31 Jan 2007 AAS/AASRP Job Talk: Suzuko Morikawa

Suzuko Morikawa entitled "Empowerment, Identity, and Culture: Comparative Responses of Africans and Asians to American Racism": 3:00-4:30pm, Wednesday, January 31, 2007.

This presentation provides an overview of socio-historical research which investigates features of American racism through a comparison of the experiences and ethnic consciousness of African Americans and Asian Americans. The research focuses on the social and political struggles for empowerment among Asian Americans and African Americans in relation to the construction of Asian American and African American identity. The talk will pursue two main lines of inquiry: 1) how the generalized political and cultural philosophy of solidarity among African and Asian ethnic collectivities emerged as a survival strategy for people of color in the history of racial and ethnic oppression in the United States; and 2) how the ethnic consciousness of both groups applies to the new forms of racist and nativist reality in today’s United States society. These questions directly impact people of color on a day-to-day basis, yet tend to be ignored because of our eagerness to defend the egalitarian ideas of the United States. This research abundantly and clearly addresses these and other such important questions that involve the nature and prospect of ethnic groups in the United States.

Suzuko Morikawa is currently an Assistant Professor of History at Chicago State University. She earned a B.A. in European and Asian Studies (International Culture) at Ferris University in Yokohama, Japan, and continued her education in the African American Studies program at Temple University in Philadelphia, the first Ph.D. program in African American Studies in the nation. Dr. Morikawa was the first student from Japan to be awarded both a Masters and a Ph.D. from this program. Her area of research centers on comparative historical studies between African Americans and Asian Americans in 20^th century United States, as well as the history of the trans-Atlantic Slave trade and Africans in the diaspora. Her works have been published in The Journal of Black Studies in addition to having works published in encyclopedias on Asian American Studies and African American Studies. She is currently revising chapters in her book project, Portrait of Pan-Ethnic Consciousness: A Comparative Study of Pan-African and Pan-Asian Ideologies as Responses to Racism in the United States.

**Please note that this talk will be held at the African American Studies building, 1201 W. Nevada, Urbana.