Making Movies About Asian American Families and Histories Across Generations and Continents

Historian, author and filmmaker Celine Parreñas Shimizu will chronicle her methods of archival research, family ethnography and histories of gender and diaspora in Asian American lives.

By demystifying the process of filmmaking and the critical role of scholarship, Shimizu will inspire claiming one’s own individual stories as part of larger narratives that reveal and capture the impact of major structural forces and public events upon intimate relations.

Open to the public, this presentation will appeal to anyone with an interest in history and ethnography, film and theatre, sociology and ethnic studies, and preserving and honoring Asian American cultural heritage.

About the Speaker

Shimizu is Dean of the School of Theater, Film and Television and Distinguished Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media at UCLA. She is well-known for her work on race, sexuality and representations. She is the author of several books, including The Hypersexuality of Race, which won Best Book in Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies.

An ethnographer and historian of images, Shimizu also makes experimental narrative and fiction films based on archival research and histories of families in diaspora. Her award-winning films include 80 Years Later: On Japanese American Racial Inheritance (2022) and The Celine Archive (2020). Her latest, So To Speak (2025), is on the festival circuit. In recent years, Shimizu won the Mentorship Award from the Association for Asian American Studies and was inducted into the Stanford University Multicultural Alumni Hall of Fame.