Date: July 15–16, 2021
Format: Virtual
Admission: Free (advance registration required)
More info & to register: www.sci-ac.org
This year’s theme is “Building Stronger Ties for an Interconnected World” and features breakout sessions on economic, education, humanitarian, sports, and other themes.
Date: Thursday, May 27, 2021
Time: 7-8:30pm
Format: Zoom webinar
Admission: Free (advance registration required).
More info & to register: aapi2021.eventbrite.com
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), a time when we recognize the history and achievements of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Unfortunately, this year’s celebrations are marred by increasing rates of targeted violence against AAPI individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. These actions are rooted in our nation’s history of periodic exclusion, discrimination, racism, and xenophobia which have long been juxtaposed with the vitality, promise, and mutual benefit endowed by our diversity of backgrounds and experiences.
Please join Baltimore Sister Cities and our partners in solidarity, community and celebration as we honor the invaluable contributions of AAPI communities in Baltimore and Maryland. During this panel discussion, we will explore what AAPI heritage means to all of us. How have AAPI communities contributed to Baltimore and American history? What are AAPI communities currently doing to contribute to culture, the arts, activism, and public service in our region? What new directions are they calling for?
Moderator: Teresa Leslie from Baltimore Sister Cities.
More info & to register: aapi2021.eventbrite.com
Baltimore Sister Cities (BSC)
This webinar is organized by Baltimore Sister Cities in honor of its Asian sister city committees (Changwon, South Korea; Kawasaki, Japan; Xiamen, China).
Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MIMA)
Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University (AA&CC)
Baltimore’s public library hosts Imagination Celebration (formerly known as the Fairy Tale festival) throughout the month of May. This signature event celebrates creativity and honors diverse voices and experiences within children’s literature and our communities.
Baltimore Sister Cities offers fun activities for kids from some of the countries around the world where we have sister cities! Admission is free.
Join us for a special storytime with the Changwon City Committee of Baltimore Sister Cities! Together, we’ll read a story and learn about traditional Korean dances and clothing.
Time: 11am
Location: This event takes place online. Dial-in information: Event page on the library website
Join the Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister Cities Committee and learn how to decorate typical Dutch blue-and-white Delftware tiles. Delftware is a famous painting style from the Netherlands that became well-known around the world in the 17th century. Channel your creativity in this workshop and give these characteristic tiles a unique, personal touch.
Time: 2 timeslots: 1pm and 2pm
Location: Outdoors at Washington Village (Pigtown) branch of the library, at 856 Washington Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21230.
This program is limited to 10 participants per timeslot and pre-registration is required. To register, call the Washington Village Branch at (410) 396-1099 or email wsh@prattlibrary.org
Event page on the library website (1pm slot)
Event page on the library website (2pm slot)
Celebrate Chinese culture with the Baltimore-Xiamen Sister City Committee. Pick up a kit to make your own traditional Chinese folded fan. This take & make kit will be available at the Washington Village Branch on May 22 from 1pm to 4pm on a first come, first served basis, while supplies last.
Time: Available for pickup between 1pm-4pm
Location: Washington Village (Pigtown) branch of the library, at 856 Washington Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21230.
Event page on the library website
Organized by Baltimore-Changwon Sister City Committee (BCSCC), Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Committee (BRSCC), and Baltimore-Xiamen Sister City Committee (BXSCC), in conjunction with Enoch Free Pratt Library.
Location: Online
Admission: Free
Time: 1pm ET
Event page: calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/writers_live_ambassador_mohamad_tawfik
Join us for an afternoon with Ambassador Mohamad Tawfik as he discusses his work as a diplomat, novelist, and everything in between.
Ambassador Mohamed Tawfik is a career diplomat and novelist who translates his own works into English. Ambassador Tawfik was Egypt’s first Ambassador to the U.S after the revolution and took part in numerous negotiations on disarmament, labor, human rights and trade. Educated at Cairo University and the Université de Paris, Tawfik has written several collections of short stories and three novels in Arabic. In 1997, an English selection of his shorts was published under the title The Day the Moon Fell. His novels form a trilogy, the last two books of which – Murder in the Tower of Happiness (2007, AUC Press) and Candygirl (2012, AUC Press) – are also available in English. He generally publishes his works of fiction under the name M. M. Tawfik. A member of the Egyptian Writers Union, Pen International, the Geneva Writers Group and ACT Writers of Australia, he has conducted creative writing workshops in person and online. He is literary editor of arabworldbooks.com.
The event is moderated by Karen Leggett Abouraya, Co-Chair, Baltimore Luxor Alexandria Sister City Committee.
Organized by Baltimore-Luxor-Alexandria Sister City Committee (BLASCC) in conjunction with Enoch Free Pratt Library.
Celebrate art, culture, and the Korean history and heritage of Baltimore’s Charles North community. Regional AAPI artists and organizations present an exhibit and virtual festival including artist talks, performances, cooking demonstrations, and art workshops.
Program includes:
See full program and details on Asian Arts & Culture Center events page.
Presented by Towson University Asian Arts & Culture Center and Central Baltimore Partnership. Promoted by Baltimore Sister Cities’ Asian committees (Changwon, South Korea; Kawasaki, Japan; Xiamen, China). The Changwon and Kawasaki sister city committees are contributing cultural performances to the program.
Baltimore Sister Cities Annual Accomplishments Report for 2020 (PDF, 2mb)
Baltimore Sister Cities Annual Plan for 2021 (PDF, 1mb)
The Baltimore Kawasaki Sister City Committee invites you to join a socially distanced Sake and Film event. We are almost there…. Let‘s Stay Home and enjoy experiencing Japan’s favorite beverage, SAKE!
Registered attendees receive access to all three events: A Virtual Sake Tasting Experience, and TWO Sake Film Screenings.
A complimentary “Sake Sample Set” is available to participants who registered early to pick up from one of our participating restaurants in the Baltimore region. (PLEASE NOTE: There are no more complimentary sake sets left — they were available on a first registered, first served basis and have proven to be very popular!)
If you were chosen for a complimentary set, we will email a sake sample voucher with your restaurant pick-up location in the Baltimore region. Please be sure to pick up your sake set at your designated restaurant on your voucher; restaurants will verify your name on their respective lists. Pick up locations cannot be changed and we will do our best to accommodate your restaurant preferences. We thank you, in advance, for your understanding.
In collaboration with NHK WORLD-JAPAN, we bring to you the additional programs related to sake:
SAKE R-Evolution: A Fever Brewing across the Globe
SAKE R-Evolution: Heady Milestones in a New Era
And please take the survey after watching NHK WORLD-JAPAN’s programs!
In collaboration with JETRO-Kanagawa, we bring to you the additional programs related to sake:
Crafting the Perfect Sake in Kanagawa
Presented by: Baltimore-Kawasaki Sister City Committee (BKSCC)
Sponsored by: Embassy of Japan in the United States of America
Supported by: Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University, Baltimore Sister Cities, Inc. JETRO-NY and Kanagawa Office in NY, NNHK WORLD-JAPAN
Restaurants: Matsuri in Federal Hill, State Fare in Catonsville, Ramen Utsuke in the Inner Harbor
Breweries: Imada Brewery, Izumibashi Brewery, Tensei Brewery
Date: Saturday, December 12, 2020
Time: 11am – 12:30pm ET
Format: Virtual
Admission: Ticketed; advance registration required
More information and to register: Eventbrite page
An online culinary adventure featuring a talk on Egyptian cuisine, spices and cookies plus live baking, recipes and date cookies for everyone. Event features:
Proceeds from this culinary adventure benefit Baltimore Luxor Alexandria Sister City Committee, dedicated to fostering international cooperation and exchanges between Baltimore and the Egyptian cities of Luxor and Alexandria.
Workshop presented by Baltimore Sister Cities on August 25, 2020.
And check out the recommended reading on our Race & Diversity Reading List (PDF).
Baltimore, one of the oldest cities in the United States, is also known as Charm City and a City of Neighborhoods. Its rich history includes waves of immigration but also years of racial injustice right up to the present day.
Our guests for this evening shared personal stories on the Black and immigrant experience in Baltimore, focusing on systemic, institutional and structural racism and the role of White privilege. Our speakers for this learning experience:
This is a global conversation on race and ethnicity in Baltimore City, part of BSC’s ongoing commitment to care for each other and work to improve our community, our city, our country and our world.
“The recognition that racism is itself a political system, a particular power structure of formal or informal rules, socio-economic privilege and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties… Racism and racially structured discrimination have not been deviations from the norm; they have been the norm, not merely in a sense of defacto statistical distribution patterns but formally codified, written down and proclaimed as such.” Charles Mills, The Racial Contract, 1997
Baltimore, also referred to as Charm City and a City of Neighborhoods, is one of the oldest cities in the United States. While the city possesses a rich history, this history is also one marred by racially disparate practices, ultimately creating present day challenges. Some of these challenges include high crime rates, homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and the notorious child of redlining, the “Black Butterfly.”
Sponsored by Baltimore Sister Cities, this Raising the Curtain on Race virtual workshop provided presentations on the impact of institutional racism (both systemic and structural). Structural racism is the normalization of historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal dynamics that routinely advantage White people and disadvantage people of color, in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, education, etc.
This workshop included discussions and personal experiences to explore:
Raising the Curtain on Race was Initiated in 2015 on the island of Sint Eustatius, Caribbean Netherlands. The initial series focused on internalized racial oppression within the context of colonialism and neocolonialism. In 2016, the second installation of the conference was held on the island of Sint Maarten and focused on specific global freedom movements. Due to hurricanes Maria and Irma, the conference was cancelled in 2017 but re-convened in 2018 on the island of Curaçao. Now this series has come to Baltimore.
Geri grew up in Baltimore and graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Maryland College Park. She worked for many years in Boston before moving to Washington to work in the U.S. Department of the Treasury during the Obama administration. Returning to her hometown in 2016, Geri was Director of Logistics and Special Assistant to Mayor Catherine Pugh and is now Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young.
Born and raised in Romania, Diana Zilberman came to the USA in the 1980s with a master’s degree from the University of Bucharest. She completed her education with a master’s degree in education from the Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from Greenwich University, Australia, in Instructional design and distance education. She taught English writing and literature for over 20 years at Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) and Goucher College, and in early 2000 started and lead the growth of the Online Program at BCCC. Diana was president of MarylandOnline for over 10 years and currently is a board member for Quality Matters while providing training and consulting services for colleges and universities striving to ensure the quality of teaching and learning at a distance.
Teresa Leslie is a current resident of Baltimore and Vice Chair of the Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister Cities Committee. Before moving to Baltimore she spent eight years working and conducting research in the Caribbean Netherlands. During her period abroad, she began to notice subtle and insidious forms of racism in this new Dutch Caribbean context and began contrasting this with her experiences with American racism. In response to this, Teresa collaborated with other Dutch Caribbean scholars and in 2015 organized the first Raising the Curtain on Race conference on the island of Sint Eustatius. In 2016 and 2018 the Raising the Curtain on Race conference was held on the islands of Sint Maarten and Curacao respectively. Teresa graduated from Howard University and the University of South Carolina, earning her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
John Wesley is a journalist with extensive published works. Before joining the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights, Wesley worked for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City and Housing and Community Development, the Maryland Transit Administration, the Pennsylvania Avenue Main Streets Program, and the Howard County Office of Human Rights.
Asia North–a celebration of art, culture, and the Asian heritage of Greater Baltimore, especially the Korean history of the Charles North community (a.k.a. Station North). Asia North was inaugurated in 2019 and is co-presented by Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center, Central Baltimore Partnership, Charm City Night Market, and multiple community partners. In 2020, there are periodic online events throughout the year.
Promoted by Baltimore Sister Cities and its Asian sister city committees (Changwon, South Korea; Kawasaki, Japan; and Xiamen, China).
Baltimore sister city committees operate under the auspices of the City of Baltimore’s Office of the Mayor.
Brandon M. Scott, Mayor
Previous mayor’s Dec 2015 press release about Baltimore Sister Cities.
Baltimore Sister Cities, Inc. is a 501c3 organization incorporated in the State of Maryland.
Member of Sister Cities International, Maryland Nonprofits, World Trade Center Institute, Visit Baltimore, & affiliate of Maryland International Education Consortium.
Recipient of 2016 Innovation Award from Sister Cities International.