Duke TAASCON 2014 : SELF
Stories Empowering Love and Fortitude
APRIL 12, 2014, 10 am
CHECK OUT OUR AWESOME WORKSHOPS!!
WORKSHOP SESSION 1: 11:10AM - 12:10PM
CURTIS CHIN:
Excerpts from the new film, "TESTED"
Location: Hudson 125
Curtis Chin is an award-winning writer and producer who has written for ABC, NBC, Fox, the Disney Channel and more. As a community activist, he co-founded the Asian American Writers Workshop and Asian Pacific Americans for Progress. In 2008, he served on Barack Obama's Asian American Leadership Council where he participated in helping the campaign reach out to the AAPI community. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, NPR, Newsweek and other media outlet. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at NYU. He is currently work on his second documentary, Tested, and a memoir entitled, "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant."
Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech: some of NYC's top ranked public high schools. Each year, thousands of eighth and ninth graders compete to secure coveted spots at these elite schools by taking the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, the SHSAT. Only the top scorers will get in. This documentary will follow a diverse group of students trying to pass the test, as well as the issues surrounding access to a high-quality public education, the model minority myth and the various challenges facing families.
YAO YU:
Love for Others and Fortitude from Self – A Glimpse into Human Rights in China
Location: Hudson 232
Yao Yu grew up in Shanxi, China. His father and mother were on faculty at a high school and a nurse at a local hospital, respectively. Yao received a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Beijing University of Science & Technology in 2011. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State University, expecting to graduate in June 2016.
What one takes for granted may be nearly inaccessible or incredibly difficult to attain for others. The struggle for human rights has been an ongoing issue in China for several decades. Religious and spiritual oppression have adversely affected countless individuals and families. Many Chinese endure hardships and have life-changing experiences that often go untold due to oppression. This workshop seeks to explore these untold stories of individuals who remain steadfast in their beliefs through strengthened fortitude and love for others. Yao will share personal experiences and discuss how love and fortitude, which he interprets as compassion and forbearance, have helped his family members through difficult times and allowed them to continue pursuing their dreams, no matter where they are.
TIM LUU:
The Formation of Identity Through Dance
Location: FCIEMAS Pre-Function Lobby
Tim Luu’s love for dance and performance started in high school, developing as he engaged with Indian dances, swing, K-Pop, German folk, etc. and taught himself hip-hop dance styles through YouTube. At Duke University, Tim joined Defining Movement (Duke's premier multicultural dance group) and Duke Chinese Dance while getting involved with the greater dance community of NC and VA through KODACHROME. In the Spring of 2014, Tim, Ray Liu, and Rebecca Holmes cofounded Street Medicine, Duke's new urban styles dance group, which seeks to promote hip-hop influenced dance. Tim always tries to use his experiences as opportunities to develop and refine his identity, believing that who we are, where we are, where we will go in life is one giant culmination of where we've been before.
This workshop will encourage participants to learn to express themselves through a creative medium (dance in this case) and forge their personal identities through art. Because there are so many nuances in art, there are many opportunities for participants to express themselves in the small details of this workshop. The workshop will begin with a small introduction, followed by a dance workshop where Tim will teach a piece he has choreographed that ties in with the TAASCON 2014 theme of Stories Empowering Love and Fortitude. After the class, there will be a brief Q&A session where Tim will share his personal journey with dance with participants and answer any questions.
ANGIE & HAROLD HONG:
[Christian] Faith and Action - Following Jesus In A Racialized Society
Location: Hudson 222
Angie Hong is from Atlanta, Georgia. She majored in music therapy and piano performance at the University of Georgia. She did her internship in Cleveland, Ohio, where she met and married Harold. Currently Angie lives in Durham, NC, with their two kids, leading worship music. She is the leader, key player, and a vocalist for Menders worship and reconciliation ministry. Angie is also a regular lay lecturer on the practice of Christian Worship at Duke Divinity School.
Harold Hong hails from Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in the world of Korean-American Church Youth Groups. He went on to study philosophy at U of M Ann Arbor and then medicine at Case Western, and moved to Durham NC in 2005 for a residency in Psychiatry. He presently works in clinical psychiatry, and is serving as a church planting team member at City Well Church in Durham, NC. Together with Angie, he has lead numerous seminars and workshops on Race and Faith at conferences hosted by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Duke University Divinity School, and local churches throughout the South East.
There is probably no other time in American History when we are more likely to hear that we now live in a post-racial era. Social policy, civil rights legislation, and a celebration of being color-blind have advanced further than ever before. Unfortunately, demographic indices depict a trend where power, wealth, and opportunity are more racially segregated now than they were in the pre-civil rights era. By discussing the intersection of race, policy, and faith, this workshop will pose questions that facilitate the development of insight into how love for God is inextricably tied to love for others and doing the hard work of learning to live in fellowship with people that would otherwise be strangers to us.
WORKSHOP SESSION 2: 1:25PM - 2:25PM
ERIC LU of JUBILEE PROJECT:
The Power of Story-Telling
Location: Hudson 125
The Jubilee Project is a non-profit video production group whose vision is to produce entertaining content that will empower, enable, and inspire others to do good as well. As Outreach Director, Eric has grown the Jubilee Project’s Youth Movement to over 15 chapters nationwide and traveled to 20+ campuses in the past year on a college tour in the United States and internationally. In July 2012, Eric took a leave of absence from Harvard Medical School to work on the Jubilee Project full time. He uses his medical background to make films on subjects such as HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and cancer.
Now it's your turn to share your own story. Join Eric from the Jubilee Project to learn about the power of storytelling and how to make your own video. Participants will create their own videos in groups to be posted online for others to vote on. The group whose video receives the most likes by dinner time will have the opportunity to screen their creation for other conference participants to view.
SAMANTHA NG & GAO CHIA-REN:
Dismantling Oppressive Hierarchies within Asian-American Activism
Location: Hudson 218
Sick of the model minority myth - a white supremacist rhetorical tool that attempts to justify anti-black racism while dismissing anti-Asian racism - Samantha Ng wishes to educate the world regarding the reality of Asian-American life on the fringes of systemic racism and intergenerational poverty. She is involved with a number of advocacy organizations within her urban Chinatown community: for the past year, she has worked as a translator for National Mobilization Against Sweatshops as well as the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association, where she assisted in collecting 10,000 signatures for the People's First Rezoning Plan which calls for 100% subsidized housing within the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. She is also a volunteer for the Coalition for a Real Minimum Wage Increase campaign, petitioning for the rights of Pactiv workers from Reynolds Groups & Graeme Hart. She currently attends CUNY Kingsborough.
Gao Chia-Ren (Tony) studies Computer Science and English. A founding member of Duke’s premier slam poetry collective, Spoken Verb, and an executive member of Duke Students for a Democratic Society, he is dedicated to promoting the voice and narratives of his immigrant community, and combating structural erasure whenever it rears its ugly maw.
Delineation of our experiences within various API activist circles, focusing on encounters with morally bankrupt yet charismatic individuals who utilize structural power imbalances conspecific to Asian-American communities in order to justify dishonesty, manipulation, erasure, classist gaslighting, tacit sexual assault and other forms of both psychic and physical violence against our most vulnerable populations. Because of the inherently silencing nature of abuse and bullying, too often these individuals go unchecked until their predatory behaviors have obliterated their spaces from the inside out, and innocent parties are left to pick up the bloodied fragments. In certain unfortunate situations, some of these individuals have yet to be called out at all despite frequent and flagrant offenses of this kind.
After establishment of community norms, facilitators will present credentials in the forms of real world case study; namely, three selected examples from our experiences (with all personal information redacted). We will conclude with a discussion-oriented guided processing activity in which participants will first learn to identify the roots of these problematic behaviors and potential warning signs; following that, an introduction to rudimentary bystander intervention tactics as well as strategies that have proven fruitful in past mediations.
GINA CHEN:
Storytelling to Connect
Location: Hudson 222
Gina Chen is a T3 at Turner Broadcasting, Inc. in Atlanta, GA; she graduated from the University of Michigan in December 2012 with a degree in Communication Studies and a minor in Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies. At the University of Michigan, she was co-chair of the United Asian American Organizations and Programming Advisor to the 2013 Midwest Asian American Student Union Spring Conference planning team; she is now involved with TurnerAsia, NAAAP, NAPAWF, and OCA. Gina is a founder of the APA media blog, Modern Minority.
The workshop ‘Storytelling to Connect’ is a hands-on, step-by-step workshop in assisting participants in putting together narratives to connect across communities, creeds and conflicts. Students will assess themselves, their passions, and their personal backgrounds for significant moments or events; they will connect their histories to their values and interests, and utilize those connections to craft more articulate anecdotes. This is a tactical public speaking workshop, which will also involve each student practicing in front of a large group, assisted with various speaking tactics, scripts, and formulas.
WORKSHOP SESSION 3: 4:35 - 5:35PM
KRISTINA WONG:
Not so Awkward - Using Theater and Improv Games to Help your Group Dynamic and Start Convos about Tricky Things
Location: Hudson 222
Kristina Wong is a solo performer, writer and cultural commentator named “One of the Seven Funniest Eco-Comedians” by Mother Nature Network. Her most notable touring show– “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” looked at the high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American women and toured to over 40 venues since 2006. She’s been a commentator for American Public Media’s Marketplace, PBS, Jezebel, xoJane, Playgirl Magazine and a guest on FXX’s “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” and Huffington Post Live.
Kristina will present games that can be used as icebreakers, dialogue starters, cultural mapping tools and brainstorming methods to promote equity, cooperation and ease in a group setting. All experience levels welcome. Participants will leave with a list of games and exercises to bring back to their groups.
NATALIE NGUYEN:
What does it mean to be Asian American and LGBT?
Location: Hudson 218
Natalie Nguyễn has a master’s in educational leadership from University of North Florida (UNF) and currently works as the Assistant Director for NC State University’s GLBT Center. Natalie previously worked at UNF’s LGBT Resource Center and the Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network (JASMYN) with LGBTQ youth ages 13-23. Natalie also previously served on a national board for the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals as the People of Color co-chair, and also served as an HIV tester/counselor, HIV medical case manager, board member of grass roots non-profit organizations and community activist.
What does it mean to be Asian American and LGBT? Participants will learn the basics of what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer and the intersectionality of being Asian American. Participants are welcome to discuss their experiences of navigating their sexual and/or gender orientation in addition to addressing issues regarding culture, race, ethnicity, traditional gender roles and colorism.
FAITH & RACHEL VILLANUEVA:
You are what you eat: food culture and racial dynamics of eating “Asian”
Location: Hudson 232
Raised in St. Augustine, Florida, Faith Villanueva is passionate about representations of Asian Americans in pop culture, from television shows to food politics. As a Tsinoy-American, Faith is also interested in the intersectional narratives of marginalized identities within Asian America. Faith has been involved with TAASCon since 2011, and previously presented two workshops (one on food culture, and another on sex/sexuality) at the 2013 conference. Faith graduated from Duke University in 2012, and is currently a first-year medical student at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. In her free time, Faith enjoys picking locks, experimenting with new recipes, and playing JPRGs.
Rachel Villanueva is a college student from Saint Augustine, Florida who is interested in often overlooked—yet important—aspects of the Asian American narrative and how they affect the community as a whole. Currently, she is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University majoring in Regional Studies with a focus on Business and Culture in East Asia. Rachel is a member of the Programming Committee at Georgetown University’s Asian American Student Association and previously served on the executive board of the University of Miami’s Asian American Students Association as a Freshman Representative. She enjoys web/graphic design, video games, and food in her free time.
Despite our daily engagement with food, food culture and politics rarely make an appearance in Asian American discourse - but the truth is, every bite we take during every meal is comprised of layers of cultural transformations, identity politics, and colonial histories. These narratives manifest themselves today in our Asian American community as food shame, stereotype, exoticization, ostracization, and dehumanization. Because we interface with food daily in multiple mediums, food culture is an easily digestible topic, and thus its scope for empowering the Asian American activist within is wide and far-reaching; embracing the food we eat is a way for us to embrace our identities as Asian Americans, both as individuals and as a community.
RUSSELL LLANTINO, aka D-PRYDE:
workshop details TBA
Location: Hudson 125
"D-PRYDE—aka Russell Llantino— born in Canada and based in New York, the bespectacled 19-year-old Filipino transformed from a YouTube sensation into an intricate, infectious, and irresistible rap presence right in front of an audience of millions. To be exact, he has over 285,000 subscribers and 65 million-plus cumulative views, but who’s counting when you’re this fresh? Meanwhile, MTV dubbed him “An Artist to Watch”, while XXL nominated him for its esteemed 2013 Freshmen Class List. Now, he’s ready for the next chapter with his 2013 debut six-track EP, Canal & Richvale."
- from dprydemusic.com.
D-Pryde has over 200,000 Youtube subscribers and has toured the music scene with J-Cole. Come meet him and hear about his experiences in the rap game as an artist of Filipino descent! D-Pryde is here to answer any questions you may have and to discuss what it meant for him to achieve success in the entertainment industry as an Asian American.