During the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Americans faced a campaign of violence and threats fueled by racist demagoguery. But this wasn’t from out of the blue. Academic and author Scott Kurashige says these attacks were part of a much longer pattern that made anti-Asian racism integral to the outbreak of white supremacist, misogynist, and colonial violence throughout 175 of U.S. history. 

Kurashige explores this in his new book American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism, a book he says is written in the radical spirit of Howard Zinn. From the lynching of Asian immigrants during the era of exclusion to the U.S. military’s killing of Asian civilians, Kurashige connects domestic and global events he says have been erased from the official record. He looks at the rise of Asian American community protest and activism in response to the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin and other overlooked tragedies. He argues that many have worked to legislate and prosecute hate crimes, but for him hope lies in grassroots activism for multiracial solidarity.

Join us for a provocative history of Anti-Asian racism in the United States.