News Details
Dr. Eri Kitada (PhD, History) has just successfully defended her Dissertation, “Intimately Intertwined: Filipino Women in the U.S.-Japanese Imperial Formations, 1903-1956” at the SAS Department of History. [Committee Members: Chie Ikeya and Jennifer Mittelstadt (co-chairs), Kornel Chang, and Eiichiro Azuma (University of Pennsylvania)]
The Global Asias community celebrates Dr. Eri Kitada for this joyous achievement. We thank Dr. Kitada not only for her groundbreaking scholarship and archive-making, but also her years of tireless work in community and bridge-building with the Cold War Asias Working Group in Global Asias, across Rutgers, and across the Pacific with Japanese-Filipino communities in Davao, Philippines as well as NGOs in Manila, Philippines, the U.S., and Japan.
“Global Asias, ways to build sustainable intellectual community and locally grounded social spaces”
Last year’s highly successful zoom film discussion and screening of the documentary “Abandoned: Japanese War Orphans in the Philippines and China was heralded in the newsletter of the Philippine Nikkeijin Legal Support Center, a Tokyo- and Manila-based non-profit organization. The event was organized by Eri Kitada (PhD Candidate in History) and the Cold War Asias Graduate Working Group and co-sponsored by Rutgers Global Asias, Rutgers Association of Philippine Students, and the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis.
Online Film Showing of the movie, “Abandoned”
by Ms. Eri Kitada
I am pursuing my doctoral degree in History at Rutgers University New Jersey, the United States. My research focuses on Philippine Nikkeijin.
Recently, I have been working for promoting the documentary film “Abandoned: Japanese War Orphans in the Philippines and China” which was produced by Atty. Hiroyuki Kawai and directed by Mr. Hiroyasu Obara in 2020.
On April 5, I was able to organize a zoom film discussion panel at Rutgers University by collaborating with Mr. Obara, Mr. Norihiro Inomata, the Secretary-General of the PNLSC, and representatives from two Rutgers undergraduate students’ organizations, Rutgers Association of Philippine Students and Japanese Student Association. Professional translator Ms. Jun Amanda Katsurada helped our dialogue and exchanges of ideas by providing simultaneous translation, and the number of participants reached about 50 in total. We discussed Japanese diaspora and displacement, colonialism, the memories of World War II, and the citizenship issues that Philippine Nikkeijin have been facing. The audience, especially students, asked stimulating questions, and many shared that they did not know the relations between the Philippines and Japan, the history of Philippine Nikkeijin, and their ongoing citizenship challenges.
In addition to this Rutgers event, I have organized other film events related to “Abandoned” both in Japan and overseas. On March 25, the film was screened at the AAS (Association for Asian Studies) Film Expo in Honolulu, Hawaii. On April 12, the film was also shown at the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. Like the audience at Rutgers, the audience at the AAS and University of Illinois positively received the film. Interestingly, at both venues, the audience asked about the racial discrimination and other difficulties that Philippine Nikkeijin and other Filipinos working in Japan today are experiencing.
I would love to keep doing my best to publicize the film and the situation of Philippine Nikkeijin communities.
Historic addition to curriculum reflects ongoing racial reckoning
Written by John Chadwick | SAS Senior Writer
Jillian Cuzzolino knew the time was right to push for change at Rutgers University.
It was spring semester 2021, one year into the Covid-19 pandemic and a time when attacks against Asian Americans were surging nationwide.
Cuzzolino, a School of Arts and Sciences student and a leader in the Rutgers Asian Student Council, began laying the groundwork for a program she had long envisioned for Rutgers: a minor in Asian American studies.
“So many things were becoming salient to everyone, including the urgent need for political empowerment and personal understanding,” says Cuzzolino, a senior majoring in political science. “The minor was our way of taking back our narrative and channeling our energy into something positive, productive, and long-term.”
Asian American students at other schools felt the same way, especially during a time of racial reckoning informed by the Black Lives Matter movement. Dartmouth University students circulated a petition and called on the school’s leadership to increase offerings in Asian American studies, saying such programs were “central to our liberal arts education.” Students at Davidson College in North Carolina and Georgetown University are also seeking Asian American studies programs, The New York Times reported.
Asians make up about 23 percent of the Rutgers student population. The students above participate in a Living Learning Community to enhance students’ knowledge of the diverse lived experiences of Asian Americans.
The Global Asias Grants Committee is pleased to announce the inaugural recipients of the Global Asias Interdisciplinary Pedagogy Grant for Spring 2022. The recipients and their advisors come from all three Rutgers campuses, across fields from Childhood Studies and Geography to History and Education with projects ranging from a podcast on Dotbusters to Global Indigeneity and Youth Movements in South Asia. Congratulations to Kiran, Smruthi, Eri and Rashmi!
Kiran Baldeo, History at RU-NB
Project: Dotbusters: a documentary podcast
Faculty: Gaiutra Bahadur, Department of Arts, Culture, and Media, RU-Newark with the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice and Newest Americans
Smruthi Bala Kannan, Childhood Studies, RU-Camden
Project: Cities, SAS Signature Course: Urban Youth, Urban Risk
Faculty: Asher Ghertner, Department of Geography, RU-NB
Eri Kitada, History, RU-NB
Project: Asia-Pacific in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Colonialism and War
Faculty: Haruko Wakabayashi, Asian Languages and Cultures, RU-NB
Rashmi Kumari, Childhood Studies, RU-Camden
Project: Global Indigeneity and Youth Movements in South Asia
Faculty: Karishma Desai, Graduate School of Education, RU-NB
- Briefings: Emerging Research from the Global Asias Working Groups
- Rutgers and NYU Receive Federal Grant for New Center for Asian Health Promotion and Equity
- Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitri Muratov are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- Read: RU Global Asias responds in International Journal of Asian Studies