LibGuides: Asian Studies: Stop AAPI Hate

Spotlight on Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage, History, and Racism toward Asian Americans

Spotlight on Asian American and Pacific Islander History and anti-Asian Racism in the United States

graphic that says "STOP AAPI HATE"

In May 2022, As part of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage month, the CWU Libraries partnered with the Asian Studies Department and the CWU EthicsLab to create a series of events reflecting on the themes of APPI history, identity, experiences, and anti-APPI racism in the United States.

Events included:

May 4^th(4:00-5:00PM): Revolution Goes East: Radicalism in East Asia in the Interwar Period, lecture by Dr. Tatiana Linkhoeva - Link to Recording of Event
May 17th (3:00-5:00PM): Convergences Generative Writing Workshop (open to CWU English students only)
May 25th (3:00-5:00PM): Convergences: Charting New Possibilities for Asian American Writing During Times of Crisis | a panel and reading by Chen Chen, Danni Quintos, and SJ Sindu | Moderated by M. Eliatamby-O'Brien - Link to recording

CWU Libraries has also prepared this reading guide with suggested reading, listening, and watching for cultivating greater awareness about AAPI identity and experiences, as well as ending racism against Asian Americans in the United States. Inside you'll find recommendations library holdings like novels, poetry, comics, academic books) and related podcasts on the AAPI diaspora.

Poetry

When I Grow up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
ISBN: 9781942683339
Publication Date: 2017-04-11
In this ferocious and tender debut, Chen Chen investigates inherited forms of love and family--the strained relationship between a mother and son, the cost of necessary goodbyes--all from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Holding all accountable, this collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and abundant joy that come with charting one's own path in identity, life, and love.
The Year of Blue Water by Yanyi
ISBN: 9780300242652
Publication Date: 2019-03-26
How can a search for self-knowledge reveal art as a site of community? Yanyi's arresting and straightforward poems weave experiences of immigration as a Chinese American, of racism, of mental wellness, and of gender from a queer and trans perspective. Between the contrast of high lyric and direct prose poems, Yanyi invites the reader to consider how to speak with multiple identities through trauma, transition, and ordinary life.
Obit by Victoria Chang
Call Number: PS3603.H3575 O25 2020
ISBN: 9781556595745
Publication Date: 2020-04-07
After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. In Obit, longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award in Poetry, Chang writes of “the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking.” These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died (“civility,” “language,” “the future,” “Mother’s blue dress”) and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living.

Fiction

No-No Boy by John Okada; Lawson Fusao Inada (Introduction by); Frank Chin (Afterword by)
ISBN: 9780295955254
Publication Date: 1981-01-01
First published in 1956, No-No Boy was virtually ignored by a public eager to put World War II and the Japanese internment behind them. It was not until the mid-1970s that a new generation of Japanese American writers and scholars recognized the novel's importance and popularized it as one of literature's most powerful testaments to the Asian American experience.
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
ISBN: 9780395927205
Publication Date: 1999-06-01
Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

Anthologies

Bold words : a century of Asian American writing by Rajini Srikanth (Editor)
ISBN: 9780813529653
Publication Date: 2001-10-01
This anthology covers writings by Asian Americans in all genres, from the early twentieth century to the present. Some sixty authors of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Southeast Asian American origin are represented, with an equal split between male and female writers.
Making waves : an anthology of writings by and about Asian American women by Asian Women United of California Staff (Editor); Lilia V. Villanueva (Other Adaptation by)
ISBN: 9780807059050
Publication Date: 1989-06-28
A collection of autobiographical writings, short stories, poetry, essays, and photos by and about Asian American women.

Graphic Novels

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
ISBN: 9781603094504
Publication Date: 2019-07-16
They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the terrors and small joys of childhood in the shadow of legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's tested faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (Illustrator)
ISBN: 9780312384487
Publication Date: 2008-12-23
American Born Chinese tells the story of three apparently unrelated characters: Jin Wang, who moves to a new neighborhood with his family only to discover that he's the only Chinese-American student at his new school; the powerful Monkey King, subject of one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables; and Chin-Kee, a personification of the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, who is ruining his cousin Danny's life with his yearly visits.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
ISBN: 9780525509288
Publication Date: 2019-08-13
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
ISBN: 9781728209807
Publication Date: 2020-01-28
The New York Times and USA Today bestseller! This eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.
So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
ISBN: 9781580056779
Publication Date: 2018-01-16
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.

Anti-Racist Resources
by Elizabeth Brown Last Updated Sep 7, 2023 98 views this year

Self-Evident: Asian America's Stories

As people of all backgrounds reckon with complex legacies of race, power, culture, and identity and ask themselves, “Where do I stand?” Self Evident presents reported stories and radically open conversations from the everyday Asian Americans who have been confronting this question for generations. Our mission is to empower local communities to share stories and build relationships around the value of self-representation.

Southern Fried Asian

Southern Fried Asian is a new podcast from The Nerds of Color hosted by Keith Chow. Typically, stories about Asian Americans are centered on the experiences of those who grew up on the coasts -- New York, Southern California, the Bay Area -- where communities of different Asian American subgroups have lived for many years. On this podcast, though, we're gonna look at a region of the country that isn't typically associated with these stories and unpack what it means to be Asian American in the American South.

Asian Americana

A show about slices of distinctly Asian American culture and history.

Asian Studies