Call for Submissions - Hmong Studies Journal Volume 8 - May 30, 2007

The deadline for submissions for the next issue of the Hmong Studies Journal (Volume 8) is coming up. Please help us pass along the word to those who might be interested.

http://www.hmongstudies.com/HSJCFP2007volume8.html

Yours Sincerely,
Mark Pfeifer, Editor, Hmong Studies Journal

Conference CFP: South Korea's Education Exodus

CALL FOR PAPERS

SOUTH KOREA'S EDUCATION EXODUS (CHOGI YUHAK): RISKS, REALITIES, AND CHALLENGES
A Working Conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MARCH 28-29, 2008

The Asian American Studies Program and the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are pleased to announce an upcoming conference to take place on March 28-29, 2008 on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

South Korean "early study abroad" students - namely those young people who exit South Korea for study prior to college - are literally changing the face of Korean diasporic communities across the U.S. and other English-speaking nations. Early study abroad is a rapidly escalating market in South Korea: a $550 million industry in the first quarter of 2004, doubling the 2002 figures. Remarkably, a recent South Korean survey revealed that if given the opportunity, 1 out of 4 parents would like to emigrate for their children's education. The conference will ask large questions about South Korea's particular globalization embrace, cosmopolitan desires, and education system; and about the changing face and social reality of Korean America with the arrival of these new immigrants. In doing so, the conference will take up both the macro-level context and consequences and the U.S. realities of this growing "immigrant" population.

We invite graduate students and faculty with sustained and substantive research programs on this topic to submit an abstract.

PLEASE SUBMIT:
(1) A 1-page abstract of the proposed 25-35 page paper (Please note: The conference paper will be due by February 15, 2008)
(2) A short cover letter that indicates the status of the research outlined in the abstract (e.g., has the empirical research been completed? Is this paper part of a larger dissertation and/or book project?)
(3) A 1-2 paragraph biography: indicate institutional affiliations, research interests, publications (if relevant), and work in progress

Email submission (i.e., with attachments) is welcome to: Viveka Kudaligama, Assistant Director of the Asian American Studies Program (kudaliga@uiuc.edu). We also welcome print submission to: Asian American Studies Program, 1208 W. Nevada, Urbana, IL 61801.

Deadline: July 15, 2007

Scholars whose papers are accepted to present will receive travel funding (up to $400) as well as room and board to participate in the conference.

The papers presented and discussed at the conference will become the basis of an important edited volume. The volume will be of interest to those with interests in international education, immigration, globalization, and to the many K-16 American educators and social service workers whose lives have been personally touched by the considerable needs of this large population of South Korean children and split households.

For further information, please go to
www.aasp.uiuc. edu/EducationExodus/index.html or contact any member of
the conference organizing committee.

Conference Organizing Committee
Nancy Abelmann (nabelman@uiuc.edu)
Anthropology, Asian American Studies, East Asian Languages & Cultures
Soo Ah Kwon (sakwon@uiuc.edu)
Asian American Studies, Human and Community Development
Adrienne Lo (adrienlo@uiuc.edu)
Educational Psychology
Sumie Okazaki (okazaki@uiuc.edu)
Psychology

BACKGROUND AND CONFERENCE FOCUS
In recent years South Korean families have been sending their pre-college aged children abroad for education at remarkable rates, making for a veritable education exodus of the middle class. These so-called "early study abroad students" (chogi yuhaksaeng), many of whom come alone and others with one of their parents (most often their mothers), are a prominent demographic phenomena in Chicagoland, Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois. For example, some high schools in the northern suburbs of Chicago (with large concentrations of Korean immigrants generally) have a large number of these students in their ESL programs. In Urbana-Champaign, many academic families host or are parents to these students, making them the largest international population in private schools in the area. At the University of Illinois among the over 1000 Korean American undergraduates, over 200 of them are such students, having come alone or with a single parent in middle or high school. Further, university officers nationwide are baffled by what has been called the "drop and run" pattern of Korean visiting scholar and graduate student men who drop their families in the U.S. and run back (to jobs) in South Korea. Ubiquitous are so-called "geese families" (kirogi kajok) in which the father stays behind in South Korea to support his wife and children abroad. Not surprisingly, there are currently at least 6 in-progress dissertations at the University of Illinois alone on these children and families in the community.

This local reality is one replicated in every major U.S. city and university town. Early study abroad is a rapidly escalating market in South Korea: a $550 million industry in the first quarter of 2004, doubling the 2002 figures. Remarkably, a recent national survey revealed that "if given the opportunity, one out of four parents would like to emigrate for their children's education." Not surprisingly then, 80% of elementary students in South Korea are enrolled in some form of after-school private English education.

This "early study abroad" prompts a number of important questions:
* Why do the middle class citizens of an economically prosperous and democratic society desire and decide to support the education exodus of their children at such a remarkable rate?
* What can this teach us about new forms of and desires for global citizenship?
* What are the personal, familial, educational, and societal contours and costs of this sort of education exodus?
* What challenge does this exodus pose to the young people who are living this trend?
* How can American educators and service professionals best meet the needs of South Korea's early study abroad children?

Education emigration is not new; families have sought better opportunities for their children for a very long time. Nor is the early study abroad of the very rich new (e.g., Hong Kong's so-called parachute kids). Nor are split-household transnational families in which women or men migrate to support children back home new. What is remarkable in the South Korean case, however, is the widespread extent of middle class participation in this transnational strategy. While the phenomenon of "brain drain" has been studied with regard to the migration of the elite, when middle class families participate in this education emigration and family reorganization, the personal, marital, and familial costs are significant: middle and high school-aged children live in boarding houses, with relatives, or even alone; parents often become functionally and in some cases legally divorced; and families are taxed financially.

What drives this exodus? We suggest that this phenomenon reflects a complex confluence of a multitude of factors, namely: the mobility desires of a Korean middle class jockeying for global citizenship and the advantages it confers; the waning faith in the economic and social future of citizens whose lives remain "domestic"; the
rejection of South Korea's excellent but highly competitive schooling; and finally the global citizenship project of parents (foremost of the mothers who accompany their children abroad). Relevant to this exodus are: South Korea's aggressive globalization, a shared project of the state and citizenry, beginning in the 1990s
with the earliest democratic presidencies (democratic elections began in 1988); the faltering of the middle classes in the aftermath of the so-called IMF (or Asian Debt) Crisis in which South Korea became the largest IMF bail-out in history; and the aggressive neoliberalization of the South Korean economy in response to the IMF Crisis. All of this said, however, observers remain somewhat perplexed by the
extent, costs, and risks of this phenomenon.

This conference will take up the both the macro-level context and consequences and the U.S. realities of this growing "immigrant" population. The conference will both ask large questions about South Korea's particular globalization embrace, cosmopolitan desires, and education system; and about the changing face and social reality of Korean America with the arrival of these new immigrants. We argue that these are the critical contexts for burgeoning research on the lives and predicaments of the many split households in the United States, and of the many children here alone.

In addition to more conventional academic sessions, the conference will also host an Educational Practice and Policy session targeted to local and Chicago educators and service professionals whose institutions have been impacted by the considerable needs of this large population of South Korean children and split households.

BOOK CFP: Asian Americans and the New South

Call for Papers

Asian Americans and the New South (University of Georgia Press)

Edited by
Khyati Y. Joshi and Jigna Desai

Description
The American South has a rich and vibrant tapestry of longstanding Asian American communities as well as exponentially growing recent ones. In addition to the historical presence of Asian Americans for the last two centuries (e.g., Chinese Americans in Mississippi and Filipino Americans in New Orleans), geographically diverse areas including Atlanta, the Research Triangle (Chapel Hill, Raleigh -Durham), New Orleans, Orlando and Nashville, have also become sites of recent immigration and internal migration. In an attempt to recognize and reckon with these historical and emerging minority communities, scholarly fields are beginning to map these unique histories, new communities, and the South's changing racial formations. This interdisciplinary anthology seeks to bring together essays that touch upon a wide-ranging number of topics that reflect the breadth and depth of the Asian American presence in the South. Historical perspectives on Asian Americans in the South. Contributions will be sought for an anthology exploring the historical, political, cultural, social, and/or economic issues associated with Asian Americans in the South. We would be interested in manuscripts that examine any of the following:

* Historical Perspectives on Asian Americans in the American South
* AA Religious Communities
* Past and emerging AA racial formations
* The South as regional and transnational crossroads
* Interethnic and panethnic relations among Asian Americans
* Multiracial and interracial relations
* Katrina and its consequences
* Education
* Social movements in the South
* Labor, class and social organizing
* Internal migration or transnationalism
* Public health, illness and/or the body
* Gender & Sexuality
* Policies, politics, and/or politicians in Asian American communities
* The impact of organizing around current immigration policies
* Past and emerging AA racial formations
* Second and third generation identities

Timetable:
Abstracts Due: 06.01.07
Final Drafts Due: 11.15.07
Manuscript Length: 6000-8000 words

For more information contact:
Khyati Y. Joshi, Assistant Professor, School of Education, Fairleigh Dickinson University * khyati@fdu.edu
Jigna Desai, Associate Professor, Women's Studies & Director, Asian American Studies Program, University of Minnesota * desai003@umn.edu

Graduate Writing Fellows resource

UWP Introduces: Graduate Writing Fellows

All graduate students at UC Davis are invited to schedule an appointment with a peer-writing fellow, a graduate student who is trained to coach writing projects across the disciplines. Students are encouraged to make 30-minute to one-hour appointments at any stage of the writing process. Bring questions, doodles, or drafts.

At the beginning of the session, your fellow will ask questions about what you're working on so that the session will be driven by your goals and concerns.

You can work will your fellow on generating and focusing a topic, organizing and clarifying ideas, enhancing persuasiveness, adapting your style for a specific audience or publication, and overall strengthening
your writing skills. Your writing fellow will not edit your work for grammatical errors, but will help you to improve your writing style.

To make an appointment contact: writingfellows@ucdavis.edu

Call for Submissions: The Encyclopedia of Asian American Popular Culture

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ASIAN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE

The 2-volume, illustrated Encyclopedia of Asian American Popular Culture is scheduled to be published by Greenwood Press in 2008. Editor Felicia Campbell seeks writers for remaining unassigned entries.

Candidates must be willing to write entries totaling at least 2000 words. Preference will be given to college professors, published writers, and advanced graduate students, but others qualified to write about Asian American Popular Culture will be considered. Deadline for submissions is 8/31/07. The deadline is firm, so please do not respond to this call unless you are confident that you can complete one entry of 2000 words or a group of entries totaling that number by that date.

If you are interested in writing for this important reference, please send a short biographical sketch describing your background and interests in Asian American Popular Culture and your preferred e-mail and postal address to:

Encyclopedia Editor: felicia.campbell@unlv.edu

Qualified candidates will receive a listing of available entries. Contributors may also suggest entries not on the list. Prospective contributors will receive an assignment, contributors' guidelines, and sample entries by e-mail followed by a release form postal mailed from the publisher to be signed and returned. Completed entries are subject to the normal editing process required for quality publications and are accepted for publication at the discretion of the editor, advisory board, and publisher.

Conference: Vietnamese American Summit VANG 2007

Houston, TX
18 May 2007

http://www.vangusa.org/m_summit.php

Suchang Chan donates her collection to U. Minnesota

ANNOUNCING THE SUCHENG CHAN ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES COLLECTION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Historian and pioneering scholar Sucheng Chan is donating her formidable collection of Asian American Studies-related books and research materials to the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. Prof. Chan is author or editor of more than fourteen books, including Asian Americans, Hmong Means Free, Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America, Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, and
Survivors: Cambodian Refugees in the United States.

Prof. Chan will be visiting the University of Minnesota to give a public lecture titled, "Why Asian American Studies Matters," Thursday, April 26, 2007 from 5-7pm. A reception will follow.

DETAILS:
Thursday, April 26th, 5:00-7:00 pm
"Why Asian American Studies Matters"
Sucheng Chan, Professor Emeritus of Asian American Studies, UC Santa Barbara
University and community reception and book signing 120 Andersen Library

PLEASE RSVP FOR THE RECEPTION
To rsvp by email: ihrc@umn.edu
To rsvp by phone: 612-626-5928, Jan Logelin

The event will be held in the Andersen Library, on the West Bank of the U of M campus, near the law school. The sponsor is the Immigration History Research Center. Here is a link to directions and a map: http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/about/visiting.html