AAPI Studies

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Highline Community College

 

Image from Tak Toyoshima's Secret Asian Man

Welcome to Highline's Asian American Studies class!
Asian American Studies is offered through the Culture, Gender, and Global Studies Department at least twice during the academic school year.  If you are interested in learning more about the history of Asians in America, the roles Asian Americans are stereotyped into, and current issues of race, identity, assimilation, and acceptance, then enroll into our informative and interactive discussion of Asian Americans and their experiences and concerns.

 

Tarisa's take:

These are things I remember from my youth:

  • watching Kung Fu every afternoon

  • going to the Obon Festival every year at the Buddhist Temple down the street

  • eating manju on special occasions

  • visiting family in Hilo, the pidgin spilling out of my mouth

  • wondering at Yul Brenner’s eyes in The King and I

  • my grandparents telling me they didn’t vote because when they moved to California, no one would let them buy a house in a white neighborhood

  • all the sansei coaches in the basketball and baseball leagues

  • all the nisei men gardening

  • all the yonsei half-breeds

  • marking “Asian” on all my college applications so that I could take advantage of Affirmative Action

  • thinking “shoyu” and “soy sauce” were different things

  • my brother firing pretend bullets at the real remains of Manzanar

  • my friend Cindy Lam explaining that her father was killed when they escaped from Vietnam

  • thinking the coolest part about Keanu Reeves was that he is part Chinese and part Hawai’ian

 I didn’t know yet that David Carradine in Kung Fu was not cool—Bruce Lee was not Asian enough to play the roaming Kung Fu master.  And I didn’t understand the Yul Brenner caricature.  All I knew was that here were Asian characters and that the rest of the world knew (however insensitively) we existed.

So what is it about all us Asian Americans who run to the tv when an Asian face appears?  What makes us flock to each other in this sea of diversity we call the United States?  Let’s dig a little deeper and find out…

Keanu Reeves

Image from:  Twitch Film

Yellow Peril Supports Black Power

Image from http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/calheritage/panthers/coalitions.htm

 

Race in America is not Black and White.  The Civil Rights Movement affected all people of color and mobilized them to work for justice and equality.  Why are people of color divided?  Isn't freedom and liberty the right of every American?  Or are some Americans more "American" than others?

Who is Yuri Kochiyama?

 

Vincent Chin

Image from http://kundiman.org/index.php?id=3

"No Justice, No Peace"--Who Killed Vincent Chin?

Yes, violence against people of color still occurs.  The struggle for Asian American equity and freedom is ongoing.

Do you know what happened to Vincent Chin?

 

Wing Luke Museum

Image from:  Wing Luke Online

  

Have you visited the Wing Luke Museum?

Check out these reflections to get a feel for what it's like there.
Check out the Spring 2007 Schedule Click here for Course Syllabus

 

 

Last updated on 11/26/2007 12:00

Questions?  Contact tmatsumo@highline.edu

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