Civic Engagement in Boston’s Asian American Communities

1. Civic Engagement in Boston’s Asian American Communities Asian American Studies Program University of Massachusetts Boston

2. Project Goals • AsAmSt students’ production of community-centered AsAmSt educational resources, such as digital stories, children’s stories, and elders’ oral history documentaries; • AsAmSt students’ intergenerational engagement with children, elders, and AsAmSt alumni in local Asian American community-based and K-12 school-based settings.

3. Courses being redesigned, enhanced & created 1. AsAmSt 225L Southeast Asians in the US The need for course content revisions to take full account of changing student/community profiles: • First offered in 1989 to respond to the growth of refugee populations from Southeast Asia at UMB and in the local community. • Twenty-five years later: US-born children who often know little about their elders’ refugee experiences. • Contemporary UMB refugee students from Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere also enroll. CESI Spring 2013: • Peter Kiang adapts the project requirement to focus on producing children’s stories based on refugee community themes. • Collaborate closely with AsAmSt alumni who are classroom teachers at the public elementary Mather School in Dorchester. • Students in AsAmSt 225L create community-centered children’s storiesand share them in Mather School classrooms during spring break week.

4. Courses being redesigned, enhanced & created 2. AsAmSt470 Asian American Film & Digital Media and Social Documentation • Will be designed as a more advanced follow-up to Shirley Tang’s AsAmSt370 Asian American Media Literacy course. CESI Fall 2013: • AsAmSt470 will examine film & digital media and social documentation approaches that critically address historical and contemporary themes involving Asian American immigrant and diasporiccommunities, with a primary emphasis on three kinds of social documentation via film & digital media production: family history, social history, and political documentary. • This approach is consistent with the project-based work of AsAmSt 225L, albeit with much more advanced technical expertise in production and narrative composition. Documentation of Asian community elder stories here will be a special focus. • Tang will teach both courses in Fall 2013 (revised AsAmSt 225L and AsAmSt 420 special topics pilot version of AsAmSt 470. • AsAmStstudents become bridges of multi-generational, multicultural communication between children and elders — addressing multiple aspects of CESI’s undergraduate civic engagement intentions.

5. Project Team UMB Asian American Studies Faculty Shirley S. Tang (PI) Loan Dao Karen Suyemoto Haeok Lee Peter Kiang The PI’s responsibilities: • coordinate her course revision/development process with other core teaching faculty in Asian American Studies • lead an Asian American Studies Program discussion each semester about the CESI process that will facilitate program-wide decision-making about how best to align our collective civic engagement commitments, and how to respond to future CESI proposal calls Community Partners Model #1 K-12 Schools as Asian Community Sites: Mather Elementary School (BPS) Dorchester Vietnamese Community AsAmSt/CAPAY Alumni: Ngoc-lan (Loni) Nguyen – Grade 3 Songkhla Nguyen – Grade 2 TuyetDinh – K2 Linda Nguyen – hopeful K2 in Fall 2013 Community Partners Model #2 Asian Community Elder Stories Sites AsAmSt Alumni: Lola Tom, Multicultural Home Care, Quincy Cydney Dang, South Cove Manor, Chinatown William Wu, Chinese Golden Age Center, Chinatown Diane Nguyen, Boston Senior Home Care, Dorchester Kye Liang, Chinatown Lantern Reading Room

6. Project Outcomes • Develop portfolios of work for each course, including syllabi and assignments, sample student work, sample reflections from students and community participants. • Synergies resulting from offering two courses during the same semester with possibilities for structured intersections/interactions between project products, community informants, and special events. • Connections to (1) larger issues of social policy and practice such as health care and wellness issues and interventions with immigrant elders or (2) educational barriers and interventions with English Language Learners in urban public K-12 school systems.

7. Modeling Faculty-Student-Alumni-Community-School-Family Engagements in Asian American Studies Course Development English Language Learner Educational Achievement AsAmSt/CAPAY Alumni Mather School Dorchester AsAmSt Courses & Faculty Spring 2013 AsAmSt 225 Southeast Asians in the U.S.  new product development with Mather School teachers AsAmSt 370 Asian American Media Literacy digital story producers Fall 2013 AsAmSt 225 Southeast Asians in the U.S. Intergenerational pedagogy/products AsAmSt 470* Asian American Film & Digital Media and Social Documentation Metro Boston Ecology Boston’s Asian American Communities Elder Services in Quincy, Chinatown-Boston & Dorchester Immigrant Elder Wellness: Policy and Practice AsAmSt Current Studentsbridges of multi-generational, multicultural communication between children and elders

8. Workshops • Access to resources • Shared learning • Opportunities for collaboration • Publication venues