In this live webinar, Torin Jones (Stanford) will speak with Camilla Hawthorne (UC Santa Cruz) and Angelica Pesarini (NYU Florence) about the Black Lives Matter movement in Italy, focusing on ethnographic methods and ongoing questions related to the histories of Italian colonialism, immigration, and the Black Mediterranean.

ADMISSION: FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. RSVP: https://stanforduniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9FYoKW3Iu8RGq4l

Co-sponsored by The Center for Global Ethnography, the Department of Anthropology, and The Europe Center.

Webinar recording: https://youtu.be/ou4OpF-8j-g

Connie will speak about how the Chinese detention barracks on Angel Island were saved from demolition in the 1970s, opening the door to the hidden history of the immigration station. She will recount the experience of her grandmother, Mrs. Lee Yoke Suey, who was detained in the barracks for 15 and a half months starting in 1924 and how the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on her grandmother’s case.  

The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), which is a program of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, worked with graphic artist Rich Lee to publish Angel Island: The Chinese-American Experience. Its author, Jonas Edman, will share activities and materials from this graphic novel that tells the story of Chinese immigrants who were detained at Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay between 1910 and 1940.

This webinar is a joint collaboration between the Center for East Asian Studies and SPICE at Stanford University.

Featured Speakers:

Connie Young Yu

Connie Young Yu is a writer, activist and historian. She is the author of Chinatown, San Jose, USA, co-editor of Voices from the Railroad: Stories by Descendants of Chinese Railroad Workers, and has written for many exhibits and documentaries on Asian Americans. She was on the citizens committee (AIISHAC) that saved the Angel Island immigration barracks for historical preservation and was a founding member of Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI). Connie is board member emeritus of the Chinese Historical Society of America and historical advisor for the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project (CHCP).

Jonas Edman

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Jonas Edman is an Instructional Designer for the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE). In addition to writing curricula, Jonas coordinates SPICE’s National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA) professional development seminars on East Asia for middle school teachers, and teaches online courses for high school students. He also collaborates with Stanford Global Studies on the Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) Fellowship Program. Prior to joining SPICE in 2010, Jonas taught history and geography in Elk Grove, California, and taught “Theory of Knowledge” at Stockholm International School in Stockholm, Sweden.

Webinar recording: https://youtu.be/9eyHTMF2L7w

Upwards of 15,000 to 20,000 individual migrant Chinese laborers performed the bulk of the work constructing the Central Pacific span of the Transcontinental Railroad. Between 1864 and 1869, these Chinese also crossed the Pacific Ocean in what was then, and may still rank among the largest transnational labor migration movements. How do we find sources to uncover this forgotten and deliberately erased history? How did they live their daily lives? What kinds of enterprise did they innovate? How did their work on the railroad shape their lives in communities on both sides of the Pacific? We will look together at digital resources available at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/chineserailroad/cgi-bin/website/.

In 2018, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), which is a program of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, published four lessons on the Chinese Railroad Workers. These units adapt the research, primary sources, and insights of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project for high school students and classes. Together, we'll engage in several activities from these lessons which are free for download from the SPICE website.

This webinar is a joint collaboration between the Center for East Asian Studies and SPICE at Stanford University.

Featured Speakers:

Roland Hsu, Ph.D.

Dr. Roland Hsu

Roland Hsu is Director of Research for the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University. Hsu’s publications address migration and ethnic identity formation. His is the author of multiple essays in international scholarly collections, and in policy journals including Le Monde Diplomatique. Hsu’s most recent book is Migration and Integration. His writing focuses on the history of migration, and on contemporary immigration policy questions, combining humanistic and social science methods and materials to answer what displaces peoples, how do societies respond to migration, and what are the experiences of resettlement. Hsu earned his Ph.D. in Modern European History at the University of Chicago. He holds an M.A. in Art History from the University of Chicago, and a dual B.A. in Art History and also English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

Greg Francis

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Greg Francis is a Curriculum Consultant for SPICE. Previously, he was Director of Impact Programs for Net Impact. In that role, he led a team that designed and executed experiential learning programs for college students. Before that, Greg was a director for The Broad Superintendents Academy, where he oversaw an executive training program for leaders of urban school districts. With SPICE, Greg has authored or co-authored 10 curriculum units, including Along the Silk Road; Security, Civil Liberties, and Terrorism; International Environmental Politics; and China’s Cultural Revolution. In 2007, Greg received the Franklin Buchanan Prize, which is awarded annually by the Association for Asian Studies to honor an outstanding curriculum publication on Asia at any educational level. Greg received a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University and M.A. in Latin American Studies from the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador.

Webinar recording: https://youtu.be/FLKbADCk1o8

During multiple periods of economic crises, the U.S. economy has depended on Mexican labor. From World War II to the present, agricultural workers have been deemed essential to harvest our fruits and vegetables across the United States.

The Bracero Program began during World War II during a massive labor shortage due to the war and internment of Japanese Americans. It was the largest guest worker program agreement in United States history. Over 4.5 million contracts were awarded to young male Mexican immigrants from 1942 to 1964 to work in the railroad and agriculture industries.

Moreover, during the current health pandemic, agricultural workers have been categorized as “essential workers” by the federal government. Yet, many workers lack legal status to work in the United States.

Dr. Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez has conducted extensive research and oral histories with former Braceros. In this seminar, he will discuss significant topics in Mexican American history, including the history of the Bracero Program, agricultural history in California, and the current H2-A Guest Worker Program. The webinar will broaden educators’ understanding of Mexican and Mexican American history and help to prepare them to provide instruction that is culturally inclusive.

This webinar is a joint collaboration between the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University and SPICE.

Featured Speaker:

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Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez, Ph.D.

Ornelas is a historian, and currently a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. His work and research focuses on California history, and in particular, Chicano history and Chicano/Latino studies and Latino politics. Much of his work has focused on archival research that documents Mexican and Mexican American history. The history of Mexican labor in the United States necessarily includes the study of civil and voting rights and the generations of Mexicans who advocated for those rights. Ornelas is currently rewriting for publication his dissertation, titled The Struggle for Social Justice in the Monterey Bay Area 1930-2000: The Transformation of Mexican and Mexican American Political Activism. Dr. Ornelas Rodriguez currently serves on the board of directors of the California Institute for Rural Studies. His areas of expertise include U.S. and California History, Political Science, and Latino Politics.

The 2017 iteration of the Festival de Marseille, with its dual sub-themes of “Focus Afrique” and “Focus Marseilles”, produced a space of being-in-common in response to the divided political climate of France. It encouraged a rethinking of citizenship and nationhood in terms of an inoperative community, rather than a center-periphery dualism.  For three weeks, the festival's performers danced, acted, and embodied their identities as a reminder that (the identity of social) space is constantly re-produced and re-inscribed with new meaning. Stemming from a larger ethnographic study that investigates the political potential of the festival as an intervention into fraught immigration policies of integration particular to France, this essay reimagines the Festival de Marseille—danse et arts multiples 2017 as a successful production of space for rehearsing an inoperative community in Europe’s most diverse city, as it contextualizes place, body, event, and the commons at the site of the festival. Located at the periphery of Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa, Marseille lives as a city on the edge, a geographic point that decenters the border of French national identity. Yet through its temporary occupation of the city, the festival crossed spatial, aesthetic, and thematic divisions of the center and periphery through its installation.
 
Anna Jayne Kimmel is a second year PhD student in Performance Studies pursuing a minor in Anthropology and graduate certificate in African Studies, with an emphasis in dance, memory, and public performance as politics. Her current research intersects: race, national identity, and post-colonialism through performance. As a dancer, Kimmel has performed the works of: Ohad Naharin, Trisha Brown, John Jaspers, Francesca Harper, Rebecca Lazier, Olivier Tarpaga, Marjani Forte, Susan Marshall, Loni Landon, and Christopher Ralph, amongst others. She holds an AB from Princeton University in French Studies with certificates in African Studies and Dance, and serves on the Future Advisory Board to Performance Studies international.