UMass Boston Asian American Studies Program

05/30/2026

Celebrating our 2025-2026 Graduates in Asian American Studies !! Full-color 24-pp booklet here: https://www.umb.edu/media/umassboston/editor-uploads/asian-american-studies-program/asamst-grads26b_WR.pdf
We applaud Angel Wong (黄秀文) for completing ten AsAmSt courses and becoming the 25th student to graduate with an individual major in Asian American Studies at UMass Boston. We also cheer eight students from 2025-2026 who finished at least six courses that satisfy our AsAmSt program-of-study requirements: Feliz Angeline “Fasha” Natad Banson, Kyle Chear, Liam Crampton, Kim Thiên Định, Chantrea Sin, Caroline Nguyen, Holly HồngHạnh Nguyễn, and Kelly Trần. A total of 178 students has now graduated with AsAmSt concentrations since 2000. Finally, we commend Xi Oscar Chen (陈曦), our graduate student core staff who makes history as UMB’s first Master of Public Policy degree-holder.

06/08/2025

Paul Watanabe, director of the UMass Boston Institute for Asian American Studies and political science professor, anchored the initiative. A survey like this could have great implications for a demographic that’s often been treated as a monolith, advocates say. Without detailed data, elected officials often overlook AAPI voters as a key voting bloc, and policy recommendations that properly address the diaspora’s specific needs are difficult to make... The survey provides key insights into the growing AAPI community, which constitutes 8 percent of the state’s population, according to the most recent census data. It collected info from at least 1,400 respondents in March... AAPI residents polled also reported widespread racism and an overall lack of belonging. Roughly one in four said they experienced discrimination, one in five were called racist slurs, and 14 percent suffered verbal abuse in the past year. These trends are echoed on the national level. A separate report released Monday by Stop AAPI Hate on the state of anti-Asian racism in 2024 found that more than half of respondents experienced a hate-based act last year. For the Massachusetts survey, only 39 percent of respondents said they strongly agreed that they belonged in America — a sentiment that Danielle Kim, executive director of the Boston Foundation’s Asian Community Fund found shocking, but affirming nonetheless. “Even though AAPI residents have been in this country for many generations, so many in our community still don’t feel like we’re seen, visible, or celebrated,” Kim said. “This report is a call to action.”

A survey coordinated by a mix of stakeholders offers what could be some of the first disaggregated data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Massachusetts.

06/08/2025

always cheering for and learning from IP, Tita Cris's legacy, and Myra's dedication. one more year to half century!

Founded in 1976, Iskwelahang Pilipino claims the title of the oldest continually operating cultural school for Filipino Americans in the country. During the school year, students from toddlers to teens gather for classes in Filipino music, dance, language, history and identity. The annual graduation doubles as a cultural showcase, with performances by Iskwelahang Pilipino‘s rondalla string ensemble, regional folk dances and original student projects. This year’s celebration, the 49th anniversary of the school’s founding, carried extra weight, as it was the first graduation since Iskwelahang Pilipino relocated from Bedford, its longtime home, to a new space in Watertown. After a year of moving between temporary locations and uncertainty about the school’s future... Iskwelahang Pilipino‘s executive director, Myra Liwanag, has been part of the school since 1986, was a member of the first graduating class and now leads the organization her niece is graduating from. Watching this year’s seniors perform, she said, was both joyful and bittersweet... Just as its dances reflect the country‘s diversity, Iskwelahang Pilipino‘s lessons dig into the history behind them. The curriculum includes history units on colonialism, Filipino resistance and lesser-known Filipino American figures. Lilly Bolandrina, a 2020 graduate who now volunteers with the school’s communications team, said the experience shaped her political worldview. “Growing up, we mostly learned history from one perspective,” said Bolandrina — a perspective that neglected the Philippines, also a US colony for almost 50 years, as well as Filipinos and Filipino Americans’ contributions to U.S. and world history. “But at IP, we saw the fuller picture. It gave me pride, and it gave me tools to stand up for myself.” As one of the few students of color in her elementary school, Bolandrina remembers being singled out and made to feel like she didn’t belong. “Being in a place that celebrates your differences, and treats you as important and valuable and special and interesting because of those differences, was just so empowering,” she said. Iskwelahang Pilipino also helped her understand that being Filipino American doesn’t mean existing halfway between two cultures — it means belonging fully to both. “No matter who you are, no matter how much Filipino you think you are — when you‘re here with us, we see you as a full Filipino, and we see you as one of us,” she said. That sense of empowerment has taken on new necessity in recent years, amid rising anti-Asian discrimination and political threats to immigrant communities. Bolandrina said the school has grown more protective of its members by limiting public promotion of its location and choosing not to ask about immigration status. “We want to stay open and celebratory,” she said. “But we also want to stay safe.” In spite of those challenges, Iskwelahang Pilipino‘s leadership remains resolute in preserving the school for the next generation of Filipino Americans. As the organization approaches its 50th year, Myra Liwanag said her focus is on building a foundation that can sustain Iskwelahang Pilipino for another 50...

Founded in 1976, Iskwelahang Pilipino claims the title of the oldest continually operating cultural school for Filipino Americans in the country.

06/08/2025

much love to jennifer nguyen and kids/grandchildren who have attended UMB including those who took AsAmSt courses. legendary legacy here:

If grit and determination could be found in a sandwich, it would be discovered inside every Banh Mi sandwich at Ba Le Restaurant on Dorchester Avenue. The shop, led successfully for almost 30 years now by Jennifer Nguyen, 64, has been staunchly traditional, and will remain that way as her youngest daughter, Baotran Le, and son-in-law, Hung Duong, take over more of the day-to-day operations during this year. On Tuesday, Ba Le was cited as one of the city’s 2025 Legacy Business Award winners – joining Dot favorites the Ice Creamsmith and Greenhills Irish Bakery among the 30 citywide winners...Nguyen is a Vietnamese War refugee who escaped on a boat in the 1980s while undertaking unthinkable measures to keep herself and her brother alive during the awful journey to, first, a camp in Hong Kong, and then to America “with no money at all and no English at all,” said Le. What Nguyen did have was a drive to succeed that was unstoppable. After working in fish cleaning factories, and starting and failing with four businesses, she quit a waitressing job to join her sister, who had opened Ba Le at a stall in Chinatown. Soon after, they expanded to the signature Ba Le Dorchester at 1052 Dorchester Ave., where Nguyen took full control in 1996...

If grit and determination could be found in a sandwich, it would be discovered inside every Banh Mi sandwich at Ba Le Restaurant on Dorchester Avenue. The shop, led successfully for almost 30 years now by Jennifer Nguyen, 64, has been staunchly traditional, and will remain that way as her youngest d...

05/30/2025

Full color 22-pp student profiles and AsAmSt news for 2024-2025 here:
https://www.umb.edu/media/umassboston/editor-uploads/asian-american-studies-program/asamst-grads25.pdf

Hearty congratulations to eight students from 2024-2025 who have completed at least six courses that satisfy our AsAmSt program-of-study requirements: Benjamin Chen (陈乃铭), Raymond Hang, Naomi Katrina Martinez Layon, Lily Tran, Thomas Duong Quan Tran, MyLin Tran Le, Allyson Tse, and Maylee You. They are the newest of 170 students who have graduated with AsAmSt concentrations since 2000.

04/30/2025

enormous appreciation to Linh-Phương Vũ and Ngọc-Trân Vũ for co-leading the 1975 Vietnamese Diaspora Commemoration Initiative and to UMB AsAmSt Prof. Sơn Ca Lâm and all of our faculty, staff, alumni and students who have contributed to this ongoing community process!!
.. Tommy Lam, 24, works with the 1975 project, which is attempting to build a monument to the Vietnamese community in Fields Corner. He said a 2019 trip back to his father’s rural homeland opened his eyes to how far his family has come. “I was able to see the whole rice fields and really understand the root of where I am, and the privilege that I have to be born in America, given the opportunity and just kind of live that American dream,” Lam said. “My dad coming to America at 18 with the shirt on his back and nothing else, it’s crazy how much we’re able to grow.”
.. Saturday’s event at Boston College High School was a multigenerational affair, showcasing how much the war continues to affect Vietnamese families around Boston. Son Ca Lâm, a professor at the UMass Boston Asian America Studies Program, pointed out the dozens of young volunteers who scampered to set up and staff the various exhibit areas around the high school. ”It is not just the older generation who are sort of commemorating the ... displacement and their fleeing from the homeland,“ Lâm said, ”but the younger generation is also trying to carry on the torch and honor those stories and that experience and remembering where we come from.”

For some members of the Vietnamese community, Saturday’s commemoration was an opportunity to connect with a time their families don’t like to talk about. Kelly Tran, 22, is a senior at UMass Boston and one of the artists who installed an exhibition to amplify oral histories of the diaspora community. She said that growing up, she had not been exposed to much of her Vietnamese history. “A lot of my family members are very secretive or reluctant to tell the full story to me and my siblings,” she said. Tran knows both of her grandparents fought in the war, and were imprisoned for years in brutal Viet Cong “re-education camps.” Tran said her coursework in the Asian American Studies Program has given her further insight to her Vietnamese heritage...

print and audio link from WGBH:

At gatherings around the city, Vietnamese Americans spoke of the importance of preserving the stories and the legacy of the generation that arrived in the U.S. as refugees from a brutal war.

03/23/2025

AsAmSt Professor and Program Director, Peter Kiang, comments in the Sampan on historic legacies of Wong Kim Ark, Japanese American WWII redress and reparations, and Lau v. Nichols bilingual education victories:

“The remarkable, collective, intergenerational efforts by Japanese Americans to eventually win redress and reparations and a public apology from the U.S. government for the incarceration almost 50 years later are also so important to teach and learn, to really understand and internalize,” noted Kiang. Kiang also stressed a less well-known case in history: that of nine-year old Kinney Lau and his immigrant family and peers from San Francisco. They had argued that the San Francisco Unified School Board denied equal educational opportunity rights for students with limited English proficiency during the early1970s. “Based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled unanimously in 1973-74 that educational access to learning must be provided to all limited-English proficient students. Like Wong Kim Ark’s landmark case regarding citizenship rights, Kinney Lau’s historic case established the national basis for K-12 bilingual education in the U.S. which has created such profound, far-reaching opportunities for all populations during the past 50 years, not just Chinese immigrant families.” But, said Kiang, a new presidential executive order issued on March 1 designating English as the official language of the U.S. “will undoubtedly be used to systematically undermine multilingual access to government services and resources, including bilingual education in U.S. school districts, nearly all of which receive federal funds. Asian American families and communities as well as the general public in the U.S. need to much more clearly recognize the examples of Kinney Lau and Wong Kim Ark and many others as civil rights contributions through courage, advocacy, and long-term organizing that benefited all of U.S. society.”

Tens of millions of immigrants in the U.S. are now, as long promised, in the sights of the administration of Pres. Donald Trump, who is carrying out his threats of mass deportations. The administration is also using various executive orders in attempts to boot certain visa holders from the U.S. and....