Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Opening Reception, with special guest Popo Fan

To kick off the month-long celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the Asian Culture Center and the Mathers Museum of World Cultures are co-sponsoring a reception featuring a special showcase of works of IU students, staff, and faculty. Paintings, books, and digital art are just some of the work we’ll be recognizing.

Special guest Popo Fan will help us learn more about his work as a film director and LGTBQ advocate as we begin to explore the theme of this year’s belonging. Popo Fan is a queer independent filmmaker and curator. Born in 1985, he graduated from the Beijing Film Academy. His documentary works mostly focus on LGBT and gender issues. In 2007, he published Happy Together: Complete Record of a Hundred Queer Films. He also directs the China Queer Film Festival Tour, which has travelled to over 20 major cities in China since 2008. In 2015, he successfully sued the Chinese government for banning his film Mama Rainbow online, the first case of its kind.

Asia Night

Come learn and appreciate the diversity within Asian cultures through cultural performances. This event is free and unticketed. Doors will open at 6:30, the event is expected to last 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Asian American Association Conference, featuring keynote speaker Renee Tajima-Peña

The Indiana Asian American Conference (IAAC) is an inter-university conference established and held at Indiana University Bloomington. It was started in 2015 and takes place in April, which is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The overall purpose of this conference is to learn about and discuss different aspects of AAPI cultures and identities, among many other aspects of AAPI life. Following last year's conference "Taking Root," the theme for this year is "Full Bloom.” The 2017 IAAC will focus on approaching AAPI topics from success in representation in Asian Americans in the Media, celebrating the Asian American experience, breaking stereotypes, how your heritage changed or assimilated with American culture.

Renee Tajima-Peña is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker whose credits include Who Killed Vincent Chin?, MY AMERICA...or Honk if You Love Buddha, The New Americans: Mexico Story, Calavera Highway, and her newest film, No Más Bebés. Her films have screened at the Cannes, Hong Kong, New Directors/New Films, SXSW, Sundance and Toronto film festivals and the Whitney Biennial and she has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, USA Broad Fellowship, Alpert Award in the Arts for Film/Video, a Peabody and a Dupont-Columbia Award.

Tajima-Peña teaches social documentary at UCLA, where she is a professor of Asian American Studies, the director of the Center for EthnoCommunications and holds an endowed chair in Japanese American Studies. She is the inaugural Filmmaker-in-Residence of the International Documentary Association and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

For further details, visit the IAAC website here: http://www.indiana.edu/~aaa/conference

Filipino Culture Night, "A Home Away From Home"

Join the Filipino American Association for our third annual FCN, "A Home Away from Home." Expect an evening full of food, fun, and performances!

Details on Facebook.

AAPIHM Film Series, “Spa Night” with director Andrew Ahn, in collaboration with the IU Cinema and the Asian American Studies Program

This year’s featured artist for the Emerging Asian/Pacific American Voices spotlight is director Andrew Ahn. Set in Los Angeles’s underground world of Korean spa gay hookups, Spa Night tells of a young man who works to reconcile his obligations to his struggling immigrant family with his burgeoning sexual desires. Spa Night debuted at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category. Preceding the feature film are two of Ahn’s short films, Andy (2010, 6 min.) and Dol (First Birthday) (2011, 11min.). In Korean and English with English subtitles. For more information, see http://www.cinema.indiana.edu/?post_type=series&p=6151.

First Thursdays, in collaboration with the IU Arts and Humanities Council

Come visit the ACC’s tent during the First Thursdays Festival to learn about Asian American and Pacific Islander history and cultures. We will have several interactive games, answers to your frequently asked questions about AAPIs, and giveaways!

Together We Rise

What connects us to our communities? How do we see ourselves in others? In collaboration with the Community & Leadership Development Center (CLDC), the ACC would like to invite you to a workshop focused on building community between students of color. This session will include activities that reveal our overlapping goals and causes, and the value and strength of our collective networks to support one another.

Biographical Talk and Dinner with Contemporary Artist Chee Wang Ng, in collaboration with the Eskenazi Musuem of Art, the Hutton Honors College, and the Office of International Services

We invite you to chat with contemporary artist Chee Wang Ng about his background and career over an early dinner. Explore topics such as getting started with an art career, how art can move an artist from one continent to another, belonging (or not), immigration, identity, diaspora, and more. This is an informal conversation, designed for students but open to the public. This program is made possible through a collaboration with Eskenazi Museum of Art, Hutton Honors College, and the Office of International Services.

Ng makes his solo museum debut at the Eskenazi Museum of Art this Spring with A Step in Time Across the Line: Recent Work by Chee Wang Ng, which explores the modern immigrant experience and diaspora identity. The exhibition opens March 11-May 7.

GAPURA, hosted by Permias, the Indonesian Student Association

Join the Indonesian Student Association as they host their main, annual event celebrating their culture. They will present various traditional dances and music, a range of local arts, and assorted signature dishes. This event is free and open to all.

AAPIHM Film Series, "Painted Nails"

The American dream crumbles when Van Hoang, a shy nail salon worker, discovers that her health problems—including two miscarriages—are the result of toxic chemicals in the products used in her San Francisco salon. She courageously becomes involved in the fight for safe cosmetics. Painted Nails glimpses the bustling world of Vietnamese-run nail salons and the troubling costs of this “affordable luxury” exceedingly common among American women today. For more information, see: http://www.cinema.indiana.edu/?post_type=series&p=6151.

WFHB Celebrates AAPI Heritage Month

As part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, listen in to WFHB for special music features, including works by Asian American artists, guest DJs, and interviews with a focus on the contributions of AAPIS in the community.

End of Year Banquet

The Student Recognition Banquet is an annual celebration held to recognize graduating students as new IU alumni and to recognize the Asian and Asian American student leaders at IU for their contributions to the university. This is also an occasion to recognize and appreciate the volunteers of the ACC. By invitation only. Please RSVP at acc@iu.edu.

Expanding Visions: Asian American Studies Research at Indiana University

Our annual Asian American Studies Research Symposium highlights undergraduate and graduate interdisciplinary research at IU, related to to Asian Pacific Americans , Asian American Studies, and the Asian Diaspora.

Kelvin Burzon Thesis Exhibition: Noli Me Tangere

Kelvin Burzon is a Filipino artist currently in the final year of his MFA studies at Indiana University's School of Art + Design. His thesis work investigates an existential inquiry of living as a Catholic Homosexual. It is informed by the imagery, theatrics and opulent rituals experienced while growing up engulfed in a Filipino Roman Catholic culture. This series of photographs merge essential yet contrasting sides of the artist’s identity and allows an engagement in a nostalgic and playful practice. Utilizing borrowed religious imagery and language; the work is recontextualized by the insertion of LGBTQ members, friends and family posing as Catholic deities.

WFHB Celebrates AAPI Heritage Month

As part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, listen in to WFHB for special music features, including works by Asian American artists, guest DJs, and interviews with a focus on the contributions of AAPIS in the community.

Asian American Studies End-of-the-Year Party

Come join us at our end of the year party where we will be celebrating the accomplishments of our students, 2016-17 award winners, and faculty! The celebration will include book launch and readings from AAST faculty, Dr. Vivian Halloran and Dr. Karen Inouye. Refreshments included.