As part of the CCB’s series of events focusing on the implementation of the TEAACH Act in Illinois, the CCB and RDYL are hosting an Emerging Scholars Panel on Asian American Youth Literature.

The panelists are:

• Dr. Nithya Sivashankar presenting on “Ethical Engagement with Displacement Narratives for Children.”
• Mohit Mehta presenting on “Race and Visual Literacy: Asian American Youth Deconstructing Race through Graphic Texts.”
• Yangyang Liu presenting on “How I Came to Know Asian American Youth Literature.”

About the presenters

Dr. Nithya Sivashankar is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Texas State University where she teaches courses on children's and adolescent literature. She has a PhD in literature for children and young adults from Ohio State University with a specialization in South Asian studies. She has worked as an editor at Karadi Tales, a children's publishing house in India. Her work on South Asian and South Asian American youth literature, illustrated books, dramatic inquiry, and narrative theory has appeared in journals, including Journal of Children's Literature (2022), The ALAN Review (2021), Children's Literature in Education (2019), and Research on Diversity in Youth Literature (2019), and in edited collections as well. She is the book reviews co-editor for Research on Diversity in Youth Literature and currently serves as the chair of the International Committee of the Children's Literature Association.

Mohit Mehta is the assistant director at the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD candidate in curriculum and instruction. His research focuses on ways Asian American youth engage in critical racial and visual literacies through graphic texts. He was a former elementary bilingual teacher for seven years, and has taught in Guatemala, India, Palestine, and Nicaragua. He is working with a local nonprofit to bring Asian American studies to high school classrooms across the state of Texas.

Yangyang Liu is an MA student of East Asian languages and cultures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her major interest is modern Chinese children's literature. She is intrigued by the entangled narratives between children's literature and the sociopolitical milieu. She is also a graduate assistant for Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies and a graduate coordinator for the Yellow Peril Redux Project led by Dr. Shao Dan. When she is not reading or working, she enjoys spending time in the forests and near the lakes within the distance her immature driving skills could bring her to.

Please direct any questions about the panel to the CCB assistant.