With contributions from activists, artists, and scholars, Afro Asia
is a groundbreaking collection of writing on the historical
alliances, cultural connections, and shared political strategies
linking African Americans and Asian Americans. Bringing together
autobiography, poetry, scholarly criticism, and other genres, this
volume represents an activist vanguard in the cultural struggle
against oppression.Afro Asia opens with analyses of historical
connections between people of African and of Asian descent. An
account of nineteenth-century Chinese laborers who fought against
slavery and colonialism in Cuba appears alongside an exploration of
African Americans' reactions to and experiences of the Korean
"conflict." Contributors examine the fertile period of Afro-Asian
exchange that began around the time of the 1955 Bandung Conference,
the first meeting of leaders from Asian and African nations in the
postcolonial era. One assesses the relationship of two important
1960s Asian American activists to Malcolm X and the Black Panthers.
Mao Ze Dong's 1963 and 1968 statements in support of black
liberation are juxtaposed with an overview of the influence of
Maoism on African American leftists. Turning to the arts, Ishmael
Reed provides a brief account of how he met and helped several
Asian American writers. A Vietnamese American spoken-word artist
describes the impact of black hip-hop culture on working-class
urban Asian American youth. Fred Ho interviews Bill Cole, an
African American jazz musician who plays Asian double-reed
instruments. This pioneering collection closes with an array of
creative writing, including poetry, memoir, and a dialogue about
identity and friendship that two writers, one Japanese American and
the other African American, have performed around the United
States. Contributors: Betsy Esch, Diane C. Fujino, royal hartigan,
Kim Hewitt, Cheryl Higashida, Fred Ho, Everett Hoagland, Robin D.
G. Kelley, Bill V. Mullen, David Mura, Ishle Park, Alexs Pate,
Thien-bao Thuc Phi, Ishmael Reed, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Maya Almachar
Santos, JoYin C. Shih, Ron Wheeler, Daniel Widener, Lisa Yun
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