Rice Paper - Spring 2015

Rice Paper A semi-annual publication of Indiana University’s Asian Culture Center

Spring 2015

The People behind the Asian Culture Center From the Corner of 10th and Woodlawn: A Message from our Director When we ask students why they come to the ACC, most of them say that the center feels like home.

A sense of belonging and acceptance, and the ability to freely share one’s thoughts, are sentiments expressed by students who come from all backgrounds. At a large university like IU, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd and miss the comforts of home. One of the goals of cultural centers like the ACC is to fill that void.

Every time a student calls the center their home, we are one step closer to empowering that student and expanding the ACC family.

Students also see the ACC as a worthwhile diversion from their typical campus routine. They come for weekly and monthly discussion events, participate in our cultural activities, or to volunteer. As the academic year winds down, we look back on programs that we think might have positively contributed to the students’ college experience and well-being, challenged and perhaps changed their preconceived ideas, and programs that gave them inspiration.

Several significant collaborative events stood out.

First was the IU2U program, an initiative spearheaded by the Office of the Vice President for Undergraduate Education.

The goal was to bring IU closer to newly admitted IU international students. Early in July, members of the ACC staff joined a delegation composed of students, faculty, and staff that went to Beijing, China, where IU2U was first introduced. It was a short trip, but one filled with numerous possibilities for IU. It also showed great promise for the things creative and strategic collaboration among different departments on campus can produce. You can view the IU2U video feature produced by our staff on our youtube channel.

Another exciting collaboration was the College of Arts and Sciences’ Fall 2014 Themester: “Eat, Drink, Think: Food from Art to Science,” and its sponsorship of our monthly cooking demonstrations. Students were treated to a cultural exploration street food culture of India, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, and found the event nourishing both for their palates and mind. The Hutton Honors Council’s Diversity in Action committee made this event even more appetizing to students when they hosted the series, showcasing their collection of healthy and easyto-make recipes, from their fundraiser cookbook, this spring semester.

We are thrilled to announce that our proposal for the 2015 Themester on “Voices Of Economic Justice,” a threepart series on contemporary labor issues affecting the Asian diaspora, has been approved. The series will be a special feature in our Over A Cup of Tea monthly discussion program in the fall.

This academic year, we were fortunate to have been a part of the campus visits of two very well-known literary figures, playwright David Henry Hwang and novelist, Amitav Ghosh.

David Henry Hwang visited campus in the fall, under the sponsorship of IU Theater Department, to conduct a master workshop and give a talk on the intersections of race, gender, and identity - themes that are reflected in his work on M. Butterfly. Internationally acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh was the special luncheon guest speaker in the recent campus observance of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Ghosh, who visited IU in April as a Patten Lecturer, gave

Rice Paper Director, continued from page 1 a thought-provoking and insightful view about the human experience of migration.

Here’s how Professor Joan Linton summarized his talk: “According to Ghosh, most literature on migration is about arrivals and the conflicts entailed in finding one’s place and identity in the host country. What has interested him in his writings has to do with departures, and what one has to give up in the process-ways of life and relations one values that displacement erases.

He projects that, with the internet and social media, the new trend in migrations is no longer one of assimilation or of erasure.

Instead, immigrants have the ability to keep intact the ties they have in their originating country while making their ways in their adopted country. The question then would be how the new trend would impact our sense of community, as well as the global implications for communities on the ground with members whose allegiances are elsewhere committed.”

Providing support for students to attend the award-winning play M. Butterfly, produced and hosted by the IU Theatre and Drama, was an academic partnership that we thought could serve as a model for our future collaborations.

The production of the play was perfectly timed, especially for Ph.D. candidate Morgane Flahault’s “Introduction to Asian American Studies” course, focused on gender, race and nation. With the ACC’s support, 20 of her students were able to attend the play.

Here’s a reflection from one of those students:

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“Eccentric line of the story, and complex relationship between two main characters inspired me a lot and caused my deep thinking of cultural differences, such as how different eastern and western cultures treat gender, how they look on each other, how these different points of view might affect their relationships, etc. Actually, I could feel the sorrowfulness of both Gallimard and Song better in the IU Theater than reading the paper play. I was worried about the dancing parts of the play before I watched M. Butterfly in IU Theater because this is not my major and I knew nothing about artistic tactics at all. But the performance of IU students greatly explains the spiritual essence of the play and inspired me a lot.”

All these efforts to create a nurturing, safe, and brave place on campus, to have important conversations, and to build a network of support for and among students, faculty, staff, and community members would not have been possible without the dedication and outstanding contributions of the staff, volunteers, student leaders, faculty, alumni, and friends of the ACC. This year, we are very fortunate to have a team of bright and energetic staff members led by Sarah Moon, our new program associate, Taylor Killough who was our graduate assistant in the fall before taking on a paid internship with StoryCorps, Kayleigh Burgess, our graduate assistant who joined us this spring, and our student assistants: Hallie Baumann, Laura Baumann, Vivian Chen, Alyssa de la Rosa, Vivian Ge, Hafsah Khan, Dazu Chi, Dolma Tsering, and Emiliana Turnbill.

We invite you to get to know the

ACC’s staff members and the special people featured in this edition of the Rice Paper, who help make ACC your home.

Best this summer season,

Melanie

IU for NEPAL In the days following the April 25th earthquake in Nepal, the IU community rallied. ACC was part of a coalition that organized a campus forum and vigil on April 30th. It also established a fundraising campaign, that raised over $20,000, funds sent to support victims of the Nepal earthquake and long-term reconstruction.

We have been humbled and honored to be part of this community effort.

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Student Group Updates

The Samulnori Korean Percussion Ensemble (SKPE) was re-established just this academic year, but thanks to the Asian Culture Center, we have already had two opportunities to perform! In February, SKPE performed a truncated version of youngnam nong-ak at ACC’s Lunar New Year event at the Monroe County Public Library. A more complete version will be performed at ACC’s Asianfest on April 18 at the Bloomington Farmer’s Market. In preparation for performances, SKPE meets every Saturday for rehearsal. The full rehearsal schedule can be found on the group’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/samulnoriskpe

The Vietnamese Student Association had a Welcome Back BBQ during the first week of fall semester. We had few new members this year, so this was a great opportunity to meet up. We had a lot of ribs, corn and burgers under beautiful fall weather. We participated in World’s Fare, displaying many Vietnamese tourist attractions and traditional food. We also brought a cyclo, which got a lot of people’s attention. In February, we had our traditional Lunar New Year event, with traditional foods, games, and “lucky money” for winners. We also made it to the final game of the Midwest Vietnamese soccer tournament, which had teams from 6 Midwest universities. This year, the tournament was held in Bloomington.

This year, Raas Royalty brought teams from 7 states for our 6th Indian dance competition. Over 1000 people attended and put together one of the best shows in our event’s history. Teams had themes for their dances, ranging from The Lion King to mailing a letter at the last second. The excitement was even greater this year as we were chosen as a national bid competition for the Raas Circuit. Teams gave it their all, to qualify for the national tournament. The University of Virginia, Emory University, and Saint Louis University all placed and received points for the national competition; several Bloomington groups showcased their talents as exhibition performances.We were happy to host all of the teams and hope to see everyone come back for Raas Royalty VII!

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Faculty Profile: Cara Caddoo mon?

Dr. Cara Caddoo is an assistant professor in the Department of American Studies at Indiana University. We interviewed her about her personal and academic background, her life in Bloomington, and her upcoming projects.

Tell us a little bit about your personal background. Where did you grow up?

I was born in South Korea, and adopted when I was about two.

My family is interracial and mixed race, and very Midwestern. We lived in California for a brief stint, but my parents are from Iowa and my formative years were spent in a town called Bloomington, Minnesota. It’s a very different place than Bloomington, Indiana. Instead of a big university, there was a giant mall, The Mall of America, which used to be the biggest mall in the United States.

You have a BA in East Asian Studies. Tell us a little bit about why you chose your major and concentration?

I took a lot of Asian American Studies classes, which counted toward my degree in East Asian Studies. When I moved to New York, I was surrounded by Asian Americans for the first time in my life, and I was suddenly confronted with both a sense of belonging and difference. I loved learning about art and literature and film, but most importantly, my degree gave me the opportunity to think about and study race.

A lot of your research focuses on African-American culture.

Why did you choose this field of study?

A lot of factors led me to the

subject of my book, Envisioning Freedom. I took some incredible classes in college, had some great mentors, and decided to do an MA in African American Studies. I was interested in representations of black and Asian characters onscreen. But when I began to study History, I wondered why representation matters so much to us. I don’t mean “is representation consequential?” but rather: “how, and at what moment did certain Americans come to see representations of race as an urgent cultural and political concern?” By answering some of those questions, I hoped to gain some insights into how social and political movements develop. My research led me to the early twentieth century, when representation was becoming a widespread concern for black Americans–not just the elite, but all sorts of people: rich and poor, young and old, North and South.

What, historically and contemporarily, do African and Asian Americans have in com-

You can’t study Asian American history, or really, American history, without accounting for the history of the African diaspora.

Asian Americans owe so much to the black social and political movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At the turnof-the-twentieth century, terms like “black” were sometimes used

by African Americans to describe themselves and certain Asian populations. But for those in power–capitalists, the US government—it was advantageous to define black Americans and Asian Americans as opposites, and to create systems that attempted to reinforce these divisions. Ellen Wu talks about this in terms of the Cold War in her terrific book, The Color of Success, which maps out the history of the “model minority” myth.

Congratulations on the recent publication of your book! Tell us a little bit about it, and the process behind your research.

Thank you! The book is about the role black Americans played in creation of American cinema.

From the very beginning, African Americans exhibited and produced their own motion pictures.

Since this was the era of Jim Crow segregation, these shows took place in black churches and lodges. As motion pictures rose in popularity, they became increasingly important. They played a pivotal role in the growth of black institutions and businesses, and in the development of a black urban leisure culture.

In 1915, African Americans launched a mass protest...

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Student Profile: Angie Nguyen Angie Nguyen is a student of Speech and Hearing Science, with a concentration in audiology.

She is also the president of the IU Asian American Association.

Applying for this scholarship was nerve-wreaking because I had asked a professor for a letter of recommendation, and he was on sabbatical. I was not sure if my application would be completed by the deadline. There were leadership workshops I attended for me to grow and learn how to become a better leader for Asian American Association and many more. I was also part of the Hospitality Committee for the conference.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your studies at IU. My name is Angie Nguyen, and I am a Vietnamese-American.

I was born and raised in San Jose, California, and moved to Fishers, Indiana in high school. I am currently a junior majoring in Speech and Hearing Science with a pre-concentration in audiology.

I chose this major because of my dad. He had hearing loss when he was little in Vietnam, but it got worse when we were on vacation in Hawaii. I saw the process of what my dad was going through from getting hearing aids to learning again how to balance.

That sparked my interest, and here I am.

What do you hope to do once you graduate?

I hope to go to graduate school to become an Audiologist. My dream is to help those who do not have access in technology with hearing aids in rural regions of Vietnam and other countries.

As the president of the Asian American Association at IU, what have been your main priorities and proudest accomplishments?

My main priority has been getting more members and educating them about the social issues and topics of APIA. My proudest accomplishment is getting Asian American Association on its feet again, and hopefully the conference on April 11th.

The scholarship helped me grow as a leader and as an individual.

You are the recipient of the Joon Park Student Leadership Scholarship award from ACC. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

What are your favorite things about life in Bloomington and at IU?

My favorite things about IU are the different organizations and committees I have a chance to help out and the friends I have made. I love Bloomington, from I applied for the Joon Park Student its nature to the local restaurants Leadership Scholarship Award to the different types of programs because I wanted to attend the it has to offer.

Vietnamese Interacting as One Conference (VIA-1).

By going What do you like to do when to this conference, I wanted to you’re not in class or working learn more about how to help the with the AAA? Vietnamese and Asian community in general.

I love hanging out with friends, cooking, and baking t

The Joon Park Scholarship Fund provides scholarships for IU Bloomington undergraduate students to attend a conference or workshop focused on community engagement, community advocacy, and/or professional development. We encourage students to apply! Preference will be given to students who will present his/her work at a conference or has shown leadership experience on campus.

Email acc@indiana.edu for more details.

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ACC Volunteer Profiles Anita Seralathan is not just a volunteer English tutor at the Asian Culture Center – she’s made it her life’s mission to help others learn English.

Anita is a second-year doctoral student in Literacy, Culture, and Language Education. She started volunteering at the ACC in Sept. 2013, but before that, she spent years teaching ESL/ EFL in Prague and at a university in her home state of California.

She says tutoring at the ACC has made her more aware of the difficulties international students face when practicing their skills with native English speakers.

“One student I recently tutored told me she would like to talk to native English speakers in her classes, but most of them are buried in their phones/laptops prior to the start of class and she really wasn’t sure how to start a conversation,” Anita says.

“It can also be difficult to break into social circles because of certain language and cultural barriers,” she says. “In this respect, the ACC really provides a great meeting place for students to have such an opportunity.”

When she’s not volunteering at the ACC, she enjoys traveling, interior design, watching foreign films, practicing pilates and yoga, and tutoring with the VITAL program at the Monroe County Public Library.

Once she completes her Ph.D., she hopes to do education consulting in an international context before entering academia as a researcher and professor.

Neil Klein has lived a thousand lives. He’s jumped out of a plane in Cuba. Scuba dived in Australia. Picked off leeches in the Malaysian rainforests.

But these days, the third year Ph.D. student in Language, Culture, and Literacy Education lives a tamer lifestyle. Originally from California, he moved to Bloomington to study the relationships between young adult literature, digital tools, critical thinking. Before that, though, Neil “fled the country” for eight years, traveling to 40 countries during that time. He says his travels help him connect with students who come to the ACC for English tutoring or cultural adjustment advice.

“Anyone who comes in, I’ve probably been to their country,” Neil says.

But learning is not a one-way street – and Neil says he learns from everyone who comes in for tutoring or mentoring.

“I learn when I’m talking to other people too. I just enjoy hearing other cultural stories.”

His Ph.D. research interests include student-produced trailers – including animation, still images, and music – of books they’ve read. Neil says this helps students solidify what they learned in the book, and gets others thinking about books they may not have otherwise thought about reading.

When he’s not volunteering at the ACC or working on his Ph.D., Neil is a photographer and collector of antique cameras. His photographs have exhibited in galleries around the world, including Japan, San Francisco, and London.

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Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Page 7 Cara Caddoo, continued from page 4 movement against DW Griffith’s racist film, Birth of a Nation. As black protesters fought to reclaim cinema–a form of popular culture that they had helped to create–political organizations such as the NAACP rose from obscurity. New conceptions of rights and citizenship emerged from those protests, which helped shape the demands of activists in the later Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the twentieth century.

Do you have other projects in the works?

My next project will consider some of the broader, transnational circuits of black commercial leisure and visual culture that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries.

How long have you been a professor? What courses are you currently teaching?

I taught my first college class almost a decade ago, and I’ve taught almost every semester since. Right now, I’m teaching Race & Visual Culture, and What is America?

You lived in New York City for some time.

How are you adjusting to Bloomington? What do you like about Bloomington and IU? The farmer’s market and IU Cinema are terrific, and I love having a porch, which is a rare luxury in New York City. In terms of my research, the Black Film Center/Archive is a wonderful resource. But the best thing about Bloomington is the people. There are so many talented, inspiring people here.

Spare time is probably something you don’t have a lot of, but what do you like to do outside of academia?

I cook, watch movies, and I love traveling. I always have a random project that I’m working on, sometimes it’s a painting, or a short movie, or my scraggly little garden t

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ASIAN CULTURE CENTER

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