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

Based on more than a decade of research, Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood charts the evolution of Sunset Parkwith a densely concentrated working-poor and racially diverse immigrant populationfrom the late 1960s to its current status as one of New York City's most vibrant neighborhoods.

Malaysian American writer Chin Woon Ping will read Dadah: A Meditation on Opium, featured in CUNY FORUM Volume 3:1, which evokes the times and life of the overseas Chinese who grew up in Malacca, Malaysia, once a British port for the opium trade. In prose and poetry, in the form of a linked imaginary historical diary, Chin recounts her own family history riddled with deaths from opium, and heroin - its derivative...

AAARI's Annual Gala is attended by 450+ Asian and non-Asian academic, business, civic and community leaders, faculty, staff and students. As of Fall 2014, the Asian American representation in CUNY is over 58,000, with more than 5,100 faculty and staff, 4,200 graduate students and 48,700 undergraduates of Asian heritage. There are tens of thousands of Asian American CUNY alumni working and living throughout New York and the country...

Mingmei Yip will discuss her new novel, The Witchs Market, about a young Chinese-American woman who is a professor specializing in witchcraft. Dr. Yip will discuss Chinese shamans, healings, spells and underworld journeys. Reading and book signing will be included. Dr. Geoffrey Redmond will also be available to do tarot card readings.

Dr. Kevin Nadal will speak about his latest book, Filipinos in New York City. With the generous assistance of local Filipino American community members and organizations, particularly the Metropolitan New York chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), Dr. Nadal has collected over 200 images that capture a century of Filipino American presence in New York City and its surrounding areas.

Between Mao and McCarthy looks at the divergent ways that Chinese Americans in these two cities balanced domestic and international pressures during the tense Cold War era. On both coasts, Chinese Americans sought to gain political power and defend their civil rights, yet only the San Franciscans succeeded.

AAARI co-founder, Betty Lee Sung, will read from her recently published memoir, Defiant Second Daughter: My First 90 Years. This is Prof. Sung's ninth book. What started as a request by Dr. Sung's granddaughter to learn more about her grandmother, turned into a memoir that discusses her life as the daughter of a Paper Son, teaching Asian American Studies at CUNY, and other triumphs and struggles.

What does it take for Asian American artists, mostly ignored, to make their mark? Controversial activist and avant garde composer Fred Ho, who passed away in April 2014, fought to overturn every field which he entered, striving to question their premises and holding others to the rise up to the principles they espoused.

Alvin Tan will share his experiences on the effective use of community theatre. He will discuss The Necessary Stage's devising and collaborative methodology, using some plays to illustrate how The Necessary Stage negotiates multiple cultural sensibilities, and the need to educate themselves before embarking on the artistic journey of theatre-making.

MothSutra was originally performed in an earlier form with music by Lorin Roser at the Bowery Poetry Club, Lower East Side. MothSutra, the book, contains original text and images by Leong. The theme of MothSutra is the journey of a bicycle delivery man through the past, present, and future of his life lived in China and in New York.