JAN LIN

 

Occidental College

1600 Campus Road, Los Angeles, CA 90041-3314

Tel: 323-259-2994

E-mail: jlin@oxy.edu

URL: www.oxy.edu/~jlin

 

EDUCATION

 

1987-1992       New School for Social Research, New York City

Ph.D. in Sociology

 

1983-1984       London School of Economics and Political Science

M.S. in Sociology

 

1979-1983       Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts

B.A. in Anthropology

Junior year exchange student at University College London

 

WORK EXPERIENCE

 

Sept 1998        Occidental College

to present         Associate Professor of Sociology

 

1994-1998       Amherst College

Assistant Professor of Anthropology/Sociology and American Studies

 

1991-1994       University of Houston

Assistant Professor of Sociology

 

GRANTS

 

1999-2003             Principal Investigator, “Northeast Los Angeles Community Outreach Partnership

Center (COPC),” Office of University Partnerships, U.S. Department of Housing

and Urban Development (HUD), $399,654 over three years. A one-year extension for the expenditure of funds was granted by HUD.

 

1999                            “Eagle Rock and Highland Park Community Data and Mapping Project,” Haynes Foundation Faculty Fellowship, Los Angeles, California, $8,000.

 

1996                            “Reclaiming Downtown: Minority Culture and Community Development in American Cities,” Miner D. Crary Summer Fellowship, Amherst College, $7,500.

 

1994                                "Economic Transition and Urban Change in Hong Kong and South China," Limited Grant-in-Aid, University of Houston, Sponsored Programs, $2,000.

 

1992                                "Linkages and Multipliers in Houston Minority Business Enclaves," Research Initiation Grant from University of Houston, Sponsored Programs, $2,000.

 

BOOKS

 

Ethnic Renewal in American Cities. A manuscript under development which takes a comparative perspective on racial/ethnic enclaves in four immigration gateway cities, including New York, Miami, Houston, and Los Angeles. A book proposal is being prepared for Routledge Press.

 

The Urban Sociology Reader (London: Routledge, 2005).  Part of an Urban Reader series edited by Richard LeGates. This textbook offers 33 selected classic and contemporary readings in Urban Sociology. My co-editor is Christopher Mele.

 

Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). Won Robert Park Award in 1999, for the best book in Community and Urban Sociology, granted by the American Sociological Association.

 

ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

 

“The Chinese Ethnoburb of Los Angeles: A Crucible of Racial/Ethnic Succession,” revised and resubmitted to GeoJournal: An International Journal on Human Geography and Environmental Sciences, January 2005.

 

                        “Dream Factory Redux: Mass Culture, Symbolic Sites, and Redevelopment in

Hollywood,” in Understanding the City: Contemporary and Future Perspectives, edited by John Eade and Christopher Mele. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.

 

"Globalization and the Revalorizing of Ethnic Places in Immigration Gateway Cities," Urban Affairs Review 34, 2 (November 1998): 313-339.

 

"The Reclaiming of Asian Places in Downtown Los Angeles," Hitting Critical Mass: Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism 5, 1 (Spring 1998): 65-87.

 

“Gateways in the Flow of Capital and Culture: Hong Kong and New York as World Cities,” City and Society, Annual Review (1997): 217-240.

 

(with Gerson David) "Civil Rights and Asian Americans," Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 24, 1 (March 1997): 3-24.

 

"Ethnic Places, Postmodernism and Urban Change in Houston," The Sociological Quarterly 36, 4 (Fall 1995): 501-519.

 

"Polarized Development  and Urban Change in New York's Chinatown," Urban Affairs Review 30, 3 (January 1995): 332-354.

 

"The Changing Economy of the Lower East Side," in From Urban Village to `East Village': The Battle for New York's Lower East Side, edited by Janet Abu-Lughod.  Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1994.

 

"Les Flux de Main-d'oeuvre et de Capitaux Chinois vers les Etats-Unis," (Changing Patterns of Chinese Labor and Capital Migration to the U.S.) Revue Europeenne des Migrations Internationales 8, 3 (1992): 73-89.

 

"Beyond Neo-classical Shibboleths: A Political-Economic Analysis of Taiwanese Development," Dialectical Anthropology 14 (1989): 283-300.

 

EDITORIAL WORK

 

July 2001 to     Book review editor (with Anne Shlay), for City and Community, a journal

July 2005         published by Blackwell and sponsored by the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. Participate in editorial board discussion every summer at annual sociology conference.

 

2003-present    Associate Editor for Urban Affairs Review.  Review and solicit manuscript submissions. Participate in editorial board discussions on electronic listserver.

 

TECHNICAL AND ARCHIVAL REPORTS

 

Launched www.nelanet.org, a community website, an informational, educational, and civic networking tool for the Northeast Los Angeles region. Many of the reports and business webpages created by students in classroom assignments are available from this website.

 

Northeast Los Angeles Community Data and Map Book (February 2001). I

directed the research involving several students at Occidental College.

 

Figueroa Street Improvement Project (June 2000), co-authored with Maria

Cardona, and Monique Hernandez.

 

Eagle Rock Business Owner Survey (February 2001), co-authored with Maria

Cardona, Angela Chan, Marisa Omori, and Kim Seeley.

 

York Boulevard Business Survey (Fall 2002), co-authored with Maria Cardona,

Edward Chaidez and Rebecca Padilla.

 

Artists of Northeast Los Angeles: A Compendium of Biographies (July 2002). I

directed this research with Professor Raul Villa involving the participation of dozens of students at Occidental College.

 

The Arroyo Seco and Highland Park: A Community History (August 2002). This report, co-authored with Jean Won, Class of 2001, is based upon a lecture I delivered, “The Campus and the Community: From Highland Park to Eagle Rock,” for the Inaugural of President Ted Mitchell, on April 10, 2000.

 

BOOK REVIEWS

 

                        Review of David Halle’s New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and

Culture—A Comparative View for Social Service Review 78, 3 (September 2004).

 

Review of Williams Sites’ Remaking New York: Primitive Globalization and the Politics of Community for American Journal of Sociology 109, 6 (May 2004).

 

Review of Aida Hozic’s Hollyworld: Space, Power, and Fantasy in the American Economy for American Journal of Sociology 108, 2: (September 2002).

 

                        Review of John Eade’s Placing London: From Imperial Capital to Global City

                        Urban Affairs Review 37, 5 (May 2002).

 

Review of Roger Keil’s Los Angeles: Globalization, Urbanization and Social Struggles for American Journal of Sociology 105, 4 (1999).

 

Review of Franklin Ng’s The Taiwanese Americans for Asian Pacific Migration Journal 8, 4 (1999).

 

Review of Bill Ong Hing’s To Be An American: Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation for Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (1998).

 

Review of Pyong Gap Min's Asian Americans for Asia-Pacific Migration Journal (1998).

 

Review of five books (Changing Identities: Vietnamese Americans, 1975-1995, by James M. Freeman; From the Workers' State to the Golden State: Jews from the Former Soviet Union in California, by Steven J. Gold; From the Ganges to the Hudson: Indian Immigrants in New York City, by Johanna Lessinger; Salvadorans in Suburbia: Symbiosis and Conflict, by Sarah J. Mahler; A Visa for a Dream: Dominicans in the United States, by Patricia R. Pessar).  Published in Contemporary Sociology, 26, 3 (May 1997): 351-354.

 

Review of Min Zhou's Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave, for Social Forces 74, 3 (March 1996): 1124-1125.

 

Review of Renqui Yu's To Save China, To Save Ourselves: The Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance of New York  (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992) for International Labor and Working Class History 47 (Spring 1995): 126-128.

 

CONFERENCE ORGANIZING

 

Session organizer: “Place and Space: Race, Gender, and Agency,” and “Place and Space: Tourism, Multiculturalism, and Public Life,” for American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., August 2000.

 

Session organizer: "Community and Urban Sociology Roundtables," American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, New York City, August 1996.

 

Session organizer: "Asian Community," Southwestern Social Sciences Association Annual Meeting, San Antonio, Texas, forthcoming, March 1994.

 

CONFERENCE PAPERS

 

                        “The Chinese Ethnoburb of Los Angeles,” presented at the American Sociological

Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, August 2004.

 

“Consuming the Other: Race/Ethnicity in the Urban Cultural Economy,” presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, August 2003.

 

                        “Art, Commerce, and Screenwriters in the New Hollywood,” presented at the

American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, August 2002.

 

                        “New York/L.A.: The Changing Fate of the Urban Ethnic Place,” presented at the

American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA, August 2001.

 

“Dream Factory Redux: Mass Culture, Symbolic Sites, and Redevelopment in Hollywood,” presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, August 1999.

 

“Globalization, Sweatshops, and Athletic Style Wars: The Cultural Politics of Nike Advertising Imagery,”(with Ron Lembo) presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, August 1998.

 

"Globalization and the Revalorization of Ethnic Places in Immigration Gateway Cities," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, August 1997.

 

"State Incursions and Community Action in New York's Chinatown," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, New York, August 1996.

 

"Factionalism and Solidarity: Community Power in New York's Chinatown," presented at the Association for Asian American Studies Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., June 1996.

 

"Comparative World Cities: Hong Kong and New York as Gateway Cities," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. August 1995.

 

"Immigration and Nativism in Historical Perspective," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., August 1995.

 

"Highways or Flyways? Urban Sprawl Meets Environmentalism in Exurban Houston," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, California, August 7, 1994.      

 

"Uses and Abuses of the Minority Enclave: Redevelopment and Postmodernism in Houston," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Miami, Florida, August 14, 1993.

 

"Minority Group Enclaves and Urban Change in Houston," presented at the Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Meeting," New Orleans, Louisiana, March 19, 1993.

 

"Semiperipheral Capital Flows to the Core: the Case of the East Asian NICs," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, August 22, 1992.

 

"Tenant Management and Tenement Rehabilitation on Manhattan's Lower East Side," presented to the Working Group on Housing and the Built Environment at the International Sociological Association Congress, July 1990, in Madrid, Spain.

"Polarized Development in the `World City': the Chinese Enclave of New York City," presented at the International Housing Research Conference, July 1990, in Paris, France.

 

"The Social Geography of Garment Production in Lower Manhattan," a paper presented to the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, March 20, 1989.

 

HONORS/FELLOWSHIPS

 

1999                                Recipient of 1999 Robert Park Award, for Reconstructing Chinatown.  Award was for best book in Community and Urban Sociology by American Sociological Association.

 

1992                            Citation in Men of Achievement (International Bibliographic Center).

 

1990                Citation in Who's Who Among Rising Young Americans.

 

1989-1990       Recipient of doctoral research award from Community Service Society of New York during writing of Ph.D. dissertation.

 

1987-1990             Recipient of Graduate Faculty Dean's Fellowship from New School for Social Research.

 

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AND MEMBERSHIPS

 

2001-2003       Community-Based Learning Committee, Occidental College. Previously an ad hoc committee, this became an official faculty committee in 2003-2004.

 

1999-2003       Faculty, Library, and Information Services Committee, Occidental College.  Was Committee Chair for 2000-2001, directing study on organizational restructuring.

 

1996-1998       Affirmative Action Advisory Committee, Amherst College

 

1992-1993       Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Core Curriculum, University of Houston

 

1991-1993       Member of Graduate Committee, Sociology Department, University of Houston

 

1991-2003       Member of American Sociological Association

 

1995-2000       Member of Urban Affairs Association

 

1995-1999       Member of Association for Asian American Studies

 

1991-1994             Member of Southwestern Social Science Association

 

1995-1996       Member of Eastern Sociological Society

 

PUBLIC SERVICE

 

2002                Coordinated student and COPC staff participation in: a) Community Arts

                        Education Project, resulting in compendium of artist biographies, a documentary

video, and an Artists Symposium and Open Dialogue, b) York Boulevard Business

Survey and supporting street festival and sidewalk sales, c) community archiving

projects on www.nelanet.org, d) student field visits to the Los Angeles River, e) moderated a candidate forum for Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council election.

 

2001                Coordinated student and COPC staff participation in: a) Eagle Rock Business

Survey, b) housing task force meetings, focus groups, and tenant organizing in

Highland Park, c) continued development of www.nelanet.org, d) organizing of an

Environmental Fair, e) conducting workshops for community people in webpage

development.

 

2000                            Coordinated student and COPC staff participation in: a) Northeast Los Angeles Community Data and Map Bank (using GIS technology), b) merchant survey and release of report, Figueroa Street Improvement Project, c) mural project involving college students and youth at Castelar Elementary School in Chinatown, d) archival history projects on Eagle Rock and Highland Park, e) launching of community website (www.nelanet.org), f) organizing of Job/Housing Fair and 45th State Assembly District Electoral Forum.

 

Spring 1999     Was main campus organizer for the 14th L.A. City Council District Candidates Forum, held at Occidental College Keck Theater on March 18, an event co-sponsored by the Northeast Community Resource Coordinating Council and Century Communications.  Drawing 14 candidates and an audience of 500, the forum was videotaped and broadcast on cable television.

 

Spring 1997     Supervised three classroom field projects in Holyoke, Massachusetts, including: a) an educational film project on Puerto Rican youth involvement in urban beautification, b) student compilation of Holyoke Community Data and Map Book 2 (statistical tables as well as GIS maps based on U.S. census data), and c) survey of tenants in apartment buildings threatened with eviction, followed by public testimony.

 

May 1996        Supervised classroom field project involving interviews of merchants in Holyoke, Massachusetts, released as Main Street Improvement Survey.

 

April 1996        Supervised student participation in compilation of Holyoke Community Data Book (tabulation of U.S. census data on CD-ROM) in "Urban Sociology" class.  Distributed to community organizations and city planners.

 

 

June 1995-96   Conducted workshops on "Asian Migration" for Hartford, Connecticut Humanities Alliance Summer Institute for Public School Teachers.

 

May 1993        "Background and Settlement of Asian Groups in Houston," presentation for Asian American Heritage Month, Houston Independent School District.

 

March 1993     "Student Leaders and Public Service," keynote address at annual meeting of Houston Chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa national student association.

 

Fall 1992          Supervised household survey of living conditions of low-income residents at Allen Parkway Village, public housing project in Houston's African American Fourth Ward.

 

Spring 1992     Organized University of Houston student involvement in clean-up efforts at College Park Cemetary, located in Houston's African American Fourth Ward.

 

Feb 1992         "Who's Going Where in Houston: Intraregional Race and Ethnicity Migration," (with Jacqueline Hagan and Peg Purser), presentation at Texas Economic and Demographic Association, Houston.

 

1990-91           Member of Board of Directors of It's Time (Chinatown community development), New York City.

 

1990-91           Member of Board of Directors of A.J. Muste Memorial Institute (pacifism and human rights), New York City.

 

Fall 1988          Work/study volunteer with Joint Planning Council of the Lower East Side, as community organizer, recording secretary and editorial assistant.

 

Spring 1988     Work/study volunteer with New York Chinatown History Project, on research for women garment workers exhibition and in holding a Housing Conference.

 

MEDIA

 

July 2004         Interview and quotation by Oscar Avila of Chicago Tribune on article about luxury housing being built in Chicago Chinatown

 

June 2004        Interview and quotation by Eun Kim of St. Louis Post-Dispatch on article about the ethnic enclave of “Little Bosnia”

 

Sep 2000         Quotation in column by Patt Morrison, “When Cultures Collide,” on use of

cultural defense in criminal legal rulings, Los Angeles Times, August 27, p. A2.

 

March 2000     Interview and quotation in Lee Romney, “Highland Park Comeback May Be

Model of Urban Revival,” Los Angeles Times, March 22.

 

Sep 1999         Interview and quotation in Los Angeles Times, September 16, on subject of HUD

grant, “$399,654 Grant to Help Revitalize Neighborhood.”

 

Oct 1998         Radio interview with WNYC-820 AM, New York on Reconstructing Chinatown.

 

March 1993     Appeared in a Town Meeting on Immigration televised by Channel 8, Houston.

 

Feb 1993         Interviewed by Channel 2 on subject of urban decline in Third Ward of Houston.

 

Jan 1993          Interviewed by Fox TV on Allen Parkway Village housing project in Houston.

 

Nov 1992        Interviewed by Houston Post on subject of gentrification in Houston.

 

June 1992        Interviewed by Houston Chronicle on issue of Black/Asian relations in Houston.

 

May 1992        Interviewed by Newsweek magazine on subject of Asian Americans in Houston.