Activism

 

“Our knowing that Asian Americans waged struggles against militarism and imperial expansionism, that Asian American students fought for Third World and ethnic studies, that Asian American activists worked in solidarity with Black Power and Third World anticolonial activists, that Filipino farmworkers engaged labor battles alongside Chicana/o farmworkers, that Japanese Americans protested their World War II incarceration, that Asian American feminists helped to build the U.S. Third World feminist movement, and that Asian American queer communities collectively organized for visibility matters. It has been through Asian American activism scholarship—in addition to cultural, journalistic, activist, and oral traditions—that we and others have come to know and be inspired by our own Asian American histories of struggle” (114).

— Diane C. Fujino and Robyn M. Rodriguez, “The Legibility of Asian American Activism Studies,” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 111–36.

Pre-1960s radicalism/nationalism

• Campbell, Peter. “East Meets Left: South Asian Militants and the Socialist Party of Canada in British Columbia, 1904-1914.” International Journal of Canadian Studies 26, no. 1 (Fall 1999): 35-66.
• Churchill, Bernardita Reyes. The Philippine Independence Missions to the United States, 1919-1934. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1983.
• Desai, Manan. The United States of India: Anticolonial Literature and Transnational Refraction. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2020.
• Elam, J. Daniel. “Echoes of Ghadr: Lala Har Dayal and the Time of Anticolonialism.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 34, no. 1 (2014): 9–23.
• Fowler, Josephine. Japanese and Chinese Immigrant Activists: Organizing in American and International Communist Movements, 1919-1933. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007.
• Friday, Chris. Organizing Asian American Labor: The Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.
• Fujino, Diane. “Race, Place, Space, and Political Development: Japanese-American Radicalism in the ‘Pre-Movement’ 1960s.” Social Justice 35, no. 2 (2008): 57–79.
• Gill, Parmbir. “A Different Kind of Dissidence: The Ghadar Party, Sikh History and the Politics of Anticolonial Mobilization.” Sikh Formations 10, no. 1 (2014): 23–41.
• Jani, Pranav. “Bihar, California, and the US Midwest: The Early Radicalization of Jayaprakash Narayan.” Postcolonial Studies 16, no. 2 (2013): 155-68
• Jung, Moon-ho, ed. The Rising Tide of Color: Race, State Violence, and Radical Movements across the Pacific. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014.
• Kim, Richard S. The Quest for Statehood: Korean Immigrant Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Lai, Him Mark. “The Chinese-Marxist Left, Chinese Students and Scholars in America, and the New China, Mid-1940s to Mid-1950s.” Chinese America: History & Perspectives (2004): 7-25.
• Lee, Robert G. “The Hidden World of Asian Immigrant Radicalism.” The Immigrant Left in the United States. Ed. Paul Buhle and Dan Georgakas. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
• Sohi, Seema. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Sohi, Seema. “Sites of ‘Sedition,’ Sites of Liberation: Gurdwaras, the Ghadar Party, and Anticolonial Mobilization.” Sikh Formations 10, no. 1 (2014): 5–22.
• Wong, Jane Mee. “Pingshe: Retrieving an Asian American Anarchist Tradition.” Amerasia Journal 34.1 (2008): 133-51.

Asian American movement and ethnic studies

• Ayson, Christina. “The Makers of Meaning in Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles.” American Quarterly 69, no. 4 (2017): 947–65.
• Chao, Eveline. “How Asian-American Radicals Brought ‘Yellow Power’ To Chinatown.” Gothamist, October 19, 2016.
• Elbaum, Max. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. London: Verso, 2002.
• Fujino Diane C. “Who Studies the Asian American Movement?: A Historiographical Analysis.” Journal of Asian American Studies 11, no. 2 (2008): 127-69.
• Gee, Emma, ed. Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America. Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, 1976.
• Habal, Estella. San Francisco’s International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007.
• Lee, Hatty. “What Did Asian American Resistance Look Like in the 1970’s?” Colorlines, March 4, 2011.
• Hing, Alex. “Journey to the East.” The People Make the Peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. Edited by Karín Aguilar-San Juan and Frank Joyce, 69-86. Charlottesville, VA: Just World Books, 2015.
• Ho, Fred, ed. Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America. San Francisco and Edinburgh: Big Red Media and AK Press, 2000.
• Iijima, Chris K. “The Era of We-Construction: Reclaiming the Politics of Asian Pacific American Identity and Reflections on the Critique of the Black/White Paradigm.” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 29, no. 1 (1997): 47-89.
• Ishii, Douglas S. “The Asian American Movement and Critical Practice.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias. 2019.
• Ishizuka, Karen. Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties. London: Verso, 2016.
• Kambhampaty, Anna Purna. “In 1968, These Activists Coined the Term ’Asian American’—And Helped Shape Decades of Advocacy.” Time, May 22, 2020.
• Lee, Gordon. “The Forgotten Revolution.” Hyphen Magazine, June 1, 2003.
• Liu, Michael, Kim Geron, and Tracy A. M. Lai. The Snake Dance of Asian American Activism: Community, Vision, and Power. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008.
• Lopez, Lori. “The Yellow Press: Asian American Radicalism and Conflict in Gidra.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 35, no. 3 (2011): 235–51.
• Louie, Steve, and Glenn K. Omatsu, eds. Asian Americans: The Movement and the Moment: History through Word and Image 1965-2001. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 2001.
• Lye, Colleen. “Asian American 1960s.” In The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature. Edited by Rachel C. Lee, 213–23. London: Routledge, 2011.
• Maeda, Daryl Joji. “The Asian American Movement.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias of American History, 2016.
• Maeda, Daryl J. Chains of Babylon: The Rise of Asian America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
• Maeda, Daryl. “Black Panthers, Red Guards, and Chinamen: Constructing Asian American Identity through Performing Blackness, 1969-1972.” American Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2005): 1079–1103.
• Maeda, Daryl Joji. Rethinking the Asian American Movement. New York: Routledge, 2012.
• Ogbar, Jeffrey O. C. “Yellow Power: The Formation of Asian-American Nationalism in the Age of Black Power, 1966-1975.” Souls (2001): 29-38.
• Prashad, Vijay. Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.
• “Salute to 60s/70s: San Francisco State Strike.” Special issue, Amerasia Journal 15, no. 1 (1989).
• Tachiki, Amy, Eddie Wong, Franklin Odo, with Buck Wong, eds. Roots: An Asian American Reader. Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, 1971.
• Umemoto, Karen. “‘On Strike!’ San Francisco State College Strike, 1968-1969: The Role of Asian American Students.” Amerasia Journal 15, no. 1 (1989): 3-41.
• Wei, William. The Asian American Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.
• Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun. Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.

Web resources

• Asian American Movement 1968
• Black Panther and San Francisco State: On Strike, California Newsreel, 1969.
• Niiya, Brian. “Gidra: Now Available Online.” Densho, December 17, 2015.
• “Snapshots of Asian America: A Look at the Movement’s Spirit and Legacy.” Asian American Movement Project, KQED, 2002.
• “Yellow Power: The Origins of Asian America.” Densho, May 8, 2017.

Activism since the 1970s

• Aguilar-San Juan, Karin, ed. The State of Asian America: Activism and Resistance in the 1990s. Boston: South End Press, 1994.
• Aguirre, Adalberto, Jr., and Shoon Lio. “Spaces of Mobilization: The Asian American/Pacific Islander Struggle for Social Justice.” Social Justice 35, no. 2 (2008-09): 1-17.
• “Asian American and Pacific Islander Activism: Commemorating 50 years of Asian American Studies.” Special issue, Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019).
  • Pan, Arnold. “To Our Readers.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 109–10.
  • Fujino, Diane C., and Robyn M. Rodriguez. “The Legibility of Asian American Activism Studies.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 111–36.
  • Das Gupta, Monisha. “‘KNOw History/KNOw Self’: Khmer Youth Organizing for Justice in Long Beach.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 137–56.
  • Rubio, Elizabeth Hanna. “‘We Need to Redefine What We Mean by Winning’: NAKASEC’s Immigrant Justice Activism and Thinking Citizenship Otherwise.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 157–72.
  • Cheng, Wendy. “The Taiwan Revolutionary Party and Sinophone Political Praxis in New York, 1970–1986.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 173–87.
  • Hanna, Karen Buenavista. “When Mothers Lead: Revolutionary Adaptability in a Filipina/o American Diasporic Community Theater Organization.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 188–206.
  • Pha, Kong Pheng. “The Politics of Vernacular Activism: Hmong Americans Organizing for Social Justice in Minnesota.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 207–21.
  • Hope, Jeanelle K. “This Tree Needs Water!: A Case Study on the Radical Potential of Afro-Asian Solidarity in the Era of Black Lives Matter.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 222–37.
  • Feng, Yuanyuan, and Mark Tseng-Putterman. “‘Scattered Like Sand’ WeChat Warriors in the Trial of Peter Liang.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 238–52.
  • Fu, May, Simmy Makhijani, Anh-Thu Pham, Meejin Richart, Joanne Tien, and Diane Wong. “#Asians4BlackLives: Notes from the Ground.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 253–70.
  • Ho`omanawanui, Ku`ualoha, Candace Fujikane, Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, Kerry Kamakaoka‘ilima Long, and Kekailoa Perry. “Teaching for Maunakea: Kiaʻi Perspectives.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 271–76.
  • Monkawa, David. “Progressive Asian Network for Action.” Amerasia Journal 45, no. 2 (2019): 277–78.
• Choy, Catherine Ceniza. “Towards Trans-Pacific Social Justice: Women and Protest in Filipino American History.” Journal of Asian American Studies 8.3 (2005): 293-307.
• Das Gupta, Monisha. Unruly Immigrants: Rights, Activism, and Transnational South Asian Politics in the United States. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.
• Garlough, Christine L. Desi Divas: Political Activism in South Asian American Cultural Performances. University Press of Mississippi, 2013.
• Nadal, Kevin. “The Brown Asian American Movement: Advocating for South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Filipino American Communities.” Asian American Policy Review, February 2, 2020.
• Shah, Sonia, ed. Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire. Boston: South End Press, 1997.
• Sze, Julie. “Asian American Activism for Environmental Justice.” Peace Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 149–56.
• Takeda, Okiyoshi. “One Year after the Sit-In: Asian American Students’ Identities and Their Support for Asian American Studies.” Journal of Asian American Studies 4.2 (2001): 147-64.
• Woo, Merle. “What Have We Accomplished? From the Third World Strike Through the Conservative Eighties.” Amerasia Journal 15, no. 1 (1989): 81-9.
• Zia, Helen. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000.

Individual activists

Richard Aoki

• Dong, Harvey. “Richard Aoki (1938–2008): Toughest Oriental to Come Out of West Oakland.” Amerasia Journal 35, no. 2 (2009): 223–32.
• Fujino, Diane. Samurai among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
• Kao, Mary Uyematsu. “A Richard Aoki Forum: What Does It Take to Destroy a Legend?” Amerasia Journal 39, no. 2 (2013): 91–94.
  • Daniels, Douglas Henry. “I Remember Richard: A Review of Samurai Among Panthers and More.” Amerasia Journal 39, no. 2 (2013): 95–102.
  • Dong, Harvey. “Richard Aoki’s Legacy and Dilemna: Who Do You Serve?” Amerasia Journal 39, no. 2 (2013): 102–15.
  • Ly, Wayie. “Still Flying on Broken Wings.” Amerasia Journal 39, no. 2 (2013): 115–19.

Grace Lee Boggs

• Aguilar-San Juan, Karin Juan. “‘We Are Extraordinarily Lucky to Be Living in These Times’: A Conversation with Grace Lee Boggs.” Frontiers 36, no. 2 (2015): 92–123.
• Boggs, Grace Lee. Living for Change: An Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
• Boggs, Grace Lee, with Scott Kurashige. The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for The Twenty-First Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
• Fu, May C. “On Contradiction: Theory and Transformation in Detroit’s Asian Political Alliance.” Amerasia Journal 35, no. 2 (2009): 1–23.

Carlos Bulosan

• Bulosan, Carlos. America Is in the Heart: A Personal History. 1946. 2nd ed. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014.
• Bulosan, Carlos. The Cry and the Dedication. Edited by E. San Juan, Jr. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.
• Campomanes, Oscar V. “Bulosan, Carlos (1911-56).” Encyclopedia of the American Left. Edited by Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas, 113-14. 2^nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• San Juan, E., Jr. “Carlos Bulosan.” The American Radical. Ed. Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Harvey J. Kaye. New York: Routledge, 1994. 253-59.
• San Juan, E., Jr., ed., On Becoming Filipino: Selected Writings of Carlos Bulosan. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.

Fred Ho

• Ho, Fred. Wicked Theory, Naked Power: A Fred Ho Reader. Edited by Diane Fujino. Minneapolis: Minnesota Press, 2009.
• Ho, Fred, and Bill V. Mullen, eds. Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.
• Mullen, Bill V. “Bandung’s Child.” Transition: An International Review, no. 119 (2016): 73–79.
• Price, Zachary. “Remembering Fred Ho: The Legacy of Afro Asian Futurism.” TDR: The Drama Review 60, no. 2 (2016): 48-67.

Yuri Kochiyama

• Fujino, Diane. Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. Minneapolis: Minnesota Press, 2005.
• Kao, Mary Uyematsu, Audee Kochiyama-Holman, Eddie Kochiyama, Ryan Kochiyama, Kai Williams, Karen Tei Yamashita, Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Renee Tajima-Peña, and Diane C. Fujino. “Tributes to Yuri Kochiyama.” Amerasia Journal 40, no. 3 (2014): 1–33.
• Kochiyama, Yuri. “The Impact of Malcolm X on Asian-American Politics and Activism.” Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in Urban America: Status and Prospect for Politics and Activism. Edited by James Jennings. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.
• Kochiyama, Yuri. Passing It On: A Memoir. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 2004.
• Mountains that Take Wing: Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama: A Conversation on Life, Struggles and Liberation. Dir. C. A. Griffith and H. L. T. Quan, 2009.

Philip Vera Cruz

• Scharlin, Craig, Lilia V. Villanueva, Glenn Omatsu, and Augusto Caesar Espiritu. Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History of Filipino Immigrants and the Farmworkers Movement. Los Angeles: UCLA Labor Center, Institute of Industrial Relations & UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1992.

Mitsuye Yamada and Michael Yasutake

• Fujino, Diane C. Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry of Mitsuye Yamada and Michael Yasutake. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020.