The 7th Annual New York City Asian American Student Conference will be held at New York University this Saturday, April 27th. This is a great opportunity to learn about Asian American issues, network with community leaders, and meet up-and-coming Asian American performers.

This year’s workshops and panels include topics on immigration, civil justice through the lens of hip hop, politics of Gangnam Style, racial appropriation, and more.

Details on some of the many great speakers:

Our keynote speaker this year is award-winning journalist and activist Helen Zia, who has covered social and political movements of the Asian American community for the past thirty years. Her range of work is deeply rooted in civil rights advocacy, as noted in her involvement in the landmark anti-Asian violence Vincent Chin case of the 1980s. Other speakers and performers in attendance this year will include CNN-featured comedienne Jen Kwok, “Yellowface” playwright David Henry Hwang, Youtube performer Joseph Vincent, NYC-based comedian and writer Hari Kondabolu, and many other prominent and influential Asian Americans.

Don’t miss out! Registration is free. More information on nycaasc.com.

Don’t let your Summer become a lazy one. Chinatown YMCA is hosting Healthy Kids Day, a free community event on Saturday, April 27th that encourages kids to move, learn, and live healthier. From 10am-4pm, families will have a chance to attend fitness and educational classes. Scheduled activities include Family Zumba, a Veggication cooking class, and a performance by the Bilingual Birdies Band with songs in English and Mandarin.

Representatives from the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center and the New Jersey Dental School will be presenting information on how to be healthy.

What: Healthy Kids Day, a free community event promoting healthy living for kids and families
Who: Chinatown YMCA
When: Saturday, April 27th, 2013, 10 am – 4 pm
Where: 273 Bowery St

More information along with a schedule of events in this flyer.

Ease yourself with some music and tapping to greet the spring of New York at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). Next Friday on March 22 from 8pm-10pm, a fantastic live improvisation of cotemporary and traditional musicians, singers and dancers will let you to do so.

The Artists Min Xiao-Fen, Jin Hi-Kim and Max Pollak with their unique performing style and award-wining experiences will provide you with a stunning Friday night. Min is known for her fluid style of music and appearance on Björk’s album, Volta, Kim for her own compositional method of combining ancient instrument and Western orchestra, and Max for his creation of RumbaTap, an unparalleled merge of authentic Afro-Cuban music with American rhyme tap and body music.

You know you don’t want to miss this exceptional event.

Admission is $15 per adult, $10 per MOCA members. RSVP required to programs@mocanyc.org.

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Mia Wang is a contributing writer at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.

What is 9-man? Eighteen men play ball on an unvarnished urban landscape, shredding elbows and knees on the asphalt, smacking balls into puddles of broken glass. 9-Man’s faster than any volleyball you’ve ever played. Filmmaker Ursula Liang says, it’s “like Rutgers park street ball basketball to Duke basketball as 9-man is to indoor Olympic volleyball.” In a word, chaotic.

After raising over $40,000 through Kickstarter, Liang made a documentary focusing on this incredible sport, whose rules require two-thirds of each team to be “100% Chinese” and has remained largely unknown to those outside the nine-man community. The sport grew out of the isolation of the early Chinese American community, nearly entirely male because of immigration restrictions. “There was this small percentage of people who were ghettoized to the Chinatown,” Liang says, “but they wanted to connect to the other Chinatowns.” A part of contemporary Chinese America can be seen in 9-man–an element of Chinatown that’s both a cultural inheritance and sport dripping in swagger.

On Wednesday, March 27 at 6:30pm, Liang will be screening a preview of her documentary and speaking at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) along with two nine-man athletes, Frank Gee and Wayne Chow. Devin Gordon from GQ will be moderating.

RSVP required at programs@mocanyc.org. Admission is $7 for MOCA members, $12 for non-members.

Check out the Q&A Liang did with us in December!

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Kyla Cheung is a contributing writer at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.

This event is hosted by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association of New York University. Cost of tickets: NYU students $7; non-NYU students $18-48. For non-NYU audiences, tickets will be available for sale as the day of the event (March 9th) at NYU Ticket Center (566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square South).

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Jia Guo is a contributing writer at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.

The Museum of Chinese in America invites you to its Second Annual Celebration of Community Heroes! Last year, with David Henry Hwang as emcee, MOCA honored the work of OCA-NY and the Chinese American Medical Society.

This year, the dinner takes place Wednesday, April 17. Honorees include May Y. Chen, who serves on the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Rocky Chin, who in 2007 was appointed Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity & Diversity at New York State Division of Human Rights. Families with Children from China of Greater New York and Peter Lau, of Confucius Mannings Pharmacies, will also be honored at the celebration.

Festivities will be held at Golden Unicorn Restaurant, and dinner starts at 7pm, cocktails at 6pm.

You can register with this form (pdf). For more information, please contact Emily Chovanec Schappler, 212.619.4785 ext 4152.

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Kyla Cheung is a contributing writer at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.

“Your Day is My Night” tells the stories of immigrants living in two “shift-bed houses” in Chinatown. Most of the performers were recruited through Chinatown’s Lin Sing Association, and play roles and tell stories close to their autobiographical selves. The bed becomes a catalyst for bringing forth the stories of the transnational, the urban, and the historical, as well as the intimate, the familial, and the personal.

Purchase tickets at MoMA’s website. Screenings run on Feb. 24th and 25th.

To keep yourself updated on future screenings and live performances of “Your Day is My Night,” check the Facebook and the director’s website.

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Kyla Cheung is a contributing writer at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.

David Henry Hwang’s play is back on stage!

On Tuesday, March 5 at 7:30 pm, join MOCA for a special performance of David Henry Hwang’s The Dance and the Railroad at the Signature Theatre with an exclusive post-performance Q&A.

The story is about two Chinese workers struggling through poverty and hunger to reconnect with the traditions of their homeland while on a California mountaintop in 1867 near the Transcontinental Railroad. The Dance and the Railroad follows the twice-extended Golden Child as the second production in the Residency One: David Henry Hwang Series.

Come and experience the story with the actors’ brilliant and nimble performances. $25 per ticket. Limited tickets are available.

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Mia Wang is a contributing writer at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.

The parade is going for the Guinness World Record of Most Dancers in a Lunar New Year parade! Better Chinatown has maps to follow the dancers and marchers.

With support from CAAAV, NYAGRA, the Queens Pride House, APICHA, and NQAPIA, the Lunar New Year For All contingent will also be marching on the 17th, recruiting LGBTQ members of the API community, as well as their family and allies. “It’s a reminder to our families and communities of origin that we are someone’s brother, sister, son or daughter,” says organizer Ryan Shen. “We’re here to show our community that we are here and proud.”

The Lunar New Year For All marchers will convene at 11:30 AM at Hester Street and Mott Street. Look for their banners! You can also go volunteer and help them create their “GIANT SNAKE” at 10am at Project Reach.

If you can’t make any of the above, join them for an after-march banquet at Project Reach at around 3pm until 5pm. No RSVP required.

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Kyla Cheung is a contributing writer at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.

Last night, the Sundance Film Festival got to relive a little Linsanity, as Evan Jackson Leong’s documentary on Jeremy Lin premiered to a sold-out crowd.

LA Times’ Steven Zeitchik reviews the film here, but the more interesting stuff is on the film’s Facebook page where the production team posts updates and behind-the-scenes photos from the festival in Park City, Utah. And, check out their Twitter for personal reactions from the audience.

Here’s a few, with high praise from Zeitchik:

‏@Selah_V: “The best movie @sundancefest : @LinsanityMovie…tears streaming down my face the whole time. Truly inspiring in so many ways. A MUST see!”

@derekcrocker: @linsanitymovie lived up to the hype! Filmmakers got lightning in a bottle w/ #linsanity and captured it per http://instagr.am/p/Uufh6-H2NR/

‏@ZeitchikLAT: Linsanity is as exceedingly likeable as its subject, and by far the most enjoyable movie I’ve seen thus far at #Sundance.

The doc is currently seeking a distributor at Sundance, and early reviews like the Times have been positive. If you feel so inclined, you can help support the documentary through their Kickstarter page, where they have teaser footage of the film.

I know what you Lin purists are thinking. Were you put off by all those ironically Chinese-style bootleg Jeremy Lin biographies? Have no fear, the doc is legit.

Director Leong started the film years before Linsanity ever popped off, and the production team includes Chris Chen, who co-produced The Year of the Yao. Not to mention my dude, Brian Yang is a producer, and without a doubt the world’s biggest Jeremy Lin fan. Yang is also a regular on CBS’ Hawaii 5-0, and not so coincidentally, the doc is narrated by 5-0 star Daniel Dae Kim.

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Ren Hsieh is a contributing editor for OurChinatown. You can find him on Twitter at @TheRealRenHsieh. Continue the conversation by posting a comment here, on OurChinatown’s Facebook page, or on Twitter at @ourchinatown.