ACRE ACAM Faculty Brunch

We are excited to announce that the Centre for Asian Canadian Research & Engagement (ACRE) and the Asian Canadian & Asian Migration Studies program (ACAM) will be hosting a faculty brunch on Friday September 22, 11am-12:30pm at St. John’s College (2111 Lower Mall)! Please join us for a casual brunch to connect and catch up with other faculty in the broader ACRE ACAM orbit. During the brunch, ACAM Director, Dr. Laura Ishiguro, and ACRE Co-leads, Dr. JP Catungal and Dr. Henry Yu, will be sharing some recent developments and upcoming initiatives for the academic year 2023-24. Make sure to RSVP by Friday September 15 using the form below to reserve a spot!

Tentative Brunch Menu

Cold

Two Types Cold Cereals
Cottage Cheese
Fruit Salad
Natural & Fruit Yogurt
Pastries & Baked Goods: assorted muffins, bagels, danishes, cinnamon buns, freshly baked croissants, white and whole wheat toast *GF bread upon request
Chilled Orange Juice, Passion Guava, Grapefruit Juice & Fresh Milk
Condiments: Fruit Preserves, Marmalades, Butter, Margarine & Cream Cheese

Hot

Crisp Bacon & Sausages
Eggs Benedict
Home Fries
Pancakes with Syrup
Scrambled Eggs
Regular Ethical Bean Coffee & Decaffeinated Coffee, Selection of Teas

ACRE ACAM Faculty Social

Sessional Teaching for 2023W

Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program – Sessional Teaching for 2023W Term 2 (January to April 2024)

Posted: August 10, 2023

The Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program (ACAM) is now accepting applications for a sessional position in 2023W Term 2 (4 instructional months; January to April 2024). The successful candidate will teach the following course:

ACAM350 001 – Asian Canadian Community-Based Media (Thursday 5-8pm)

Applicants should include with their letter of application:

Curriculum vitae (detailing post-secondary teaching experience)
Names and contact emails of two referees

Please send your application package to acam.program@ubc.ca by 4pm, August 24, 2023.

All positions are subject to availability of funds and will be governed by UBC’s “Agreement on Conditions of Appointment for Sessional Lecturers.”

The minimum salary for 2023W is $3,093.57/credit or $9,280.71 per 3-credit course. 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.

Shirley Ting

ACRE/ACAM Administrative Coordinator

Office: St. John’s College (2111 Lower Mall)
Email: shirley.ting@ubc.ca

Biography

Shirley (she/her) is a second-generation Chinese Canadian who grew up on the ancestral and unceded territories of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (Halkomelem) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) speaking peoples. She recently graduated with a BSc in Global Resource Systems, specializing in global nutrition and health, and minoring in ACAM. In addition, Shirley conducts community-engaged research for UBC INSTRCC. Her projects primarily focus on examining the intersections of food, community, identity, and health in the context of BC. Her work and research is inspired by her friends and family. Outside of UBC, Shirley enjoys eating snacks, watching sappy dramas with her Grandmother, and reading.

Divine Reyes (BA, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice)

Divine Reyes is a second-generation Filipinx-Canadian. She was born and raised on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Watuth nations. Divine is graduating with a major in Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice and an ACAM minor. She further pursued her passion for social justice through her undergraduate degree. It opened up her love for feminism and activism and learned how they intersect within Asian and racialized communities through her ACAM courses. Divine is looking forward to working within the community and further applying the knowledge and abilities she’s obtained from her degree in the field of social work.

What drew you to the ACAM program and why did you declare it as a minor?

I learned about the ACAM faculty when I was taking GRSJ 328 with JP where he mentioned the ACAM program. I started to look into it and realized that some of my GRSJ courses aligned with the ACAM minor. So I decided to apply for it. However, Dr. Laura Ishiguro’s ACAM 300 class really drew me into the program. I learned so much about individual and community-oriented Asian Canadian histories and how important and relevant they are, especially in relation to the histories we are making right now.

How has ACAM impacted you or the people around you? What connections and ideas were you able to foster through ACAM?

Being in ACAM classes and joining the program, I was able to meet like-minded people and have really inspiring and impactful conversations inside and outside of the classroom. I was also able to create meaningful friendships through ACAM classes. Adding onto that, taking ACAM courses have allowed me to also build on being self-reflexive, taking into account where and how I am positioned in relation to the land, environment, and community that I am situated in. ACAM has also helped me to understand my experiences being a Filipinx-Canadian and what that entails. While there may be people in either the Filipinx community or Canadian society who may not accept all of me, I know that there are people who feel the same way as me. Being Asian Canadian and Filipinx-Canadian is it’s own identity and should not be forced in a box or a single definition. Thus, ACAM helped me embrace my identity, to be proud of what I have done and who I am, and feel included in community.

What was your favourite ACAM memory or course?

I learned so much from and enjoyed taking ACAM 300 with Dr. Laura Ishiguro. Learning about the individual histories that I am connected with and that are connected to the places and/or environments where we are also making history opened my eyes to the longer connections that I have with the past; that the activism I carry, I am not alone in. There are people I can look up to who I can relate to and I am part of other communities who feel and fight for the same things as me.

Have you completed any ACAM-related projects? What was this experience like?

I created a mock e-zine for ACAM 250. It is about my experience being a Filipinx-Canadian and dealing with feelings of not belonging. There were also two research papers that I have done about Filipinx history in Canada and I learned so much from that. The first one is about the first known Filipinx migrant to British Columbia, Benson Flores, and I explored his story’s importance in our history. The second is a project I made in ACAM 300, where I parodied songs that explain the migration history of Filipinxs in Canada. I feel like the song parody project really gave me a newfound appreciation for Filipinx Canadian history and I learned information that I never knew about.

What is one piece of advice you would give to your first-year self?

One thing that I would advise my first-year self is to just pursue their passions. While there is external pressure that you may have been put under, ultimately, what’s most important is that you choose the path that you feel the most excited about; don’t choose it because it feels safe or it’s something that other people want you to do. As long as you are doing it for you and you know that it will help you, make you happy, and also challenge you (in a good way), then that is what matters.

What are you most looking forward to in the future?

I am looking forward to working close with communities to make on-the-ground change. I want to take what I have learned and apply it to the jobs that I will take and do it in a way that may change someone’s life for the better. I am truly excited to practice what I have gathered in my undergrad and enact it in my everyday life, but most importantly I am excited to be on a path that may lead to the field of social work so that I may continue to make a difference in the community, even if it is in small ways.

Shirley Ting (BSc, Global Resource Systems)

Shirley (she/her) is a second-generation Chinese Canadian who grew up on the ancestral and unceded territories of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (Halkomelem) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) speaking peoples. She is graduating with a BSc in Global Resource Systems, specializing in global nutrition and health, and minoring in ACAM. During her undergraduate degree, Shirley focussed on examining the intersections of food, community, identity, and health in the context of BC. Her work and research is inspired by her friends and family.

Have you completed any ACAM-related projects? What was this experience like?

During my studies, I also worked as a research assistant for INSTRCC (the initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies) which gave me the opportunity to collaborate with a diverse range of community partners on a number of projects, including Chinatown Reimagined and Richmond Growing. Working with community members, educators, archivists, and historians helped me learn how to align my actions with my values to develop inclusive cultural programming. Community-engaged learning added personal meaning and depth to my time at UBC and was the most important experience in my degree. Outside of INSTRCC, I also developed the student-directed seminar (SDS), “The Becoming of Modern Chinese Foodscapes” under the supervision of Dr.Clayton Ashton. I’ve always enjoyed learning about food, so this SDS was an amazing opportunity (and challenge!) for me to explore my relationship to and understanding of Chinese food culture.

What is one piece of advice you would give to your first-year self?

I would tell myself to have more self-compassion. I think that it’s important for people to set high standards for themselves and to pursue excellence. But, it’s hard to thrive and succeed when we don’t feel well. One of the many things I appreciate about ACAM is that the program ties success and wellness together; we don’t need to pick one over the other to be our best selves.

An Xu (BA, English Literature)

An Xu 徐安 (she/her) is a 1.5 generation Chinese Canadian settler living on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. She is graduating with a BA in English Literature and Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies. During her time at UBC, she has worked as a Communications and Marketing Coordinator at ACAM, and has been a part of several community-based storytelling projects through her work with UBC INSTRCC. An can be found cooking too much food, (dreaming about) skiing, and (thinking about) reading.

What drew you to the ACAM program and why did you declare it as a minor?

There aren’t many inciting moments in my life that I can point to as being path-altering, but I’ve been telling a running joke about scrolling past a rare ACAM-sponsored Facebook ad one day and knowing right then that it was something that I needed to find out more about. I really think that something did click and I was meant to find ACAM at the time that I did. I was going through what my friends and I like to call my “ACAM awakening,” beginning to think about what growing up Chinese Canadian has meant to me and how I wanted to continue on with my Arts education with intention. Reading through the ACAM Facebook page and then the website, I saw my own questions and values reflected back at me and couldn’t believe that such an accessible program existed. I actually published a few creative writing pieces with the undergrad student journal Tributaries the summer before I started any ACAM classes, and I’ve been keen on being involved with the community ever since.

What connections and ideas were you able to foster through ACAM?

My first day of class in ACAM 300 with Dr. Laura Ishiguro, I vividly remember being struck and moved to tears by the kindness, inclusiveness, and understanding she modeled in introducing herself and the class. She created such a safe space as we learned how to process for ourselves difficult histories while not leaving out the small, often overlooked gems of resistance and solidarity— and that history matters, even and most crucially in the present. ACAM 320D with Dr. Danielle Wong was also so influential in both my academic interests as well as my personal understanding of the world. Everyday I still think about the ramifications of systems of power and how identity can be both imposed and constructed.

Most of all for me, ACAM has been impactful through the connections I’ve found with my classmates and co-workers who have also turned into close friends. University can feel like such a big place, but the ACAM community has been such an insulating source of fellowship that brings so many of us together as we navigate and bond over shared histories and backgrounds. I think that has really been modeled from the top down, from the ACAM administrators, to the professors, to the students, who all care for, respect, and make space for each other.

What is one piece of advice you would give to your first-year self?

I think that I would tell my first-year self to forgive myself and to take heart that there is no right way of living or being. Just existing is enough.

Lindsay Mak (BA, History and English Literature)

Lindsay is a second-generation Canadian-born Chinese, born and raised in Vancouver on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Lindsay completed her BA with a double major in History and English Literature, with an ACAM minor. Over the course of her undergrad and learning diverse stories from marginalized communities, Lindsay has gained a greater understanding of her own identity and the various communities she is a part of in what we call Canada. Her studies have been very much influenced by her experiences outside of academia, including working for Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation and volunteering at her former high school. She will be applying her experiences and knowledge gained from her undergrad as she begins her career in education, beginning UBC’s Bachelors of Education Program in September.

What drew you to the ACAM program and why did you declare it as a minor?

Funny enough, I had no intention of doing an ACAM minor as I had planned and completed a double major in History and English literature. I was first introduced to the ACAM faculty when I took ACAM 250 as an elective in my second year but I didn’t really look into the program. Over the course of my undergrad, I took a particular interest in Canadian and Asian studies, as I was able to better understand my own identity, community, and family history through these courses. It wasn’t until my fourth year after I was prompted by an ACAM faculty member, that I looked into the ACAM minor and realized that many of my English and History classes fulfilled the ACAM minor, which turned out to be much more multi-disciplinary than I thought. So I guess you could call this all a happy accident.

How has ACAM impacted you or the people around you? What connections and ideas were you able to foster through ACAM?

Through ACAM, I have been able to look at who I am, where I come from, and where I am in completely new and complex ways. For most of my life, I felt very detached from my Asian heritage, community, and family history, in spite of growing up in an Asian-majority community. In macro and micro ways, I had all these questions about myself and the world that no one around me could really answer, but over the course of my undergrad and taking ACAM courses, I was able to better navigate these complexities intersectionally. I now have a greater value for and desire to learn and share the stories of marginalized communities, exploring them in connection with larger societal structures.

What was your favourite ACAM course?

My favourite ACAM course has to be ACAM 300 which I took in my fourth year. After taking several Canadian history classes, it was so amazing to hear about relatively unknown Asian Canadian histories that aren’t often talked about in larger overviews, pushing Asian Canadians into the centre instead of the margins. What I love about history in general is learning about people and their own unique stories in the larger historical context, and that is exactly what I feel ACAM 300 did. I also loved that it was a class that was unafraid to explore complex issues relating to Asian Canadian histories and communities.

What are you most looking forward to in the future?

I’m looking forward to this summer where I’ll be returning as a project manager for a Youth Summer Camp program, a different kind of stress than the usual academia-related kind, but nonetheless, it’ll be a great time! I also have a huge list of books, art projects, and shows I finally have time to tackle. I’m also looking forward to beginning UBC’s Bachelor of Education Program in September, where I’ll be working to become a history and English high school teacher. I hope to teach histories and stories that students in whatever community I work in can find themselves in, but also be challenged by in order to develop strong critical thinking skills that we need to bring about meaningful change in the world.

Moira Henry (BA, English Literature)

Moira Henry is a fifth-generation settler of Japanese and Scottish ancestry living, working, and learning on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ land. Graduating with a major in English Literature and a minor in ACAM, she is interested in storytelling as both a mode of resistance and a means of connection. Throughout her time in the program, Moira felt she was able to cultivate a sense of belonging through community-engaged learning in ACAM courses and her work with the Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies (INSTRCC).

What drew you to the ACAM program and why did you declare it as a minor?

Discovering ACAM was a happy accident. I was scrolling through available courses during registration time some years ago and happened upon the “ACAM” course code. I was super intrigued because I never knew there was such a thing as Asian Canadian Studies, and it sounded exactly like what I wanted to be learning. The first course I took was Asian Canadians in Popular Culture with Dr. JP Catungal. It was an incredible feeling to have the course material genuinely resonate with me; I felt seen. Through the program, I began a journey of self-discovery and started to unpack the complexities held within the many facets of my identity. I was also lucky enough to build some beautiful friendships and meet some distant relatives through ACAM! I think years from now I’ll still remember this kind of mundane moment of selecting a random elective as a pivotal point in my life. ACAM has truly opened up my world, and my life wouldn’t be the same without it.

What are you most looking forward to in the future?

I’m looking forward to continuing the practice of being in community and learning from my peers. I’m looking forward to appreciating the beauty and resilience in the world, and cherishing my friends and family.

Rosanne Sia

Assistant Professor
Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice

Email: rosanne.sia@ubc.ca

Biography

Rosanne Sia works across Cold War cultural history, performance studies, critical race studies, and queer studies. Her book manuscript, Fantasy in Motion: Performing Racial Imaginaries in the early Cold War, focuses on women of Asian and Latinx descent who danced and sang on nightclub circuits in the early Cold War. Drawing on forty-five oral histories, she argues that performers crossed boundaries of genre, nation, language, race, and sexuality that exceeded Cold War narratives of racial integration. Community engaged scholarship through oral history methodology and practice is at the heart of her research projects.

Desiree Valadares

Assistant Professor
Department of Geography

Email: desiree.valadares@ubc.ca

Biography

Desiree Valadares is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at UBC. She is a landscape architect (Guelph/Edinburgh), urban designer (McGill) and architectural historian (UC Berkeley). She was born in Mumbai, India, grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada and practiced architecture and historic preservation in the UK and the US.

Her research and teaching focus on territoriality, occupation, empire in Canada and the non-contiguous US with a focus on the aftermath of Asian migration (wartime forced relocation) and Indigenous intersections in the Pacific. Her current book project tentatively titled, Carceral Conversions, studies contemporary heritage politics and shifting patterns of land tenure at Pacific war heritage landscapes such as prisoner-of-war camps (Hawai’i), road labour camps (interior British Columbia), and repurposed canneries and gold mines (Alaska) that confined a range of populations including non-citizen POWs, civilians of Japanese descent and Unangax̂ or Alaska Native peoples.