Solidarity Struggle Victory Book Release and Conversation

Special Event

Solidarity Struggle Victory Book Release and Conversation

Saturday, October 26, 2019, 6:00–8:00 PM 
Southern Exposure, 3030 20th Street, San Francisco

Join us this Saturday, October 26 from 6:00–8:00 PM for the book launch of Solidarity Struggle Victory. The exhibition publication features a timeline of the 1968-69 student strike, archival images and printed matter from the Labor Archives and Research Center at the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University, and contributions from Amy Sueyoshi, Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, and Tongo Eisen-Martin, acclaimed San Francisco poet and educator. The book also includes an introduction by Solidarity Struggle Victory curator PJ Gubatina Policarpio, full color reproductions of artworks in the exhibition and artist information. 

The book release will feature a reading by publication contributor Tongo Eisen-Martin followed by a conversation on the legacy ethnic studies, its contemporary concerns, and place in the future moderated by Amy Sueyoshi. Panelists include Laureen Chew, 1968 student striker and Professor Emerita of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and Sofía Cárdenas, one of the organizers of the 2016 student hunger strike demanding funding for the College of Ethnic Studies.

The book is being published by Southern Exposure with production and design by Sming Sming Books.  

Can't make it to the book launch? 
Pick up a copy of the publication and view the exhibition through Saturday, November 9 during regular gallery hours, Tuesday-Saturday 12:00-6:00PM! Or get it online at smingsming.com.


BIOGRAPHIES

Sofía Cárdenas is a community organizer based out of Davis, California and is the daughter of Chilean political refugees. She currently works for the Yolo County Mental Health Services Act as a part time Outreach Specialist to the Latinx Community. She also works part time at Davis Senior High School as a Para-Educator working with children with special needs. Sofia considers herself an internationalist and has worked on solidarity efforts across Latin America. Domestically, she organizes to bring cultural competence to our institutions through Ethnic Studies, Queer Theory and Feminism.  She is a proud alumni of the First and Only College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and graduated with a Major in Women and Gender Studies and a Minor in Race and Resistance Studies. 

Laureen Chew was born in San Francisco to a Chinese American father and a Chinese immigrant mother. During her college years, Laureen volunteered and worked short-term jobs to help immigrant students, pre-delinquent teenage girls, and at-risk youth in San Francisco’s Chinatown. At SF State, she was arrested during the student strike and spent twenty-one days in jail for her support in establishing the College Ethnic Studies in 1968. Laureen became a bilingual second grade teacher to create social change within the community. As President of The Association of Chinese Teachers (TACT), she forged alliances to form the powerful Ethnic Minority Educators (EME) which successfully fought layoffs of minority teachers in the l970’s. She also worked on Chan Is Missing and Dim Sum, films that explore a community point of view to counter the stereotypes fostered by the dominant society. Laureen received her Ed.D. from the University of the Pacific. She joined the faculty of Asian American Studies at SFSU in1980. She later held a joint appointment with the Department of Elementary Education at SFSU to assist in institutionalizing bilingual–cross cultural teacher training. She also served as Department Chair of Elementary Education. In 2006, Laureen returned full-time to the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU as Associate Dean. She retired as Emeritus faculty in 2017.

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, “We Charge Genocide Again” has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book someone's dead already was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book Heaven Is All Goodbyes published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won a California Book Award and an American Book Award.

Amy Sueyoshi is the Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. She is a historian by training with an undergraduate degree from Barnard College and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her research area lies at the intersection of Asian American Studies and Sexuality Studies. She has authored two books Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi and Discriminating Sex: White Leisure and the Making of the American “Oriental.” She also served as founding co-curator of the GLBT History Museum, seeded the intergenerational Dragon Fruit Oral History project at API Equality Northern California, and co-chaired the inaugural Queer History Conference 2019 for the Committee on LGBT History. Amy is the recipient of numerous awards including the Clio Award for her contribution to queer history and the Phoenix Award for her service to the Asian and Pacific Islander queer women and transgender community.