The Asian American studies program held a reception ceremony at the 2025 Association for Asian American Studies Annual Conference where they welcomed conference attendees to Boston and discussed their missions and work.
According to their website, the AAAS conference is an annual event where scholars working in Asian American and Pacific Islander studies discuss their research and developments within the field. UMass Boston’s reception took place on April 17, the first day of the conference, which took place at the Westin Seaport Hotel in Boston.
UMass Boston staff, faculty, alumni and students gathered to represent the program. The reception began with UMass Boston’s Asian American studies Director, Peter Kiang, introducing the established Asian American studies program at UMass Boston. Kiang talked about the mission of UMass Boston’s Asian American studies program and their unique and local approach to the field.
“Our majority working class, first generation of color, commuters: their profiles reflect the context and histories of Metro Boston. The deep knowledge, critical skills and valued relationships that our students and alumni develop through Asian American studies sustain the long-term capacities of their families and our local communities,” Kiang said.
UMass Boston Asian American studies professor and alumni Kim Soun Ty, who teaches a class on Cambodian American Culture and Community, announced that she has been working alongside UMass Boston alumni and Lynn Public Schools teacher Bobby Pres to help integrate Cambodian genocide education into Lynn’s school curriculum. Lynn, Massachusetts has the third largest Cambodian population in the United States, according to the Boston Herald. The day of the reception marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cambodian genocide.
Next to speak was Asian American studies professor and alumni Linh Phương Vũ, who teaches an advanced-level Asian American studies internship course. Students have been helping with a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, which took place April 26 from 3 to 7 p.m. at Boston College High School.
“Together with community artist Ngoc-Tran Vu, I co-lead the 1975 Vietnamese diaspora commemoration initiative, which is a multi-year project dedicated to collecting and preserving local Vietnamese community stories and constructing a public memorial that will be dedicated as part of the Boston-Little Saigon Cultural District,” Vũ said.
“My return to UMass Boston has been a homecoming in many ways,” said Asian American studies professor and alumni Sơn Ca Lâm, who returned to UMass Boston to teach in the Fall 2024 semester. “It’s a chance that not a lot of people get to continue building the communities that made me who I am by sustaining the AANAPISI pathways for generations to come for both undergraduate and PhD students like Kim and Linh here, while also being able to directly serve the local Dorchester community for which I come by serving on the 1975 Project Committee.”
Lâm currently co-teaches a new Filipino American studies course with professor Pratna Kem, who was also present for the reception as a representative. Lâm will also teach a class on food and Boston’s Asian American communities in the upcoming fall semester. Several other professors spoke about the classes they were teaching. Political science professor Paul Watanabe, who played a major role in developing the Institute for Asian American studies in 1993, spoke about his history with UMass Boston. Watanabe described the institute, alongside the Asian American studies program and Asian American Resource Office, as the three legs of the stool that make up the Asian American studies projects at UMass Boston. Watanabe spent this semester teaching a class about the internment of Japanese Americans, where the students took a trip to Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp, and Little Tokyo in California.
“Our class just returned from one of these visits a while ago. We were there with students and friends, people who have come to this pilgrimage of their own to Manzanar, who come and are part of the course and take it before and on their own, and want to go with this once again. It’s been gratifying to see that work take place,” Watanabe said.
The reception closed out with a video compilation highlighting work from the Asian American studies representatives, inside the classroom and out, with a primary focus on projects that came from Asian American studies professor Shirley Tang’s Digital Storytelling class.
Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article omitted the first name of professor Shirley Tang.
