Photo by Ashley Card from “Hybridity”.
Dr. Benjamin Y. Cheung 張煦 has partnered with cIRcle since 2020 to make the work of undergraduate students openly accessible and permanently self-archived within UBC Open Collections. A lecturer and Indigenous Initiatives Coordinator in UBC’s Department of Psychology and an affiliated faculty member with UBC’s Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies, Dr. Cheung helped coordinate deposit of 40 posters and presentations delivered as part of the annual Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC). More recently, Dr. Cheung has helped develop growing collections of undergraduate research produced in ASIX 300A and ACAM 320B, two courses examining multiple aspects of Asian diasporas in Canada from different perspectives.
About ASIX 300A and ACAM 320B
ASIX 300A: Hong Kong Diaspora in Canada is an undergraduate course offered by the UBC Department of Asian Studies that aims to look at the impacts of Hong Kong diaspora in Canada. It compares and contrasts the “identity, culture, and perspectives on social issues among diaspora in Canada,” (Cheung, 2024) while also thinking about the colonialization undergone in both in both places, and how decolonization efforts might be similar or different depending on the location (Cheung 2024).
Offered through UBC’s Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies, a multidisciplinary undergraduate minor which looks at Asian communities in Canada from a global perspective, ACAM 320B: Health of Asian Diaspora in Canada focuses on health within Asian diaspora, including where health information comes from, what forms of information are prioritized, and the discrimination people face in regards to their own health (UBC ACAM, 2020).
A Multidisciplinary Approach
Through a multidisciplinary, and often multi-lingual approach, students employ a range of traditional and alternative scholarly outputs to explore a topic of interest in relation to the courses’ central themes. As a result, in these collections you’ll find academic essays and reports, podcasts, videos, cookbooks, comics and other forms of creative expression.
Fans of the graphic novel format will enjoy reading Hybridity, which explores questions about what makes someone a true Hong Konger through a series of comic panels. Cultural Food Insecurity: A Comic about a HK migrant’s food accessibility in UBC Canada uses a similar device to examine the struggles international students face when eating on UBC campus.
Works such as Final Project: Parallels between Pottery and My Identity as a Second-Generation Chinese Growing Up in Canada and Where Are You From? weave together fine arts and personal stories of belonging.
“There’s Food at Home”: A Poetry Cookbook about Immigration and the podcast 不能喝涼水 – Don’t drink cold water look at diasporic experiences though the lens of health, well-being, and the cultural ties that food and medicine bring to our lives.
Undergraduate Work in cIRcle
Are you a faculty member wanting to help your own students preserve and display their work, or an undergraduate student interested in submitting your own research? cIRcle has a collection specifically for UBC Undergraduate Research. For more information on submission details, please look at our Undergraduate Work Submissions page or contact us.
References
Cheung, B. (2024). Syllabus for ASIX 300A: Hong Kong Diaspora in Canada. Winter 2023/2024. University of British Columbia. https://blogs.ubc.ca/asix300aonline/
UBC ACAM. (2020, June 18). ACAM Spotlights: ACAM 320B Health Among the Asian Diaspora in Canada. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_dq77vUAfE