UMass Boston Asian American Studies Program

Paul Watanabe, director of the UMass Boston Institute for Asian American Studies and political science professor, anchored the initiative. A survey like this could have great implications for a demographic that’s often been treated as a monolith, advocates say. Without detailed data, elected officials often overlook AAPI voters as a key voting bloc, and policy recommendations that properly address the diaspora’s specific needs are difficult to make... The survey provides key insights into the growing AAPI community, which constitutes 8 percent of the state’s population, according to the most recent census data. It collected info from at least 1,400 respondents in March... AAPI residents polled also reported widespread racism and an overall lack of belonging. Roughly one in four said they experienced discrimination, one in five were called racist slurs, and 14 percent suffered verbal abuse in the past year. These trends are echoed on the national level. A separate report released Monday by Stop AAPI Hate on the state of anti-Asian racism in 2024 found that more than half of respondents experienced a hate-based act last year. For the Massachusetts survey, only 39 percent of respondents said they strongly agreed that they belonged in America — a sentiment that Danielle Kim, executive director of the Boston Foundation’s Asian Community Fund found shocking, but affirming nonetheless. “Even though AAPI residents have been in this country for many generations, so many in our community still don’t feel like we’re seen, visible, or celebrated,” Kim said. “This report is a call to action.”

‘No longer invisible’: Mass. AAPI survey debunks myths, captures diversity of state’s fastest-growing group - The Boston Globe A survey coordinated by a mix of stakeholders offers what could be some of the first disaggregated data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Massachusetts.

much love to jennifer nguyen and kids/grandchildren who have attended UMB including those who took AsAmSt courses. legendary legacy here:

If grit and determination could be found in a sandwich, it would be discovered inside every Banh Mi sandwich at Ba Le Restaurant on Dorchester Avenue. The shop, led successfully for almost 30 years now by Jennifer Nguyen, 64, has been staunchly traditional, and will remain that way as her youngest daughter, Baotran Le, and son-in-law, Hung Duong, take over more of the day-to-day operations during this year. On Tuesday, Ba Le was cited as one of the city’s 2025 Legacy Business Award winners – joining Dot favorites the Ice Creamsmith and Greenhills Irish Bakery among the 30 citywide winners...Nguyen is a Vietnamese War refugee who escaped on a boat in the 1980s while undertaking unthinkable measures to keep herself and her brother alive during the awful journey to, first, a camp in Hong Kong, and then to America “with no money at all and no English at all,” said Le. What Nguyen did have was a drive to succeed that was unstoppable. After working in fish cleaning factories, and starting and failing with four businesses, she quit a waitressing job to join her sister, who had opened Ba Le at a stall in Chinatown. Soon after, they expanded to the signature Ba Le Dorchester at 1052 Dorchester Ave., where Nguyen took full control in 1996...

She’s the Queen of Banh Mi on Dorchester Ave: Jennifer Nguyen’s Ba Le is hailed as ‘Legacy’ business | Dorchester Reporter If grit and determination could be found in a sandwich, it would be discovered inside every Banh Mi sandwich at Ba Le Restaurant on Dorchester Avenue. The shop, led successfully for almost 30 years now by Jennifer Nguyen, 64, has been staunchly traditional, and will remain that way as her youngest d...

AsAmSt Professor and Program Director, Peter Kiang, comments in the Sampan on historic legacies of Wong Kim Ark, Japanese American WWII redress and reparations, and Lau v. Nichols bilingual education victories:

“The remarkable, collective, intergenerational efforts by Japanese Americans to eventually win redress and reparations and a public apology from the U.S. government for the incarceration almost 50 years later are also so important to teach and learn, to really understand and internalize,” noted Kiang. Kiang also stressed a less well-known case in history: that of nine-year old Kinney Lau and his immigrant family and peers from San Francisco. They had argued that the San Francisco Unified School Board denied equal educational opportunity rights for students with limited English proficiency during the early1970s. “Based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled unanimously in 1973-74 that educational access to learning must be provided to all limited-English proficient students. Like Wong Kim Ark’s landmark case regarding citizenship rights, Kinney Lau’s historic case established the national basis for K-12 bilingual education in the U.S. which has created such profound, far-reaching opportunities for all populations during the past 50 years, not just Chinese immigrant families.” But, said Kiang, a new presidential executive order issued on March 1 designating English as the official language of the U.S. “will undoubtedly be used to systematically undermine multilingual access to government services and resources, including bilingual education in U.S. school districts, nearly all of which receive federal funds. Asian American families and communities as well as the general public in the U.S. need to much more clearly recognize the examples of Kinney Lau and Wong Kim Ark and many others as civil rights contributions through courage, advocacy, and long-term organizing that benefited all of U.S. society.”

How Asian Americans Fought Key Battles for Immigrant & Civil Rights - Sampan Tens of millions of immigrants in the U.S. are now, as long promised, in the sights of the administration of Pres. Donald Trump, who is carrying out his threats of mass deportations. The administration is also using various executive orders in attempts to boot certain visa holders from the U.S. and....

rip bob suzuki, a true pioneer and visionary who changed the course of history for Asian American Studies and Asian American educational leadership during his 10 years at UMass Amherst and through his long career in California higher education.

In Tribute to Dr. “Bob” Suzuki – APAHE In Tribute to Dr. “Bob” Suzuki May 23, 2024 On May 1, 2024, we lost a great Asian American higher education leader, activist and agent of change. Dr. “Bob” Suzuki passed away surrounded by his wife Agnes Suzuki, their children and grandchildren. Bob was an early pioneer in fighting for civil...