers. And she critically questions whether Captain America, despite such diverse creative input, must still operate within a context of imperial power dynamics and the realities of the U.S. nation state.

Much queer theory in America is based on white male experience and privilege, excluding people of color and severely limiting its relevance to third-world activism. Within the last three decades, chronicles from gay lesbian bisexual transgender intersex queer (GLBTIQ) communities within the South Asian diaspora in the United States have appeared, but the richness and contradictions that characterize these communities have been stifled. Too often, the limitations due to undertheorized South Asian American lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual historiescompounded by a queer canon overwrought with the East/West and tradition/modern equationsrender queer South Asian Americans as a monolithic homogeneous category with little or no agency.