Taking up Space: Mental Health, Representation, and the Asian American Experience
INTERVIEW WITH DR. JENNY WANG BY KEVIN CHEN This piece was published in the 33rd digital volume of the Asian
Read more알아 들었어 (ala-deul-us-suh)? Do You Hear Us Now?
BY ESTHER YOUNG LIM. I consider the San Gabriel Valley (SGV) an Asian melting pot. Growing up here meant that you were surrounded by the best Asian food (you would know when it was really good if the restaurant took cash only), boba was life, and your parents were most likely immigrants. For me and my friends, being a child of immigrants entailed silently dealing with being interpreters for our parents. I can’t tell you the countless times my mom pushed the phone to my ear out of nowhere to carry on a conversation with the cable company or to translate school flyers, even when she always had the Korean-English dictionary on hand. As I grew older, translating written material got more complex.
Read moreAsian Critical Race Theory and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Frameworks for Implementing Asian Ethnic Studies in PK-12 Education
BY KAYLA MENDOZA CHUI, CAMILLE UNGCO, DOUA KHA, KRIYA VELASCO, THERESA LEE, RAE JING HAN, AND SARASWATI NOEL. Under the structures of white supremacy, the pandemic has unveiled the dehumanization of Asian folks in the US. For many of us who are members of Asian communities, these lived realities have existed since the arrival of Chinese laborers in the 1850s.[i] We went from “dog eaters” to “bat eaters”;[ii] we exist dually as model minorities and perpetual foreigners;[iii] we’re seen as apolitical, non-combative, and submissive, yet also as the threatening yellow peril;[iv] we’re fetishized yet desexualized;[v] weaponized to perpetuate anti-Blackness;[vi] and the list goes on.
Read moreTeaching Asian American Studies at CUNY: A Roundtable with the Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AAARI)
BY SONIYA MUNSHI, ANITA BAKSH, DR. CAROLINE KYUNGAH HONG, MARCIA LIU PH.D., YUNG-YI DIANA PAN, AND DR. LINTA VARGHESE MODERATOR
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The Evolution of Our American Dream: A Conversation with David Siev
The basis of [my documentary, BAD AXE] is my family—we’re Cambodian-Mexican-American. We live in this rural white community, and it’s us trying to keep our family restaurant alive and the American Dream alive during one of the most uncertain times in history amidst a pandemic, a racial reckoning, and everything else going on in our country in 2020. So it becomes a story that explores the question: how do you keep the American Dream alive today when it’s being challenged now more than ever?
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Transformation and Liberation Through Diasporic Storytelling: A Conversation with Joseph Juhn
If my previous identity query was grounded on, and perhaps confined by, this dualistic tension between Korea and America, the idea of diaspora liberated me from a geographic grounding of identity. It was a membership not only in the Korean or Korean American community but also in these larger sojourner communities around the world who share, no matter how remote or accurate, collective memories of the homeland, heritage and history.
Read moreTen Years After Oak Creek: Federal Policy Recommendations to Protect Communities Targeted by Hate
BY NIMARTA NARANG. One decade on, it is essential to revisit the 2012 attack on the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin–and to reflect on what more we must do to better protect our communities from similar horrific violence.
Read moreRemembering the “Comfort Women” Intergenerational Asian American Care Work
BY GRACE J. YOO, EUNICE H. HIM, AND SOOJIN JEONG. Asian American activists have been key to remembering the “comfort women” in the U.S. and globally. The act of remembering is often done through creating memorials, exhibits, films, conferences, and educational efforts. This paper examines Asian American activists’ remembrance work in building a memorial in the city of San Francisco.
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