Keynote Speaker
Dennis Chin
Dennis Chin, 23, is honored to be this year's keynote speaker for the New York City Asian American Student Conference (NYCAASC). Since graduating from The College of New Jersey in 2006, Dennis has been involved in numerous organizations, campaigns, and movements to advance social justice and equality. As Advocacy Co-Chair of the 2005-2007 National Asian American Student Conference (NAASCon) National Board, he helped to initiate NAASCon's nationwide Asian American Studies campaign, and helped to plan their second biennial conference at Northwestern University in November 2006. He also delivered the keynote speech at the Southeast Regional Conference of Asian American Leaders (SERCAAL) this past fall at the University of Florida. Currently, Dennis works as a Program Associate for the Center for Community Change (CCC) in New York City. He has helped to launch CCC's Movement Vision Lab, a groundbreaking on-line website for grassroots organizers and social justice activists to find, share, rate, and debate visionary ideas for the future. Dennis also serves on the steering committee of Downetime, the young adult group of the Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPMINY).
Speakers
Kenneth E. Bauzon
Born and raised in the Philippines, Professor Bauzon earned his undergraduate degree in political science in 1970 from Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Philippines Thereafter, he began a graduate program in political science at the University of the Philippines, which he continued at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina when he received an admission there in 1974. By the time he left Duke University for his first professional position at Old Dominion University in Virginia in 1981, he has earned a Master's Degree in History, another Master's Degree in Political Science, and a doctorate in Political Science. Research for his dissertation, "Islamic Nationalism in the Philippines; Reflections in Socio-Political Analysis," was funded with a generous grant from the Islamic and Arabian Development Studies of Duke University.
After completing his appointment at Old Dominion University, Professor Bauzon has taught throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s in a visiting capacity in such institutions as Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, Wilkes University, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Yeshiva University in New York City, New York. In 1992, he was offered a full time position at Saint Joseph's College in Brooklyn, New York where he currently holds the rank of Associate Professor. During the Winter Sessions of January 2005 and January 2006, he was invited to be a Visiting Associate Professor at the Graduate Program in Area Studies at the University of Tsukuba in Tsukuba, Japan.
His teaching specialties are in the areas of comparative politics, international relations, and political theory. His research and writing interests are in the sub-areas of development studies, foreign and security policy, and political economy. His articles and reviews appear in such professional publications as Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review, Diliman Review, Philippine Journal of Public Administration, Asia Quarterly, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Ethnic Studies Report, Asian Thought and Society, and Contemporary Southeast Asia.
Professor Bauzon's major works include Liberalism and the Quest for Islamic Identity in the Philippines (published jointly in 1991 by Acorn Press, Durham, North Carolina, and Ateneo De Manila University Press in Association with Duke University's Islamic and Arabian Development Studies); Development and Democratization in the Third World; Myths, Hopes, and Realities (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Francis/Crane Russak, 1992); and Political Forecasting; History, Theory and Practice (Manila: University of the Philippines, 2000). He is currently working on a book-length manuscript assessing United States-Philippine foreign relations from the onset of the Cold War to the current "war on terror."
Professional travels have taken Professor Bauzon to Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Sri Lanka, among others, giving papers and/or lectures. In the summer of 2000, he was recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to travel to and participate in a six-week series of seminars in Egypt and Israel. In May 2005, he traveled to Rome, Italy to present a paper entitled "The Underside of Globalization; Stealth Global Corporate Governance and Democracy," an excerpt of which is published by the Argentinian Center for International Studies, available online at http://www.caei.com.ar/es/programas/teoria/t11.pdf.
In November 2007, Professor Bauzon traveled to Peru to deliver a paper at the conference of the Association for Third World Studies on the subject of the US "war on terror" in Southeast Asia and the Philippines, and in late May 2008, he will present another paper assessing the human rights impact of the so-called "war on terror" - including the rise of state terror and extra-judicial killings -- in the Philippines at the Global Awareness Society International in San Francisco, California.
A resident of Queens, New York, Professor Bauzon is married with two children.
CAAAV
MinMin Li is a youth organizer with the Chinatown Tenants Union of CAAAV
Ester Wang is a member of the Chinatown Tenants Union of CAAAV. She also is a co-host of the WBAI radio show "Asia Pacific Forum."
ManSee Kong is a member of the Chinatown Tenants Union of CAAV Organizing Asian Communities. She also freelances on documentary films about immigrant issues, and works with Third World Newsreel and Global Action Project.
Regie Cabico
Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won top prizes in the 1993, 1994 and 1997 National Poetry Slams. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Caf? Spoken Word Revolution and Slam. He has appeared on two seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam, PBS' "In The Life" and MTV's "Free Your Mind" Spoken Word Tour. Regie is the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships for Poetry and Multi-Discplinary Performance. As a theater artist, his work has been presented at The Humana Theater Festival, Genesis Theater Festival, CrossRoads Theater, Kennedy Center Play Lab, The Kitchen and Dixon Place, among others. He is an ensemble member of the NY Neo Futurist's production of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. He teaches writing and performance for Urban Word, NYC and hosts The Friday Night Series for the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church.
Ka Chan
Ka Chan recently joined New York Community Media Alliance as communications director. Previously, he worked for both Sing Tao and Ming Pao, two daily Chinese-language newspapers at the New York headquarters, covering a variety of community issues in Chinatown and downtown Manhattan. In January 2008, he organized "My Reporting From New York," the first exhibit of Chinese photo-journalists in New York. It was successfully received by audience and media alike.
Kai Chang
Kai Chang is a technology entrepreneur, progressive activist, and renegade blogger living and working in southwestern Connecticut and New York City. Kai was born in Buffalo, New York; grew up in Montreal, Canada, and Los Angeles, California; and attended college in San Diego, Hong Kong, and the Szechuan Province of China. He has been developing professional software for the past 15 years, and in 2006 sold his tech start-up to a NASDAQ-traded company. He has written numerous articles for sites such as Racialicious, The Unapologetic Mexican, and APA for Progress. Kai blogs regularly about politics and culture at www.zuky.net.
DISGRASIAN
Jen Wang and Diana Nguyen are the authors of DISGRASIAN.com. They have been featured on NPR, Metro NY's "Best of the Blogs," and Michelle Malkin's website under the "Word of the Day." Jen and Diana also contribute to the Huffington Post's political satire site, 23/6 (http://www.236.com) and are developing a series called "Hollywood Slant" for Super Deluxe (http://www.superdeluxe.com), Turner's web channel. DISGRASIAN.com serves as media partner to the Asian-American voter initiative GENERASIAN VOTE, sponsored by Norman Lear's non-partisan, non-profit Declare Yourself, where Diana is Associate Director. Diana received her B.A. from the University of California, Riverside, and Jen received her B.A. from Yale and M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia University.Website
Jacqueline Ng Fernandez
Jacqueline Ng Fernandez is the Associate Director of The Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter (CRAASH) as well as the Associate Director of the Hunter Board for The Second Annual New York City Asian American Student Conference (NYCAASC). She is a junior at Hunter College and is majoring in Film and Media and minoring in Asian American Studies.Fernandez is currently a production intern for CNN and has also worked as an assistant for New America Media. She started writing for The WORD, a Hunter student news publication in Fall 2006, where, according to her editor, she transforms prosaic topics into exceptional pieces of journalism excellence.She then became the senior editor of The Ethnic News Project at Hunter in Spring 2007, a FORD Foundation funded project that focused on reporting issues in ethnic communities that aren't normally covered in mainstream media.She has also produced, directed, and edited a short documentary about a Native American burial ground in Teaneck, New Jersey in 2007. Fernandez has also been published in The Filipino Express and manages her own blog. She is a member of the Asian American Journalist Association, the National Honor Society and the California Scholarship Federation. Fernandez was born in Queens, New York, raised in Los Angeles, and currently resides in Manhattan.
Jennifer Hayashida
Poet and translator JENNIFER HAYASHIDA was born in Oakland, CA, and grew up in the suburbs of Stockholm and San Francisco. She was recently awarded a 2007 PEN Translation Fund Grant for her translation of Swedish poet Fredrik Nyberg's Clockwork of Flowers - Explanations and Poems; she is also the translator of Eva Sjödin's book-length prose poem, Inner China (Litmus Press, 2005).Her translation of Nyberg's A Different Practice is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse. She has been a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony and the recipient of a Witter Bynner Poetry Translator Residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute. Poems and translations have appeared in Circumference, The Literary Review, Insurance, The Asian Pacific American Journal, and Action, Yes; text-based work has been included in group exhibitions at The Vera List Center for Art and Politics and Artists Space. She received her MFA in writing from Bard College in 2003 and currently lives in Brooklyn, where she teaches Asian American Studies at Hunter College and the University of California, Davis.
Sukjong Hong
Sukjong Hong is presenting on behalf of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, a New York-based organization organizing for genuine peace and unification in Korea and supporting economic and social justice movements in North America. As a participant and coordinator of Nodutdol's KEEP Korean Education and Exposure Program, she has traveled to South Korea twice with a group of other Korean-Americans and met with organizations and communities who struggle with the impact and reach of US militarism. She has most recently returned from research trips to both Vietnam and the Philippines, where she also saw and heard from people affected by the long-term impacts of US military occupation and war.
Timothy Huang
Timothy Huang is a composer, lyricist and theater writer in New York City. He studied theater at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where he received a BFA in Drama (CAP21) in 1997 and an MFA in Musical Theater Writing (GMTWP) in 2002. His first full length musical And the Earth Moved, for which he wrote book, music and lyrics, has been performed in the U.S. and Asia and was a finalist for the National Musical Theater Network's New Voices Prizein 2004. His one act musical The View From Here premiered at the New York Musical Theater Festival in 2005 to critical acclaim and will be receiving its German language premiere in Berlin this fall. Website.
Fallout Central
Albert Lim is an editor, producer, commentator and occasional firebrand for Fallout Central (www.falloutcentral.com), a nationwide Web resource devoted to Asian American causes and interests.
William Lee is an independent consultant specializing in the design of enterprise-wide trading systems for large financial institutions. His clients include UBS, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and most recently Deutsche Bank. William's expertise in project logistics combined with his one-of-a-kind dynamite personality bring together an explosive mixture that breathes life into every Fallout Central podcast. Website.
Jenn Fang
Jenn Fang is the blogger of Reappropriate.com: a blog focusing on issues of race, gender, and grassroots activism as they affect the formation of the Asian American sociopolitical identity. Jenn is also the webmaster of the APIA Blog Network (http://www.apiablogs.net), an aggregator of political Asian American blogs, and is the lead blogger for Asian Pacific Americans for Progress (APAP) (http://www.apaforprogress.org), a grassroots organization of concerned Asian American progressives. Jenn recently joined Fallout Central (http://www.falloutcentral.com) and can be heard on their weekly podcast episodes. In her spare time, Jenn is a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, working towards a thesis in Physiological Sciences. Website
Ryan Fukumori
A native of Berkeley, California, Ryan is currently a junior at Columbia University, studying Comparative Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies. He's been involved in a breadth of grassroots campaigns and organizing efforts—in particular, APA and multiracial community building, immigrants' rights issues, ethnic studies advocacy, and labor rights. As Communications Co-Chair for the National Asian American Student Conference board, Ryan works to plan NAASCon's upcoming October conference at Emory University in Atlanta , and to link Asian American students from around the country to advance a collective vision of social and economic justice, including the need for gender equality in Asian American communities. In his spare time, he performs as a rapper and poet under the name Heiroku, using performance to demonstrate the crossroads of artistic expression and political awareness. Ryan also enjoys long walks on the beach, red bean ice cream, and all power to the people. One love!
Carmen van Kerckhove
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of New Demographic, a consulting firm that helps people learn about the real issues behind race and racism without having to endure the misery of diversity training. She hosts the podcast Addicted to Race and blogs at Racialicious, Anti-Racist Parent, and Race in the Workplace. Carmen's perspectives on race and racism have been featured in Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times, MSNBC Live, and NPR's News & Notes.
Rich Kiamco
Rich Kiamco is a force of nature that rips across the stage leaving laughter, tears and applause in his wake. His one-man show Unaccessorized, an autobiopic romp about a queer Filipino overachiever, received the Overall Excellence Award in Solo Performance at the New York International Fringe Festival and Best Solo Performance at the Montreal GLBT International Theatre Festival. He received standing ovations at FACT: Filipino Americans Coming Together, the largest Midwest Conference of Filipino American students and at True Colors, the world's largest LGBTIQQA youth conference. Rich recently spoke at MTV Networks for LGBT month, was honored to co-host a private event for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and has just returned from a tour of campus appearances in China and the Philippines.
Rich was featured on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, appeared on Q Television's Queer Edge, was a panelist on the Discovery Channel's Second Opinion and the WE channel's 3 Men And A Chick Flick . Rich has also performed with Peeling, an Asian-American performance collective based in New York City, and has appeared in Las Vegas, on The Howard Stern Show and venues nationwide as the side-kick to comedian Judy Tenuta. His writing can be found in Take Out: Queer Writing From Asian Pacific America, Temple University Press and Queer Stories For Boys, Thunder's Mouth Press.
Jessica Lee
Jessica is a junior at Hunter College majoring in Political Science. She currently interns at the United Way of New York City as a Public Service Scholar, focusing on the root causes of poverty in New York City and how to strengthen NYC nonprofits. She works with the Strengthening New York City Nonprofits division and Grant making Impact Team to help nonprofits build capacity and develop leadership. At Hunter, she is the co-founder of the Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter (CRAASH)-a student advocacy group fighting to improve the conditions of Hunter College's AAS Program. She is a founding member of the group and has organized a conference entitled "Strengthening Education: Empowering Asian American Studies", which will take place at Hunter College on April 16th.
Olivia Lin
Olivia Lin is the founder of the Coalition for the Revitalization of Asian American Studies at Hunter (CRAASH), where she and the core team coordinate initiatives to advocate for the underfunded program. She is a junior in the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter College, where she majors in Media Studies and minors in Asian American Studies. She started CRAASH when she was unable to declare her minor in fall 2006 due to inadequate support for the program from Hunter administrators. Olivia is an APIASF Scholar (Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund) and was a facilitator for Chinatown Youth Initiatives, where she led workshops and discussions on Asian American issues for high school students. Olivia interns for the Public Affairs Division at M. Booth, a public relations firm. She will intern for The Este'e Lauder Companies in the summer before studying abroad in Bangkok, Thailand for fall 2008. She hopes to continue advocating for the Asian American community after she graduates, whether it is in education, media, or other areas.
Glenn D. Magpantay, Esquire
Glenn D. Magpantay is a Staff Attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, where he is coordinates AALDEF's voting rights program. He oversees AALDEF's Asian American Election Projection efforts in fifteen states across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest. In 2004, he coordinated the nation's largest exit poll of Asian Americans surveying over 11,000 voters in 23 cities. Magpantay has given commentary to numerous media outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, CNN, and National Public Radio on the Voting Rights Act, bilingual ballots, redistricting, and Asian American voting patterns and political opinions. He currently teaches at Rutgers School of Law ?Newark and Brooklyn Law School. He serves as a Commissioner to the New York City Voter Assistance Commission and as a Steering Committee member of the Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY). Magpantay has been honored by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts, Philippine New York Junior Chamber of Commerce, National Lawyers Guild- Massachusetts Chapter, United States Student Association, and was an Equal Justice Works (formerly NAPIL) Fellow. In 2004, Glenn was named one of Instinct Magazine's ?Leading Men of 2004,? alongside Anthony Romeo of the ACLU, Carson Kressley of TV's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, singer Rufus Wainwright, and actors Alan Cummings and Michael Stipe. He attended the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook on Long Island, and graduated cum laude from New England School of Law in Boston ?after being admitted as an affirmative action beneficiary.
Kalaya'an Mendoza
Kalaya'an Mendoza is the Grassroots Coordinator of Students for a Free Tibet International. Kalaya'an is a veteran student leader and social justice activist who has served the Tibetan freedom struggle for more than 8 years, first as a Chapter Leader and then as a Regional Coordinator for SFT. While majoring in Global Studies - with an emphasis on China - at the University of California in Santa Barbara, he organized numerous direct actions, concerts, and conferences. Known for his fierce organizing style, coordinating skills, and untiring dedication, he is currently working with all chapters and members within SFT's global network to create the strongest possible grassroots impact on the Tibetan freedom movement.
During his years as a student organizer he has been involved with organizations and movements with issues ranging from Queer to indigenous to environmental. Most of his work has revolved around decolonization and liberating minds from centuries of mental, physical and spiritual colonization . As a indigenous identified Queer Pin@y activist that works in solidarity with the Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom and independence he has come to realize that identity, oppression and liberation intersect and that movements must be holistic in order for them to be effective and sustainable.
Taiyo Na
Taiyo Na, a 25-year old renaissance man of word, sound and action, is releasing his first full-length solo album Love Is Growth in March of 2008 under Issilah Productions.
Born and raised in New York City, Taiyo Na is a 25-year old renaissance man of word, sound and action. Selected as one of the "25 Best Emerging Artists Under the Age of 25" by New World Theater's Intersection Conference, he has shared his work nationwide at venues such as Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, Knitting Factory and many more. His debut album Love Is Growth (March 2008, Issilah Productions) is a blend of gritty NY hip-hop and classic American soul.Website.
Gary Okihiro
Gary Y. Okihiro is professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. He was the founding director of Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, and formerly directed Cornell's Asian American Studies Program. He is author of eight books in ethnic and Asian American studies and African history, including the well known, MARGINS AND MAINSTREAMS: ASIANS IN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, and THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO ASIAN AMERICAN HISTORY. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Studies Association, and is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies.
Regina Park
Regina Park is a second-generation Korean-American. After graduating from Columbia University in New York City with a joint degree in English and film studies, Regina entered the world of independent film where she has remained to this day. Throughout her ten years' experience in film and television production in New York, she has worked with Academy Award^(TM)-winning documentarians such as Jessica Yu and Michael Moore, as well as on other independent feature films, television series, documentaries and commercials in which she has taken on managing, producing, shooting and editing roles for MTV, ABC, Lifetime Television, Bravo and HBO. Her feature narrative script MORNING CALM, which she wrote based on her mother's childhood memoirs of surviving the Korean War, was among a select group chosen to participate in the 2000 International Film Financing Conference in San Francisco , California where she was also the recipient of a scholarship funded by the Center for Asian American Media. In May 2007 Regina won a Silver Remi Award for her first documentary feature film, NEVER PERFECT, at the 40th WorldFest International Film Festival in Houston, Texas. In August 2007 the film had its world premiere at the EBS International Documentary Festival in Seoul , Korea where it also had a national broadcast on EBS, South Korea ¡zs equivalent to PBS. It is an official selection of several US festivals including the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, the Boulder Asian Film Festival and the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival in addition to the Visions du Reel Doc Outlook International Market in Nyon, Switzerland. NEVER PERFECT has sold its North American non-theatrical rights to Cinema Guild in New York City and will have its US television broadcast in 2008. It is a sponsored project of the Independent Feature Project and is represented by Smiley Film Distribution & World Sales (sales agent for Academy Award^(TM)-winning documentary BLOOD OF YINGZHOU DISTRICT). In addition to presenting her first feature film to numerous universities across the country, Regina is currently researching and fundraising for her second documentary feature film exploring international sex trafficking involving South Korean women.
Steven Raga
Steven Raga currently serves as Executive Director for the Filipino Children's Fund. He is also the BAYAN USA North East Coordinator where he organizes national and international campaigns advocating for human rights and civil liberties. For the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), Steven works as the National Youth Director where he provides guidance for youth and students organizations, alliances and coalitions. Steven is also a co-Director for SANDIWA East Coast, the east coast syndicate for the National Filipino Youth Alliance in where he is organizing the first East Coast Sandiwa conference scheduled for May 31, 2008. He also works as the Internship Coordinator at the Bayanihan Filipino Community Center. For the past 3 years, he has been a volunteer for the Philippine Forum, where he works primarily on Filipino WWII Veteran's Equity organizing.
In the past, Steven held positions in the Filipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue Inc. (FIND) as the National Chairman, National Director & National Secretary; founder & Chairman of the BINHI-Filipino American Student Organization; President & Judiciary of the Philippine United Student Organization (PUSO) & Senior Representative for the Asian Student Alliance of Stony Brook University. In 2005, he was a Consular Intern for the Philippine Consulate in New York, where he worked on coordinating international conferences for Philippine investment under the direct guidance of the Vice Consul. He has also worked as a Program Intern with Filipino American Human Services Inc. (FAHSI) where he facilitated history workshops and helped develop empowerment programs for the Filipino youth as well as organizing events advocating for Filipino WWII veterans' equity.
Steven finished his MA in Public Policy at Stony Brook University, where he also graduated with a double-major in Political Science and Sociology with a minor in International Relations. In 2006, he attended the University of the Philippines where his studies focused on "Colonial Mentality and its Political and Social Influence Amongst the Filipino People". In 2007, Steven was honored with the Youth Leadership Award from Filipinas Magazine.
Vishesh Sharma
In his diverse career in entertainment media, Vishesh Sharma has worked on television programs, films, Internet videos, and commercials for companies such as Suzuki and Pepsi. He has shot with many well-known performers, including Angelina Jolie, Anoushka Shankar, and Bollywood star Fardeen Khan. Currently, Vishesh works as a producer, director, and editor at ImaginAsian Entertainment, where he covers musicians, artists, and leading members of the South Asian American community on iaLink Video. He also produced ImaginAsian TV's groundbreaking new show, Pulse: The Desi Beat, which offers a glimpse into the blossoming South Asian arts and pop culture scene in the United States.
Vishesh's work at ImaginAsian TV earned him a 2007 Telly Award for Best Internet/Online Video.
Ivy O. Suriyopas
Ivy O. Suriyopas is a Staff Attorney working on the Anti-Trafficking Initiative at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). She provides direct legal representation for survivors of both labor and sex trafficking, conducts community education and outreach, and advocates on policies impacting the rights of trafficking survivors. Ms. Suriyopas was formerly an Equal Justice Works Fellow and also a summer clerk at AALDEF, working with the Youth Rights and Educational Equity Project and the Immigrant Access to Justice Project. Her previous legal experience includes externships with the Honorable Martin J. Jenkins of the Northern District of California and the ACLU of Northern California, addressing employment issues at the Hastings Civil Justice Clinic, serving as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal, and studying international human rights law in South Africa through Howard University. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and her B.S. in Policy Analysis and Management and a Concentration in Asian American Studies from Cornell University.
Robert Teranishi
Teranishi is assistant professor of higher education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. He is currently Co-Director of the National Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE) and is a faculty affiliate in the Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy and a senior research associate with the Alliance for International Higher Education Policy. Prior to coming to NYU, Teranishi was a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. from UC Santa Cruz in Sociology and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California Los Angeles in Higher Education and Organizational Change.
Larry Tantay
Larry Tantay is the Community Health Education Coordinator at APICHA ¡V the Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS. He provides workshops about HIV, sexuality, and community empowerment for young men who have sex with men and the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community, and runs a support group ¡V EquAsian ¡V for young, queer APIs. He received his B.A. in Sociology from Rutgers University. While studying at Rutgers, he worked as a Sexual Health Advocate through the Health Education Department and was the Director of SHADES ¡V a health educational theatre company at Rutgers University.
Ugnayan
Ugnayan ng Mga Anak ng Bayan (Linking the Children of the Motherland) is a comprehensive grassroots organization of Filipino/Filipino American youth, based in New York and New Jersey. We are dedicated to educating, organizing, and mobilizing for the rights of Filipino/Filipino American youth in the United States. Through collective leadership, progressive culture and community engagement, we strive to reclaim the history of the Filipino people to better understand how our local and personal issues are interconnected with social movements in the Philippines. We support the struggle for justice, peace and genuine liberation of the Filipino people. www.ugnayan.blogspot.com.
Phil Yu
Phil Yu is the creator and editor of AngryAsianMan.com, a popular Asian American news/culture/opinion website. Building a steady, loyal readership since 2001, the website has been called by the Washington Post "a daily must-read for the media-savvy, socially conscious, pop-cultured Asian American." Mixing humor with criticism, Phil's commentary has been featured and quoted in stories for the Post, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, USA Today, MSNBC, CBS News, SF Gate, Hyphen, and KoreAm Journal. Phil worked previously at the Center for Asian American Media (formerly NAATA) in San Francisco, and currently serves on the Programming Committee the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Phil graduated with a B.S. in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University, and earned his M.A. in Critical Studies as a Provost Fellow from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television.
Jie-Song Zhang
Jie-Song is the electric violinist and emcee for the Stone Forest Ensemble.
Stone Forest Ensemble is a Classical/World Music/Hip-Hop fusion, whose core consists of Jie-Song Zhang (Emcee and Electric Violinist), Alex "Krussia" Kalnev (Beatboxer), Varuni Tiruchelvam (Cellist), and Joshua Benson (multi-faceted percussionist).
The Stone Forest Ensemble is a cry of life lifting from ground to sky in the city of New York, a fire fueled by the bits and pieces of hardship, vigor, spirit, and love at passion buried into the streets of the mighty city, marked across the surfaces of its weathered walls, beaming as the vertical radiance of towers fashioned to cut the sky above street-lights standing guard alongside the feverish marching forward of humanity below. The Stone Forest Ensemble is the people of New York City as a symbol of the people of the world.
In the previous two years, Stone Forest has run a series of relatively glossy performances, which consist of fashion shows (including a request to provide music for a designer at New York Fashion Week), a Wall Street Gala, the Queens Museum of Fine Art, and clubs such as The Supper Club of NYC's notorious Times Square. At the same time, they have injected themselves with force into the ferociously authentic underground Hip-Hop scene of New York and Brooklyn, their name known to the streets with appearances at such venues as M1-5, the Five Spot, Galapagos, and the Legendary Nuyorican Poet's Café ; even making a few notable rock venues along the way, with stops at Arlene's Grocery, Piano's, Tonic, the Delancey, and others... They have played every major university in NYC, and have contributed to the cultural expression of the city in playing for such events as The National Black Writer's Conference, the Chinese New Year Parade, and the Autumn Moon Festival Festivities . The Stone Forest Ensemble is the current Kollaboration Grand Champion as crowned in 2006 (a large Asian-American talent competition), and Jie-Song Zhang took 2nd place at Amateur Night at the Apollo competition at the Legendary Apollo Theater of Harlem , relatively recently. Another shining jewel of the group, is flutist Kaoru Watanabe, formerly of the world famous Taiko supergroup, Kodo, who plays with Stone Forest from time to time. Website.