The Center for Asian Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago (CAAM) has received a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts under the NEA’s The Big Read initiative, launched in 2006 and designed to restore reading to the center of American Culture.
Columbia’s CAAM will focus educational and outreach efforts in both community forums and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), using Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989) to explore issues of immigration, assimilation and Asian-American identity across generations.
The Center for Asian Arts and Media is the only Asian organization selected for The Big Read initiative; grants having been awarded primarily to library systems in cities and towns throughout the U.S. “For a Pan-Asian organization such as ours, The Big Read serves as a perfect opportunity to further our mission – that of promoting awareness of the Asian contribution to the greater American culture,” says Nancy Tom, founder and executive director of CAAM. “Through the vehicle of The Big Read and the critical themes of Amy Tan’s writing, we recognize the opportunity to bring salient and recurring issues from the Asian experience to American audiences and especially to help foster understanding of how Asian issues are truly American issue as well.”
The CAAM’s educational programming will take place this fall and feature several major initiatives. Professor Samuel Park, Ph.D., of Columbia’s Department of English will train cohorts of Asian-American college students to serve as discussion facilitators for community forums throughout Chicago. Dr. Park will also work with CPS secondary school teachers and provide them with learning and study materials on The Joy Luck Club, so that they can bring additional knowledge and cultural sensitivity to classroom discussions of the work.
Additional public programming presented by CAAM in conjunction with The Big Read include a screening of the film version of The Joy Luck Club and discussion with actress Lauren Tom (who played Lena in the film) as well as an exhibition on photographs entitled Asian Women on Screen: The Joy Luck Club and Beyond, featuring a panel discussion with filmmaker and Columbia professor Karla Rae Fuller.
CAAM will also present its 4th biennial Woman Warrior Festival around the theme of Generations before Us, honoring senior women for their achievements and legacy to the Asian and Asian American communities in the U.S.
Updates on programming can be found at www.asianartsandmedia.org.
More information on The Big Read at www.arts.gov/news/news07/bigreadCycle2.html
The Center for Asian Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago is a multidisciplinary arts center dedicated to supporting, promoting and presenting arts and media programs by and about Asians and Asian Americans. Our organization brings together accomplished artists, scholars and community builders from Chicago, the United States and abroad for lively and reflective artistic programs and events. As the first Asian arts center founded by a college or university in the Midwest, the Center places Columbia College at the forefront of the height4ened awareness of Asian and Asian American culture.
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