Millions of immigrants and their families call Los Angeles home. This program delves into the experiences of some of these local communities, including how they carve out, transform and influence spaces in this massive city.
Speakers:
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Sophia Armen, Community organizer; Co-Director of Armenian-American Action Network; and PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies, UC San Diego
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Phung Huynh, Artist and Professor of Art, Los Angeles Valley College
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Edina Leković, Community Scholar in Residence, Islamic Studies Program, UCLA (Tovaangar) and Executive Director of the Robert Ellis Simon Foundation
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Rocio Rosales, Associate Professor of Sociology, UC Irvine
Moderator: Abel Valenzuela, Interim Dean, Division of Social Sciences; Professor of Labor Studies, Urban Planning and Chicana/o and Central American Studies, UCLA (Tovaangar)
Image: Phung Huynh, "Phung Huynh (Me)"
About the Speakers
Sophia Armen is a South West Asian and North African (SWANA) feminist community organizer, writer, and scholar from Los Angeles, California. She serves as the Co-Director of Armenian-American Action Network and The Feminist Front. Armenian-American Action Network is a U.S. advocacy and research organization fighting anti-Armenian racism in the United States and forwarding civil, immigrant, and refugee rights for our and all communities. She has been building in the survivor justice, reparations and SWANA movement for over 12 years. Armen is a descendant of genocide survivors from Hadjin, Kharpert, Van and Istanbul. Her work has appeared in Vice News, The Hye-Phen Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and in a cover story for The Los Angeles Times.
Phung Huynh is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator with a practice in drawing, painting, public art, and community engagement. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has completed public art commissions throughout Los Angeles County. Her work is informed by her experience as a Southeast Asian refugee of Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Chinese ancestry. Huynh is also Professor of Art at Los Angeles Valley College. She has served as Chair of the Public Art Commission for the city of South Pasadena and Chair of the Prison Arts Collective Advisory Council, which supports arts programming in California state prisons. Huynh holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University. She is a recipient of the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, the California Arts Council Individual Established Artist Fellowship, and the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship. She is represented by Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles.
Edina Lekovic is the inaugural Community Scholar of the Community Bridges Residency, a partnership between UCLA's Islamic Studies Program and Fowler Museum. She has over two decades of expertise in storytelling, leadership development and community building. Additionally, she is Executive Director of the Robert Ellis Simon Foundation, which supports mental wellness services for L.A. County’s most under-served residents. While at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Edina co-founded NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change and also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and NPR. In 2015, she was named one of “10 Game Changing Women” by Los Angeles Magazine after she gave the historic first sermon at the Women's Mosque of America.
Rocío Rosales is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Prior to this appointment she was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. She completed her Ph.D. in Sociology at UCLA in 2012 and received her A.B. in Sociology (cum laude) with a certificate in Latin American Studies from Princeton University. Her research interests include international migration, immigrant and ethnic economies, race and ethnicity, law and society, Latinas/os in the US, and qualitative research methods. Her work has been funded by the American Philosophical Society (2011), John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation (2010), Ford Foundation (2005-2008), and Mellon Mays Foundation (2003-2012). Her research appears in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Ethnic and Racial Studies. Her book, Fruteros: Street Vending, Illegality, and Ethnic Community, was published by University of California Press.
Abel Valenzuela Jr. is the interim dean of UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences and professor of Labor Studies, Urban Planning and Chicana/o and Central American Studies. As one of the leading national experts on day labor, he has published numerous articles and technical reports on the subject. His research interests include precarious labor markets, worker centers, immigrant workers, and Los Angeles. In addition to the topic of day labor, Professor Valenzuela has published numerous articles on immigrant settlement, labor market outcomes, urban poverty and inequality and continues to frame national public and policy conversations on immigrant and low-wage workers. Dr. Valenzuela earned his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.C.P. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and currently lives in Venice Beach with his wife and three sons.
Sponsors
UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies; UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration; UCLA International Institute; UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center; UCLA School of Law Williams Institute
