Community Engagement
Literacy for All of Monterey Park (LAMP)
Since 1984, Literacy for All of Monterey Park (LAMP) has been a leader in
adult and family literacy programs. We improve human lives by providing high-
quality, learner-centered literacy services to the San Gabriel Valley at no
cost.
Trained volunteers in one-to-one, small group, and classroom settings,
provide tutoring and instruction. Our volunteer teachers and tutors are
highly skilled and successful. As of March 31, 2010, they have helped 1,000
adults become United States citizens and 7,251 children and adults improve
their reading and writing skills.
Contact Information:
Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library
318 S. Ramona Avenue
Monterey Park, CA 91754
Email: LAMP@montereypark.ca.gov
Phone: (626) 307-1251
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IDAAS outreach: In the Spring of 2011, five students from the Claremont Colleges,
through IDAAS, partnered with four advanced adult language learners from the LAMP
program at the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library. Pitzer College professor, Dr.
Kathleen S. Yep, and interdisciplinary artist and community organizer, Traci Akemi
Kato Kiriyama, co-created the course, Asian American Voices, which brough the
Claremont College and LAMP students together.
The Claremont College students used Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)
experiences as a point of departure to reflect on historical, structural, and
individual causes of silencing. The course used feminist pedagogies and a
community-based learning framework to explore the ways people express their voice
as a means of empowerment.
Throughout the course, both Claremont College and the LAMP students shared
personal narratives of silence and empowerment, reflecting on the relationship
between self and society. They learned from each other's experiences and helped
maintain a supportive space in which each woman could express her voice through
both writing and dialogue. ~The Students in Asian American Voices
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Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowship
Asian American Studies has a tradition of community engagement and working towards
a more just society. As such, IDAAS established the Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowship.
This Fellowship is designed to encourage outstanding college students to implement
community-based, creative, or research projects that integrate social justice, multi-
racial solidarity, and feminism.
The program honors Margo Okazawa-Rey's outstanding work towards social justice.
Okazawa-Rey is among the first generation of mixed-race children born to a Japanese
"war bride" and an African American soldier. With an Ed.D. in education from Harvard
University, she currently is a professor in the School of Human and Organizational
Development at the Fielding Graduate University and a professor emerita at San
Francisco State University. Her work examined the connections between militarism,
economic globalization and impacts on women of color. Shw is the author of "Amerasian
Children of GI Town: A Legacy of US Militarism in South Korea," and with Gwyn Kirk,
co-editor of "Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives (5th ed., 2009). Her latest
publication, "Activist Scholarship: Antiracism, Feminism, and Social Change," is
co-edited with Julia Sudbury. In 2006, Okazawa-Rey was the Scholar/Practitioner-in-
Residence in the Intercollegiate Department of Women Studies at the Claremont
Colleges
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IDAAS awards one or two Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowships each year. The awards are
given on a competitive basis for student-initiated, interdisciplinary projects. The project
may be creative, research-oriented, or community "service"/social justice oriented.
The Fellowship is intended to enable individulas to undertake a community-based,
creative, or research project in any context, although work pursued in Asian and Pacific
Islander communities will be prioritized. The project may involve working with an
existing organization or may involve initiating a new effort beside a marginalized
community. Projects may focus on any social issue such as reproductive health, AIDS
education, sex-trafficking, peace education, and affordable housing. Students are
encouraged to conceptualize their projects in ways that make the connections between
domestic issues and international/transnational events, trends, and forces.
Past Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowship recipients:
- 2009: Leora Aquino, Pitzer: (Film) Agbayani Village
- 2011: Alda Caan, Pitzer: (Workshops) Prototypes
- 2011: Evyn Espiritu, Pomona: (Film) Vietnam and Diaspora
- 2011: Samuel Pang, Pomona: (Book) Malaysia, Food, Immigration
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