Columbia University and New York University will once again host the 2nd annual New York Asian American Student Conference (NYCAASC), and would like to invite you to join the Columbia executive planning board. We seek dedicated individuals who can help make this year's conference a success!

The Columbia planning committee works jointly with: a mirror NYU executive board, NYU's Asian Heritage Month (AHM) committee, Columbia's Asian Pacific American Awareness Month (APAAM) executive board, and other college students in the New York area.

This is a great opportunity to hone your leadership skills, get connected with Asian American students and community organizations in New York City, and have a lot of fun in the process. As part of the committee, you will play an integral role in shaping this year's conference theme, determining what workshops to conduct, and helping plan entertainment.

The day-long conference will be held at NYU in mid-April. Last year's conference theme was "Breaking the Silence: Discover, Inspire, Empower". We had over 400 registered participants from schools throughout the east coast. Highlights included: opening remarks from Carmen Van Kerckhove, co-founder and president of New Demographic; performances by Vudoo Soul and the Stone Forest Ensemble; and workshops facilitated by spoken word artist Giles Li, director Michael Kang, members from National Asian American Conference, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Asian Americans for Equality, and many more! For more highlights, check out our video with footage from last year's conference.

Available positions on the board are listed below, along with a bullet point description of the responsibilities of each position. If you are interested in joining the Columbia board, please email back Nhu-Y Ngo (ntn2103@columbia.edu) and Marilla Li (ml2573@barnard.edu) with the following:

• Name
• School
• Year
• Your campus and community activities
• Why you would like to join the NYCAASC Board
  

Best,
Nhu-Y Ngo and Marilla Li
Columbia NYCAASC Directors

Available Positions

2 Associate Directors
- assist Directors
- double-check to see that all tasks are completed
- make sure we're on schedule and on point
- check to make sure we are under budget

2-3 Workshop Coordinators [depending on how many tracks we have]
- get speakers/moderators
- set up a specific timetable, place speakers in appropriate tracks
- is point person for the lists of contacts
- make sure speakers get equipment they need and are directed to the right room

Logistics Chair
- know the flow of operations and make sure everything follows the timetable
- know where the speakers are and what sort of rooms we need
- meet a lot with Kimmel operations at NYU
- media equipment: rentals, communicate to artists to make sure they have everything

Registration Chair
- in charge of listserv
- in charge of registration and the registration table the day of the conference
- hand out pamphlets, bags of goodies, and schedule/itinerary to attendees at registration

2 Publicity Chairs
- Internal: make press kit, get people to come from Columbia/Barnard community
- External: establish contacts and reach out to different schools

1 Volunteer Chair
- get volunteers
- designate shifts
- make a final schedule with the volunteers

1 Honorarium/Co-Sponsorship Chair
- in charge of honorariums
- get a contact person for all outside and inside co-sponsorships and then assign people to go and get sponsorships

1 Event Coordinator
- organize the reception period
- book performers/guests for the concert and take care of concert logistics
- leaving period: make sure people leave happy, organized, and at the correct time
- in charge of food and tablecloths for reception/breakfast, lunch and dinner
- tighten everything up so everything is organized

Enjoying your breaks? So am I, and as I'm taking my time listening to a podcast (self-purportedly) devoted to Asian American activism, some things have both intrigued and irritated my APA sensibilities. Keep reading.

Hosted by three men in New York City, Fallout Central is recorded every few weeks to give a overview of global and national news from Asian American perspectives. Hmm, that's a lot like what we do here. Anyway, as a podcast (and as podcasts try to resemble radio shows), these guys take interviews from ordinary callers and prominent figures in Asian America. Calvin our chair even claimed to have done an interview with them about the police incident early last semester, but searching through their site and podcasts I doubt this ever... Edit: Confirmation made. (Thanks, Calvin!)

A very big issue on the show is the "emasculasian" of fellow Asian men. In an effort to fight this plight, they've done some interesting interviews, for example with Yul Kwon, who once transcended the racial terms of Survivor: Cook Islands, giving a new face to the Asian American male. Another interview was with the Asian Playboy, who works as something of a consultant for Asian guys on how to pick up women...

Their rhetoric on men's issues, however, often borders on ignorance and mistreatment of APA women's issues. In a Dec. 26th interview with Jenn Fang from Reappropriate about Asian American feminism, these men could not get past the (to them, confusing) relationship between feminism, Asian American feminist activism, and Asian American racial activism. One host went so far as to question in front of Jenn the tone and intentions of "traditional" feminists, relying on hackneyed personifications of a movement he perhaps couldn't understand. In a Jan. 6th Year in Review podcast, one host (might have been the same one) told the eyewitness account of an Asian guy in a club who was not successful with a "tall, beautiful white woman" (until he came along, of course, and saved his sorry ass). Whenever they talk about the problems with Tila Tequila's show, it comes back to its lack of Asian males, not the problematic over-sexualization of Tila herself. (Listen to the latest podcast.) See the problem?

I think Fallout Central needs a few female hosts.

Of course, FC gets its fair share of disgruntled audience members, and while I'm a little judgmental now, I still do listen to their podcasts and think they can do so much better. So what am I to do? I'm going to take the Fallout Central challenge one Sunday this 2008 and present to them a challenge of my own: bring on some regular girl power. Because you can't claim to rep "Asian American insight" with only half of Asian America's existing perspectives and experiences.

If you've heard their podcasts and want to take the FC challenge yourself, call them at (212) 255-2898 on any Sunday.

Seeking Asian Americans to Participate in an Important Study

My name is Jae Yeon Jeong, and I am a doctoral candidate at The University of Memphis. Under the supervision of Dr. Suzanne Lease, an associate professor at The University of Memphis, I am conducting a study examining the coping strategies used by Asian Americans. Asian Americans represent one of the fastest-growing racial minority groups in the U.S., and an important step towards communicating and disseminating accurate information is to collect data about their experiences in a confidential and private manner.

If you are at least 18 years old and identify as an Asian American, I would like to request your participation to complete a BRIEF, online 20 minute questionnaire. You can withdraw from the study at any time. No personally identifying information is requested. This project has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at The University of Memphis.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Thank you so much in advance!

To participate, simply follow the link: http://jeong.asianamerican.sgizmo.com/

Respectfully,
Principal Investigator:
Jae Yeon Jeong, M.S.
Doctoral Candidate
Dept. of Counseling, Educational Psych & Research
100 Ball Hall Building
The University of Memphis
Memphis, TN 38152
jaejeong@memphis.edu

Do you think that The Blaaag is inconsistent? Preachy? Helpful?
Vote on our new poll and choose the descriptions that fit best!

... or in our case, a new layout.

Some of you must wonder what David and I do during the break when we're not at school discussing conspiracies, academic work, and other geeky fare. Well, look no further! Though our recent dry writing patch implicates that we are catching up on home cooked meals (mom's noodles), TV marathons (Lost), and leisurely reading (Yellow by Frank Wu), the truth runs far from it. Break time is work time in our eyes, and we're churning our mental gears harder than ever for the upcoming semester.

Two days after Christmas, David and I met in a nearly-hidden area of Queens, watched a barber cut some throats, ducked into a B&N cafe, stole a table next to some loud elders, and compulsively grated out new ideas / re-hashed old ones.

A member of the AAA graphics team, Ashish, recently offered to revamp our website and "pimp it out". Though we weren't sure of what that would specifically entail, it seemed right to consent because a new look might boost accessibility and appeal. We also thought up some standardizing methods which will bring about drastic changes; but not even the writers have been briefed in full. In short, everything is up in the air in a good, scary, gasp-our-blog-has-only-existed-for-a-semester kind of way.

That's the beauty of working on a project, isn't it? Learning and improving as you go along. But if one day you visit our page and see psychedelic colors with insane Flash animations, don't say we didn't warn you.