Welcome to the summer issue of the UBC ACRE Newsletter! We strive to connect our community of UBC students, staff, faculty, alumni, and partner organizations by forgrounding relevant news, opportunities, projects, and events. We are happy to share that we've moved: you can find us in the new Gateway Health Building (5955 University Boulevard – Room 2240 - Faculty of Arts Research Commons). We’re excited for the acres of possibilities that this summer will bring! | Photo Courtesy of Jamie Poh: Co-Share Collective Staff and Executive Members at 312Main. | 2025 BC Studies Prize Winners Please join us in congratulating our Co-Director, Dr. JP Catungal, and Dr. May Farrales of SFU, as recipients of the 2025 BC Studies Prize! The annual BC Studies Prize acknowledges outstanding and original contributions to the understanding of BC’s cultural, economic and political life. The selected article, co-authored by Drs. Catungal and Farrales, “The Race to Indigeneity: Three Vexations in Filipinx Diasporic Politics,” was selected from BC Studies no. 227 (Autumn 2025). This was a special edition ‘Filipino Canadian Studies in, on and through British Columbia’ which Drs. Catungal and Farrales guest edited. The issue features several articles, a research note, and a soundwork centring Filipino Canadian voices exploring diaspora, belonging, and collective histories across BC. Read the Article | | Inaugural ACRE Graduate Fellows Cohort This past academic year, the ACRE Graduate Fellows Program convened an inaugural cohort of graduate students whose research interests include Asian Canadian and Asian diaspora studies. The program's goals include supporting graduate students and fostering spaces of belonging and scholarly discussion within and beyond university contexts. Throughout the year, fellows took part in a range of programming designed to nurture both scholarship and connection. These included a pedagogy panel with faculty, field trips to Centre A and the Museum of Vancouver, the Long Live Kings drag performance, coworking sessions, and opportunities to present ongoing work for feedback from ACRE faculty and peer fellows. Offered alongside light refreshments, these gatherings became spaces for networking and meaningful conversation. Stay tuned for program details for the 2026/27 cohort. - “The fellowship offered an intellectual safe space on campus that fostered a sense of graduate camaraderie, where I felt both supported and challenged to think beyond the immediate boundaries of my own work.” - Dree (Dhriti) Mehta, PhD Student, Department of Political Science
- "This fellowship has shaped my understanding of research, and influenced how I think about relationships, community, and the role of scholarship in creating meaningful connections. I leave the program feeling more grounded in who I am and more confident in the kind of researcher and community member I hope to become" - Salina Dolmo Lama, Masters Student, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs
- "The 2025-2026 ACRE Graduate Fellowship program offered insightful learning, relationship-building, and professional development opportunities focused on our shared research interests in Asian Canadian and Asian diaspora studies, as well as our engagement with Asian Canadian communities within and beyond the university." - Chung Park, PhD Student, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice
| Photos Courtesy of Julianna Yue: ACRE Graduate Fellows visit and tour with Denise Fong, Curator of Urban Cultures, at Museum of Vancouver; The Suitcase Project Exhibition. | Graduating Student Staff Felicity Gutierrez and Melissa Lee are research assistants at ACRE. This year, they are both graduating with a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies (ACAM). Get to know them more through their graduation profiles here! | Melissa Lee 李麗文 Melissa supported the production vignettes celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Chinese Canadian Heritage Society of British Columbia (CCHSBC) and an upcoming exhibit at the Richmond Museum that will explore themes of community—both locally and internationally across the Chinese diaspora. Additionally, Melissa supports Dr. Henry Yu's ACAM summer course program as a Program Assistant. What has working at ACRE meant to you? ACRE has meant a great deal to me because it has given me the opportunity to build meaningful connections with communities, students, staff, and faculty through projects that promote multigenerational storytelling and engagement. | | Heated Rivalry Lightning Lecture & Discussion Mini-Series This three-part series will take place across May, June, and July, with each event in the Mini-Series featuring a 15-minute “lightning lecture” by ACRE Co-Director Dr. JP Catungal, focusing on a scene or two from the series. This will be followed by 45 minutes of open small group discussion with fellow attendees. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided. This series kicked off on May 27th with the first session, EDI & The Elite Capture of Difference – “We are thrilled that Shane is Asian”: selling Equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in Heated Rivalry. Catch the upcoming sessions in the series: “A lot of kids are gonna be looking up to you”: Positioning Shane Hollander as a racialized model minority WHEN: June 24 | 4:00pm – 5:30pm WHERE: Arts Research Centre Room 2240 | 5955 University Blvd, Vancouver, BC Early on in the series, Yuna Hollander (Shane’s mom) reminds him that his drafting as a professional hockey player is significant not just for him, but also to other racialized people who struggle with the lack of racial representation in hockey. This lightning lecture and discussion will focus on Shane Hollander’s positioning as a model minority and how it impacts his life, including his complicated romance with Ilya Rozanov. “I kinda prefer being the hole rather than the peg”: Unpacking Shane Hollander’s queer Asian masculinity WHEN: July 29 WHERE: TBA The first time Shane acknowledges being gay to someone other than himself, he follows it up with an unprompted admission of his bottomhood. This lightning lecture and discussion considers the significance of Shane’s double ‘coming out’ as gay and bottom, situating it within a larger discussion of histories and representations of gay Asian masculinities in media and popular culture. This event series is free and open to all, but each event will be capped at 30 people. Reserve your seat here so you don’t miss out on this chance to secure your spot early. | Kuwentong Pauwi: Stories of Filipino Canadian Place-Making and Heritage UBC Connects at Robson Square is pleased to announce a collaboration with Asian Canadian and Migration Studies, Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement (ACRE), Heritage Vancouver Society, and Sliced Mango Collective to host a screening of Kuwentong Pauwi, a short documentary exploring belonging, advocacy, and the power of local roots. The film is part of Kuwentong Pamamahay, a collaborative project that celebrates the vibrant, often unseen stories of how the Filipino Canadian community has shaped Vancouver’s neighborhoods. Following the film, Dr. JP Catungal, Co-Director of ACRE, will host a lively panel featuring the filmmaker, UBC student researchers, and the Sliced Mango Collective to explore how everyday urban spaces—from grocery stores to street corners—can become the heart of a culture. When: Thursday, July 23, 2026 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM, doors open at 6:00 PM Where: UBC Robson Square Theatre | 800 Robson St, Vancouver, BC Register for the event here! | Photography by Khim Mata Hipol (@khim.mata.hipol), Mabuhay House Society | Becoming: The Art of Gu Xiong 雲起: 顧雄的藝術歷程 This exhibit traces the evolution of Gu Xiong’s artistic practice and the major influences that defined it. Gu has exhibited in Canada, China, Italy, and the USA in more than 50 solo shows and three public art commissions, but Becoming is the most comprehensive display of his work. Highlighting landmark pieces from his 50-year career, the exhibition showcases the pivotal moments that shaped his creative vision—serving as a roadmap of his artistic evolution from the 1970s to the present day and beyond. Gu Xiong’s exhibit will be on view at the Museum of Vancouver until February 7, 2027. The Museum’s Pay What You Can (PWYC) Days are held on the first Sunday of every month, and are a great opportunity to visit. The earliest PWYC Day to see Becoming will be on June 7, 2026. | Artist Gu Xiong posing in front of his 2026 painting Enclosures, a reinterpretation of his 1989 Enclosures painting which debuted at the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition. It will be on display in Becoming: The Art of Gu Xiong at the Museum of Vancouver, starting May 28, 2026. (Photo by Dennis Ha Photography). | Wuyi University Visit On May 13th, 2026, a delegation from Wuyi University (WYU) of Jiangmen, China, visited the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the UBC Asian Canadian Centre for Research & Engagement (ACRE). ACRE is excited to build on the work of the UBC Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies, to shape and expand experiential learning outcomes for students, to produce and distribute innovative research and scholarship, and to shape policy and practice in heritage conservation development in both China and Canada. | Cultivating Connections: Collaborative Gardening as Community Engagement At this event, student alumni looked back on their work on the Museum of Vancouver’s Backyard Garden. From 2019 to 2024, students from UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems, Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies program (ACAM) and Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies (INSTRCC) cultivated the garden by growing food, delivering public programming, and designing interpretive panels that highlighted the history of Chinese Canadians in British Columbia. | Read Student RAs Rayna Friar and Alexandra Liaw's recap here. | Nourishing Our Roots: A Lumpia-Making Workshop For the fourth part of the Browning Asian Canada series, members and allies of the Filipino/a/x community, along with collaborators from hua foundation and Kada, came together to wrap lumpia at 411 Seniors Centre along Fraser Street. In the wake of the Lapu Lapu Day tragedy, this workshop was grounded in Filipino/x foodways as methodology for both investigating transnational migration and rediscovering its potential for healing and emotional catharsis. | Read Student RA Felicity Gutierrez's recap here. | Lessons in Drag: A Lecture-Performance by LaWhore Vagistan Last year, drag artist LaWhore Vagistan dazzled at the Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre. Audience members watched high-energy lip sync and dance routines, which addressed call center labour in the Global South, the Muslim Ban, grief and family in the queer community, and Orientalist, globalized, nightlife spaces. | Read Student RAs Felicity Gutierrez and Rayna Friar's recap and reflection here. | Community Guided Tour in Kaiping, China The highly regarded field study, Living Roots of Cultural Heritage, guided tour to Kaiping and Jiangmen, China will be taking place again this fall: Nov. 30 - Dec. 7, 2026. This heritage guided tour and field study is jointly led by UBC history professor Dr. Henry Yu and Wuyi University heritage conservation researcher Dr. Selia Tan. The program explores applications of successful cultural heritage economic development policy, re-examining colonial approaches to archives and cultural heritage, and how to better respect the ways marginalized communities maintain and transmit their traditions. This year's trip is at capacity. Interested community members are encouraged to register to be notified of future tours using the registration link here. | | Archives are Everywhere! In this episode, Devon and Rhea join in conversation with Jennifer Douglas from the Community Archival Collections Heritage Exhibitions (CACHE), and Jeffrey Wong from Wongs' Benevolent Association (WBA). Through this roundtable discussion, Rhea and Devon learn more about the archival process and the impact of community engagement from large institutions such as UBC. Find ways to tune in here and learn more about CACHE! | | Read these new books from our ACRE associated faculty. These three books were generously supported by the 2025-2026 FI Fund: Additionally we would like to share Dr. Christopher B. Patterson’s new academic work, Domesticating Brown: Movements of Racial Imagination. | | | | |
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