Agora Virtual Speaker Series: Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences Summer Research Fellows
February 19, 2021 - 3:00pm to 5:00pm“Asian Americans for Action and the New York Asian American Movement in the 1960s and 1970s”
.This presentation explores the group Asian Americans for Action (AAA) and their role in the Asian American movement. Formed in 1969 by Min Matsuda and Kazu Iijima to establish a political voice for Asian Americans in the New York City area, AAA struggled not only for Asian American liberation but aligned itself with larger struggles against colonialism, anti-Blackness, and capitalism. Key figures in the Asian American movement such as Yuri Kochiyama and Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga would later credit AAA as formative in their political development, yet comparatively little work has explored AAA in-depth. This essay thus explores Asian Americans for Action and argues they help to provide a more nuanced picture of the Asian American movement. In doing so, I analyze archival materials collected from the NYU Special Collections Center, specifically AAA's newsletter published between 1969-1974.
Schedule of Events
“Returning to Mayberry amid the 2020 Social Crises: An Oral History”
Amid the social, political and global health turmoil of 2020, people turned to television for a sense of comfort and normality. Oral history accounts reveal nostalgic television was a particularly inviting escape, especially The Andy Griffith Show with its themes of community, trust, and idealism of a supposedly more peaceful time. With this presentation, I examine oral history interviews of fans and critics of The Andy Griffith Show to demonstrate how the series allows viewers to connect with others over a distance, to escape from the stress of the present and to contemplate how the citizens of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry would react to the pandemic and protests of 2020, helping to define their own views on the present situation.
“Long Beach in Transit: Mobility Justice and the Production of Space in Long Beach, California”
via Zoom Webinar
Registration required in advance https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dqMo7dszS5e44Hn1JmV7Fg