Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans by Fred Ho


Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans
Title : Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0822342812
ISBN-10 : 9780822342816
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 416
Publication : First published June 4, 2008

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

Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans Reviews

  • Davina

    I"m so in love.

  • Gabrielle David

    Fred Ho and Bill Mullen were the first to explore the Afro Asian connection. I had to put it down but expect to finish after the summer is over.

  • Sumayyah

    A very informative and thought-provoking collection of essays. Worthy of discussion and future re-reads. Highly recommended.

  • A

    4.5/5

    Warning: this book is dense...but I've never read anything like it and am unconvinced anything like it may exist. Afro Asia is a collection containing expansive texts and writings by African American and Asian/American revolutionaries.

    Notably it includes ways that the BPP was inspired by Maoism, Mao's 1963 and 1968 statements in support of the Afro-American struggle, the Bandung Conference (a first of its kind 1955 Asian-African conference held in Bandung, Indonesia), and various cultural pieces including the relationships between Asian Ams and hip hop. It was also really interesting seeing the chapter on Richard Aioki and Yuri Kochiyama and how since the book was published in 2008, Aioki was allegedly revealed to be an undercover agent for the FBI (which Fred Ho has denounced).

  • Elizabeth OH

    A series of essays on a variety of topics: Chinese "indentured servants" in Cuba, Black soldiers in Korea, the relationship that Asian Americans have to Black music, especially jazz and hip-hop. Some of the essays were clear and informative, others more muddled in ideology and political propaganda. But hey, that's our history too. Learned a lot, highly recommend.