| 2020 Amy Ling Yellow Light Award Winners |
Amy Ling pioneered and headed the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991. She completed
Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Culture shortly before she died in 1999. Yellow Light was a seminal bool featuring a wide
array of Asian American authors and artists from across the Asian Diaspora. The Asian American Studies Program established the Amy
Ling Yellow Light Awards in her honor. The 2020 award recipients are:
Creative Endeavor and Scholarship
Winners: Ariana Thao, Thea Camille Valmadrid, and Christy Zheng
In “Project Hais Lus: Perspectives on language access, cultural barriers, and multilingualism in Wisconsin’s Hmong communities,”
Ariana Thao, fourth-year Asian American Studies Certificate and HMoob American Studies Emphasis student, together with co-author
Dominic J. Ledesma Perzichilli examines how best to address the needs of community members who are non-English dominant.
Drawing on interviews with 23 leaders of Wisconsin’s Hmong communities, Thao and Ledesma Perzichilli offer new insights on how the
UW Division of Extension, as a part of the U.S. Land-Grant University system, can improve its educational outreach mission to serve a
community that is diverse, both linguistically and culturally.
As Thea Camille Valmadrid, fourth-year Music major in Violin Performance, observed in her study, “Bridges of Support: Investigating the
Experiences of Female Asian American Writing Tutors,” while the UW Writing Center provides tutors with informational materials on how
best to support students of color on campus, there are no guides to help address the needs of tutors of color. Drawing on interviews with
three female Asian American tutors, Valmadrid sheds light on the challenges and biases that Asian American female instructors
encounter while teaching in a predominantly white institution.
“As an individual who considers herself an Asian American,” writes Christy Zheng, third-year Asian American Studies Certificate student,
“I have struggled with the confusion and pain that collectively haunts the ethnic minority community. The fears of being alone and
struggling with identity are aspects of my common life.” To address this sense of alienation, Zheng developed an action project that goes
beyond the walls of the Multicultural Student Center, where students of color issues are not confined within a brick building and
separated by ethnic and racial identities. For Zheng, the vision is to build a more integrated space for cultural and social exchange.
Integrity and Leadership
Winners: Amanda Ong and MaiNeng Vang
As Professor Joan Fujimura writes, Amanda Ong, Ph.D. candidate in English, “is a leader among Asian American Studies students, and
she sets an example for other students about how to contribute to and participate in Asian American Studies.” Not only has Ong, together
with Erica Kanesaka Kalnay, created the interdisciplinary Asian American Studies Working Group, she has also worked as a graduate
intern at the Multicultural Student Center to support APIDA-identified students. As a member of English Department’s Diversity and
Inclusion Student Committee, Ong helped to organize a pedagogy workshop on Asian American Studies.
MaiNeng Vang, graduate student in Educational Policy Studies, went beyond providing academic mentorship for the Paj Ntaub Research
Team. For Lisa Yang, she “cannot imagine college life without her, because she really showed me how to love myself and my
communities, even when they are too exhausted to show up, and to make space for all my own insecurities as a HMoob womxn.”
Impressively, Vang also published a poetry book, dej siab: from my liver toyours, dedicating 100% of its proceeds to support UW Eau
Claire’s Critical Hmong Studies Program.
Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Culture shortly before she died in 1999. Yellow Light was a seminal bool featuring a wide
array of Asian American authors and artists from across the Asian Diaspora. The Asian American Studies Program established the Amy
Ling Yellow Light Awards in her honor. The 2020 award recipients are:
Creative Endeavor and Scholarship
Winners: Ariana Thao, Thea Camille Valmadrid, and Christy Zheng
In “Project Hais Lus: Perspectives on language access, cultural barriers, and multilingualism in Wisconsin’s Hmong communities,”
Ariana Thao, fourth-year Asian American Studies Certificate and HMoob American Studies Emphasis student, together with co-author
Dominic J. Ledesma Perzichilli examines how best to address the needs of community members who are non-English dominant.
Drawing on interviews with 23 leaders of Wisconsin’s Hmong communities, Thao and Ledesma Perzichilli offer new insights on how the
UW Division of Extension, as a part of the U.S. Land-Grant University system, can improve its educational outreach mission to serve a
community that is diverse, both linguistically and culturally.
As Thea Camille Valmadrid, fourth-year Music major in Violin Performance, observed in her study, “Bridges of Support: Investigating the
Experiences of Female Asian American Writing Tutors,” while the UW Writing Center provides tutors with informational materials on how
best to support students of color on campus, there are no guides to help address the needs of tutors of color. Drawing on interviews with
three female Asian American tutors, Valmadrid sheds light on the challenges and biases that Asian American female instructors
encounter while teaching in a predominantly white institution.
“As an individual who considers herself an Asian American,” writes Christy Zheng, third-year Asian American Studies Certificate student,
“I have struggled with the confusion and pain that collectively haunts the ethnic minority community. The fears of being alone and
struggling with identity are aspects of my common life.” To address this sense of alienation, Zheng developed an action project that goes
beyond the walls of the Multicultural Student Center, where students of color issues are not confined within a brick building and
separated by ethnic and racial identities. For Zheng, the vision is to build a more integrated space for cultural and social exchange.
Integrity and Leadership
Winners: Amanda Ong and MaiNeng Vang
As Professor Joan Fujimura writes, Amanda Ong, Ph.D. candidate in English, “is a leader among Asian American Studies students, and
she sets an example for other students about how to contribute to and participate in Asian American Studies.” Not only has Ong, together
with Erica Kanesaka Kalnay, created the interdisciplinary Asian American Studies Working Group, she has also worked as a graduate
intern at the Multicultural Student Center to support APIDA-identified students. As a member of English Department’s Diversity and
Inclusion Student Committee, Ong helped to organize a pedagogy workshop on Asian American Studies.
MaiNeng Vang, graduate student in Educational Policy Studies, went beyond providing academic mentorship for the Paj Ntaub Research
Team. For Lisa Yang, she “cannot imagine college life without her, because she really showed me how to love myself and my
communities, even when they are too exhausted to show up, and to make space for all my own insecurities as a HMoob womxn.”
Impressively, Vang also published a poetry book, dej siab: from my liver toyours, dedicating 100% of its proceeds to support UW Eau
Claire’s Critical Hmong Studies Program.
Ariana Thao
Thea Camile Valmadrid
Christy Zheng
Amanda Ong
MaiNeng Vang