AAPI Month Author Talk

with Scott Kurashige

in Conversation with Mia Charlene White

Scott Kurashige is the President of the Boggs Foundation and author of American Peril; the Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism. 
This probing account shines a new light on the problem of anti-Asian violence and inspires us to build lasting solidarity. 
He will be in conversation with Mia White.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, racist demagoguery fomented a campaign of terror against Asian Americans. But these attacks were part of a much longer pattern that made anti-Asian racism integral to the outbreak of white supremacist, misogynist, and colonial violence across 175 years of U.S. history. Written in the radical spirit of Howard Zinn, American Peril represents the culmination of thirty-five years of study and activism by award-winning scholar Scott Kurashige.

From the lynching of Asian immigrants during the exclusion era to the ongoing slaughter of Asian civilians by the U.S. military, the book connects domestic and global events that have been erased from the official record. Going beyond victimhood, Kurashige traces the rise of Asian American community protest and activism in response to the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin and other overlooked tragedies. While many have worked to legislate and prosecute hate crimes, Kurashige argues that hope lies in grassroots activism for multiracial solidarity.

Mia Charlene White, PhD, is an interdisciplinary public scholar whose teaching and research explores how the seeds of democracy can be grown at the intersection of racial, environmental, climate, and housing justice. Mia is a Faculty Fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, and she will soon join the People’s Free School at the University of Orange as the Belle T. Walker and Rose Johnson Inaugural Chair for Reparative Planning. She and her family have lived in Maplewood since 2016.

James and Grace Boggs worked to build the movements for Civil Rights and Black Power, as well as cross-racial and international solidarity. The Boggs Foundation carries on their work.

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