Description
Book SynopsisA collection of writing on the historical alliances, cultural connections, and shared political strategies linking African Americans and Asian Americans.
Trade Review“
Afro-Asia is a long overdue tribute to the long history of cross-ethnic intellectual connections, as well as a celebration of artistic collaborations, between African Americans and Asian Americans. . . . Fred Ho and Bill Mullen have produced a book that is groundbreaking in its intellectual rigor, as well as aesthetically pleasing. . . .
Afro-Asia is highly recommended to anyone interested in how radical ideas and concepts travel through and across cultural boundaries and eventually bloom with new brilliance.” - Carol Huang,
Journal of African American History“At a moment when the national media are abuzz with predictions of a new era of post-racial politics, Fred Ho and Bill Mullen’s anthology on the intersections of African and Asian Americans remind us of the complex ways that race has shaped and continues to shape our lives in this country. Afro Asia compiles a diverse set of essays that illuminate a repressed tradition, spanning the early 19th century onwards, of ‘creative political and cultural resistance grounded in Afro-Asian collaboration and connectivity.’” -
Manan Desai,
Against the Current“
Afro Asia preserves and promotes critical thinking and activism in a global culture. Here, with incisive writings from diverse intellectuals, artists, and activists, Fred Ho and Bill V. Mullen make a vital contribution towards liberation praxis that challenges the perceived permanence of manufactured distrust and division.”—
Joy James, author of
Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics“Fred Ho and Bill V. Mullen have assembled a first-rate dossier of Afro-Asian work. It is equal parts lyrical and analytical. Flies like a butterfly; stings like a bee.”—
Vijay Prashad, author of
Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity“
Afro-Asia is a long overdue tribute to the long history of cross-ethnic intellectual connections, as well as a celebration of artistic collaborations, between African Americans and Asian Americans. . . . Fred Ho and Bill Mullen have produced a book that is groundbreaking in its intellectual rigor, as well as aesthetically pleasing. . . .
Afro-Asia is highly recommended to anyone interested in how radical ideas and concepts travel through and across cultural boundaries and eventually bloom with new brilliance.” -- Carol Huang * Journal of African American History *
“At a moment when the national media are abuzz with predictions of a new era of post-racial politics, Fred Ho and Bill Mullen’s anthology on the intersections of African and Asian Americans remind us of the complex ways that race has shaped and continues to shape our lives in this country. Afro Asia compiles a diverse set of essays that illuminate a repressed tradition, spanning the early 19th century onwards, of ‘creative political and cultural resistance grounded in Afro-Asian collaboration and connectivity.’” -- Manan Desai * Against the Current *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction / Fred Ho and Bill Mullen 1
Part I. The African and Asian Diasporas in the West: 1800–1950
Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen: The Roots to the Black-Asian Conflict / Fred Ho 20
Chinese Freedom Fighters in Cuba: From Bondage to Liberation, 1847–1898 / Lisa Yun 30
Seoul City Sue and the Bugout Blues: Black American Narratives of the Forgotten War / Daniel Widener 55
Part II. From Bandung to the Black Panthers: National Liberation, the Third World, Mao, and Malcolm
Statement Supporting the Afro-American in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism, August 8, 1963 / Mao Zedong 91
Statement by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968 / Mao Zedong 94
Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution / Robin D. G. Kelley and Betsy Esch 97
The Inspiration of Mao and the Chinese Revolution on the Black Liberation Movement and the Asian Movement on the East Coast / Fred Ho 155
The Black Liberation Movement and Japanese American Activism: The Radical Activism of Richard Aoki and Yuri Kochiyama / Diane C. Fujino 165
Why Do We Lie About Telling the Truth? / Kalamu ya Salaam 198
Part III. Afro/Asian Arts: Catalysts, Collaborations, and the Coltrane Aesthetic
The Yellow and the Black / Ishmael Reed 217
Not Just a "Special Issue": Gender, Sexuality, and Post-1965 Afro Asian Coalition Building in the
Yardbird Reader and
This Bridge Called by Back / Cheryl Higashida 220
Bill Cole: African American Musician of the Asian Double Reeds / Fred Ho 256
Martial Arts Is Nothing if Not Cool: Speculations on the Intersection between Martial Arts and African American Expressive Culture / Kim Hewitt 265
The American Drum Set: Black Musicians and Chinese Opera along the Mississippi River / royal hartigan with Fred Ho 285
Is Kung Fu Racist? / Ron Wheeler with David Kaufman 291
Yellow Lines: Asian Americans and Hip Hop / Thien-bao Thuc Phi 295
Part IV. Afro/Asia Expressive Writing
Secret Colors and the Possibilities of Coalition: An African American-Asian American Collaboration / David Mura and Alexs Pate 321
We Don't Stand a Chinaman's Chance Unless We Create a Revolution / Kalamu ya Salaam 354
El Chino / Lisa Yun 359
Samchun in the Grocery Store / Ishle Park 363
Self-Rebolusyon, April 1998 / Maya Almachar Santos 365
Chyna and Me / JoYin C Shih 369
All That / Everett Hoagland 376
Contributors 379
Index 383
