Japanese Americans and Anti-Asian Violence, a conversation on racism and resistance with Scott Kurashige
Japanese Americans and Anti-Asian Violence, a conversation on racism and resistance with Scott Kurashige
Saturday, April 25, 1 pm
Join author/scholar Scott Kurashige in conversation with local community activists Eryn Kimura and Eddy Zheng on building multiracial solidarity.
Written in the radical spirit of Howard Zinn, American Peril represents the culmination of thirty-five years of study and activism, and is the new book by award-winning scholar Scott Kurashige. From the lynching of Asian immigrants during the exclusion era to the ongoing slaughter of Asian civilians by the U.S. military, the book connects domestic and global events that have been erased from the official record. It shows us how the racism motivating the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans was part of a broader pattern of dehumanization underlying the firebombing of Tokyo, the dropping of the atomic bombs, and subsequent acts of mass murder and genocide throughout Asia that evaded war crimes prosecution. Going beyond victimhood, Kurashige traces the rise of Asian American community protest and activism in response to the 1982 “Japan-bashing” murder of Vincent Chin and other overlooked tragedies. While many have worked to legislate and prosecute hate crimes, Kurashige argues that hope lies in grassroots activism for multiracial solidarity.
Scott Kurashige is author of “The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles” and coauthor, with Grace Lee Boggs of “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century”. Books will be available for sales and signing.
Eryn Kimura is a fifth generation San Franciscan and Japanese-Chinese American mixed media artist, filmmaker, cultural producer and community builder. She currently works for Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, the oldest Black-led community-based organization in San Francisco.
Eddy Zheng is the founder of New Breath Foundation, dedicaed to the healing and transformation of AANHPI, harmed by the unjust U.S. immigrtion and criminal legal systems and to unite communities of color.
American Peril will be available for sales and signing. To order a book in advance.
The event is co-sponsored by Eastwind Books of Berkeley and J-Sei.
Told with poise, humor, and strength, The Mid-Adventures of A Former Nisei Queen shares reflections of spirited 92-year-old June Aochi Berk. Growing up in prewar Little Tokyo, she goes from surviving in a horse stall at the Santa Anita temporary detention center and in a barrack at the Rohwer concentration camp during World War II to being crowned Nisei Week Queen in Los Angeles. Director Evan Kodani has over a decade of experience in filmmaking. He has filmed and edited a multitude of productions, including the Emmy award-winning ARTBOUND episode Masters of Modern Design in collaboration with PBS SoCal.
The Poet and the Silk Girl
Based on lies and wartime propaganda, during WWII the U.S. government forcibly removed and incarcerated more than 125,000 innocent Japanese Americans in ten American concentration camps, solely because of their race.
Barbara Takei is a public historian and a leading authority on the history of Japanese American resisters who were incarcerated at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Her family was incarcerated at the Tule Lake and Amache concentration camps, and the Griffith Park and Fort Bliss Army internment camps. She has served on the Tule Lake Committee board for over two decades, working to honor the stories of Japanese American grassroots resistance and to prevent government desecration of the Tule Lake site. Her introduction to Asian American political organizing began in the 1960s as a member of The Detroit Asian Political Alliance. She is the co-author of 
