The University of Tennessee Health Science Center
05/21/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 05/21/2024 10:47
Conversations on Health Disparities – Asian and Asian American In/Visibility with Dr. SunAh Laybourn
Please join us at noon on Wednesday, May 22, in GEB A204 for a Conversation on Health Disparities with Dr. SunAh Laybourn from the University of Memphis. Dr. Laybourn, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Memphis and will be talking about Asian and Asian American In/Visibility. This Conversation on Health Disparities is offered in partnership with the Office of Access and Compliance in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Lunch will be provided for those who RSVP by Friday, May 17, so please RSVP via Engage here: https://uthsc.campuslabs.com/engage/event/10074173
Dr. Laybourne is an Affiliate Faculty Member for the University of Memphis's Center for Workplace Diversity & Inclusion, an Affiliate Faculty Member in the International and Global Studies Department, and an Academic Research Fellow of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change. She formerly served as the co-lead facilitator for the National Civil Rights Museum's Unpacking Racism for Action six-month cohort program. SunAh received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Maryland (2018). Her research examines questions of race, identity, and belonging. She is the co-author of Diversity in Black-Greek Letter Organizations: Breaking the Line (Routledge 2018). Her work has been published in Social Problems, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, Racial & Ethnic Studies, and Asian Pacific American Law Journal, among others.
SunAh's latest book, Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants (New York University Press, January 2024) examines immigration, citizenship, and belonging through the case of Korean transnational transracial adoptees. Since the early 1950s, over 125,000 Korean children have been adopted in the United States, primarily by white families. Despite being legally adopted, Korean adoptees routinely experience refusals of belonging, whether by state agents, laws, and regulations, in everyday interactions, or even through media portrayals that render them invisible. In Out of Place, SunAh M Laybourn, herself a Korean adoptee, examines this long-term journey, with a particular focus on the race-making process and the contradictions inherent to the model minority myth.
The Conversations on Health Disparities speaker series is part of the Co-Curricular Certificate on the Social Determinants of Health, which is a QEP initiative facilitated by the Office of Leadership and Service. All Certificate events are open to anyone at UTHSC, regardless of campus location. If you would like to enroll in the Co-Curricular Certificate on the Social Determinants of Health, please log into Engage for more information.
This Conversation on Health Disparities is offered in partnership with the Office of Access and Compliance in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which is celebrated in the month of May.