This paper explores the roles of immigrant dance in ethnic construction. It is based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with a Chinese dance organization in the US Midwest. Chinese dance in the US, a transnational cultural practice, solidifies a sense of belonging among Chinese immigrants. As these immigrants make sense of what it means to be Chinese and to do Chinese dance in contemporary American society, they reinvent their collective identity while holding on to primordial understandings of ethnicity rooted in the constructed ideas of ancestry and homeland. A case study of the ethnic construction theory, this research sheds light on the paradox of embodied immigrant identities: they are constructed through cultural practices and yet often understood as primordial, transnational and yet necessarily place-bound.

This paper investigates the cultural politics of knowledge production regarding Hmong American food-related health issues. Textual analysis of ten research papers published in the last twenty years leads to the critique that mainstream scientific discourse, rooted in Eurocentric epistemology, has in effect constituted Hmong Americans as subjugated Others. We demonstrate how this discourse (1) demarcates between the subject and the object from a Eurocentric viewpoint; (2) associates Hmong-ness with tradition while dissociating tradition from American-ness; (3) overlooks multiple differences within Hmong American communities; and (4) keeps silent on institutional racism as a barrier to healthy living. We explicate the power relations inherent in science research regarding marginalized communities, and call for decolonizing knowledge and research.

We investigate how Chinese and Peruvian immigrants in the United States construct the idea of authenticity through dance and what roles the discourse and practice surrounding authenticity play in the formation of racialized ethnic identities. This inquiry reveals that “authenticity” in the context of immigrant dance has two distinct but related dimensions; it is both a descriptor of cultural practice and a quality of individual subjectivities by which immigrants recognize the importance of dance for both cultural preservation and individual self-actualization. Additionally, through so-called authentic cultural practices such as dance, immigrants in the United States preserve their before-migration national identities. They do so in the institutional context of multiculturalism, where the host society’s demands for authenticity converge with immigrants’ desire for belonging and where immigrants experience racial formation and ethnic construction simultaneously.

Dance practices in Ethiopia remained vibrant, albeit transformed, as thecountry transitioned from feudalism to socialism (1974), and then to neoliberalcapitalism (1991). For centuries, a vast array of movement traditions has beenessential to religious and communal rituals in Ethiopia. Today, traditionalEthiopian dance is most visible in tourist restaurants or YouTube videos. Thetrajectory of dance from ritualised practices to commercialised performancespresents a seeming paradox: traditional Ethiopian dance as we know it today is,in fact, a modernised performance genre serving multiple functions: memorytransmission, ideological dissemination, and profit generation, among others.In the 1980s, the socialist state harvested dances from around the country toproduce “modernised” performances on the stages of government theatres,propagating the ideology of national unity amidst border wars and internaloppression. In the 1990s, as Ethiopia opened to the West, these dances continuedto be performed on restaurant stages, not so much to propagandise for thestate as to generate profit for the industry. The modernisation of traditionaldance continues in Ethiopia, under the auspices of neoliberal privatisation,which has also led to the westernisation of youth culture. Since the late 1990s,a group of young Ethiopians have devoted themselves to contemporarydance by adopting Western aesthetics and distinguishing their practice fromtraditional dance. Recently, they have grappled with the imperative to infuseEthiopian dance traditions in their work in order to be recognised in the globaldance field. Through dance ethnography, oral histories, and video archives,this paper illuminates both traditionality and contemporariness as historicalconstructs – categories of differential powers used to organise the currentdance field in Ethiopia. Keywords: Ethiopian dance, contemporary dance, traditional dance, multiple modernities, decolonizing dance

The struggle of low-income, minority, and first-generation students throughout their academic careers is an issue of significant concern to scholars and educators in many fields of study. Research indicates an increasing gap in graduation ratesf or these students in comparison to their more affluent or White peers. Low high school graduation rates, poor access and participation in postsecondary education, and high collegiate attrition rates continue to plague students from these populations. Colleges and universities have employed many strategies to address retention and graduation for historically marginalized students. Though well intentioned, many of these efforts lack sufficient financial resources, structure, or appropriate staffing. While there is acknowledgment of this serious problem in education, there are numerous, disparate, and at times inconsistent, approaches to addressing the issues facing low-income, minority, and firstgeneration students.In Roberta Espinoza's book, Pivotal Moments: How Educators Can Put All Students on the Path to College, she addresses the difficulties that low-income, minority, or first-generation students face in education-difficulties compounded by the intersection of these identities. Introducing her framework of "Educational Pivotal Moments," she details their impact on the ability of students to access, persist, and successfully graduate from high school and college. According to the author, the overarching purpose of this book is to remind educators that "they are life changers and to give them the tools to be more effective in this role" (p. 18).College student access and retention is a major issue for all students hoping to secure a postsecondary education. Linda Darling-Hammond has addressed issues of inequity in education and the ways our educational system serves to perpetuate inequality and the status quo. In her book, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine our Future,