Asian American History

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• 8/7/2022
  

  The COVID Era is the Latest Episode of Medical Scapegoating of Asian Immigrants

  by Catherine Ceniza Choy

  From smallpox to COVID, Asian Americans have been blamed and attacked for supposedly causing disease, while their contributions to American health have been ignored. This medical scapegoating and the violence that often follow it demonstrate the need to teach more Asian American history. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  5/31/2022
  

  The Asian-Canadian Gay Pioneer Theorist of Sexuality

  by Laurie Marhoefer

  Li Shiu Tong, the partner of better-known German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, was an important theorist and activist whose once-lost writings anticipated today's politics of gay rights and liberation. 

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• 5/22/2022
  

  California Isn't a Liberal Sanctuary where Asian Americans are Concerned

  by Hao Huang

  Anti-Chinese racism and violence has always been part of the nightmare underside of the California dream. 

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• SOURCE: Mellon Foundation
  5/17/2022
  

  Mellon Foundation Event: Chinese American History, Asian American Experiences (May 19)

  Historians Erika Lee and Mae Ngai discuss the history of Chinese Americans in the context of Asian American history and American multiculturalism with Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander on May 19. 

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• 5/1/2022
  

  Recent Violence Shows the Need to Teach More Asian American History

  by Alan J. Singer

  The targeting of Asian Americans for violence and harassment shows the need to teach more of the history of Asian ethnic groups and acknowlege legacies of exclusion and discrimination. 

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• SOURCE: Religion News Services
  4/20/2022
  

  Penn Law Prof Amy Wax's Anti-Indian Rant Excludes Inconvenient History

  by Suhag Shukla

  Attributing Indian American criticism of racism to "resentment" of "the west" is rooted in ignorance of the colonial looting of the Indian subcontinent and the experiences of South Asians in general and Hindus in particular in the United States. 

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  4/18/2022
  

  American Militarism is the Key to Understanding Today's Violence Against Asian Women

  Since the Philippine-American war in the 1890s, the sexual exploitation of Asian women has gone hand in hand with American militarism in the Pacific. It's foolish to pretend that this history has nothing to do with attacks on Asian American women today. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  3/17/2022
  

  Two Artists Unearth Hidden Histories of LA

  Devon Tsuno and Alan Nakagawa discuss the histories and daily life of the Japanese American community in Midtown Los Angeles, an area that has largely been erased from Angelenos' maps of their city. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/16/2022
  

  Don't Use Anti-Asian Violence to Throw More Money at Police

  by Crystal Jing Luo

  Business interests in Oakland have hijacked the safety concerns of Asian Americans to support arming police in service of real estate development that threatens low-income housing. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/15/2022
  

  Teaching Asian American History is Needed to Understand Complexity of Racism

  by Kathryn Gin Lum

  Asian American history shows members of Asian ethnic groups have been ranked in a hierarchy of races at some moments, and grouped together with other "heathen" groups as disqualified for inclusion in American society. Understanding this history helps to understand racism as a political order, not a response to innate difference. 

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• SOURCE: Salt Lake Tribune
  2/14/2022
  

  Shirley Ann Higuchi: Sen. Lee is Obstructing Establishment of National Historic Site for former Internment Center

  The Utah Senator is blocking unanimous consent rules for a bill that would establish a historic site commemorating the internment of 8,000 Japanese Americans at Camp Amache in Colorado. 

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• SOURCE: TIME
  1/24/2022
  

  How the Pandemic and Anti-Asian Violence Spurred 2 States to Change History Lessons

  The introduction of requirements to teach the history of Asian Americans is bumping up against laws in other states that would make it difficult for teachers to address topics like violence, immigration restrictions, and internment. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/24/2021
  

  150 Years Ago, a Mob Attacked Los Angeles's Chinese Community

  by Reece Jones

  It's essential to understand white supremacy as a national phenomenon that defended the color line against multiple groups and linked white identity to the nation's borders. 

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• SOURCE: CNN
  10/18/2021
  

  St. Malo, Louisiana, Site of Earliest Filipino-American Settlement, Threatened by Climate Change

  More than a century ago, long before the Civil War, St. Malo was the first permanent Filipino settlement in the United States. Preserving the settlement's history is now a race against time. 

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  10/7/2021
  

  History Answers the Inexplicable: Interview with Madeline Hsu

  by Shirley Lung

  "Asian Pacific Americans is a census category. It does not reflect the lived experiences, in fact, of many ethnic Asian persons living in the United States....But it is politically a necessity, in part because of the racial projects at work. These killings were racially motivated."

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• SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune
  9/19/2021
  

  Local Professor Building History of San Diego's Japanese Americans

  San Diego City College professor Susan Hasegawa describes a public history project detailing the story of San Diego's Japanese Americans before and after internment, and a librarian who supported interned children with books and messages of support.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/15/2021
  

  Looking for the Gold Rush Town of Chinese Camp

  "Sucheng Chan, a retired historian and the author of more than 15 books on Asian American history, notes that this region, called the Southern Mines, was home to almost half of the Chinese in California in 1860," but that history is poorly preserved for visitors today.

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  8/23/2021
  

  America Once was Eager for Chinese Immigration. Mae Ngai's Book Explains What Happened

  The first wave of the California Gold Rush was "a nettlesome experiment in multiracial democracy that had little precedent in the country's history," but resulted in the development of institutionalized anti-Asian nativism as a political force.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/11/2021
  

  Two Scholars Discuss Black-Asian Solidarity in America

  "It’s complicated. But I think it’s a narrative that’s mediated by white mainstream media that deliberately pits us against each other."

• 
• SOURCE: Last Week Tonight
  6/7/2021
  

  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Asian Americans (Feat. Mae Ngai)

  John Oliver discusses the large and diverse group of people who fall under the term “Asian American”, the history of the model minority stereotype, and why our conversations on the subject need to be better-informed. Feat. historian Mae Ngai.