Professor Hung Cam Thai’s book, Insufficient Funds, is recipient of the American Sociological Association’s award for the best book on Asia in 2015.

Complete article: http://www.pomona.edu/news/2015/09/02-prof-hung-thai-explores-love-money-and-remittances

Congratulations to Professor Hung Cam Thai who was named to the “40 Under 40: Professors Who Inspire” list.

“Thai is known for “guiding” his students, rather than lecturing them. One student at the college in Claremont, California, says it would be difficult to find another professor as dedicated to mentorship or more passionate about sociology than Thai. Another student describes working with Thai in Vietnam to document the lives of Western expatriates: “The opportunity to experience all parts of the creation of sociological knowledge — from target group selection to data acquisition to data analysis — sparked the interest that has led me to pursue sociology in my graduate studies.” – See the complete list.

Pomona College Professors Lynne Miyake (IDAAS core faculty) and Zayn Kassam (IDAAS affiliated faculty) have received the 2015 Wig Distinguished Professor Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award is the highest honor bestowed on Pomona faculty, recognizing exceptional teaching, concern for students and service to the College and community.

The recipients are elected by the junior and senior classes and then confirmed by a committee of trustees, faculty and students.

Lynne Miyake, professor of Japanese, teaches elementary, intermediate and advanced Japanese; Graphically Speaking: Japanese Manga and its Buds; Japanese/Japanese American Women Writers; and Japanese and Japanese American Autobiography.

Student comment: “Encyclopedic knowledge of her favorite subjects (e.g. manga and anime), willingness to approach it from a variety of angles and take student feedback into account on that front. Miyake sensei constantly brings an incredible energy to all of the classes she teaches. I appreciate how she constantly pushes you to do better and continue learning despite the Japanese language’s difficulty curve.”

Zayn Kassam, the John Knox McLean Professor of Religious Studies, teaches Engendering and Experience: Women in Islamic Traditions; Islamic Thought; Sufism; The Divine Body: Religion and the Environment; and The Religion of Islam. This is her third Wig Award, previously received in 1998 and 2005.

Student comment: “Prof. Kassam is eloquent, caring, and brilliant. She can turn a small moment into a resonating statement about tolerance. By teaching us how to investigate Islam by learning its history and spiritual legacy, she flipped the culturally deterministic script that dominates popular discussion of the religion in a highly necessary way.”

WEB LINK: http://www.pomona.edu/news/2015/05/18-wig-awards-2015.aspx.

Congratulations Professor Miyake and Professor Kassam!

Insufficient Funds: The Culture of Money in Low-Wage Transnational Families
Hung Cam Thai
Stanford University Press.

“Every year migrants across the globe send more than $500 billion to relatives in their home countries, and this circulation of money has important personal, cultural, and emotional implications for the immigrants and their family members alike. Insufficient Funds tells the story of how low-wage Vietnamese immigrants in the United States and their poor, non-migrant family members give, receive, and spend money.

Drawing on interviews and fieldwork with more than one hundred members of transnational families, Hung Cam Thai examines how and why immigrants, who largely earn low wages as hairdressers, cleaners, and other “invisible” workers, send home a substantial portion of their earnings, as well as spend lavishly on relatives during return trips. Extending beyond mere altruism, this spending is motivated by complex social obligations and the desire to gain self-worth despite their limited economic opportunities in the United States. At the same time, such remittances raise expectations for standards of living, producing a cascade effect that monetizes family relationships. Insufficient Funds powerfully illuminates these and other contradictions associated with money and its new meanings in an increasingly transnational world.”