[AMA-e-News] Asian Media Access, E-Newsletter, 4/16

[Johnny Chio]

Greetings from Asian Media Access:

For information on community events, please also visit Asian Media Access¹
(AMA) Website at www.amamedia.org and click the link ³Community Events
Calendar² (http://www2.amamedia.org/calendar/month.php).

Local Community Events:

1. Artistic Stage Production ­ Journey to Safety
2. Talk: "Justice, Law and Reason in the Legal Theory of Tanaka Kotaro
(1890-1974)"
3. Discussion "The Last Communist Virgin²
4. The Global Film Initiative at Walker Art center
5. Imaginings and Intersections: Envisioning an Ideal Arts Landscape for
Communities of Color
6. Chinese Education in Minnesota Professional Gathering
7. Wishes for the Sky on Earth Day
8. Free Concert
9. Youth Community Connections Partners Meeting
10. Li Lei, Tenor Solo Concert
11. Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans - Annual Dinner
12. Asian Pacific Cultural Center Community Forum
13. Tibetan Film Festival

==================================================================

1. Artistic Stage Production ­ Journey to Safety

Journey to Safety - An artistic stage production on the medical and legal
challenges of battered refugee and immigrant women

Date & Time: Monday, April 16, 2007, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: Coffman Memorial Union Theater 300 Washington Avenue SE /
Minneapolis
Admission: Free and open to public

The production Journey to Safety is a research-based artistic stage
presentation portraying the challenges facing battered refugee and immigrant
women when negotiating legal, medical and government systems. Following this
performance by Pangea World Theater actors, a moderator from Minnesota
Advocates for Human Rights and panel of medical, legal, community law
enforcement practitioners and advocates will comment on barriers faced by
immigrant women and explore with the audience how to improve our community¹s
response to domestic violence in immigrant communities.

Community resource organizations will be present.  For more information,
please contact June LaValleur,MD at 612-625-5979 or Kirk Allison, PhD, MS at
612-626-6559.
____________________________________________________________________________

2. Talk: "Justice, Law and Reason in the Legal Theory of Tanaka Kotaro
(1890-1974)"

"Justice, Law and Reason in the Legal Theory of Tanaka Kotaro (1890-1974)"

Date & Time: Tuesday, April 17, noon
Location: 235 Nolte Hall
Speaker: Kevin Doak (Georgetown University)

This talk explores the legal theories concerning justice and natural law as
developed by Tanaka Kotaro, a prewar professor of law at Tokyo Imperial
University, Minister of Education in the first Yoshida cabinet, Chief
Justice of Japan's Supreme Court, and a Justice at the International Court
at den Hague. Tanaka's legal thought is compelling today, as it found a
means of critical engagement with the prewar, wartime and postwar political
systems in Japan, maintaining throughout a vigorous defense of human rights.

Kevin Doak is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Langueas and
Cultures at Georgetown University and holds the Nippon Foundation Endowed
Chair in Japanese Studies Georgetown University. Kevin Doak specializes in
modern Japanese intellectual history, literature, literary theory,
ethnicity, race and nationalism. His current research interests include
national formation in Meiji Japan; representations of France in Japanese
intellectual, legal and political discourse; transnational discourse and
postmodernism; and the representations of race, ethnicity and national
identity. His publications include /Dreams of Difference: the Japan Romantic
School and the Crisis of Modernity/ (University of California Press, 1994)
and with Kai-Wing Chow and Poshek Fu, eds., /Constructing Nationhood in
Modern East Asia/ (University of Michigan, 2001).
____________________________________________________________________________

3. Discussion "The Last Communist Virgin²

Wang Ping and Alison McGhee will present a discussion entitled "The Last
Communist Virgin (and Other Topics of Interest)".

Date & Time: Tuesday April 17, 7 p.m.
Location: Institute for Advanced Study, 125 Nolte Center, East Bank, just by
the Bell Library
(Map at http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/maps/NCCE/)

St. Paul writer Wang Ping will read from her new collection of short
stories, "The Last Communist Virgin," and discuss her work with fellow Twin
Cities writer Allison McGhee. "The Last Communist Virgin" is a book about
love in a fast-changing world: love for the people and the land from the
west and the east, love for the new and the old, the real and the
imaginative, the technology around us and the soul within us. Wang Ping
teaches creative writing at Macalester College. Her books include two
collections of poetry, "The Magic Whip" and "Of Flesh & Spirit," the
cultural study "Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China," the novel "Foreign
Devil," and a collection of short stories entitled "American Visa." Allison
McGhee's latest book is "Falling Boy." Her much-awarded novels include
"Rainlight," Pulitzer-nominated "Shadow Baby," and "Was It Beautiful?" Her
first children's picture book, "Countdown to Kindergarten," won the 2003
Minnesota Book Award and was an alternate selection of the Children's Book
of the Month Club.
____________________________________________________________________________

4. The Global Film Initiative at Walker Art center

The Global Film Initiative originated its Global Lens series to encourage
the creation and expand the reach of films that address universal concerns.
This presentation celebrates some of the most successful projects through
visions from Chile, China, Croatia, Indonesia, Africa, and beyond. Get an
early glimpse of new world cinema as it develops.

Dam Street (Hong Yan)
Directed by Li Yu

Dates & Times:  April 19, 9:00 pm; April 21, 1:00 pm; April 22, 4:00 pm
Location: Cinema
Price: $8 ($6 Walker members)

When her pregnancy publicly shames her family and dashes her hopes of
becoming an opera performer, teenage Yun makes a living singing pop songs in
a shabby revue in her remote village. After years of being ostracized by the
townspeople, she befriends a fiercely protective boy who forces her to
confront her troubled past and the limits of their friendship. 2005, China,
35mm, in Mandarin and Sichuan with English subtitles, 93 minutes.
____________________________________________________________________________

5. Imaginings and Intersections: Envisioning an Ideal Arts Landscape for
Communities of Color

Imaginings and Intersections: Envisioning an Ideal Arts Landscape for
Communities of Color

Hosted by The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and The Minnesota State
Arts Board

Date & Time: April 21, 2007,10 am - 4pm
Location: Center for Independent Artists, 4137 Bloomington Avenue South,
Minneapolis
Artists from all communities of color and cultures, including immigrants
Artists working in all disciplines

Through this convening, they seek to
- Build strength as a network of artists and arts groups in communities of
color, especially as agents working for a new vision of society
- Share ideas; dialogue around challenges and also around new ideas and
inspiration to further your work

Schedule:
- 10:00 a.m.: Gather, connect with others.  Select small groups.
- 10:30 a.m. ­ noon: Six Small Groups (choose one, limit of 15
participants/group)
- Noon -1:00 p.m.: lunch and networking
- 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.: Six Small Groups (choose one, limit of 15
participants/group)
- 2:45 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.: Plenary - Reporting out and next steps.
- 3:45 p.m.: Closing.  Artist led.
- 4:00 p.m.: Adjourn

Digging Deeper: Articulating Values, Finding Context
- How do I remain true to my core values as an artist?
- How do we expand the definition of art?
- How do I work in the existing context for gathering resources for my work?
- What does community mean?  Who is my community?  my audience?
- Who do we use our creativity as assets in re-weaving community?
- Is there value in collaboration?  How do I work collaboratively with
integrity?

Register at www.mrac.org linking to ³upcoming MRAC events² or by calling
Greg at 651-645-0402.
____________________________________________________________________________

6. Chinese Education in Minnesota Professional Gathering

You are invited to the Chinese Education in Minnesota Professional
Gathering, sponsored by Minneapolis Public Schools and Better Chinese
Publishing Company:

Date & Time: April 21st, 2007, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
Location: Webster School, 425 Fifth Street NE, Minneapolis, 55413

Agenda:
- Refreshments and Introductions.
- A short meeting for the benefit of all attendees; bring your ideas, your
needs, your materials, your business card!
- Better Chinese Publishing is coming to Minnesota to the meeting to
present: Better Chinese strategy for implementing inquiry-based and
story-centered K-12 Mandarin Language instruction.
- They will wrap-up with prizes and making sure they have each other¹s
contact information.

All are welcome!!  PLEASE RSVP and EMAIL Better Chinese
james@betterchinese.com with your contact information for free materials.
____________________________________________________________________________

7. 1,000 Blue Kites Carry Wishes to the Sky on Earth Day

1,000 Blue Kites Carry Wishes to the Sky‹A Free Public Art Event

Date & Time: Sunday, April 22, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Location: Harriet Island, Saint Paul

A thousand blue kites will fill the air and wind chimes will sound
throughout the day on the banks of the Mississippi River on Earth Day, April
22, 2007.  St. Paul¹s Artist-in-Residence Marcus Young, choreographer and
calligrapher Shen Pei, composer Mary Ellen Childs, sound designer Cody
Anderson, and architect Peter Kramer along with many environmental, peace,
arts and cultural organizations are creating a free, contemporary art event
inspired by the ancient Asian traditions of flying wishes on kites.

Wishes for the Sky will be an interactive experience inviting audiences to
realize a work of public art. Participants will write wishes on artist-made,
bird-shaped kites and fly them to create an evolving, mobile sculpture in
the air.  Over the course of Earth Day visual, musical, and poetic elements
of this outdoor artwork will transform the space of Harriet Island into an
expression of the community's hope for a clean and peaceful earth. Wishes
for the Sky will also give participants the opportunity to make Promises to
the Earth to adopt sustainable practices.

The public is invited to take part in this zero-waste, nature-inspired day
of wishing and promising.  The Earth Day event is free and open anytime
between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., rain or shine.
    
For information contact wishesforthesky@earthlink.net or visit the website
at www.wishesforthesky.org or call 612/729-1270.
____________________________________________________________________________

8. Free Concert

A free afternoon to remember featuring Indonesian concert pianist Ivon
Maria!
Faith stories by international students
International art and foods
Gallery display of He Qi's art

Date & Time: Sunday, April 22, 4 pm (3:45 p.m. prelude by international
students)
Location: Hope Church, 7132 Portland Ave. S., Richfield, MN 55423
Tel: 612-866-4055
____________________________________________________________________________

9. Youth Community Connections Partners Meeting

Youth Community Connections Partners Meeting

Date & Time: Wednesday, May 2nd, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Location: Crowne Plaza -  Riverfront, 11 Kellogg Boulevard, St. Paul, MN
55101
Free and open to the public.

A NEW DAY FOR LEARNING
Milt Goldberg will present the findings from A New Learning Day, a report
from the Time, Learning and Afterschool Task Force -  funded by the C.S.
Mott Foundation.

On January 17, 2007, the Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force,
financed by the C.S. Mott Foundation, released a report titled " A New Day
for Learning."  The document, calling for a complete rethinking of how
students spend time learning, highlights innovative school programs and
community efforts across the country, from afterschool and summer programs
to extended-day programs and internships. The report is intended as the
first step towards catalyzing conversations and initiating the development
of actions among key decision makers across the country. You can read the
full report at http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/ANewDayforLearning.pdf. They
encourage you to access the document and join them on Wednesday, May 2nd
from to look at the implications these findings have for the future of
afterschool and community-based learning opportunities for youth and
children in Minnesota.

THERE IS NO FEE FOR THIS EVENT, BUT YOU MUST REGISTER. Please call
612-624-6600, or write info@youthcommunityconnections.org to register no
later than April 25th. Lunch will be provided.
____________________________________________________________________________

10. Li Lei, Tenor Solo Concert

Li Lei, Tenor Solo Concert
"Tribal Songs of China"

Date & Time: May 6, 2007, 3 pm
Location: Coffman Union Theater, Univ of MN
Ticket: $12/per person, please order from: thounderconcert@yahoo.com
____________________________________________________________________________

11. Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans - Annual Dinner

Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans - Annual Dinner

Commemorating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Securing the Blessings of Liberty for Our Children, Our Future

Date & Time: May 18, 2007, 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Location: Golden Valley Golf & Country Club, 7001 Golden Valley Road, Golden
Valley, Minnesota 55427
Cost: $45.00 per person
RSVP Requested

Highlights include:

Keynote Performance:
- Tou Ger Xiong is a Hmong comedian, storyteller, rap artist, and political
activist.  He combines explosive energy, humor, folklore, dance, and rap
into an interactive performance that educate about cultural diversity,
racial stereotypes, and multi-generational/family conflicts.  His shows are
always well received and they are funny, witty, and ever so insightful.

Cultural Performances

2007 Leadership Award Presentation:
- Hedy Trip- coordinator and grant writer for "Create CommUNITY", a citywide
initiative in St. Cloud addressing race and community relations. She is a
longtime advocate for the rights of women, and children and civil rights.

- Seng Yang-program coordinator of the successful Hmoob Ameskas Koom Siab
program at Neighborhood House where he works to reduce cultural conflicts
and advocates for citizenship rights.

- Takuzo Ishida- chemist and senior researcher at Eastman Kodak.  He
established the first Minneapolis Japanese School and is a former president
of the Japan America Society of Minnesota.

- Terry Cheng- operating system engineer at Wells Fargo Bank, who's business
leadership and mentoring efforts over the years include establishing Asian
American entrepreneurial forums and start up training that are invaluable to
the community.

- Vee Phan Nelson- executive director, Centre of Asians and Pacific
Islanders (CAPI), a former banker who took over CAPI five years ago to help
the organization grow to serve over 3,500 refugees annually from around the
world.
____________________________________________________________________________

12. Asian Pacific Cultural Center Community Forum

Asian Pacific Cultural Center Community Forum

Date & Time: May 22, 2007, 4:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Location: Metropolitan State University's Great Hall, 700 East Seventh
Street, St Paul, 55106

Come hear about their plans for the HAMM Brewery; get the latest update; get
involved; show up and show your support for APCC

Speakers include: Mayor Chris Coleman and Council President Kathy Lantry,
Community supporters and Artists (speaking and performing)
____________________________________________________________________________

13. Tibetan Film Festival

For information on Tibetan Film Festival, please visit
http://www.rimefoundation.org/filmfest.htm
____________________________________________________________________________


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