{"id":17611,"date":"2022-01-26T09:40:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T16:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=17611"},"modified":"2022-01-31T11:29:33","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T18:29:33","slug":"cc-launches-year-long-series-addressing-anti-asian-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2022\/01\/cc-launches-year-long-series-addressing-anti-asian-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"CC Launches Year-Long Series Addressing Anti-Asian Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

A violent incident of anti-Asian racism early last year has inspired the launch of a new series of lectures, discussions, film screenings, and reading groups at Colorado College: \u201cForever Foreign: Asian America, Global Asia, and the Problem of Anti-Asian Racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the mass killing of Asian-Americans in Atlanta on March 16, 2021, an act of violent anti-Asian racism that shook the nation, a group of CC faculty felt it would be helpful to host a series of events that highlight the histories, narratives, and voices from Asian societies and of Asian diaspora communities in the United States to increase knowledge and awareness of these communities.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Yogesh Chandrani<\/p><\/div>\n

Yogesh Chandrani, assistant professor of religion and Asian studies, is the primary organizer of \u201cForever Foreign,\u201d a year-long series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea for this series came about from informal conversations among a group of faculty after the mass killings in Atlanta in March 2021,\u201d he says. The faculty group included Emily Chan, John Williams, Purvi Mehta, Jason Weaver, Aline Lo, Christian Sorace, and Chandrani.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe began to talk about organizing events that would center the perspectives and voices of the Asian diaspora communities and deepen the ongoing conversations on antiracism,\u201d Chandrani says. \u201cWhile our immediate concern was to respond to the events in Atlanta and the escalation in anti-Asian racism, especially after the pandemic began, we also wanted to address the issue historically. In other words, we cannot think about anti-Asian racism at home without exploring its connections with geopolitics and the long history of U.S. military interventions in the Asian societies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chandrani says an important idea underpinning the series is that both Asia and Asian-American are contested and fraught categories that do not adequately capture the heterogeneity of Asian societies and of Asian diaspora communities in the United States. Asia is a vast region, home to 60% of the world\u2019s population that includes numerous linguistic, ethnic, and religious communities. Similarly, the Asian diaspora in the United States includes numerous communities, each with their own histories of migration and displacement, their own languages, distinctive cultural practices and literary traditions, and unique ways of relating to their new homeland: the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are organizing this series in order to un-settle popular understandings of Asia and Asian diaspora communities by foregrounding the multiple ways of being Asian and American,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\t\t