Happy(?) AAPI Heritage Month
Link dump for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
A collection of readings pertaining to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. Please note that this is certainly not comprehensive, and are of interest to me as I view the world through my half-Taiwanese, born-and-raised-in-the-US viewpoint.
Defining ‘Asian American’ is complicated. Who gets left behind? (gift link)
Learning more about the history of the term “Asian American” may explain why Americans typically think of people having ancestral ties to countries in east Asia. People of southeast Asian or Indian descent end up being left out. Using umbrella terms such as “Asian American” fails to recognize that this is not a monolithic group.
Why the wage gap differs among Asian-American women
When you use an umbrella term, you lose out on nuances like this: “Chinese women earn 83 cents on the White man’s dollar, Indian women earn $1.07 and Filipino women earn 79 cents. Vietnamese women earn 56 cents and Cambodian women earn 63 cents.”
“Making It” in America: Vanessa Hua Addresses the Myth of the Model Minority
“W.E.B. Du Bois famously asks, ‘How does it feel to be a problem?’ For Asian Americans, we might reverse the question and ask, ‘How does it feel to be a solution?’ That is to say, to have their bodies, their children, and their people exemplified? This sudden embrace and elevation of Asian Americans as model minorities is suspicious, given America’s long history of xenophobia against them.”
I just finished reading Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation and… it’s a lot.
A Literary Guide to Combat Anti-Asian Racism in America
Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation is on this list, as is Minor Feelings. I would also add The Making of Asian America to this list.
The Mixed Metaphor: Why does the half-Asian, half-white protagonist make us so anxious?
“It is a strange thing for fully Asian writers to look to mixed Asian people for relief from their racial anxieties when actual mixed-race Asians, who, it turns out, can write their own books, have little reassurance to offer.”
I am still not sure how to feel about this article, but it makes me think.
4 ways to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma (gift link)
This isn’t specific to AAPI Heritage Month… but it certainly helps. I also recommend reading Permission to Come Home and What My Bones Know.
The Little-Known Origin Story behind the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics
A story about Wu Chien-Shiung, a physicist who led an amazing life. I also recommend Discovering Dr. Wu, by Chien-Shiung Wu’s granddaughter. For the younger crowd, I highly recommend Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom.
What one family's story from the Japanese internment camps reveals about reparations
“A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase painful memories; neither can they fully convey our Nation’s resolve to rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals. We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans during World War II.”
If there are people alive who can talk about their time in an internment camp, that means there are people alive who can remember when their neighbors were taken away. And yet this is not taught in American history classes, and the people who looked the other way as their Japanese neighbors lost everything have remained silent.
I have some more links but those will wait until next time - AAPI fiction and graphic novel recommendations. And AAPI month in sports!