The new issue of Amerasia Journal examines how arts and culture can inspire resistance movements and new ways of knowing for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Tiara R. Na‘puti and Sylvia Frain show how the quadrennial 12th Festival of Pacific Arts “has served formally as a public platform and area to share and exhibit cultural and political resistance.” The festival was held in Guam in 2016 where Pacific nations and territories exchanged culture and knowledge. New Zealand education specialists Rose Penn, Mere Kēpa, and Linitā Manu’atu describe “the diasporic contexts and challenges that migrants from Pacific Island nations face in order to retain…the languages that reconnect us to our own values and knowledge.” Their hands-on efforts working with Pasifika students at the university level is discussed.
Other contributions to the issue consider how writing and performance can represent new dimensions of experiences encountered by Asians in diaspora. Reporting on the 2016 Seismic Shifts Fifth National Asian American Theatre Conference and Festival, Sean Metzger details how the festival “celebrated and evaluated contemporary Asian American theater and planted seeds for its future growth.” In the literary realm, the issue presents a career-spanning interview with acclaimed Chinese-Peruvian author Siu Kam Wen, conducted by Chinese scholar Wang Kai, and a forum on the selection of Thi Bui’s graphic novel The Best We Could Do as the UCLA Common Book for 2017-2018. The forum explores what it means for The Best We Could Do to be the first Asian American-inspired Common Book read by the UCLA undergraduate student body.
Our Community Spotlight also highlights themes of art and community by featuring the Vancouver-based film collective Love Intersections, an organization that interrogates the connections between queerness, race, ethnicity, disability, and generation. Books reviewed include Selfa Chew’s Uprooting Community: Japanese Mexicans, World War II, and the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands and Sunaina Maira’s The 9/11 Generation: Youth, Rights, and Solidarity in the War on Terror.
Published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center since 1971, Amerasia Journal is regarded as the core journal in the field of Asian American Studies.
ORDERING INFORMATION
Copies of the issue can be ordered via phone, email, or mail. Each issue of Amerasia Journal costs $15.00 plus shipping/handling and applicable sales tax. Please contact the Center Press for detailed ordering information.
UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press
3230 Campbell Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546
Phone: 310-825-2968 | Email: aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AmerasiaJournal
Amerasia Journal is published three times a year: Spring, Summer/Fall, and Winter. Annual subscriptions for Amerasia Journal are $99.00 for individuals and $445.00 for libraries and other institutions. The annual subscription price includes access to the Amerasia Journal online database, with full-text versions of published issues dating back to 1971. Instructors interested in this issue for classroom use should contact the above email address to request a review copy.
Amerasia on Facebook!