1st International Conference
"IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES:
IDEAS AND IDENTITIES"
September 8-9, 2000

FRIDAY SESSIONS:

The Friday afternoon opening session, "Immigrant Identities," took place at the Montezuma Hall, Aztec Center, SDSU, and included two keynote presentations: "Immigration, Globalization, and Social Imaginations," by Doreen Mattingly (Women's Studies & Department of Geography, SDSU), and "Imitations, Identifications, and Identities," by Samy Swayd (Department of Religious Studies, SDSU). The panel was chaired by Linda Holler, Department of Religious Studies, SDSU.

The Friday evening session, "Coming to America: An Evening of Poetry," featured Lamea Abbas Amara, an internationally acclaimed poet and writer who read selected poems dealing with diasporic experiences and multicultural understanding. Professor Donald Shojai of SDSU's Department of English and Comparative Literature read the English translation of poems and also moderated the session. The poetry session and the Saturday panels took place at the Holiday Inn Select in Mission Valley.

SATURDAY PANELS:

The Saturday presentations were grouped in six panels, addressing different aspects of diaspora communities as detailed below.

PANEL I: NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES

Chair: Rebecca Moore, SDSU
Danielle Baer, Vassar College, "Changing Fast: Defining Ramadan in an American Context"
Huma Ahmed Ghosh, SDSU, "Negotiating Muslim Identity and Gender: Concerns of Women Immigrants"
Akintunde Akinade, High Point University, "Home Away From Home: African Immigrant Churches"

PANEL II: BRIDGING THE DIASPORA

Chair: Risa Kohn, SDSU
J.M. Gess, Independent Scholar, Seattle, "Russian Jews in the US: Then and Now"
Eliezer Chammou, UCLA, "Sephardi Jews in Los Angeles"
Jonathan Friedlander, UCLA, "Yemenis in San Joaquin Valley"

PANEL III: DISPLACEMENT AND ASSIMILATION Chair: Willard Johnson, SDSU
Shabana Mir, Indiana University, "The Identity of American Muslim Youth"
Gohar Keledjian, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, "Armenians in Los Angeles"
Andreas Ackermann, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Essen, Germany, "The Diasporization of Yezidi Identity in Germany"

PANEL IV: OLD TRADITIONS, NEW REALITIES

Chair: Florence Gillman University of San Diego, USD
Lorna Kamber, University of Utah, "Copts: From Egypt to North America"
Lamea Abbas Amara, Poet and Writer, San Diego, "Mandaeans: Past and Present"
Touraj Daryaee, California State University, Fullerton, "Zoroastrians: East and West" [cancelled]

PANEL V: "MIGRATING" ARTS AND ARTISTS

Chair: Irene Bierman, UCLA
Allen Roberts & Mary Nooter Roberts, World Arts & Cultures, Fowler Museum, UCLA, "Arts of 'Exile' in the Mouride Diaspora" Sherifa Zuhur, President, Middle East Women Studies Association, "Asmahan and Farid al-Atrash" Jana Castillo, SDSU, "Immigrant Longing: The Case of Khalil Gibran"

PANEL VI: "MIGRATING" MANUSCRIPTS

Chair: Irving Alan Sparks, SDSU
Paolo Branca, The Catholic University at Milan, Italy, "Druze Manuscripts in European Libraries"
Ismail Poonawala, UCLA, "Isma'ili Manuscripts in the West"
James Robinson, Claremont Graduate University, "The Dead Sea Scrolls in America"

SPECIAL THANKS:

This 1st conference was made possible due to the financial support and organizational assistance of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), San Diego State University (SDSU), the Society for the Academic Study of Religion (SASR), and others.