The Creative Discovery Fellows Program - Featured Student Projects

Throughout history, discrimination, racial profiling, and political scapegoating of Asian Americans have largely impacted and led to the persecutions of Chinese American scientists. Our video project will address the questions of the historical roots of racial profiling, the impacts of it, and how community reacts to it. One thing it discusses is how the fluctuating relations between China and the U.S. affect how a Chinese American is viewed as — an ally and then a spy. Yet, while as an ally, and seen as a model minority, Asian Americans are still seen as the perpetual foreigner. This film was developed by an undergraduate student team for Asian American & Asian Diaspora Studies 121, 'History of the Chinese in the U.S.'

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From the course: Chicanx Studies 159AC: “Mexican and Central American Migration” -- This Spark video tells the story of the student’s mother and her experience as a young mother and immigrant.

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In this Ted-style Talk, undergraduate Deven Radfar highlights the working conditions of servers in the restaurant industry, while focusing on the experiences of women and teens.

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From the course: Comparative Literature 60AC: "(Re)Making American History" -- Developed by a group of Asian American students, this website sought to explore and “revisit” the birth of the Asian American Political Alliance at UC Berkeley and its legacy for Asian American students on campus today. The site features a mosaic of different mediums, ranging from interviews with original strikers and those who have inherited the legacy of AAPA to poetry written by one of the students.

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From the Spring 2020 AC course: Ethnic Studies 176, "Against the Grain Ethnic American Art and Artists": "Ethnic art holds an amazing power to challenge nationalist and eternalized narratives that center white patriarchal power. It has the power to highlight the racialized nature of genocidal acts and structural disenfranchisement of communities of color." In this Spark presentation, Kennedy discusses how art gives "oppressed voices not only the opportunity to speak but to also "re-member" and claim agency over narratives that have been told about them in order to suppress them."

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From the course: Theater 25AC: "Performance in América" -- This essay seeks to demystify and debunk the negative connotations surrounding brujeria by arguing that the reason for condemnation of these practices is entirely due to institutions of whiteness and imperialism.

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