Asian American Movements for Racial Justice: Resistance and Solidarity – The 2026 Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture

The 2026 Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture by Professor Russell M. Jeung
Introduction by:  Socioloy Professor Yung-Yi Diana Pan

Presenters include:

• Russell M. Jeung, the 2025-6 Robert L. Hess Scholar in Residence, is Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and co-founder of Stop AAIP Hate. Over the last 25 years his research has shaped the fields of Asian American Studies and Sociology of Religion. He is author of Family Sacrifices: The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese Americans; Moving Movers: Student Activism and the Emergence of Asian American Studies; At Home in Exile: Finding Jesus among My Ancestors and Refugee Neighbors; Sustaining Faith Traditions: Race, Ethnicity and Religion Among the Latino and Asian American Second Generation (with Carolyn Chen): and Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches. He co-produced the documentary, The Oak Park Story (2010), about a landmark housing lawsuit involving Cambodian and Latino tenants. In March 2020, Professor Jeung co-founded Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition that was awarded the 2021 Webby Award for “Social Movement of the Year.” He was named as one of the TIME 100 Most Influential Persons in 2021.

• Yung-Yi Diana Pan is the director of the American Studies Program and Associate Professor of Sociology at CUNY, Brooklyn College. She is also faculty of Sociology at the Graduate Center. Pan’s research broadly intersects race, ethnicity, immigration, professions, and culture. Mostly, she is interested in examining how institutions not only maintain but reify racial norms and boundaries. Her first book, Incidental Racialization: Performative Assimilation in Law School (Temple University, 2017) examines how Asian American and Latinx law students are racialized as a part of their professional socialization. Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed sociology journals and interdisciplinary journals, including Sociological Forum, Journal for Asian American Studies, and International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, among others. She is co-PI on the Brooklyn College AANAPISI grant and has served in administrative positions at CUNY. Pan regularly teaches theory, research methods, and race and ethnicity courses, and advises students on an array of independent research topics.