Renee Tajima-Pena

Title: Professor
Department: Asian American Studies
Email: rtajima@asianam.ucla.edu

Current Project(s):

The Center for EthnoCommunications (which I direct) has several social justice-related projects and partnerships, including: 1) Building History 3.0, an elementary, middle school and high school curriculum project that uses the online construction game Minecraft to teach the history of Japanese American imprisonment during World War II; 2) the Nikkei Democracy Project, a multi-media collective that brings together Japanese American filmmakers, artists and social media activists to use the legacy of Japanese American imprisonment to expose current threats to constitutional rights and civil liberties; and 3) the Lau Chinese American History Documentary Project in conjunction with the Asian American Studies Center, a series of short documentaries on Los Angeles's Chinese American heritage; 4) the Collective Memories Project in conjunction with the Asian American Studies Center, an oral histories project that documents the campus and community voices that led to the development of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA and the push for a more inclusive university. In addition, I am producing a major, multi-part series on the Asian American experience for PBS, and the Center for EthnoCommunications will be involved in the civil engagement initiatives for the broadcast. For information or inquiries about any of these projects, please contact Assistant Director, Janet Chen at jchen@aasc.ucla.edu.

Available Publications/Books:

Tagged: Cultural Production