Asian American History

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• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  5/28/2023
  

  Professor Helps Rescue "Lost" Asian American Silent Film

  Denise Khor's research on film culture seemed to show that the prints of the 1914 film "The Oath of the Sword" had been lost. But one museum had a decaying copy in a vault, and a restored version has premiered as the oldest known Asian American film. 

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• SOURCE: NBC Boston
  5/23/2023
  

  Paul Watanabe, Historian and Manzanar Survivor, Makes Sure History Isn't Forgotten

  The UMass-Boston professor brings students each spring to the California desert to visit the site where his own family was interned for more than four years. 

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• SOURCE: Saturday Evening Post
  5/9/2023
  

  Onoto Watanna, the First Asian American Screenwriter

  by Ben Railton

  Under the pen name of Onoto Watanna, a woman named Winnifred Eaton of British and Chinese descent became a literary prodigy, penning romance novels, ethnic cookbooks, and screenplays—and a searing critique of the treatment of writers in Hollywood that rings true today. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/11/2023
  

  "Generation Connie": A News Anchor and Her First-Generation Namesakes

  The practice of choosing American names for immigrant children coincided with the peak of Connie Chung's career as the national face of CBS News. Adopting her name symbolized mobility and potential for a generation of Asian American women recently come of age. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  4/25/2023
  

  Labor Secretary Nominee Julie Su Shaped by Work on 1990s Sweatshop Trafficking Case

  With a prominent record of advocating for immigrant workers, Su faces indifference or outright hostility from moderate Democrats and Republicans as her nomination to succeed Marty Walsh at the Department of Labor advances. 

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• 4/9/2023
  

  The Power and Betrayal of Cross-Ethnic Solidarity in the 1903 Oxnard Beet Strike

  by Frank P. Barajas

  The Japanese Mexican Labor Association overcame the deliberate ethnic division of the farm labor force in Oxnard, California to win a major strike in the sugar beet fields in 1903, overcoming violent repression. Anti-Asian prejudice in the broader labor movement ended this successful experiment to the detriment of generations of workers. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  4/4/2023
  

  Violence and the Unmaking of Asian-American Exceptionalism

  by Gaiutra Bahadur

  A series of violent anti-Asian attacks in the author's community during the 1990s underscores the debt Asian Americans owe to the African American movements for emancipation and civil rights, and the need for cross-racial solidarity in the face of racist oppression. 

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• SOURCE: Fox 32
  3/17/2023
  

  Anthony Chen on the History of Affirmative Action in Higher Ed

  The Northwestern historian's new book will arrive as the Supreme Court potentially decides the fate of affirmative action in college admissions. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/10/2023
  

  What Anna May Wong's History Tells us About Oscar's Asian and Asian American Moment

  by Katie Gee Salisbury

  The first Asian-American film star got her break when a film company cast ethnic actors in a 1922 film made to test out the new Technicolor technology. But Hollywood's racial politics and commercial imperatives kept other Asian actors from stardom. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/7/2023
  

  Is Harvard Actually Discriminating Against Asian Applicants?

  by Julie J. Park

  The data supporting the charge that Harvard's affirmative action policies amount to discrimination against Asian American students isn't as clear-cut as has been reported, says an education researcher who's investigated the policies. Blaming race-based affirmative action conceals the preferences given to legacies, athletes, and donors' children. 

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• SOURCE: Tablet
  2/26/2023
  

  Parallels and Divergences in Jewish and Asian American History

  by Joel Kotkin

  "The fate of Asians and Jews in America is about more than two minority groups. It is about the efficacy of equal and fair treatment under the law, and a democratic system based on merit rather than ethnicity."

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  2/17/2023
  

  Creating the First Complete List of Names of Interned Japanese Americans

  Duncan Ryuken Williams of the University of Southern California led a research team for three years assembling a documentary record that could restore the individuality of 125,000 victims of internment. 

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• SOURCE: Slate
  11/3/2022
  

  Some Asian American Activists Helped Build Affirmative Action; Today Some are Working to Dismantle It

  by Ellen Wu

  The midcentury rise of fascism and struggles for Black civil rights gave some Japanese American activists an opening to argue for principles of proportionality in ethnic representation in politics, education, employment, and other areas, key support for the group of policies that became affirmative action. 

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• SOURCE: Slate
  11/1/2022
  

  Sociologist: Yes, Harvard Discriminated Against Jews. No, It's Not an Apt Metaphor for Affirmative Action

  by Jerome Karabel

  Despite the enthusiasm of the plaintiffs and the conservative justices for the comparison, Harvard's treatment of Asian American applicants today doesn't match its treatment of Jewish students in the 1920s. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  10/17/2022
  

  What American Dream did Asian Immigrants Find in the Southern California Suburbs?

  by James Zarsadiaz

  Asian-American suburbs grew east of Los Angeles in part because developers catered to a growing market and in part because Asian Americans embraced some of the anti-urban tropes common in postwar America. Today conflict still surrounds how much diversity the suburban ideal can accommodate.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/25/2022
  

  The Forgotten Violence of the US-Philippines Relationship

  by Adrian De Leon

  By declaring a relationship of "friends, partners, and allies" between the United States and the Philippines, and embracing the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., the United States concealed its violent conquest of the islands and its ongoing support for authoritarian rule there. 

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• SOURCE: LAist
  9/23/2022
  

  Los Angeles Project Aims to Name Every Interned Japanese American

  The government's rosters of interned Japanese Americans are incomplete and error-ridden. A new project seeks a complete documentation of the missing names. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/14/2022
  

  Los Angeles to Memorialize 1871 Anti-Chinese Massacre

  Architect Annie Chu describes the task of using design and space to evoke an emotional connection to the victims of mass violence whose identities and stories have been largely lost. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  9/2/2022
  

  Legal Scholar: "Diversity" a Weak Substitute for Justice, Opened Door to SCOTUS Killing Affirmative Action

  by Richard Thompson Ford

  The cause of equality was dealt a fatal blow when courts and colleges shifted the focus of affirmative action from fighting racism to promoting diversity, argues legal scholar Richard Thompson Ford. 

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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.