Artists
This Hawaii-born artist of mixed Filipino, Puerto Rican, and Ashkenazi Jewish descent, chose the second part of his stage name because “perhaps… the best way to avoid being stereotyped by race is to sound as though you come from a different planet altogether.”
Who is Peter Gene Hernandez a.k.a. Bruno Mars?
Though she lived most of her childhood in New York, this mixed Haitian-Japanese tennis great represents Japan in her Women’s Tennis Association career, and identifies with the cultures of her parents. She is twice a champion at the US Open and twice a champion at the Australian Open.
Who is Naomi Osaka?
A journalist and an activist for Asian Americans and the LGBTQ+ community, she lived in Detroit at the time of Vincent Chin’s hate-motivated murder; her journalism was instrumental in bringing civil rights charges against his killers.
Who is Helen Zia?
Also known as “Seven Fingers” after losing three fingers in a cannery accident, he worked with César Chavez to create the United Farm Workers in order to bring together the Filipino and Chicano labor movements. He spoke English, Spanish, multiple Filipino languages, Japanese, and Cantonese.
Who is Modesto "Larry" Dulay Itliong?
After this event, many South Asian Americans have been victims of anti-Arab and islamophobic violence, despite not being Arab nor necessarily Muslim, while often being excluded from the category of Asian. In response, South Asian American scholar Sunaina Maira has called for discussion between Arab American and Asian American Studies, and launched the West Asian American Studies section within the Association of Asian American Studies.
What is 9/11?
This artist, born in Ohio of Chinese descent, was still in college when she was commissioned to design and build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. She would go on to create many notable works, including the Wave Field sculpture at University of Michigan.
Who is Maya Ying Lin?
After first being offered a spot on the Harvard Women’s Swim Team and then transitioning during a gap year, he became the first openly trans D1 male athlete in the NCAA.
Who is Schuyler Miwon Hong Bailar?
Her civil rights work from the 1960s onward focused on the anti-war movement, solidarity with Black power and Black separatist movements, reparations for victims of Japanese internment, and freedom for political prisoners. She was a principled Maoist and converted to Islam in 1971.
Who is Yuri Kochiyama?
They are a Chinese-American autistic activist, and have lectured, written, and organized around topics spanning race, trans and queer issues, disability and neurodiversity, and the ways all of these things are related. They were honored by the White House in 2013.
Who is Lydia X. Z. Brown?
Primarily housing Filipino Americans but also home to other Asian Americans, Black and Mexican Americans, openly queer folk, leftists and student activists, this building in San Francisco’s Manilatown was the site of a 1968 tenant strike fighting an attempted development project that would have evicted all residents and destroyed their homes.
What is The International Hotel or I-Hotel?
Known for his work in various films and TV series, from The Fugitive and Star Trek to The Screaming Skull and Hawaii Five-O, this American-Samoan screenwriter and playwright became a champion of Polynesian culture in his later years.
Who is John Kneubuhl?
In 2016, at just 15 years old, she became the second person to score a perfect 100 in a snowboarding event at a snowboarding Grand Prix (after Shaun White), and is now a multi-gold medalist.
Who is Chloe Kim?
A survivor of abuse and forced into being an accessory to murder, she was pardoned by then-governor of California Gavin Newsom after serving 16 years in prison; thereafter she was threatened with deportation to her parents’ native Cambodia, as she was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and is not a U.S. citizen. She is now an outspoken advocate for incarcerated women and refugees.
Who is Ny Nourn?
His 1978 book Orientalism called for an end to the racist term “oriental,” and has become a crucial text for activists in East, Southeast, and South Asian communities, but was written from the perspective of a Palestinian, and was intended primarily to criticize European portrayals of what it calls the Near East and the Middle East – Southwest Asia.
Who is Edward Said?
Better understood as forced relocation and imprisonment, the victims of what is commonly known as Japanese Internment were removed from their homes and communities to be placed in concentration camps between 1942 and 1946, and were not given reparations until the passage of this law, which admitted that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."
What is the Civil Rights Act of 1988?
This openly gay, Chinese-American painter is celebrated for his visionary work, having been involved with the hippy movement of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and social realism in New York City, where he met his partner and collaborator, Nuyorican poet Miguel Piñero. He passed away due to an AIDS-related illness in 1999 at the age of 53.
Who is Martin Wong?
Of Samoan and Swedish descent, this Olympic diver faced discrimination and unjustifiable suspicions after he came out in 1984 as HIV-positive. Between 1976 and 1988, he won one silver and five gold medals.
Who is Greg Louganis?
The only Pulitzer prize winner from Guam, his most notable projects have centered on life in Detroit and Pacific Islander identity.
Who is Manny Chrisostomo?
In his 1869 “Composite Nation” speech, this famous abolitionist denounced the Chinese Exclusion Act, in one of the United States’ founding moments of interracial solidarity.
Who is Frederick Douglass?
The pejorative term ‘Wuhan Virus’ referring to COVID-19 has often been used due to the virus’ supposed (but unconfirmed) origins in the Chinese city of the same name. Rhetoric like this contributed to a massive spike in anti-Asian hate crimes worldwide, sparking this social justice movement.
What is the #StopAsianHate (or #StopAAPIHate) Movement?
In response to the post-9/11 disappearance of 760 men primarily of South Asian, Arab, and majority Muslim national descent, these two Desi American artists launched a now 20-year investigation, plus public events and art installations, called Index of the Disappeared.
Who are Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh?
This woman is the first Indian-American Olympic gymnast, and only the second Indian-American to medal in any Olympic event. Her twelve-year career, spanning from 1992 to 2004, is unusually long for her sport.
Who is Mohini Bharadwaj?
A social entrepreneur, civil rights activist, and aspiring astronaut, she is the CEO of RISE, a sexual assault surivors’ advocacy group, and was a central figure raising awareness about anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Who is Amanda Nguyen?
This Marxist-Leninist and Third-worldist organization that viewed Black communities in the U.S. as being occupied by the forces of White power found unity with the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, and made it part of their platform that Black men should not have to fight in the Vietnam War.
What is the Black Panther Party?
During this tragedy, over 500 men harassed and attacked the Chinese residents of Calle de los Negros. Nineteen were killed, fifteen of whom were lynched, in retaliation for a perceived attack on the white community – the killing of a police officer and a farmer who had intervened in a conflict between rival Chinese gangs. None of the victims were responsible for the officer’s death; the farmer had died by his own misfired bullet.
What is the Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871?