Asian American, Native Hawaiian, & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Read

• Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America, Julia Lee
  “What does it mean to be Asian in America? What does it look like to be an ally or an accomplice? How can we shatter the structures of white supremacy that fuel racial stratification? When Julia was fifteen, her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her. However, the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, following the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper, forced Julia to question her racial identity and complicity. She was neither Black nor white. So who was she? In this passionate, no-holds-barred memoir, Julia interrogates her own experiences of marginality and resistance, and ultimately asks what may be the biggest question of all―what can we do?”
• Horse Barbie: A Memoir of Reclamation, Geena Rocero
  “Geena Rocero found her place in trans pageants, the Philippines’ informal national sport. When her competitors mocked her as a “horse Barbie” due to her statuesque physique, tumbling hair, long neck, and dark skin, she leaned into the epithet. By seventeen, she was the Philippines’ highest-earning trans pageant queen. A year later, Geena moved to the United States where she could change her name and gender marker on her documents. In order to survive, Geena went stealth and hid her trans identity, gaining one type of freedom at the expense of another. The high-stakes double life finally forced Geena to decide herself if she wanted to reclaim the power of Horse Barbie once and for all. A dazzling testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history and activism, Horse Barbie is a celebratory and universal story of survival, love, and pure joy.”
• Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America, Michael Luo
  “From New Yorker writer Michael Luo comes a masterful narrative history of the Chinese in America that traces the sorrowful theme of exclusion and documents their more than century-long struggle to belong. Luo traces anti-Asian feeling in America to the first wave of immigrants from China in the mid-nineteenth-century: laborers who traveled to California in search of gold and railroad work. Strangers in the Land is a sweeping narrative of a forgotten chapter in American history, and a reminder that America’s present reflects its exclusionary past."

Watch

• The Chinese Exclusion Act
  Examine the origin, history and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens.
• Redefining Asian American Narratives Through Storytelling | Katerina Jeng, Krystie Mak | TEDxJHU
  Frustrated by the lack of Asian American representation in mainstream media, co-founders Katerina Jeng and Krystie Mak started Slant’d, a media company that celebrates Asian American identity and the stories that make us human. Slant’d launched its inaugural issue in 2017 and is expanding into digital and in-person programming to build an intersectional community that boldly defies stereotypes, one story at a time.
• Asian American Voices, Past and Present
  This online exhibit features "Pattern Recognition," a mural by Jenifer K Wofford, and highlights Carlos Villa and Jade Snow Wong, two of the Asian American artists given voice by the new public artwork.

Listen

• The America That Americans Forget
  In his childhood, Roy Gamboa would accompany his grandfather on pre-dawn trips from their village of Hågat to the U.S. Naval Base in Guam, where they would fish in a small cove beside one of America's deepest harbors. They would also gather fruit and firewood from the surrounding jungle, and maintain the grounds of what his grandfather claimed was their ancestral land—40 acres that had been taken after the war, which he hoped would one day be returned to their family. This personal history reflects Guam's complex relationship with the United States, as the island has evolved into a critical military installation nicknamed "the tip of the spear," enabling American power projection across Asia. This strategic importance has made Guam increasingly vulnerable as tensions rise between the U.S. and China, with military simulations consistently showing that Beijing would likely target Guam first in any potential conflict.
• Aloha, Y'all
  Learn how the steel guitar helped Hawaiians preserve their culture and change American popular music.
• The Model Minority Myth with Ellen Wu
  History professor and director of Asian Studies at Indiana University Ellen Wu joins Adam this week to discuss the model minority myth, how the stereotype has shifted over history and why it still exists today. This episode is brought to you by Acuity (www.acuityscheduling.com/factually) and The Next Big Idea podcast.