Nicole So is expected to graduate in May of 2015 from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies. Curious to understand Hong Kong (where she was born) and Vancouver (where she was raised) in a comparative and academic context, Nicole has participated in the Go Global Seminar with Prof. Henry Yu last summer, which ignited her interest in learning about the trans-Pacific migration/immigration and its impact on the communities. Some of the projects Nicole has produced for the ACAM program include “4 Reasons Why You Should Care About Chinatown”, an animated short video she has made with her group for HIST 483 and “Rich Asian Girls” for Prof. Yoshizawa’s FIPR 469A course. Outside of ACAM, Nicole is also heavily involved with the UBC Centre for Community-Engaged Learning. A project she has spearheaded as the Co-founder and Chair of the Trek Student Committee is “Project Young and Classy,” where a fashion boutique is set-up for graduating grade 7 students from the Strathcona catchment school areas can access. This summer, Nicole will be continuing “Project Young and Classy” as a recipient of the UBC Chapman & Innovations Grant and she will be working as an intern with Hua Foundation.
ACAM 10: Our Alumni in 2025
What have you been up to since graduation?
After graduation, I worked at the UBC Department of Family Practice (Postgraduate Program) as a Research Assistant, with a focus on evidence-based medicine and policy evaluation in higher education in medicine. In the 2016, I also had the opportunity to work with MSF at the Greek-Macedonian border during the Syrian Refugee Crisis. While that was not my first international development experience, it made me realized the impact of policy at a large-scale in a deeply humanizing and profound way, which led me to pivot my career path to pursue a Master’s in Public Policy and Global Affairs at the Univeristy of British Columbia. I have since worked at Global Affairs Canada and Natural Resources Canada, where I am currently the Chief of Staff to the Director General of the Innovation Branch in Strategic Policy and Innovation, leading the clean technology files, as well as the Digital Accelerator (use of AI and machine learning to support program, policy and service delivery).
What have you learned from your ACAM experience that you still carry today?
So many, where to begin? Certainly from my courses, and from Dr. Henry Yu in particular, I have learned to continue to think (how to think), to challenge the status quo and how to collaborate meaningfully with others (within the government and with outside stakeholders). The federal public service in particular is still a white (and male) dominated space. A very concrete example of how I brought my ACAM learning into my work was launching the Asian Heritage Month initiative, in alignment with the Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service. As a part of the initiative, I was able to invite Mary Kitigawa, Al Yoshizawa and Larry Grant as special speakers.
Carolyn Nakagawa is graduating with a degree in Honours English literature and a minor in Asian Canadian Asian Migration Studies. In addition to her work with the Aoki Legacy Fund researching the life and legacy of musician and community figure Harry Aoki, Carolyn co-coordinated a student directed seminar on the writings of poet and visual artist Roy Kiyooka. Her honours thesis looked at racialization and aesthetics in Kiyooka’s Pear Tree Pomes alongside other poetry set in Vancouver. She is also a poet, with poems forthcoming in Ricepaper magazine, and a playwright: her play “Trig Variations” was featured in Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s MSG lab staged reading and workshop series, and her most recent play “The Letter A” appeared as part of the 2015 Brave New Play Rites festival.
ACAM 10: Our Alumni in 2025
What have you been up to since graduation?
I’m currently a freelance writer/curator/researcher working on my own projects and with a few different museums and heritage sites. I have two plays in development: The New Canadians, a musical about a group of young Japanese Canadians, many of them recent UBC alumni, who founded a grassroots Japanese Canadian newspaper in Vancouver in 1938; and Anne’s Cradle, a commission from the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Prince Edward Island adapting Eri Muraoka’s biography of her grandmother, Hanako Muraoka, the first person to translate Canadian literary classic Anne of Green Gables into Japanese. I am also in negotiations to publish a children’s non-fiction book about the Vancouver Asahi, and am seeking a publisher for my poetry manuscript, Only Present.
Beyond writing projects, I’m developing an updated Japanese Canadian heritage exhibit for the Langham Cultural Centre in Kaslo, and researching Japanese Canadian boat builders for the City of Richmond, among other things. After graduating I worked at Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre for the better part of eight years, where I learned a lot, and it’s been exciting to have the capacity to take on more projects since leaving there in 2023.
What have you learned from your ACAM experience that you still carry today?
ACAM was my introduction to community-based research, via Chris Lee’s mentorship and my AURA-funded research project with the Aoki Legacy Group. I majored in English Literature and didn’t at all think of myself as a researcher before then. Now I would say that community-based research is a significant component of everything I do, literary or otherwise. It’s a huge privilege to learn in this way with guidance and support from community members who have lived and shaped history.
How has your ACAM experience equipped you for the challenges and opportunities you’ve encountered in exploring and developing your career?
ACAM affirmed by personal passions and interests that continue to guide both my learning and teaching. My experiences in ACAM helped me to explore my own family’s migration history as well as the histories of other marginalized communities, while also understanding all that in relationship to settler colonialism and Indigenous peoples. This has become my cornerstone in how I go out into the world, and my time with ACAM has given me the stories and language to further that exploration and sharing I do with students.
Liz is proud to be a part of the ACAM family and to add the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies minor to her Bachelor of Commerce degree. She loves to learn in a “thinking globally” perspective and ACAM has helped her achieve this in the past four years. After participating in the Go Global program with Profesor Henry Yu, partially hosted at HKU, she has worked for the Chinese Canadian Stories program and was part of the team that organized a Fraser River heritage tourism project with the Chinese Canadian Historical Society and the New Pathways to Gold Society. This past term, she took Al Yoshizawa’s Film Production class and made a film on the topic of Cantonese and how it plays a role in connecting different generations of Chinese Canadians.
Born and raised in the 604, Dominique proudly calls Vancouver home: a city that continuously challenges her to consider where she’s “really from”. A cultural hybrid, she has always been interested in identity politics complicated particularly by migration, largely based on her and her family’s experiences. Growing up, Dominique has always been involved with her community, her guiding passion for interacting with various communities including Filipino youth adjusting to Vancouver’s high school scene, Chinese seniors looking to learn English, and newly immigrated families- groups that she seems to find bits of herself in. Graduating with an English Literature and Sociology background to compliment her ACAM degree and community interests, she’s explored issues surrounding Vancouver’s Chinatown in the battle against gentrification. A big foodie herself, she has also (co)-produced films that consider the relationship between food, migration, and identity. When not scouting out new restaurants, she can be found searching for sunshine in her beloved city that always rains.
Initiated in 2014, ACAM is one of three university programs in Asian Canadian studies offered in Canada.
ACAM courses are taught by a team of faculty members with diverse backgrounds and training, all of whom have longstanding collaborations with local Asian Canadian communities.
ACAM is committed to facilitating community-engaged learning in which students collaborate with local community members and faculty across different departments.
Asian Canadian and Asian Migration (ACAM) Studies is a multidisciplinary undergraduate minor that focuses on the histories, cultures, and social development of Asian communities in Canada in a global context.
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The following three videos were created by students for HIST 482: “Remembering the City’s History: Vancouver and Hong Kong in Comparative Context” at the University of British Columbia.
Food Fight: An Eggsistential Tale (2016)
[youtube]https://youtu.be/88RW1yI5bIE[/youtube]
Bridging Nostalgia (2016)
[youtube]https://youtube.com/watch?v=S4TK8Dbz5h8[/youtube]
Beyond Nostalgia (2016)
[youtube]https://youtu.be/6ssW-0qtWqo[/youtube]
By Michael Nguyen, ACAM graduate 2016
Experiences in the refugee camps for Vietnamese Canadians are shown in a personal light through my own family oral histories. – MN
This video was created for HIST 483: “Asian Migrations to the Americas” at the University of British Columbia.
Faculty of Art