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In collaboration with members of the Asian Pacific Coalition, its Board of Representatives, and Asian American Studies students, the UCLA Library has assembled a list of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) content. From short stories to documentaries, this comprehensive collection gives you a variety of content to choose from in order to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month! We welcome your comments and feedback.

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The Magic Fish (2020) by Trung Le Nguyen

"Real life isn't a fairytale. But Tié̂n still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It's hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tié̂n, he doesn't even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he's going through? Is there a way to tell them he's gay?" (Publisher's Description)

Bulletproof Buddhists and Other Essays (1998) by Frank Chin

"Frank Chin is perhaps the most instantly recognizable voice in Chinese American writing today. A self-proclaimed "transcendent Chinaman pagan heathen barbarian," Chin searches out (or stumbles on) the right people and situations, vividly recording the outcome in distinctively American terms. Here are six of his best essays, spanning the past forty years. Making his way across the U.S. to Cuba, Chin is arrested as an American spy some time between Castro's revolution and the missile crisis. He meets Ben Fee, the man who integrated San Francisco, and is introduced to Southeast Asian gangs and culture in San Diego. He discovers Chinese bachelor society along the California-Mexico border and travels to Singapore, where he speculates on the fear and suppression of Chinese culture among Chinese Singaporeans. Back at the home front, he encounters the new white racism along Interstate 5 during the Gulf War." (Publisher's Description)

Afterparties (2021) by Anthony Veasna So

"Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor with sharp emotional depth, Afterparties offers an expansive portrait of the lives of Cambodian-Americans. As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship, and family. A high school badminton coach and failing grocery store owner tries to relive his glory days by beating a rising star teenage player. Two drunken brothers attend a wedding afterparty and hatch a plan to expose their shady uncle’s snubbing of the bride and groom. A queer love affair sparks between an older tech entrepreneur trying to launch a “safe space” app and a disillusioned young teacher obsessed with Moby-Dick. And in the sweeping final story, a nine-year-old child learns that his mother survived a racist school shooter." (Publisher's Description)

America Is in the Heart (1946) by Carlos Bulosan

"First published in 1946, this autobiography of the well-known Filipino poet describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West. Bulosan does not spare the reader any of the horrors that accompanied the migrant's life, but his quiet, stoic voice is the most convincing witness to the terrible events he witnessed." (Publisher's Description)

Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America (2021) by South Asian American Digital Archive

"Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America is an anthology rooted in community. Bringing together the voices of sixty-four authors--ranging from artists to activists to academics--Our Stories weaves together the myriad histories, experiences, perspectives, and identities that make up the South Asian American community. The volume consists of ten chapters that explore both the history of South Asian America, spanning from the 1780s through present day, and various aspects of the South Asian American experience, from civic engagement to family. Each offers stories of struggle, of resistance, of inspiration, and of joy that disrupt dominant narratives that have erased South Asian Americans' role in U.S. history and made restrictions on their belonging. By combining these narratives, this volume serves as a community-driven reimagining of a reference resource and illustrates the diversity, vibrancy, and power of the South Asian American community." (Publisher's Description)

The Body Papers (2019) by Grace Talusan

"Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather's nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family's legal status in the country has always hung by a thread-for a time, they were "illegal." Family, she's told, must be put first. The abuse and trauma Talusan suffers as a child affects all her relationships, her mental health, and her relationship with her own body. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. And she discovers another devastating family thread: cancer. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher. On a fellowship, Talusan and her husband return to the Philippines, where she revisits her family's ancestral home and tries to reclaim a lost piece of herself." (Publisher's Description)

I Hotel (2010) by Karen Tei Yamashita

"Beginning in 1968, a motley cast of students, laborers, artists, revolutionaries, and provocateurs from San Francisco's Chinatown make their way through the history of the day, becoming caught in a riptide of politics and passion, clashing ideologies and personal turmoil that culminate in their effort to save the International Hotel--epicenter of the Yellow Power Movement." (Publisher's Description)

Interpreter of Maladies (1999) by Jhumpa Lahiri

"Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning debut collection unerring charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. In stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner." (Publisher's Description)

A Tale for the Time Being (2013) by Ruth Ozeki

"A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be." In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace--and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox--possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. Full of Ozeki's signature humor and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home." (Publisher's Description)

Watch

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (2013) by Grace Lee

"Grace Lee Boggs, 99, is a Chinese American philosopher, writer, and activist in Detroit with a thick FBI file and a surprising vision of what an American revolution can be. Rooted for 75 years in the labor, civil rights and Black Power movements, she challenges a new generation to throw off old assumptions, think creatively and redefine revolution for our times." (PBS)

Kumu Hina (2014) by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson

Imagine a world where a little boy can grow up to be the woman of his dreams, and a young girl can rise to become a leader among men. Welcome to Kumu Hina's Hawai'i. During a momentous year in her life in modern Honolulu, Hina Wong-Kalu, a native Hawaiian māhū, or transgender, teacher uses traditional culture to inspire a student to claim her place as leader of the school's all-male hula troupe. But despite her success as a teacher, Hina longs for love and a committed relationship. Will her marriage to a headstrong Tongan man fulfill her dreams? An incredible docu-drama that unfolds like a narrative film, Kumu Hina reveals a side of Hawai'i rarely seen on screen." (Kanopy)

Asian Americans (2022) by Renee Tajima-Peña

"This series traces the story of Asian Americans, spanning 150 years of immigration, racial politics, and cultural innovation. It is a timely look at the role that Asian Americans have played in defining who we are as a nation." (PBS)

Mele Murals (2016) by Tadashi Nakamura

A documentary about the transformative power of art through the unlikely union of graffiti and ancient Hawaiian culture. At the center of this story are the artists Estria Miyashiro (aka Estria) and John Hina (aka Prime), and a group of Native Hawaiian youth from the rural community of Waimea, HI. Together they create a mural that addresses the ill effects of environmental changes and encroaching modernization on their native culture.” (Kanopy)

Free Chol Soo Lee (2022) by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi

Sentenced to life for a 1973 San Francisco murder, Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee was set free after a pan-Asian solidarity movement, which included Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Americans, helped to overturn his conviction. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside California state prisons, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him." (PBS)

The Fall of the I-Hotel (1983) by Curtis Choy

After the Manongs labored to build America, their San Francisco Manilatown community is wiped out by urban renewal, and 50 old-timers are forcibly evicted from the International Hotel by 300 cops in the dead of night. This film documents destruction of the last block of Manilatown in Kearney Street.” (IMDB)

The Namesake (2006) by Mira Nair

“American-born Gogol, the son of Indian immigrants, wants to fit in among his fellow New Yorkers, despite his family's unwillingness to let go of their traditional ways.” (IMDB)

Fire Island (2022) by Andrew Ahn

A group of queer best friends gather in Fire Island Pines for their annual week of love and laughter, but a sudden change of events might make this their last summer in gay paradise.” (IMDB)

Mississippi Masala (1991) by Mira Nair

An ethnic Indian family is expelled from Idi Amin's Uganda in 1972 and lives in Mississippi 17 years later. The dad sues Uganda to get his property back. The grown daughter falls in love with a Black man.” (IMDB)

Follow

UCLA Asian American Studies Department @ucla_aasd

"The Department of Asian American Studies at UCLA, founded in 2004, has been a national leader in promoting the study of the histories, contemporary realities, and diverse experiences of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans." (AASD Website)

UCLA Asian Pacific Coalition | Meet the Coalition

"The Asian Pacific Coalition serves as the political voice for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American communities on campus. The organization acts as an advocacy group for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American student groups, and brings together the diverse communities to address political, social, educational, and cultural issues." (APC Website)

Distorted Footprints Podcast @distortedfootprints

"'Distorted Footprints' is created by the students of Professor Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi’s “Critical Refugee Studies” course at the University of California, Los Angeles... Refugees leave traces—or footprints—when they are forced to leave their homelands in search of refuge. However, these footprints are often distorted by xenophobic governments, who characterize refugees as perilous threats, or even humanitarian organizations, who reduce refugees to helpless victims. In this podcast we seek to critique and correct these distortions. Utilizing a critical refugee studies framework, we instead feature refugees’ stories, voices, and arts of resistance, positing the refugee as a figure of geopolitical critique and social change." (Distorted Footprints Website)

Asian American Writers' Workshop Radio @aawwradio

"AAWW Radio is the podcast of the Asian American Writers' Workshop, an NYC literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice. Listen to AAWW Radio and you’ll hear selected audio from our current and past events, as well as occasional original episodes. We’ve hosted established writers like Claudia Rankine, Maxine Hong Kingston, Roxane Gay, Amitav Ghosh, Ocean Vuong, Solmaz Sharif, and Jenny Zhang. Our events are intimate and intellectual, quirky yet curated, and dedicated to social justice. We curate our events to juxtapose novelists and activists, poets and intellectuals, and bring together people who usually wouldn’t be in the same room." (AAWW Radio Website)

King of the World Podcast @kingoftheworld

"Rifelion Media presents "King of the World": a seven-part podcast series about a Pakistani American Muslim teenager who comes of age post-9/11 and, twenty years later, tries to figure out what the hell happened to him and to us. Hosted by Shahjehan Khan, King of the World is his journey through addiction, identity, creativity, and what it means to belong as a Muslim in America in the 20 years after 9/11." (King of the World Apple Podcast)

High Brow Podcast @highbrow

"High Brow is a chic podcast for cool girls and self-identified intellectuals. Hosted by Mina Le, the pod is an extension of her eponymous Youtube channel. Follow Mina every Wednesday as she leads you through the culture & fashion landscapes, dissecting topics that probably resonate most with the chronically online... but through the lens of someone who has touched grass of course (or so she claims!)." (High Brow Podcast Description)

Fanachu! Podcast @fanachupocast

"Fanachu! is a weekly podcast based in Guam in the Marianas Islands. It provides an decolonization and indigenous themed focus to news and events from the Marianas, Micronesia and the Pacific. It is live streamed each week on Facebook and features monthly episodes that promote the use and learning of the Chamoru language." (Fanachu! Podcast Description)

Dragon Fruit Project @dragonfruitproject

"The Dragon Fruit Project began in 2007 as the Dragon Fruit Historical Preservation Project, created by San Francisco State University Professor and Associate Dean of Ethnic Studies, Amy Sueyoshi. Amy’s goal was to archive and document oral history stories from her own friends and community of trans, queer, Asian Pacific Islanders (TQAPI’s) based in the Bay Area... [T]he Project grew from collecting and transcribing oral histories into networks of intergenerational relationships, phonetrees, and even a podcast!" (Dragon Fruit Project Website)

Archive of Queer Brown Feelings @saada/qbf

"The South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) explores the history, memories, and lived experience of queer and trans South Asians through a collection of oral histories and forthcoming artifacts." (Densho Description)

Credits

Webpage curation by: Nancy Khuc

Special thanks to: Board members of the Asian Pacific Coalition, the Asian Pacific Coalition Board of Representatives, and students of the Asian American Studies Department.

Photo Credits

Cover Image:

1. https://news.sfsu.edu/archive/news-story/asian-american-studies-department-celebrates-50th-anniversary-gala.html

Background Images:

1. https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2021/05/28/asian-american-artists-aapi-heritage

2. https://olonamedia.com/portfolio/mele-murals-waimanalo

3. https://jessxsnow.com/IN-THE-FUTURE-OUR-ASIAN-COMMUNITY-IS-SAFE

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