This week, we will be discussing how to combine and extend ongoing work at NYU on the histories of immigrant communities in NY that retain transnational identities and connections. 

We have included this idea as a proposal for a workshop in our Luce Grant proposal, where we frame it in the context of teaching and research on Port City Environments in Global Asia. Global Asia is of course  a space of mobility that mingles with many others; our working proposition is that this mingling concentrates with distinctive local complexity and impact in major port cities, NYC being one of the most global, with many communities connected to Asia in its broadest definition

This oral history project could also work institutionally inside the Humanities Lab framework that FAS Humanities Dean Gigi Dopico has described. It could provide a way to connect research and teaching for undergrads, grads, and faculty who study various communities connected to many world regions. It also provides a way to connect Digital Humanities with Public History and provides projects that students can use for research and internships in the community, where NYU’s role as the global university of NYC could be further advanced by this kind of work.

We should have some funding from Luce to support this project, which could also enhance enrollments and majors in Humanities and attract support from various NYU sources. Immigrant identities and communities and their transnational connections are very hot issues: now seems an opportune time to put this project on the NYU agenda.