Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Positions – 2026W

The Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program (ACAM) is seeking applications from Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching Assistants from the Faculty of Arts to assist the following courses in 2026W Term 1 and Term 2.

ACAM_V 100-001 – Introduction to Asian Canadian Studies (Term 2, Tue/Thu, 9:30 am – 11:00 am)

Qualifications: Must be a current undergraduate or graduate student in ACAM, English, History, Geography, Psychology, Sociology, or other relevant disciplines in the Faculty of Arts. Applicants must demonstrate a good understanding in socio-cultural issues pertaining to Asian Canadian communities. Good communications and organizational skills are an asset.

Duties: The TA may be required, at a minimum, to attend classes, lead discussions, hold office hours, and manage course Canvas page.

Hours of work: The workload is around 12 hours per week, and the total number should not exceed 192 hours. Please note that the hours may vary from week to week depending on how the course is structured.

Salary (as of Sept 1, 2024)

U.T.A. I – $26.40 per hour

U.T.A. II – $24.44 per hour

G.T.A. I – $40.16 per hour

G.T.A. II – $38.65 per hour

Application: A letter of application and a curriculum vitae (please include all contact information and year of study).

ACAM_V 300-001- Dis/Orienting Asian Canada (Term 1, Tue/Thu, 9:30 am – 11:00 am)

Qualifications: Must be a current undergraduate or graduate student in ACAM, History, English, Sociology, or other relevant disciplines in the Faculty of Arts. Applicants must demonstrate a good understanding in socio-cultural issues pertaining to Asian Canadian communities. Good communications and organizational skills are an asset.

Duties: The TA may be required, at a minimum, to attend classes, lead discussions, hold office hours, and manage course Canvas page.

Salary (as of Sept 1, 2024)

U.T.A. I – $26.40 per hour

U.T.A. II – $24.44 per hour

G.T.A. I – $40.16 per hour

G.T.A. II – $38.65 per hour

Application: A letter of application and a curriculum vitae (please include all contact information and year of study).

ACAM_V 330-001 – Understanding Asian Diasporic Health and Well-Being (Term 2, Mon/Wed, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm)

Qualifications: Must be a current undergraduate or graduate student in ACAM, Psychology, Sociology, or other relevant disciplines in the Faculty of Arts. Applicants must demonstrate a good understanding in socio-cultural issues pertaining to Asian Canadian communities. Good communications and organizational skills are an asset.

Duties: The TA may be required, at a minimum, to attend classes, lead discussions, hold office hours, and manage course Canvas page.

Salary (as of Sept 1, 2024)

U.T.A. I – $26.40 per hour

U.T.A. II – $24.44 per hour

G.T.A. I – $40.16 per hour

G.T.A. II – $38.65 per hour

Application: A letter of application and a curriculum vitae (please include all contact information and year of study).

ACAM_V 330-002 – Understanding Asian Diasporic Health and Well-Being (Term 2, Mon/Wed, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm)

Duties: The TA may be required, at a minimum, to attend classes, lead discussions, hold office hours, and manage course Canvas page.

Salary (as of Sept 1, 2024)

U.T.A. I – $26.40 per hour

U.T.A. II – $24.44 per hour

G.T.A. I – $40.16 per hour

G.T.A. II – $38.65 per hour

Application: A letter of application and a curriculum vitae (please include all contact information and year of study).

To apply for any of the above positions, please submit your application materials to acam.program@ubc.ca.

Deadline for applications is July 1, 2026 (11:59 PM).

Please note that the delivery of all courses is subject to budget approval and course enrollment.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Indigenous person.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority. 

RECAP: The Fall Semester With ACAM Dialogues…

What does it look like to create a community rooted in care? What does it look like for this community to centre ‘Asianness’? What does ‘Asianness’ even mean?

These are the questions we tried to address, or at least discuss, during the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration (ACAM) Dialogues’ first meeting of the 2025/26 school year. In October, our group of 12 cohort members and 3 facilitators came together for an evening of wonderful food (Banh Mi from Banh Mi Saigon) and connection. Coming from a range of different backgrounds, levels of studies, and geographies, we spent our time together intentionally imagining this year’s ACAM Dialogues cohort, and considering how to create a space that honoured our unique perspectives and shared values.

Image of ACAM Dialogues 2025/26 community agreement quilt. Quilt squares are teal, light green, or bright orange, containing drawings or stitch-work of various designs outlining values of growth, support, and learning.

This thinking culminated in the creation of our ACAM Dialogues community agreement quilt. Each Dialogues member received a quilt square, on which they drew or embroidered symbols and words that represented their values and hopes for the space. For some, this meant imagery of flowers and mountains; for others, it meant lines of convergence and divergence. When these principles displayed on the individual squares were incorporated into the completed quilt, they create a tangible reminder of our collective commitments to one another, to ourselves, and to the space. While we exist as individuals, our community agreement quilt also reminds us of the transformative potentials that emerge as we come together.

Building upon this foundation, we spent our November meeting engaging with our 2025/26 theme, “In Transit: Locating Asian Canadians in Vancouver”. This central idea asks us to consider what it means for Asian Canadians to exist—to make space for our communities, to take up space, to be obscured from space—on these lands colonially known as Vancouver. How are Asian Canadians simultaneously present and absent from this city’s narrative, and what does it mean for this presence to be situated on the ongoing occupation of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) lands?

These were some of the core questions we took up during our November meeting. Thinking about how we situate diasporic Asian identity on a local, national, and global stage, we made mini balikbayan boxes, a practice rooted within the Filipino diasporic community where migrants send clothing, foodstuffs, and other remittances back to loved ones in the Philippines.

Image contains fourteen mini balikbayan boxes made out of brown cardboard gathered atop a beige table. The boxes sit open and empty.

Over delicious Burmese food from Amay’s House, ACAM Dialogues discussed teachings from the Grant siblings and Alejandro Yoshizawa’s All Our Father’s Relations, Edwin T. Decenteceo’s “The Pagdadala Model in Counseling and Therapy”, and Sucheng Chan’s “Asian American Struggles for Civil, Political, Economic, and Social Rights”. Drawing from these materials, we considered the historical development of Asian positionality across the diaspora and its ongoing evolution.

Image contains a beige table scattered with craft items; balikbayan boxes in progress of being filled, coloured paper, glue sticks, and magazines.

From this positionality, what do we carry as individuals? What does the greater Asian diasporic community carry? How do we translate these metaphorical belongings into enacted responsibilities—and to whom are we responsible? We filled our balikbayan boxes in response to these questions, thinking with Decenteceo’s Pagdadala model to remember that we may carry these responsibilities, these ‘burdens’, not in resentment but in an expression of our care. As a collective and as individuals, we can transform our thinking to acknowledge our act of holding on as an act of intentional remembering; as an act of love.

Image of four sushi platters on a grey table. Soy sauce packets, napkins, and chopsticks are next to the platters, along with a small container of edamame.

In December, we had our final meeting of the semester. We gathered over sushi platters from Sushi Taku for a film screening of Y-Dang Troeung and Alejandro Yoshizawa’s short film, “The Easter Epic”, paired with a discussion of The Missing Picture, a claymation documentary by Cambodian director and filmmaker Rithy Panh. Weaving in references to Crazy Rich Asians and Camp Rock, we discussed what it means to have Asian representation in media—for pop culture, for the Asian community, and for the historical record. Even more so, we considered what kinds of representation exist in the current moment, and why these kinds are not yet enough.

Over the Fall semester, ACAM Dialogues was filled with learning, meaningful arts-based activities, and care. In the coming term, we are eager to continue our conversations by considering questions of queerness, racial capitalism, and space and displacement. Even further down the line, we are looking forward to welcoming the larger ACAM community (and beyond) for our public-facing event in April!

We would like to acknowledge that our work is taking place on the traditional, unceded, ancestral homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. This year’s ACAM Dialogues is generously supported by the Quan Lee Excellence Fund for Asian Canadian & Asian Migration Studies.

ACAM320H

This summer course and field study allows students to conduct interdisciplinary academic research while exploring the histories, cultures, foodways, heritage, and geographies of Chinese migration around the Pacific, particularly migrations over the last 50 years to Richmond, BC. With field trips to Vancouver Chinatown and various sites in Richmond, students will explore themes including identity and belonging, food and cultural heritage, Asian migrants and Indigeneity, urban commercial landscapes, and cultural heritage.

Students will learn in traditional and non-traditional classroom settings locally to explore best practices in ethical community-based research, museum exhibitions and intergenerational and inter-community knowledge sharing to rethink the history of Vancouver, Richmond, BC, and the Pacific and learn about the intertwined histories of Chinese migrants from Hong Kong, Mainland China, SE Asia, and other parts of the globe. Students will be asked to create a project that will feed into the collaborative exhibition with the Richmond Museum by ACAM/ACRE on Richmond’s foodscape and how it reflects the demographic and historical changes over the last 60 years. Led by Professor Henry Yu (History; ACAM), this is an ideal opportunity for students looking for a short yet rewarding community-engaged research experience that leads into a museum exhibition. (And yes, we won’t just study food, we will also eat…)

In 2026S, ACAM_V 320-H_001 will be taught by Dr. Henry Yu, ACAM Affiliated Faculty and Professor in the Department of History.

Minelle Mahtani

Associate Professor

Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice

Email: minelle.mahtani@ubc.ca

Biography

Minelle Mahtani is an Associate Professor in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She is the winner of the Hubert Evans Book Prize for best non fiction of 2025 for her memoir, “May it Have a Happy Ending” (Penguin Random House/Doubleday). She teaches courses like “Risk, Relation, Revolution, Repair” and “The Canadian Creative.” She is a former radio host and television news producer.

The Body at Play: Basketball as Place, Identity, and Community

On October 29th, 2025, ACAM320J hosted Dr. May Farrales and Dr. Sharnjit Kaur Sandhra for an open lecture sharing their work on the role of basketball in Asian Canadian placemaking, identity shaping, and community engagement.

“The Body at Play” was an opportunity for guests to engage with the different histories and experiences of basketball in Punjabi and Filipinix communities. With this as a starting point, both Dr. Sandhra and Dr. Farrales elaborated on the dynamics of the sport that happen beyond the boundaries of the court.

Dr. Sandhra’s “We Are Basketball” exhibition was on display and accessible for attendees to view and interact with by creating their own basketball player card. The objective is for those experiencing the exhibit to make their own contribution, highlighting someone in their own life or someone others may not know, and to include them in the canon of iconic players.

I grew up playing sports myself and was surrounded by other Punjabi kids and those from the larger Asian-Canadian diaspora who enjoyed basketball. As a child, I always found it curious that we weren’t as represented in professional leagues.

Dr. Sandhra illuminated some of the barriers faced by those in post-secondary basketball: racism and discrepancies in treatment between South Asian players and white players. She emphasized the importance of spaces that are inviting for specifically South Asian players, such as the annual Indo-Hoops tournament.

The significance of basketball shows up in more casual ways as well. Dr. May Farrales spoke on their research about the ways masculinity for the Filipinix community is negotiated in those spaces. I really enjoyed hearing the firsthand interview quotes Dr. Farrales shared from fathers who use basketball to bond with their sons, to men who use it as an outlet between workdays. Each one offered a unique relationship to the sport.

The most impactful aspect of this event was to see the power of solidarity between communities. The last portion of the lecture was dedicated to audience questions, opening the floor to Dr. Sandhra and Dr. Farrales to expand on the concepts that resonated and inspired further discussion. Guests inquired about the place for women within the politics of basketball tournaments, the gender binary of sports teams, and how we can do better as a community to support local sports.

Opportunities to engage in conversation about the power of sport are rare. Even rarer still is the opportunity to enter a space that emphasizes hearing one another.

Reflection by Rhea Mann

Photos by Devon Meadows

Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama Exhibit Tour + Fireside Chat

On November 2, the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies (ACAM) Program hosted an exhibit tour of Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The exhibit is the first comprehensive retrospective on the Japanese Canadian photographer and his important work documenting social justice movements such as the Civil Rights Movement and Japanese Canadian Redress activism. During World War II, Wakayama, like many Japanese Canadians, was declared an “enemy alien” and forcibly interned by the Canadian government. He spent his life dedicated to activism and using his artistic practice to tell stories of community and justice.

The event brought together ACAM students, faculty, and Japanese Canadian community members to engage with Wakayama’s work and to learn from the exhibit’s curator, Paul Wong, and Wakayama’s partner, Mayumi Takasaki. One of the students in attendance at the tour, Rayna Friar, has kindly shared their reflections below:

After learning about Wakayama in ACAM 300 I became interested in his work and how Wakayama used his photography to fight for justice for the Civil Rights Movement. Seeing his photographs in person was a breathtaking example on how solidarity can be forged between different communities and the power of photography in activism. It was inspiring to see how Wakayama used his skills as a photographer to document civil rights protests and the Powell street festival formation, proving that all it takes to fight for change in your community is willingness to do so. My favourite photo was the final one, showing three men of different backgrounds embracing and wearing matching expressions of joy and excitement at the Powell Street Festival. This photo illuminated the love Wakayama channeled into his work and how he focused on building solidarity. Wakayama’s work is a reminder to all that even though we may be from different communities, we can come together to work for collective liberation.

Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama is on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery from October 3, 2025 – February 22, 2026.

Photos by Devon Meadows

Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Positions – 2025W

ACAM_V 100-001 – Introduction to Asian Canadian Studies (Term 2, Tue/Thu, 9:30 am – 11:00 am)

Duties: The TA may be required, at a minimum, to attend classes, lead discussions, hold office hours, and manage course Canvas page.

Salary (as of Sept 1, 2024)

U.T.A. I – $26.40 per hour

U.T.A. II – $24.44 per hour

G.T.A. I – $40.16 per hour

G.T.A. II – $38.65 per hour

Application: A letter of application and a curriculum vitae (please include all contact information and year of study).

ACAM_V 300-001- Dis/Orienting Asian Canada (Term 1, Tue/Thu, 9:30 am – 11:00 am)

Duties: The TA may be required, at a minimum, to attend classes, lead discussions, hold office hours, and manage course Canvas page.

Salary (as of Sept 1, 2024)

U.T.A. I – $26.40 per hour

U.T.A. II – $24.44 per hour

G.T.A. I – $40.16 per hour

G.T.A. II – $38.65 per hour

Application: A letter of application and a curriculum vitae (please include all contact information and year of study).

ACAM_V 330-001 – Understanding Asian Diasporic Health and Well-Being (Term 2, Mon/Wed, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm)

Duties: The TA may be required, at a minimum, to attend classes, lead discussions, hold office hours, and manage course Canvas page.

Salary (as of Sept 1, 2024)

U.T.A. I – $26.40 per hour

U.T.A. II – $24.44 per hour

G.T.A. I – $40.16 per hour

G.T.A. II – $38.65 per hour

Application: A letter of application and a curriculum vitae (please include all contact information and year of study).

To apply for any of the above positions, please submit your application materials to acam.program@ubc.ca.

Deadline for applications is August 31, 2025 (11:59 PM).

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority. 

Sessional Teaching for 2025W Term 2

Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program – Sessional Teaching for 2025W Term 2 (January 1 to April 30, 2026)

Posted: July 31, 2025

The Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program (ACAM) is now accepting applications for a sessional position in 2025W Term 2 (4 instructional months; January 1 to April 30, 2026). The successful candidate will teach the following course:

ACAM_V 350 001 – Asian Canadian Community-Based Media

Returning Applicants: Those who have taught in the ACAM program in the last five years can simply send an updated Curriculum Vitae.

New Applicants: Please submit the following items:

Brief cover letter outlining your experience for the position,

Curriculum Vitae, which includes a record of experience and a detailed list of all postsecondary courses taught (course name and number, length, credit value, dates, and teaching responsibilities),

A sample outline for this course (maximum 1 page),

Transcript of your academic record if you do not yet hold a PhD,

Names and contact emails of two references.

Please send your application package to acam.program@ubc.ca. The deadline for receipt of applications is August 31, 2025 (11:59 PM).

All positions are subject to funding and enrolment numbers and are governed by the Collective Agreement between the University of British Columbia and The Faculty Association of the University of British Columbia.

Olivia Lim

ACAM Program Coordinator

Office: Room 1001, St. John’s College (2111 Lower Mall)
Email: acam.program@ubc.ca

Biography

Olivia Lim is the Program Coordinator for the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program (ACAM) at the University of British Columbia. She completed her B.A. in Honours English with a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies at UBC and her M.A. in English at UBC.