'American Peril': AAPI History with Historian Scott Kurashige

Event Details

In time for AAPI history month, American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism shines a new light on the problem of anti-Asian violence and inspires us to build lasting solidarity. Join historian Scott Kurashige in conversation with Jason Oliver Chang, Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut.

Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

This event is presented in partnership with AAPI Westport.

Why You Should Come

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. American Peril represents the culmination of 35 years of study and activism by award-winning scholar Scott Kurashige.

From the lynching of Asian immigrants during the exclusion era to the U.S. military's slaughter of Asian civilians, the book connects domestic and global events that have been erased from the official record. Going beyond victimhood, it 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.

About the Speakers

Scott Kurashige is a nonprofit organizational leader, changemaker, educator, and writer addressing racial equity and social justice issues from an intersectional framework. He currently serves as President of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation. In addition to American Peril, Kurashige is the author of The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles; as well as co-author, with Grace Lee Boggs, of The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century.

Jason Oliver Chang is Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut where he also serves as the Head of the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry. He is PI for the AANAPISI Funded TEAS Project for UConn Hartford and Directs the Curriculum Lab. As a public servant he sits on the Governor’s Hate Crimes Advisory Council and is a former elected official and Secretary of the West Hartford Public Schools Board of Education. He is a leader of local grassroots education advocacy for K-12 Ethnic Studies. In this capacity, he manages the Social and Critical Inquiry’s Curriculum Lab which builds curriculum, offers professional development, and works with districts to implement 21st century educational change. He is a proud father of three and partner to a Texan poet. When he’s not teaching or in meetings, he can be found near large bodies of water.

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