On Monday, April 20th, 2026, the Asian American Seed Stewards (hereafter AASS) team -- Dr. Ga Young Chung, Will McMahan, Emma Thuy-Duong Nguyen, Mao Lee, and her daughter Chee Weber joined the UC Davis Student Farm’s Ecological Garden for a planting of Hmong herbs! We were also joined by a former AASS Research Assistant and Lead Student Farmer at SCOPE, Emily Seoyoung Chung, and many other student farmers!
On June 8th, the project team hosted an event to gather invested Hmong community members in the Sacramento area at the UC Davis Herbarium to visit the collection of Hmong traditional plants, including those recently collected with Mao Lee. Nine attendees, joined for their collaboration and partnership, included Mao and her family and See See, an incoming student in Plant Sciences. Two undergraduate students assisted with recording the event. The gathering was also welcome to Hmong students to join.
On June 16, Ellen Choy will present on Movement Generation's approaches to land justice and indigenous sovereignty through a framework of radical solidarity and Just Transition.
Join us on Zoom on June 13 for a talk by Heidi Amin-Hong to learn about how we can "unsettle" US national parks and be in real solidarity with Indigenous land-movements.
On June 6, Hummingbird Farm, based in San Francisco, CA, is giving a lecture on organizing solidarity on Zoom, titled "SF: Solidarity Forever - Building the people power needed for Environmental Justice & Land Reformation."
On May 13, we organized a gathering including Mao Lee with Hmong herb growers, supporters, researchers, and students held at Judy Tretheway's home, Confluence Gardens, in Sacramento. Participants included farmer and UC cooperative extension worker Ge Moua of Moua Farm, Julie from Hmong-owned specialty grocery store in North Sacramento, T & Y Market, Dr.
On Wednesday, April 30 at 12pm, Candace Fujikane gave a talk called “Asian Settler Activism in an Era of Climate Change” over Zoom as part of the Asian American Seed Stewards guest lecture series with Amado Khaya Initiative.
On April 25, the Liyang Network presented "Report Back from the Philippines" to share their observations, experiences, and lessons they have learned in international solidarity work as part of this year's guest lecture series.
The Asian American Seed Stewards Lab team was awarded grant funding from Global Affairs' 2024-2025 grants for Advancing Sustainable Development Goals for the project titled: “Developing a Toolkit for Global Education through Hmong Herbs: Community-Engaged Education and Practice Involving Health Equity, Food Justice, and Cultural Diversity.”
by Savannah Pluma, Deysi Alvaro, Huy Lin Lim, Laura Roser, Antonia Palkovic
Check out the SCOPE Celtuce Breeding Poster! The poster summarizes the project's background, key breeding goals, materials and methods, participating farm locations, and results.
As we get ready to distribute F2 generation celtuce seeds to growers, a collaborative meeting was held over zoom to better connect our researchers and growers beyond just google forms and emails.
The Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI) was established through Public Scholarship and Engagement (PSE) to recognize and support research that is cogenerated with community partners, is of mutual benefit, and has a positive public impact.
We are pleased to introduce an interdisciplinary seminar, “Seed Saving and Cultural Memory Banking Community-Engaged Participatory Plant Breeding with the API Farmers in CA” to the community.
