February 26, University of Minnesota, Consortium for the Study of the Asias
David McCann (from Harvard University's East Asian Studies Dept), Sun Yung Shin (reading from "Skirt Full of Black" and other poems), and Ed Bok Lee (reading from Real Karaoke People and new work)
7 pm, studio 100, Barbara Barker Center for Dance, U of Minnesota west bank. Free.
AKA presents Geographies of our own: New Visions in Korean Transnational Art
Hosted by Tom Hudson
featuring: Jane Jin Kaisen, Lee Herrick, Sun Yung Shin, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
7 - 9 pm doors open at 6:30
Silk Road Mocha, 30 Mott Street between Mott & Pell
Admission $15 and 1 drink minimum
AKA members $10 and 1 drink minimum
Gathering of the Tribes presents:
Sun Yung Shin & Matthew Shenoda
Saturday, February 2, 2008
7pm at the Gathering of the Tribes
Lower East Side
285 East Third Street (between Avenue C and Avenue D)
New York, NY 10009
212-674-3778
Outsiders Within:
Writing on Transracial Adoption
Given Madonna's
recent decision to adopt a child from Malawi, news and entertainment are
abuzz with what you've observed yourself--in your own family, or the family
next door, or passing the neighborhood playground--there's a boom in
transracial adoption. Most coverage focuses on the struggles of good white
parents wishing to adopt "unfortunate" children of color. Some
touches on the irony of Black babies in the United
States being exported to Canada
and Europe because of their
"unwanted" status here. Some even address the trafficking of children
(of course, it would--that's sensational). But few look at * why babies
are available for adoption in the first place * what happens
when they grow up and * how we come
up with solutions that are humane and just Healthy white
infants have become hard to locate and expensive to adopt. So people from
around the world turn to interracial and intercountry adoption, often, like
Madonna, with the idea that while growing their families, they're saving children
from destitution. But as Outsiders Within reveals, while transracial adoption
is a practice traditionally considered benevolent, it often exacts a heavy
emotional, cultural, and even economic toll. Through compelling
essays, fiction, poetry, and art, the contributors to this landmark publication
carefully explore this most intimate aspect of globalization. Finally, in the
unmediated voices of the adults who have matured within it, we find a
rarely-considered view of adoption, an institution that pulls apart old
families and identities and grafts new ones. Moving beyond
personal narrative, these transracially adopted writers from around the world
tackle difficult questions about how to survive the racist and ethnocentric
worlds they inhabit, what connects the countries relinquishing their children
to the countries importing them, why poor families of color have their children
removed rather than supported--about who, ultimately, they are. In their
inquiry, they unseat conventional understandings of adoption politics,
ultimately reframing the controversy as a debate that encompasses human rights,
peace, and reproductive justice. Sun Yung Shin is the author of Skirt Full of Black (poems,
Coffee House Press 07), co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial
Adoption (South End Press 06), and Cooper's Lesson (Korean/English children's
book 04). Currently she is a 2007 Bush Artists Fellow for Literature and has
also received grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts
Board. Her website is
http://sunyungshin.com Shannon Gibney's poetry has appeared in Black Renaissance
Noire, Wicked Alice and the Bellingham Review, and is forthcoming in PMS. You
can find her nonfiction in Essence Magazine and Outsiders Within (South End
Press, 2006). Gibney was awarded a 2005 Bush Artist Fellowship and the 2002
Hurston/Wright Award in fiction. Her short fiction is forthcoming in Tea Party,
and has appeared in Brilliant Corners. She is a 2002 graduate of Indiana University's MFA program in fiction, and
also hold an MA in 20th Century African American literature from that
institution. Currently, she is at at work on a novel that chronicles the
journeys of 19 th century African Americans who colonized Liberia, and
BROWN ON BROWN, an anthology of essays on building coalition between communities
of color. Find out more at shannongibney.net .
Check out the blog entry about Thursday's reading at the myspace for the Intermedia Arts Writers of Color Reading Series...http://myspace.com/intermediaartsWOC...
Here are some photos to tantalize you! 
Jae Ran Kim
The Carol Connolly Reading Series
Color Theory for the 21st Century: Beyond the Pure
Readings by Writers of Color
Thursday, July 12, 2007
7:00 PM at Patrick’s Cabaret
3010 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis
Free and open to the public
Hosted by Sun Yung Shin
Featuring: BOBBY WILSON (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota and
Standing Rock Lakota). A young indigenous artist and youth care worker
living in the Wasicun city of Minneapolis. Bobby Wilson has been
actively involved in the art community since 1999 appearing in
anti-tobacco ads, visual art shows, musical venues, and indigenous
community events. He can also be seen frequently speaking to groups of
youth in schools and community centers or practicing for big shows at
open mics. Bobby Wilson's powerfully complex verbal imagery and hard
hitting delivery have made a favorite within the Minnesota scene
collaborating and performing with the likes of Bao Phi, Truth Maze,
Toki Wright, and many more. This Carol Connolly Reading is co-sponsored by Patrick's Cabaret.
JAE RAN KIM
is a writer, teacher and social worker. She was born in South Korea and
adopted to Minnesota in 1971. Jae Ran's poems, essays and articles have
been published in KoreAm Journal, Korean Quarterly, the Star Tribune, Minnesota Monthly and the recently published anthology, Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
from South End Press. University of Illinois Press will publish Jae
Ran’s essay, “Waiting For God” in the anthology Religion and
Spirituality in Korean America this coming fall.
Tomorrow I'll be driving to St. Charles for the National Women's Studies Association annual conference. I'll be moderating a panel on Friday, and am very interested to see what women's studies scholars (at the conference) are thinking and talking about...
I'm involved due to my colleague Kim Park Nelson, who asked me to participate in this role. She is doing cutting-edge theoretical work and I'm very fortunate to be able to work with her in any capacity.
Here's the panel:
Asian Transnational Adoption: Gender, Race, Maternity,
Loss, and Identity
This panel's participants come from departments of English,
Culture Studies, and American Studies, and use literary, ethnographic,
and historical analysis as well as theories of global reproductive
politics and the new field of adoption studies. Park Nelson applies to
transnational adoption Aihwa Ong's concept of the "family romance" as
"the collective and unconscious images of family order that underlie
public politics [that]inform the way people imagine the operations of
power between individuals and the state, between different ethnic
groups, and of course, between men and women." The literature Novy
analyzes demonstrates some of these images in practice but also
explores how adoptees negotiate their identity. Patton challenges
romantic notions of transnational adoption by exploring the life
experiences of adoptees and birth mothers, and emphasizing the power
relations regulating the immigration of children to the
US
through
adoption.
