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Asian/Asian American Faculty and Staff Association

AAAFSA

Asian/Asian American Faculty and Staff Association
a lotus flower in a pond

Resources

Asian / Asian American Faculty Staff Association’s Resources

  • Affirming Asian Students & Colleagues in Post-Secondary Education – List resources to support Asian students and colleagues on-campus, off-campus, nationally, and internationally.
  • Professional Development Application – AAAFSA is providing financial support for various professional development opportunities, such as conferences, workshops, classes, etc. Funding amounts are open, but will typically be $500 or less. If you have a specific idea that will cost more, please apply and be specific about what the funds will be used for. While applications are open to all UT Austin administrators, staff, faculty, and graduate students, special consideration will be given to staff and non-tenure-track faculty and official AAAFSA members. If you are not currently a member but would like to become a member of AAAFSA, please visit https://sites.utexas.edu/aaafsa/. Please note it may take up to 3-4 weeks to make a decision, so apply early! Funds will be awarded on a rolling basis, so you can apply for more than one professional development opportunity. You will be notified via email.
  • Recognizing Asian & Asian American Faculty & Staff Instilling Strength and Excellence (R.A.I.S.E.) Award – Each year, the RAISE Awards recognize an outstanding faculty, staff, administrator, and graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin. Recipients are recognized for their service to the Asian/Asian American community on campus and/or for managing faculty, staff, or student issues and concerns with engaging, constructive support. RAISE Award recipients will receive a $500 reward and a plaque honoring their leadership at the campus.

University Resources Group

Book(s)

  • Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
  • Everyone was Kung Fu Fighting by Vijay Prasad
  • Karma of Brown Folks by Vijay Prasad
  • Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
  • Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
  • Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
  • Strangers from Different Shores by Ronald Takaki
  • The Body Papers: A Memoir by Grace Ralusan
  • The Making of Asian America: A History by Erica Lee
  • Unsettled by Eric Tangs
  • Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White by Frank Wu
  • You have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar

Documentary

  • #AsianAmCovidStories – This unique series of mini-docs presented by Asian American Documentary Network offers a unique perspective of Asian Americans on the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting stories that are still largely invisible. By leaning into their strengths as documentarians of the Asian diaspora, the filmmakers offer perspectives that disrupt mainstream narratives about Asian communities. These short-form social media stories contribute to some much-needed representation of Asian American communities at this critical moment in history. The episode “Shu Mai Online” is directed by IDA Member Emory Chao Johnson.
  • 9-MAN – Directed by Ursula Liang, 9-Man is an IDA fiscally sponsored project that uncovers an isolated and unique streetball tournament played by Chinese-Americans in the heart of Chinatowns across the USA and Canada. Largely undiscovered by the mainstream, the game is a gritty, athletic, chaotic urban treasure traditionally played in parking lots and back alleys. 9-Man grew in the 1930s, at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment and laws forced restaurant workers and laundrymen to socialize exclusively amongst themselves. Today it’s a lasting connection to Chinatown for a dynamic community of men who know a different, more integrated world, but still fight to maintain autonomy and tradition.
  • Asian Americans – PBS’ documentary series Asian Americans is a five-episode saga of the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group in American history. Asian Americans is a production of WETA Washington, DC and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) for PBS, in association with the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Flash Cuts and Tajima-Peña Productions. It’s a vast subject, years in the making, at last realized by the finest Asian American documentarians, historians and storytellers active today. Read a Documentary Magazine interview with series producer Renee Tajima-Peña and episode directors S. Leo Chiang (Eps 1, 3), Grace Lee (Eps 2, 4) and Geeta Gandbhir (Ep 5).
  • Call Her Ganda – Call Her Ganda is directed by PJ Raval, an award‐winning filmmaker and cinematographer whose work explores the overlooked subcultures and identities within the already marginalized LGBTQ+ community. When Jennifer Laude, a Filipina trans woman, is brutally murdered by a US Marine, three women intimately invested in the case—an activist attorney (Virgie Suarez), a transgender journalist (Meredith Talusan) and Jennifer’’ mother (Julita “Nanay” Laude)—galvanize a political uprising, pursuing justice and taking on hardened histories of US imperialism.
  • Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision – Directed by IDA Member and IDA Documentary Awards 2019 Career Achievement Award honoree Freida Lee Mock, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision explores the life and work of American artist Maya Lin, who created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. The film tracks her ascent from being a relatively unknown artist, to being selected in a nationwide competition to create one of the country’s most beloved memorials. Her Asian American identity, in particular, plays a strong role in defining her artistic vision and why the memorial was initially greeted with skepticism from the DC political landscape.
  • Minding The Gap – Compiling over 12 years of footage shot in his hometown of Rockford, IL, Bing Liu searches for correlations between his skateboarder friends’ turbulent upbringings and the complexities of modern-day masculinity in Minding The Gap, which earned IDA Documentary Awards in 2018 for Best Feature and Best Editing; Liu himself earned the Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award. In his film, Liu defies so many of the “no-no’s” of conventional documentary filmmaking: he’s in his own film, he breaks the fourth wall often, and he embraces filmmaking as therapy—yet it all works brilliantly and creates a subtly powerful story.
  • Saving Face – Academy Award nominee and 2012 IDA Documentary Awards Best Short winner, Saving Face is directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daniel Junge. The film finds plastic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad returning to his native Pakistan to help women left horribly scarred by acid attacks—a grossly under-reported subject. Many Pakistani women are often the subject of frequent acid attacks by their husbands, who are left untreated due to societal inequalities and a lack of public knowledge.
  • Stateless – In 2005, a spark of hope came when the US immigration officials returned to Manila to review the cases of over 2,000 Vietnamese refugees who spent over 17 years in the Philippines waiting for resettlement. They have been living in the Philippines without legal status, ownership or employment rights. While nervously waiting for a judgment day, the “stateless” Vietnamese hung on the hope of finding a permanent home. Directed by Duc Nguyen, Stateless is a searing document of this particular moment in Asian American history.
  • The Claudia Kishi Club – In this short documentary, IDA member Sue Ding interviews people about the importance of representation through the character of Claudia Kishi from The Baby-Sitters Club. The Japanese-American character in the Ann M. Martin book series was not the stereotype, but the artistic and cool lead that everyone loved. Watch the short to hear the cultural impact of a fan favorite.
  • Vincent Who? – VINCENT WHO? explores this important legacy through interviews with the key players at the time as well as a whole new generation of activists whose lives were impacted by Vincent Chin. It also looks at the case in relation to the larger narrative of Asian American history, in such events as Chinese Exclusion, Japanese American Internment in WWII, the 1992 L.A. Riots, anti-Asian hate crimes, and post-9/11 racial profiling. Ultimately, VINCENT WHO? asks how far Asian Americans have come since the case and how far they have yet to go.
  • When I Walk – In 2006, 25-year-old filmmaker and IDA Member Jason DaSilva was on vacation when he abruptly became diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Jason tried exercise to help cope, but the problem only worsened. After his dispiriting fall on the beach, he turned to his Mom, who reminded him that, despite his disease, he was still a fortunate kid who had the opportunity to pursue the things he loved most: art and filmmaking. An emotional documentary filled with unexpected moments of humor and joy, When I Walk is a life-affirming film driven by a young man’s determination to survive—and to make sense of a devastating disease through the art of cinema.

International Organization(s)

Local Austin, Asian Supermarket

  • 99 Ranch
  • Asahi Imports
  • Filipino Asian Market
  • Hana World Market
  • Hana Yang Market
  • Hong Kong SuperMarket
  • MT Supermarket

Local Austin, Texas Community Organization

Local Houston, Texas Community Organization

Local Austin, Texas Community Organization

Mental Health Resources

  • Asian Mental Health Collective (AMHC) – to normalize and de-stigmatize mental health within the Asian community. AMHC aspires to make mental health easily available, approachable, and accessible to Asian communities worldwide.
  • Brown Girl Therapy – First/largest mental health community for children of immigrants
  • Deaf Counseling – Deaf Counseling Center is a Deaf-owned and operated counseling and consulting practice staffed by Deaf licensed professional therapists. We specialize in working with Deaf people and their families.
  • Fireweed Collective – offers mental health education and mutual aid through a Healing Justice lens.
  • Inclusive Therapists – online directory that matches people with culturally responsive, LGBTQ+ affirming therapist that celebrates your identity
  • National Queer And Trans Therapists Of Color Network – (NQTTCN) is a healing justice organization committed to transforming mental health for queer and trans people of color (QTPoC). They work at the intersection of movements for social justice and the field of mental health to integrate healing justice into both of these spaces. Their overall goal is to increase access to healing justice resources for QTPoC.
  • Pride Counseling – Professional online counseling for the LGBTQ community. Get matched to a licensed therapist. Communicate via phone, video, and messaging.
  • Additional resources

News Outlet(s)

National Organization(s)

National Organizations Specifically for Disabilities

National Organizations Specifically for LGBTQIA+

Podcast(s)

Professional Development(s)

State-Wide Resources in Texas

The University of Texas at Austin’s On-Campus Resource(s)

The University of Texas at Austin’s Undergraduate Student Organization(s)

The University of Texas at Austin’s Undergraduate Graduate Student Organization(s)

Scholarships

Youtube Video

Handout was adapted by the following reference(s):

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