The Association for Asian American Studies has selected the Dean of the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz, Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu, for its 2022 Excellence in Mentorship Award. Inspired by her work and the great care she brought to the next generation of Asian American studies scholars and filmmakers, the Association will present the award to Dr. Shimizu at a banquet on April 16 as part of its annual conference.

An accomplished filmmaker and author, and one of the nation’s foremost scholars of Asian American film and media studies as well as Asian American gender, sexuality, and feminism, Dr. Shimizu has mentored countless undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and colleagues from UC Santa Barbara over the past two decades as a professor of Asian American, Feminist, and Film and Media Studies at the University of San Francisco State as Director and Professor of the School of Film, and to her current position at UCSC as Dean of Arts and Emeritus Professor of Film and Digital Media, and beyond.

Anaiis Cisco, an assistant professor of film and media studies at Smith College and a practicing filmmaker, was Dr. Shimizu’s student at SFSU. Cisco says, “Dr. Shimizu is a wise mentor, modeling the qualities of an educator and a compassionate artist. During my time working with her, Dr. Shimizu motivated and inspired me to strive for opportunities that seemed impossible to grasp, reminding me of the merit of my creative and professional work. His guidance has been invaluable, especially during critical moments in navigating entrenched power imbalances within the film industry and academia.

Another graduate student at Stanford University was Shelley Lee, a prominent Asian American studies scholar and chair and professor of comparative American studies at Oberlin College. Lee says, “Many of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned about how to be a dedicated, hard-working professional with an abiding passion for intellectual engagement and equity in higher education come from my many conversations with Dr. Shimizu at all stages of my career, from my graduate studies to my current position.

Kim Truong-Vu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado and soon-to-be assistant professor at the University of Miami, knew she had to enroll in one of Dr. Shimizu’s courses at UCSB after heard of at an event. “She made me feel so included,” Truong-Vu says. “I was a first generation student and I wasn’t sure if I belonged. Dr. Shimizu helped me to believe in myself and also to see that academia, in fact, needed me. Now I’m going to become a teacher thanks to her.

Says Dr. Shimizu, “It’s because of the mentorship I’ve received – the confidence building, career launch, innovative advice and program support that has enabled underrepresented people to enter the academy – that I am inspired to create mentorship programs wherever I am, whether as chair of the UCSB Senior Women’s Council, or developing the Equity and Leadership Program to Diversify leadership at SFSU, or the mentorship programs that I now prioritize for the arts division of UCSC. I am so honored to continue this work with my own students and colleagues who have nominated me for this award – a work what I do for our field and nurturing an abundance of voices.

Books that Dr. Shimizu has written include The proximity of other skins (Oxford, 2020), Sex in a straitjacket (Stanford, 2012), and Race hypersexuality (Duke, 2007) which won the Association for Asian American Studies Best Book in Cultural Studies in 2009. She co-edited The Feminist Porn Book (The Feminist Press, 2013) and The unobservability of whiteness (Brill, 2018). His new book Films of Racial Childhoods: Tracing Self-Sovereignty in Asia/Americais forthcoming from Duke University Press.

Celine’s archives (2020), her latest film, won several festival awards and is distributed by Women Make Movies. She is currently working on a new film, 80 years later: On the racial heritage of Japanese Americans premiering in May 2022.

The Asian American Studies Association was founded in 1979 with the goal of advancing the highest professional level of excellence in teaching and research in the field of Asian American Studies.