Dr. Kelly Fong, a continuing lecturer for the Asian American Studies Department, is the 2021-2022 recipient of the C. Doris and Toshio Hoshide Distinguished Teaching Prize in Asian American Studies at UCLA.
Students and colleagues alike spoke of her dedication to bridging research with community as well as the care and attention she gave to her students. One of her colleagues stated, “I have always been a big fan of Kelly’s teaching philosophy, one that always centers the agency and knowledge of students in any effort to effect critical political and social change.”
Over the past nine years, Dr. Fong has taught various classes at UCLA that cover a range of topics and methodologies in Asian American studies, including AAS10/10W: History of Asian Americans, AAS40: Asian American Movement, AAS 103: Social Science Research Methods, and General Education Cluster 20B: Interracial Dynamics in U.S. Society and Culture, to name a few. She has also mentored over twenty students as a faculty advisor for undergraduate research projects.
The long-term and transformative impact of her teaching and mentorship was clear in the praise given to her by her students. One nominated Dr. Fong because of “her dedication to using her classes as a space for uplifting and empowering the next generation of Asian American scholars.” Another one of her students expressed that “[t]he most important things Dr. Fong taught me are that there is great power in empowering others, there is great strength in healing, and there is great love in community.”
The engaging nature of Dr. Fong’s teaching even extended to remote learning. She taught many large classes during the pandemic, which required extraordinary work and dedication. A colleague lauded her student-oriented pandemic pedagogy, which she had detailed in an article featured in Amerasia Journal issue 46:3. As another demonstration of her inclusive mentoring approach, the article was co-written with her graduate teaching assistants and it shared “strategies for a student-oriented virtual classroom that fosters engagement through relatability, accessibility, and compassion.”
Dr. Kelly Fong shared that “As a lecturer, my presence at UCLA is grounded in teaching and mentoring students and it is these students that have kept me returning to the classroom each year despite the precarity of being contingent faculty. It is an honor to introduce students to the world of Asian American Studies and to see where they will take this knowledge with them in the future to build a better world.”
Dr. Fong is a Bruin alum, Class of 2013, with a doctorate in archaeology with a graduate concentration in Asian American Studies. She was recently featured in an episode of “Take Out with Lisa Ling,” where she spoke about Chinese Americans in the Sacramento Delta, and her next project explores Chinese American foodways through community cookbooks. She currently serves as the co-editor/co-director for the AAPI Multimedia Textbook for the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
We are honored to award this well-deserved recognition to Dr. Kelly Fong for her extraordinary contributions and impact as a teacher, mentor, and advocate for Asian American Studies and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
The late C. Doris Hoshide, Class of 1934, of Rockville, MD established the teaching prize to annually recognize an outstanding professor in Asian American Studies. She and her late husband were longtime supporters of Asian American Studies at UCLA. The Hoshide Prize includes a one-thousand-dollar award. This is the first year that the prize has been opened to nominations of lecturers and adjunct faculty.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Kelly Fong!
Best wishes,
Karen Umemoto
Helen and Morgan Chu Endowed Director’s Chair of the Asian American Studies Center
The Academic Senate Faculty of the Asian American Studies Department’s Strike Solidarity Statement on Grading
/in UncategorizedOn November 2, 2022, the Asian American Studies Department released a statement expressing our solidarity with striking UAW graduate and academic workers.
Aligned with this statement and in accordance with the recommendations of Council of UC Faculty Associations, the Academic Senate faculty of the Department of Asian American Studies agree unanimously that until the strike has concluded:
We will not pick up struck work.
We will not hire additional labor to make up for the labor the strikers are withholding.
We will not submit grades on assignments that have already been graded or otherwise insert grades that are not representative.
In addition, those of us who are teaching courses without TAs or readers will also withhold grades in solidarity.
We may make exceptions for individual students whose circumstances as those on international visas, about to graduate, on financial aid, or other such considerations make them particularly vulnerable to withheld grades.
In doing so, we exercise our rights as protected by HEERA (Higher Education Employee Relations Act).
Graduate student labor is fundamental to our pedagogical and scholarly enterprise, which cannot be sustained without improving their living and working conditions. To resolve the disruption to the continuity and quality of student education, we urge the UC toward a speedy settlement that honors the value and rights of graduate and academic workers.
In accordance with Regents Policy on Public and Discretionary Statements by Academic Units, this statement should not be taken as a position of the University, all members of the Department, or the campus as a whole.
UCLA Newsroom: 40 years later, the question remains the same for UCLA professor: ‘Who killed Vincent Chin?’
/in NewsUCLA Department of Asian American Studies Faculty Position in Pacific Islander Studies
/in NewsThe Department of Asian American Studies in partnership with the Asian American Studies Center (AASC) at UCLA invites applications from Pacific Islander Studies scholars in the humanities, social sciences and/or the arts for an open rank position. We seek an innovative thinker who already is or has the potential to become a leading scholar of Pacific Islander issues in the United States and related diasporas and whose work will play an important role in shaping public narratives and/or public debates concerning Pacific Islander peoples and communities. This position is part of the Chancellor’s Native American and Pacific Islander Bruins Rising Initiative that aims to create an ecosystem of support for Indigenous research, teaching and civic and community engagement. We are open to scholars with a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches.
If you would like to apply, you can find all the information here.
Statement of Support for UC Graduate Academic Workers
/in NewsStatement of Support for UC Graduate Academic Workers
Asian American Studies Department
November 2, 2022
As scholars in a field created by student movements for social justice, the faculty of the Department of Asian American Studies call on the University of California to negotiate in good faith to honor the demands of teaching assistants, tutors, readers, student researchers, postdocs, and academic researchers represented by three unions–UAW 2865, UAW 5810, and SRU-UAW–for livable wages, affordable housing, child care subsidies, and other basic necessities. We also firmly recommit to our policy of non-retaliation for any of our students who engage in union activities. Graduate student labor is fundamental to our pedagogical and scholarly enterprise, which cannot be sustained without improving their living and working conditions.
Elemental Cartographies: Mapping Winds in Indigenous Economies of Abundance in the Era of Climate Change
/in UncategorizedStop by Young Research Library on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 at 12pm to attend the public lecture by Candance Fujikane on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 as she covers the topic, “Elemental Cartographies: Mapping Winds in Indigenous Economies of Abundance in the Era of Climate Change.”
This event is cosponsored by the UCLA Department of English, Asian American Studies, Center for the Study of Women, Center for Asian American Studies, and the Laboratory of Environmental Narrative.
The May 19 Project, co-founded by AASD professor Renee Tajima-Peña and AASD M.A. alum Jeff Chang, has a new home on @KCET!
/in NewsThe May 19 Project, co-founded by AASD professor Renee Tajima-Peña and AASD M.A. alum Jeff Chang, has a new home on @KCET! In addition to the 14 videos on the legacy of AAPI solidarity with other communities, there are special features and articles that contextualize and expand upon this legacy. The videos dropped today on May 19, in celebration of the birthday of Yuri Kochiyama and Malcolm X and the May 19 Project series leads with a video about their friendship.
You can find the May 19 Project at https://bit.ly/May19thProject or https://www.kcet.org/news-community/may-19th-project
Filmmaker collaborators: Joua Lee Grande, Bo Mirhoseseni, Grace Lee, Steven Maing, Juan Mejia, Tadashi Nakamura, PJ Raval, and Jun Stinson
Project Partners:
A-Doc, For Freedoms, Harness, UCLA Asian American Studies Center
The May 19th Project is generously funded by TAAF, Ford Foundation, Levi Strauss Foundation, Blue Shield of California Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, The California Wellness Foundation, The California Endowment, Unbound Philanthropy, Pop Culture Collaborative, The Eleveld Family and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
Please spread the word!
Asian American Studies Professor Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo recognized as UCLA Academic Senate’s 2021-2022 Award Recipient for the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award
/in NewsCongratulations to Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo, Asian Languages and Cultures and Asian American Studies Professor for being recognized as a UCLA Academic Senate’s 2021-22 award recipient for the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award. Well deserved!
Dr. Kelly Fong awarded the 2021-2022 C. Doris and Toshio Hoshide Distinguished Teaching Prize in Asian American Studies at UCLA
/in NewsDr. Kelly Fong, a continuing lecturer for the Asian American Studies Department, is the 2021-2022 recipient of the C. Doris and Toshio Hoshide Distinguished Teaching Prize in Asian American Studies at UCLA.
Students and colleagues alike spoke of her dedication to bridging research with community as well as the care and attention she gave to her students. One of her colleagues stated, “I have always been a big fan of Kelly’s teaching philosophy, one that always centers the agency and knowledge of students in any effort to effect critical political and social change.”
Over the past nine years, Dr. Fong has taught various classes at UCLA that cover a range of topics and methodologies in Asian American studies, including AAS10/10W: History of Asian Americans, AAS40: Asian American Movement, AAS 103: Social Science Research Methods, and General Education Cluster 20B: Interracial Dynamics in U.S. Society and Culture, to name a few. She has also mentored over twenty students as a faculty advisor for undergraduate research projects.
The long-term and transformative impact of her teaching and mentorship was clear in the praise given to her by her students. One nominated Dr. Fong because of “her dedication to using her classes as a space for uplifting and empowering the next generation of Asian American scholars.” Another one of her students expressed that “[t]he most important things Dr. Fong taught me are that there is great power in empowering others, there is great strength in healing, and there is great love in community.”
The engaging nature of Dr. Fong’s teaching even extended to remote learning. She taught many large classes during the pandemic, which required extraordinary work and dedication. A colleague lauded her student-oriented pandemic pedagogy, which she had detailed in an article featured in Amerasia Journal issue 46:3. As another demonstration of her inclusive mentoring approach, the article was co-written with her graduate teaching assistants and it shared “strategies for a student-oriented virtual classroom that fosters engagement through relatability, accessibility, and compassion.”
Dr. Kelly Fong shared that “As a lecturer, my presence at UCLA is grounded in teaching and mentoring students and it is these students that have kept me returning to the classroom each year despite the precarity of being contingent faculty. It is an honor to introduce students to the world of Asian American Studies and to see where they will take this knowledge with them in the future to build a better world.”
Dr. Fong is a Bruin alum, Class of 2013, with a doctorate in archaeology with a graduate concentration in Asian American Studies. She was recently featured in an episode of “Take Out with Lisa Ling,” where she spoke about Chinese Americans in the Sacramento Delta, and her next project explores Chinese American foodways through community cookbooks. She currently serves as the co-editor/co-director for the AAPI Multimedia Textbook for the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
We are honored to award this well-deserved recognition to Dr. Kelly Fong for her extraordinary contributions and impact as a teacher, mentor, and advocate for Asian American Studies and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
The late C. Doris Hoshide, Class of 1934, of Rockville, MD established the teaching prize to annually recognize an outstanding professor in Asian American Studies. She and her late husband were longtime supporters of Asian American Studies at UCLA. The Hoshide Prize includes a one-thousand-dollar award. This is the first year that the prize has been opened to nominations of lecturers and adjunct faculty.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Kelly Fong!
Best wishes,
Karen Umemoto
Helen and Morgan Chu Endowed Director’s Chair of the Asian American Studies Center
Congratulations to our 2021 Asian Pacific Alumni of UCLA Scholarship Recipient
/in NewsWe want to congratulate our Asian American Studies student who has been awarded this year’s Asian Pacific Alumni of UCLA Scholarships!
Michelle Le, Exp. ’22 – Undergraduate
Michelle Le is a rising junior majoring in Public Affairs with a double minor in Education Studies and Asian American Studies. She intends to pursue a career in academic counseling and educational policy. This past year, Le has served as a SEA CLEAR peer counselor where she is able to offer support to different student populations, helped host UCLA’s first Southeast Asian Activism Week in order to facilitate community learning and advocacy and provided health education to API communities as a presenter at the Asian Pacific Health Corps (APHC) health fair. Her field of study, community involvement and activism, is rooted in her dedication and love for her community.
The Faculty of the Asian American Studies Department’s Statement of Solidarity with Afghanistan
/in UncategorizedThe faculty of the UCLA Asian American Studies Department stands in solidarity with Afghan people who are facing Taliban rule as only one of a number of brutal consequences arising from twenty years of invasion, occupation, and war waged by the US military and its allies. In tradition with Asian American Studies’ long critique and opposition to US militarism in Asia writ large, including Central Asia, Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), we condemn and oppose this war and all imperialist wars from the Americas to Asia, Africa, and beyond.
We stand firmly with the growing movement in the US and join our voices to say: our government must ensure that those seeking to leave Afghanistan continue to have ways to do so safely, remove admissions caps for refugees, and provide genuine resources for the resettlement of Afghan refugees. Neighboring countries must keep their borders open and ensure safe passage for fleeing refugees, and grassroots organizers and humanitarian workers must recognize Afghan people as leaders in the struggle against authoritarian and military regimes. Our own university must commit to creating safe harbor for Afghan scholars, students, and teachers and all peoples displaced by imperial military violence.
Refugee histories, forced migration, asylum, detainment, and the separation of families have unavoidably shaped and splintered communities and peoples across Asia and the Pacific. Thus, war and its aftermath of management of international peace and relocation are ongoing violences our field continually takes up in our intellectual inquiries, oral histories, and memory of what has and can constitute Asian American Studies. In this vein, we lift up all who have built ongoing challenges against US militarism and support peoples displaced, erased, and resilient.
In solidarity,
The faculty of the Asian American Studies Department, University of California, Los Angeles
In accordance with Regents Policy on Public and Discretionary Statements by Academic Units, this statement should not be taken as a position of the University, all members of the Department, or the campus as a whole.