Book Launch and Panel: Migrant Crossings

FREE Zoom Event
Presented by Eastwind Books of Berkeley
Co-sponsored by the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Department of UC Berkeley.

Join us online for the book launch of Migrant Crossings with author Annie Isabel Fukushima! Dr. Fukushima along with panelists Carolyn Kim, Hediana Utarti, and Cindy Liou will gather for a discussion on human trafficking.

Migrant Crossings examines the experiences and representations of Asian and Latina/o migrants trafficked in the United States into informal economies and service industries. Through sociolegal and media analysis of court records, press releases, law enforcement campaigns, film representations, theatre performances, and the law, Annie Isabel Fukushima questions how we understand victimhood, criminality, citizenship, and legality.

Migrant Crossings deeply interrogates what it means to bear witness to migration in these migratory times—and what such migrant crossings mean for subjects who experience violence during or after their crossing.
—
About the Author:
Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima is Assistant Professor in the Ethnic Studies Division in the School for Cultural and Social Transformation at the University of Utah. Her research covers issues of migration, violence, race, gender, and witnessing and her expertise is recognized across the U.S. Dr. Fukushima’s scholarly works appear in numerous peer-reviewed journals. She values praxis, having implemented community-based research projects and served as an expert witness on human trafficking for immigration, civil, and criminal cases in multiple US states, including California.

—
About the Panelists:
Carolyn Kim is the Managing Attorney at Justice At Last, a non-profit law firm that specializes in legal advocacy for survivors of all forms of human trafficking located in the Greater Bay Area of Northern California. Her experience in law and trafficking includes working at Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST), Bay Area Legal Aid, and Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach.

Hediana Utarti Ph.D joined Asian Women’s Shelter in 2000 and is currently its Anti-Trafficking Program Coordinator/Community Advocate. Her position includes managing and developing the program, providing direct services for survivors, and conducting prevention education in various communities. She had co-facilitated AWS shelter support group for more than 10 years utilizing Art as Healing to enhance survivors’ stabilization and recovery.

Cindy C. Liou, Esq. is the State Policy Director at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a national non-profit working to provide legal counsel to unaccompanied refugee and immigrant children in the United States. She provides consulting and training on topics ranging from human trafficking, domestic violence lethality, to best practices on how to collaborate in cross-disciplinary teams to support survivors of violence. She is also the recipient of the SF Collaborative Against Human Trafficking Modern Day Abolitionist Award for Policy and Advocacy.