10/21/22 | No Crying At The Dinner Table

Thank you to everyone who attended today’s meeting!

At Friday’s meeting, we discussed the introduction of AALA, its mission, and its roadmap. As a project, AALA hopes to nurture Asian American narratives within the local campus community by doing the following: book club, journal/blog, and archive. We want to investigate the diasporic and Asian American experience and, in doing so, give people the chance to share their experiences and vocabulary to recognize these complex situations. Eventually, we hope that we can develop a journal/blog and an archive so that we can have a larger platform to share Asian American experiences.

We also featured Carol Nguyen’s 15-minute short film, “No Talking At The Dinner Table,” to start the discussion about diaspora and its ramifications within immigrant families. Nguyen’s film was also a way to start our book club as well! But full disclaimer for those who haven't watched it, the film features sensitive topics such as loss, grievance, and trauma. If you weren’t able to make it to Friday’s meeting, no worries, we’ll be meeting weekly! Next week, we will be starting on Thi Bui’s graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do.

If you interested either in looking at Nguyen’s film, please check out our LinkTree, which can be accessed through Instagram! We have a link to Nguyen’s film there, which can be accessed there.

For The Best We Could Do, we will be reading the chapters 1-4 of the graphic novel. If you want access to the book and slides of this Friday's meeting, please reach out to me so I can add you to the Google Drive! If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out! Have a wonderful weekend!