ISSC Undergraduate and Graduate Research Symposium:

Social Change and Youth Engagement in Immigrant Communities:
Early Findings, Future Directions

Providing UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students with research training and opportunities to collaborate with faculty on groundbreaking research projects is central to the mission of the Institute for the Study of Social Change (ISSC). On May 8, ISSC will sponsor a symposium featuring outstanding undergraduate and graduate students involved in locally-based interdisciplinary research and community engagement. Students will offer presentations based on early findings or reflect upon their experiences with one of three ISSC projects:

The Immigrant Families' Civic and Political Engagement Project uses in-depth interviews with Bay Area residents to examine the mechanisms that encourage and shape civic and political engagement among Mexican, Chinese, and Vietnamese immigrant parents and their U.S.-born adolescent children.

The Youth Experiences of Neighborhood Change Project uses interviews with young adults who grew up in the San Antonio neighborhood of Oakland to explore the links between changes in neighborhood characteristics and youth outcomes, including education, health, and delinquency.

The University-Community Network Internship Program, part of ISSC's Center on Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention, is a year-long class for UC Berkeley undergraduates. The program provides students who are interested in community-based, participatory research with research training and internships at community-based organizations in Oakland. Students plan and conduct small-scale research projects on topics related to youth violence prevention, including restorative justice, dating violence, and youth leadership programs.

AGENDA:

8:30-9:00am Continental Breakfast

9:00-9:15am Welcome and Opening Remarks
Michael Omi, Interim Director, ISSC and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
Christina Maslach, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley

9:15-10:45am Panel 1: Understandings of Belonging: The Importance of Citizenship, Membership and Place For Mobilizing Immigrant Families, Immigrant Families’ Civic Engagement Project

Introduction and Project Overview:
Irene Bloemraad, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley
Christine Trost, Assistant Director, ISSC

Student Presenters:
Angela Fillingim & Heidy Sarabia
Lucia Kuang & Annie Lin

Commentator: Kelvin Quan, JD, MPH, Assistant Dean, Business and Administrative Services, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley

10:45-11:00am Coffee Break

11:00am-12:15pm Panel 2: Sites and Sources of Political Learning and Mobilization in Immigrant Communities, Immigrant Families’ Civic Engagement Project

Student Presenters:
Edwin Ackerman & Sam Quintanar
Kimberly Huang & Gordon Shen
Huan Jany Gao & Ivy Ngo

Commentator: Ivy Schlegel, High School Program Coordinator, Oakland Asian Students Educational Services (OASES)

12:15-1:30pm Lunch (provided)

1:30-3:00pm Panel 3: Youth Violence in a Changing Neighborhood: Family, Race, Gender and Policing in San Antonio, Oakland, Youth Experiences of Neighborhood Change Project

Introduction: Deborah Lustig, Training Coordinator, Center on Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention, ISSC

Student Presenters:
Morgan Elam
Shafinaaz Kamrul
Zachary Taylor
Sandra Yang
Mitzi Iniguez (poster presentation)

Commentator: Jonathan Simon, Professor of Law, Berkeley Law

3:00-3:30pm Break

3:30-4:45pm Panel 4: Understanding Youth Violence Prevention in Oakland: Diverse Perspectives, Practices, and Possibilities for Change,University-Community Network Internship Program

Introduction:
Emily Gleason, Instructor, University-Community Network Internship Program and PhD candidate, Graduate School of Education, UC Berkeley

Student Presenters:
Charmaine Chui (Internship organization: Ella Baker Center for Human Rights)
Daanika Gordon (Internship organization: Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth)
Emily Han (Internship organization: Family Violence Law Center)
Eva Holt-Rusmore (Internship organization: Youth ALIVE!)
Yolanda Tejeda (Internship organization: Sports4Kids)
Julisa Maldonado Vargas (Internship organization: Youth Together)

Commentator: Jose Arias, PhD Student, Graduate School of Education and ISSC Youth Violence Prevention Graduate Fellow, UC Berkeley

- Goldberg Room, Simon Hall, Berkeley Law School

Co-sponsored by the Center on Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention and the University-Community Network Program.

The Institute for the Study of Social Change cordially invites you to attend:

FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize Award Ceremony and Reception

Thursday, May 21, 2008
3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
The Lounge, Women's Faculty Club, UC Berkeley

We will honor Loan Dao, the 2009 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize winner, and Lynn Wu, who received honorable mention. The award ceremony will be followed by a catered reception.

If you plan to attend the event, please send an email to Dr. Christine Trost: ctrost@berkeley.edu.

For more information about this event, please contact ISSC: (510) 642-0813.

2009 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize - Winner: Loan Dao

Loan Dao is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1975, Loan and her family came to the U.S. as refugees from the American war in Vietnam. From an early age she was involved in creating social networks and locally-based organizations that provided sites of healing and support for Southeast Asian (SEA) communities. During college, Loan volunteered as the prisonerss liaison for the ACLU in Central Texas, documenting prison conditions, answering letters from inmates and bringing potential cases to lawyers' attention. After college, Loan worked as the Director of Huong Viet Community Center in Oakland, where she recruited local college students to mentor high school youth and assist in the development of research and programs. Now in graduate school, Loan's dissertation research looks at social movements among Southeast Asian youth challenging the detention and deportation of SEAs in the U.S. Between 2002-06 she used her academic expertise to help connect college, community, legal and policy organizations to form a multi-pronged response to the detention and deportation crisis affecting Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese refugee communities. She helped form the Southeast Asian Freedom Network, which was the first national network of organizations to specifically address post-9/11 detentions and deportation practices in the U.S., and she has assisted numerous SEA families facing deportation in her role as researcher, expert witness and legal advocate. In addition to her advocacy and scholarship on detention and deportation issues, Loan has been active in providing disaster relief to the large Vietnamese population affected by hurricane Katrina. She co-founded "VietBAK" (Vietnamese Bay Area Katrina relief group) and she has made frequent trips to the Gulf Coast to help with rebuilding and relief efforts, provide translation, and advocate for more resources for Vietnamese communities along the Gulf Coast. She recently completed co-producing a full-length documentary titled "A Village Called Versailles." Versailles, a community in eastern New Orleans, was first settled by Vietnamese refugees and later ravaged by hurricane Katrina. The film recounts the empowering story of how people who have already suffered so much in their lifetime, turn a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance for a better future.

2009 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize - Honorable Mention: Lynn Wu

Lynn Wu graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to teach at Elmhurst Middle School in the Oakland Unified School District, incorporating social justice and youth empowerment throughout her teaching instruction. While teaching, Lynn earned her M.A.T. from the Center for Teaching Excellence and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. There, she researched the correlation between youth involvement in school policy making and academic success. Currently, Lynn is a joint law and public policy student at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the founder IMPACT: A multidisciplinary journal addressing the issues of urban youth (www.ImpactUrbanYouth.org). She continues to work with the Oakland Unified School District mentoring her former students, coaching new teachers, and conducting legal research and policy analysis to explore innovative district reform initiatives. She was the Co-Director of Advocates for Youth Justice at Berkeley Law and formerly co-ran the Educational Advocacy Clinic, where she trained graduate students who were then appointed to advocate for the education rights of foster youth by the Alameda County juvenile court. She has taught at Juvenile Hall and has been an educational surrogate for foster children. Her main research and career interests lie in achieving education reform through multidisciplinary collaboration with a particular focus on meeting the educational needs of foster youth.

For more about the FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize and how you can nominate a candidate or contribute to the Prize, click here.