Happy Friday! 

Contract renewals, promotion and tenure (P&T) are important milestones of faculty advancement.  AAAFSC can provide peer support in this process! 

If you will be submitting your dossier in the Fall and want feedback from a senior colleague outside of your department,  please complete this peer review interest form by 5/20. 

Senior faculty members of AAAFSC, if you are interested in serving as reviewers please also complete this peer review interest form by 5/20. 

Please reach out to Shuyan (suns@umbc.edu) if you have any questions.

Please join the UMD Center for Global Migration Studies in a discussion of Willow Lung-Amam’s The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge (UC Press 2024). Tanya Golash-Boza (University of California, Washington DC program) will provide comments.

Hybrid Book Talk! The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge (UC Press 2024).

In this talk, Dr. Lung Amam will discuss her new book, The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge. The book investigates how marginalized communities, including African American, Asian American, and Latinx immigrants in the suburbs of Washington, DC—one of the most intensely gentrifying metropolitan regions in the United States—have battled the uneven costs and benefits of redevelopment. Revealing the far-reaching impacts of state-led redevelopment, The Right to Suburbia shows how patterns of unequal, racialized development and displacement are being produced and reproduced in suburbs—and how communities are fighting back.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 15, 2026
4:00 - 5:30pm

WHERE: Taliaferro Hall, 2110 (The Berlin Room) or over Zoom.

REGISTER: go.umd.edu/cgmssuburbia

Join us on Monday, May 4 for a celebration of the many accomplishments of the Global Asias Initiative here at UMBC! The Global Asias Initiative, a three-year initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation, has created a forum for engaging in conversations in the fields of Asian American Studies, Asian diaspora studies, and Asian Studies and has strengthened support for Asian and Asian American students on campus. The Initiative has has created connections across disciplines, institutions, organizations, and communities here on campus and beyond. 

Full information is available on the event website and through the myUMBC event posts linked below. 

*Please RSVP for each event using the myUMBC links below*

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Schedule of Events

11:00am-12:30pm
Welcome & Belonging and Community Luncheon: Conversations on Asian experiences at UMBC
Fine Arts 011

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1:00pm-2:15pm
Public Humanities and Global Asias 
Keynote Address with Dr. Anna Guevarra
Fine Arts Recital Hall (Room 118)

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3:00-4:30pm
Global Asias in Dialogue Roundtable
Performing Arts & Humanities Building (PAHB) Room 216

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5:00-6:30pm
Global Asias Student Showcase & Reception
Location: AOK Library Gallery

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Thank you to our partners the Asian Studies Program, Mosaic: The Center for Cultural Diversity, Residential Life, McNair Scholars Program, and the Baltimore chapter of National Association of Asian American Professionals for support organizing this celebration.

Please contact Global Asias Project Manager, Priya Bhayana at priyab@umbc.edu for more information.

Poster Design by Tyra Bounxouaysana ’26, commonvision UMBC Student Design and Print Center

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These events are open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.

Program: 6-week Parent-Child Connect parenting workshops for Asian American parents

Speaker: Cixin Wang, Ph.D., Associate Professor in School Psychology at University of Maryland, College Park

Time: Sundays 7-8:45 p.m. from  4/26-6/7

Description: Please Join our supportive 6-week Parent & Child Connect Workshop, designed specifically forAsian American parents who are navigating the challenges of raising school-aged children (PreK-12). Through evidence-based parenting strategies, supportive discussion, and roleplays, this program helps families strengthen family bonds, improve communication, and
nurture their children's growth, confidence, and emotional well-being. 

Registration link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSegtO0oorB1lkYgT4kbfaL7JmptDQdBmiAk7RZwF6Xou-bNBQ/viewform?usp=header

We are also offering 6-week youth SEL program for elementary and middle school students. Please see the flyers attached. Registration link for youth SEL class: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSci2XrosjJDdh2VdsY-4Mszvmdknp9KBSWQoTWSj2fMcsQ9WQ/viewform?usp=header

**Please note the room has changed to Fine Arts 118**

 Please join us for the Newbery Award Honor Author Andrea Wang's talk at UMBC on April 15, sponsored by the Department of Education and the Global Asias Initiative. 

Link to the event: https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/asianstudiesprogram/events/153250

Join us to celebrate Professor Sharon Tran's new book, Asian Girlhood in the Shadows of US Empire! We are excited to gather on Wednesday, 4/29 at noon in FA 558 to talk about this new book and enjoy some refreshments together.

Book Raffle:

Asian Studies will be giving away a copy of Dr. Tran's book to one affiliate faculty member and one student at the celebration. 

Book Summary:

Representations of the “Asian girl” as lucky objects of humanitarian rescue and rehabilitation have been used to advance America’s imperial ambitions from World War II to the wars in Korean and Viet Nam. In this compelling work, Sharon N. Tran traces the production and instrumentalization of this figure through an examination of state documents, military newspapers, documentary photographs, and other archival materials. Theorizing “Asian girlhood” as a technology of imperial power, Tran exposes how the Asian girl is invoked as a shield that protects the innocence of US empire while she is excluded from innocence herself—relegated instead to a precarious position between child and adult, human and nonhuman, plaything and laborer.

Offering fresh insight into how imperial power operates, Tran analyzes figures such as the Japanese American school-girl in the context of World War II incarceration, the elusive “camptown girl,” and the objectified image of the “Napalm Girl.” Her innovative feminist approach interrogates the tendency to reclaim innocence for the Asian girl or to reframe her as an empowered woman. She engages the work of writers and artists such as Kiku Hughes, Nora Okja Keller, Aimee Phan, and lê thi diem thúy to demonstrate how Asian American literature offers rich theoretical interventions for critiquing the child–adult dichotomy that underpins key structures of imperial domination, illuminating more capacious conceptions of girlhood.

Restoring the dignity and agency of a figure too often denied both, Asian Girlhood in the Shadows of US Empire is a groundbreaking intersectional contribution to studies of gender, race, childhood, and state power.

This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.

ADVANCE and Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) is hosting an ADVANCE Distinguished Speaker event:

🗓 Thursday, April 16
🕓 4:30–5:30 PM
📍 UC 312

Dean Jeanne M. van Briesen, Dean of COEIT, will present “Confluences in Life and Research.”

This is a wonderful opportunity to hear from and connect with the new Dean of COEIT. We encourage our members to attend and to share this event within your networks.

Please see the attached flyer for additional details.

The UMBC Institute of Politics invites you to the event honoring Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This event is part of their Politics Everywhere series.

Politics Everywhere: Understanding the AAPI Vote examines the growing influence of Asian American voters and what drives their political engagement.

Location: Skylight Room, The Commons
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Time: 6:45 pm to 8:30 pm

The event features a reception with (free!) food and drinks from different Asian cultures.

Lt. Governor Aruna Miller, the first Asian American to serve in statewide office in Maryland, will deliver a keynote address. The event also includes a moderated panel discussion with Asian American leaders in Maryland.

The event is free, but space is limited, and an RSVP is required.  

Click here for more details about the event and to RSVP. 

********** Hot breakfast buffet was ordered for this meeting. please RSVP by 4/9. Thank you! **********

Note: This meeting is being scheduled by the Provost's Office and open to AAAFSC members only. 

Provost Engagement & Connection MeetingWhen: Thursday, 4/16 from 10:30am-11:30pm
Where: ITE 456
Limited seating.  Please RSVP by Thursday, April 9, 2026 via this Google Form and mark your calendar.  Thank you! 

We are delighted to announce the Community Builder Award, the first-ever award created to recognize outstanding members of AAAFSC .

Over the past four years, AAAFSC has experienced tremendous growth, reflected in a significant increase in membership and strong engagement across the community - especially among junior members. Today, we are proud to be one of the strongest affinity groups on campus. This success would not have been possible without the members who consistently contribute their time, ideas, and energy to support one another and strengthen our community.

The Community Builder Award was established to honor and celebrate individuals who exemplify our core values of peer support, informal mentoring, and community building. 

Based on their exceptional engagement and contributions, the AAAFSC leadership team is pleased to recognize the following inaugural recipients:

• Lili Cui,  Physics
• Tejas Gokhale,  Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• Yi Huang,  Mathematics and Statistics
• Riadul Islam,  Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• Prasanna Joeg,  Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• Dong Li,  Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• Weihong Lin,  Biology
• Neha Raikar,  Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
• Mario Sto. Domingo,  The Meyerhoff Scholars Program
• Rowena Winkler, Career Center
• Fan Yang,  Media and Communication Studies
• Kyung-Eun Yoon, Modern Languages, Linguistics and Intercultural Communication
• Lira Yoon,  Psychology
• Lei Zhang,  Information Systems

Congratulations to all of our recipients on this well-deserved recognition! 

We are also planning an end-of-year celebration in May. Stay tuned for more details.