Kundiman (nonprofit organization)

Kundiman is a nonprofit organization dedicated to writers and readers of Asian American literature. Among its services are readings, workshops, mentorship programs, writing intensives, as well as a poetry prize and an annual writing retreat, the Kundiman Retreat.

Kundiman was co-founded in 2004 by poets Sarah Gambito and Joseph O. Legaspi after discussing the need for literary community among Asian Americans while at Gambito's family barbecue.^[1] The organization’s name refers to a style of Filipino love song, kundiman, that served as veiled patriotism during colonial times.^[2]

In 2009, Kundiman announced a collaboration with Alice James Books for a $2,000 book publication prize for Asian American poets, marking the first book prize ever of its kind.^[3]

In 2018, Kundiman Fellow Kyle Lucia Wu hosted a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in partnership with Wikimedia NYC and the Asian American Writers' Workshop to create, revise, and update pages pertaining to Asian American literature. New pages resulting from the event included Alice Sola Kim, Weike Wang, and R. F. Kuang.^[4]

In October of 2023, Kundiman posted and subsequently deleted a social media post declaring solidarity with Palestinians, after which it was replaced with a more neutral position. For months afterward, members of the Kundiman network would meet and discuss internally about the aforementioned events. In May of the following year, over a hundred Kundiman Fellows, including Ocean Vuong and Solmaz Sharif, signed and published an open letter to the Kundiman board calling for their resignation due to the organization's conflicted posture and their failure to meet certain demands.^[5] Two days later, Kundiman responded, stating that, as an organization, they could not take "specific advocacy positions".^[6]

In September of 2024, Kundiman announced that Kazim Ali and David Mura would join the organization's board of trustees.^[7] One month later, they announced that Andy Chen, Ching-In Chen, Rana Tahir, Seema Yasmin, and Timothy Yu would join Ali and Mura.^[8]

After the Asian American Literature Festival's cancellation in 2023, Kundiman and several other Asian American literary and arts organizations launched a series of in-person, hybrid, and online programming across the United States and beyond taking place near the end of 2024.^[9]

Past programming and event partners with Kundiman have been the Cave Canem Foundation, Kearny Street Workshop, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Vermont Studio Center, Kaya Press, Fine Arts Work Center, New York University, and more.^[2]

The inaugural Retreat was hosted at the University of Virginia in 2004.^[10] Later, in 2010, Kundiman and Fordham University formed a partnership in which the Kundiman Retreat would be hosted on the Rose Hill campus, while Kundiman-sponsored readings and events would happen at the Lincoln Center campus. Additionally, Fordham would provide Kundiman with $60,000 for programming support over the course of three years.^[11][12] In 2015, the retreat was opened up to fiction writers as well as poets.^[13]

Altogether, Kundiman Fellows have published 311 books and counting, as well as pieces in literary magazines like The New Yorker, Colorado Review, The Atlantic, Poetry, The New York Times, and more.^[2]

Past Kundiman Fellows include:^[14]

Past and present Kundiman faculty includes:^[15]

• CantoMundo
• Cave Canem Foundation