Our Discussion Blog

May 29, 2021

Happy Asian American Pacific Islanders Month! Wow, what a month it has been! The TEAACH Act passed the Illinois Legislature 57-0!

On Sunday, May 23, our Action-based Book Club dove into the myriad issues and topics of Cathy Park Hong's firey book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. We had emotional and thoughtful responses to the book and the lack of uniformity of our reactions creates the messy democracy of multiple stories. 

Miya Hasagawa generously prepared the following study and discussion guide for our meeting:

April 12, 2021

On Sunday, April 11, the Action-based Book Club had a spirited, thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion of the PBS series Asian Americans. Newcomers, educators, film-lovers and parents gathered via Zoom to share our experiences and responses to the documentary's five powerful episodes.

Significant passages of the series that drew our attention included the Supreme Court case of Bhagat Singh Thind, who served in the U.S. Army in World War I, yet was denied citizenship by a contortion of logic, reason and sense. The earlier 1898 Supreme Court case of Wong Kim Arc, on the other hand, which ruled that "any child born in the United States, regardless of race or parents’ citizenship status, is an American citizen'' drew our admiration and wonder.

We talked about two corresponding and destructive American myths: the "Model Minority," which can be used as a wedge against other ethnic and racial groups, and the idea of an achievable "American Dream," which denies structural impediments against Black, Indigeous and people of color. Other themes of the Asian American experience that we discussed were "The Constant Foreigner," despite centuries of presence in America, and the unique issues faced by immigrants arriving and trying and vying for their spot in U.S. society.

We discussed Chinese American actress Anna May Wong and Hollywood's refusal to give her leading roles, Isabelle Wilkerson's book Caste and Latasha Harlins, whose death in the LA riots of the 80's brought to the forefront of American culture the tensions between the Asian American and Black communities, but not the White supremacy that undergirds, perpetuates, and profits from that tension. A participant commented how important it is "to teach our kids how to see nuance and look beyond the obvious.  Good to question media and pop culture."

A participant pointed out how she appreciated the organizational form that the documentary used by focusing on stories of families. Another participant recommended the book Two Homelands by Toyoko Yamazaki, a novel based on the story of the Uno family, a long book, but highly recommended. Buddy Uno, who left the U.S. during World War II to become a war correspondant, and then a propogandist, for Japan, was an particularly fascinating, yet tragic figure for many of us.

The contributions of the Filipino farm worker community and Jimmy Itliong, who worked next to Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta, were another important part of Asian American history that has been erased, ignored and diminished. The group expressed appreciation for the proposed TEAACH Act by Illinois Senator Ram Villivalam and Representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz which could remedy these erasures.  

Notable quotes: 

"The art gives flesh and blood to the politics." (Episode 4, Yellow Pearl singer, Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto)

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