In this presentation Shirley S. Tang will highlight the specific contexts, curriculum structures and pedagogical practices developed by the UMass Boston’s Asian American Studies Program, particularly in relationship with local Asian American communities and their transnational networks in Asia. She will share reflections and analysis on connections between her teaching and research in Asian American communities as a bilingual/bicultural immigrant faculty in an urban, public university in Boston, Massachusetts and her ongoing projects on civic engagement and service learning in Boston’s Asian American communities as well as her most recent experience supervising U.S. students in their participation in the 4th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service Learning and other international learning activities in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China.