The Department of Ethnic Studies UC Berkeley

Bio & Research Interests

Peter Kim is a PhD candidate in Comparative Ethnic Studies, and his research examines the ways public institutions inform, shape, and mediate the subject formation of urban youth of color.  In particular, he analyzes how public schools, the juvenile justice system, non-profit community-based organizations, and local government play active roles in how Southeast Asian American youth in Oakland form notions of identity, community, culture and citizenship. Using frameworks of (anti)blackness, afro-pessimism, and social death, he explores possibilities of liberated and empowered subjectivity within oppositional identities (ie: the gang member, the refugee, the delinquent, the criminal).  Peter is a recipient of the Berkeley Fellowship (2010-2014).  For over 15 years, he directed community-based youth programming at the East Bay Asian Youth Center (EBAYC) in East Oakland, and now oversees funding and coordination of violence prevention and intervention services for the City of Oakland Human Services Department (Oakland Unite).  

(bio photo by p.kim; mural by Luqman; Oakland Chinatown, 2014)

Advisor:

Michael Omi, Waldo Martin (History)

Patricia Hilden

Courses Taught or Assisted

GRADUATE STUDENT INSTRUCTOR

Asian American Studies 20A – History of Asians in the United States (Michael Omi)

Ethnic Studies 10AC – History of Race & Ethnicity in Western North America (David Montejano)

Ethnic Studies 41AC – A Comparative Survey of Protest Movements since the 1960’s (Carlos Munoz)

Ethnic Studies 122AC – Ethnicity and Race in Contemporary American Films (Ray Telles)

Asian American Studies 171 – Asians in American Film & Cinema (Elaine Kim)

Chicano Studies 135 – Latino Narrative Film (Ray Telles)

Asian American Studies 138 – Topics in Asian Popular Culture (Hannah Michel)

GUEST LECTURER

Public Health 150E – Introduction to Community Health and Human Development (Prof. Amani Nuru-Jeter); UC Berkeley, April 2015

• Presented lecture on the intersection of municipal government, community based service organizations and law enforcement in the context of local efforts in violence prevention and intervention as a public health issue.

AAS 171 – Asians in American Film and Cinema (Prof. Elaine Kim); UC Berkeley, March 2015

• Presented lecture on Asian American identity, neoliberalism, and performances of blackness in Asian American communitities in Asian American Film

ES 190AC – Advanced Seminar: Inside and Beyond Walls: Migra, Masses, and the Carceral State (Prof. Victoria Robinson); UC Berkeley, February 2015

• Presented lecture on the intersection of local government and community based organizations in the context of violence prevention and violence intervention programming, and interrogating the possibilities of radical liberation of oppressed populations within a neoliberal carceral state

AAS 20A – History of Asians in United States (Prof. Michael Omi); UC Berkeley, March 2014

• Presented lecture on early immigration history of Korean Americans to United States and the development and formations of Korean American communities on the West Coast.

RRS 600 – History of People of Color in the United States (Abraham Ramirez, Lecturer); San Francisco State University, November 2013

• Presented lecture in Race and Resistance Studies 600 class, and discussed Asian American experience in United States, particularly the history of the “model minority myth” within a frame of neoliberalism and racial constructs.  Focused on the racialization of Cambodian American youth in East Oakland, California, within context of refugee experience, trauma, the American ghetto, youth gangs, and anti-blackness.  

AAS 165 – Research Methodologies in Asian American Communities (Prof. Jere Takahashi); UC Berkeley, October 2013

• Presented lecture on use of video production and documentation as research methods; described approaches towards community engagement, subject interviews, and participatory research, particularly in urban youth communities.

Ethnic Studies 112 – Contemporary Asian American Issues (Prof. Gregory Mark); California State University at Sacramento, November 2012

• Presented lecture on history and current landscape of community based organizations that serve primarily Asian immigrant and Asian American communities in Oakland, California.

AAS 170 – Asian American Cinema (Prof. Elaine Kim); UC Berkeley, October 2011

• Presented lecture on use of video production and documentary film as mediums through which to teach, train, engage, and inspire urban youth of color as tools for empowerment, expression, and agency

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