{"id":2296,"date":"2026-07-23T14:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/?p=2296"},"modified":"2026-07-24T10:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:10:18","slug":"asian-american-forum-pioneering-radio-program-reunion-panel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/asian-american-forum-pioneering-radio-program-reunion-panel\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian American Forum: Pioneering Radio Program Reunion Panel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thursday, August 13, 2026
7:00pm ET \/ 4:00pm PT

RSVP here<\/a> <\/h2>\n\n\n
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The Asian American Forum<\/em> radio archive is an irreplaceable audio archive documenting Asian American life and activism on the East Coast. The first radio program of its kind in the region contains more than 250 episodes of Asian American activism, scholarship, and community life from 1990\u20131996. Digitized by the UConn Library, the radio program, launched by Dr. Paul Bock, Professor Emeritus of Hydrology and Water Resources at UConn, is now available to support AAPI education and curriculum development nationwide.

The panel will provide an opportunity to understand the impact the program had in documenting Asian American life and activism on the East Coast, on the Asian American community, and how it is still being used today in supporting Asian American and Pacific Islander curricula in Connecticut schools through initiatives such as UConn\u2019s Curriculum Lab and providing region-specific primary source material for Asian American Studies programs nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collection can be found at https:\/\/s.uconn.edu\/ctda-aaf<\/a> and was made possible by the UConn Asian American Cultural Center<\/a>, the Wing Luke Museum<\/a>, and anonymous donations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panelists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Judy W. Yu<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Judy W. Yu is the Co-founder of the Black and Asian Solidarity Collective. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a Spencer Foundation-sponsored research and conference grant entitled: \u201cBuilding Racial Solidarity Across Black and Asian American History in K-20 Education\u201d This research and community engagement project utilizes historical narratives, educational research, art, media, and curriculum development with educators, youths, parents, scholars, and community activists in and out of the academy. Currently, Dr. Yu has a joint appointment as a faculty member at Boston College, Lynch School of Education and Teachers College, Columbia University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Judy W. Yu is the Founding Director of REACH\u00ae, an education consulting firm based in New York City. She is an organizational leader, scholar, and educator. As a former elementary school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and a youth educator in New York City, she has developed a series of K-12 critical multicultural and Asian American studies programs for students, parents, and communities that empowers people  to utilize their diverse lived experiences, narratives, and personal artifacts as bodies of scholarship in re-telling our American history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Yu was an active Commission Member of the Black, Race, & Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI) at the City University of New York (CUNY). She was chosen in 2021 as one of the 17 scholars to serve in the commission to provide expertise in building ethnic studies, racial, and social justice coursework and programs across 25 college campuses. Currently, she is working with Dr. Karen Umemoto, Chair of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA and the Founder of the Foundations and Futures project, to pilot a teacher professional development programs for NYC\u2019s public schools to implement an Asian American and Pacific Islander multimedia textbook in public schools. Foundations and Futures is the most comprehensive collection of Asian American and Pacific Islander histories and perspectives available for free and online for high school, college, and lifelong learners. She is super excited to be in community with fellow Asian American Studies activists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace Lou<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace A. Lou, Esq. is Partner and Co-founder of Pacific Coast Legacy Partners, LLP. For almost 25 years, Ms. Lou has dedicated her professional life to the practice of trust and estate law and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Ms. Lou was the principal of The Law Offices of Grace A. Lou (also known as Grace Lou Law) from 2008 to 2024, where she diligently worked with clients through the estate planning and administration process. She also serves as Founder, President, and Chief Legacy Officer of GraceNotes, Inc., a repository of human wisdom at leavegracenotes.com. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Lou earned her Juris Doctor with research & writing honors from Georgetown University Law Center in 2000, and her Bachelor of Science, Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University in 1996. She was selected by the Daily Northwestern as \u201cTop 10 People to Know\u201d from her activist efforts to establish an Asian American Studies Program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A former Jersey girl, Ms. Lou now resides in Manhattan Beach, California, where she and her husband Andy have raised their three children, Christian (Go Bruins!), Nicolas (Go Brown Bears!), and Geneva (Go Costa!). She is a member of Lighthouse Community Church in Torrance and served on the boards of the Mira Costa High School Basketball Boosters, South Bay F.O.R., and the Asian Pacific Community Fund. In 2006, the Joint Affinity Group of Southern California recognized her as a leader in local philanthropy. She is conversationally fluent in Mandarin and Taiwanese. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her free time, Ms. Lou can be found reading books by Haruki Murakami while listening to classical jazz, on a Pilates reformer, traveling the globe in search of street food at night markets (especially in Taipei and Tokyo), or conversing over coffee with good friends. Her goal as an attorney is to walk closely alongside clients through their life journey and to accurately memorialize their true legacy for the next generation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Renee Tajima-Pe\u00f1a<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Renee Tajima-Pe\u00f1a is Professor of Asian American Studies, Director of the Center for EthnoCommunications, and holder of the Alumni and Friends of Japanese American Ancestry Endowed Chair. She is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker who has chronicled the Asian American experience through films such as Who Killed Vincent Chin?<\/em> and My America\u2026or Honk if You Love Buddha<\/em>, Asian Americans<\/em>, the first-ever 5-hour docuseries on the Asian American experience that aired on PBS in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her other films on themes of immigration, race, ethnicity, gender and social justice include The Best Hotel on Skid Row,<\/em> Calavera Highway, Skate Manzanar, Labor Women, and No M\u00e1s Beb\u00e9s. <\/em>Tajima-Pe\u00f1a\u2019s latest production is the May 19 Project, which she co-founded\/executive produced with Jeff Chang in collaboration with independent filmmakers across the US. The May 19 Project is a social media campaign that traces the legacy of Asian American Pacific Islander solidarity with other communities through fourteen short videos and social media content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her online media projects explore the history of Japanese American incarceration and resistance. Building History 3.0<\/em> is an interactive documentary and video game-based learning project and is supported by the National Parks Service and the California Civil Liberties Public Education Fund. Tajima-Pe\u00f1a is co-founder and co-producer of the Nikkei Democracy Project, a multi-generational multi-media collective that uses the power of the Japanese American imprisonment story to expose current threats to Constitutional rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tajima-Pe\u00f1a\u2019s work has screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and the Whitney Biennial, and has been broadcast throughout the US and abroad. She has been honored with two Peabody Awards, the Alpert Award in the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the United States Artists Broad Fellowship, and a Dupont-Columbia University Award. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tajima-Pe\u00f1a has been deeply involved in the Asian American independent film community as an activist, writer, and filmmaker. She was the director of Asian Cine-Vision in New York, and active in the founding of the Center for Asian American Media (formerly NAATA) and A-Doc\/Asian American Documentary Network. During her time as a regular contributor to The Village Voice, she was the only Asian American woman film critic writing for a national publication. She was also a cultural commentator for National Public Radio and editor of Bridge: Asian American Perspectives. 

Ronald Cheung<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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