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12.04.2016

Read These Blogs


"If You Come for My Muslim Neighbors, You Will Have to Take Me Too": Lessons From Japanese American Scholars on the Internment Camps: Christen Tsuyuko Sasaki, Traci Kato-Kiriyama and Mari Matsuda sat down with Melissa Harris-Perry to talk about the lessons of Japanese American incarceration during World War II, amidst the Trump transition team's current considerations of a Muslim registry.

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What's in a Word? History, Violence, and Erasure When the Words Are 'Japanese Internment' and 'Muslim Registry' When Trump supporters obliquely recall the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and cite it as a possible precedent for monitoring Muslims in the United States, it's a profound misreading of history. But it also shows how much language matters.

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The incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II does not provide a legal cover for a Muslim registry: The "precedent" that Carl Higbie cites for a Muslim registry rests on a wartime Supreme Court decision that was based on falsehoods and suppressed evidence -- a decision that is regarded as a stain on American jurisprudence.

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Does What Happened to This Journalist at the US-Canada Border Herald a Darker Trend? The recent abusive border search of Canadian photojournalist Ed Ou should serve as a warning to everyone concerned about press freedom these days.

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What it's like to be an Asian-American actor: I'm the background of other people's stories: "As an Asian-American actor in New York City, 95 percent of my gigs place me in Chinatown. I'm the "set dressing" that helps create an exotic backdrop for lead performers. In the past five years, the majority of my trips to Chinatown have been specific to a scene, even as my real life rarely puts me there."

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Race & Theatre: That Awkward Moment When You Realize Your Show is Racist: "As modern artists, how are we to respond when faced with potentially being affiliated with a show which contains racist content due to being produced at a time when such attitudes were common?"

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Riz Ahmed: 'We have to be vocal. We're living in scary times': Actor Riz Ahmed, who stars in the HBO drama The Night Of and the upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, says he still gets stopped and interrogated while going through airport security -- even when he was on the cover of the in-flight magazine.

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How Being an Undocumented Kid Helped Atsuko Okatsuka Find the Humor in Life When comedian Atsuko Okatsuka and her family came to the United States when she was 10, she didn't realize they planned on staying. Okatsuka talks about the years her family spent in the green card lottery and the importance of comedy in her life.

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Why 'Chew' and Asian American Superheroes Still Matter On why Asian American superhero comics are important in an increasingly hostile political climate.

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How Elephants Sent 'Mean Girls' Actor Rajiv Surendra on a Quest for His Perfect Role: Catching up with Rajiv Surendra, who played the scene-stealing mathlete and self-desribed "badass emcee" Kevin Gnapoor in the 2004 cult classic Mean Girls.

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5th Avenue Theatre's 'Little Mermaid' is Asian: 'Why would we not?': Diana Huey stars as Ariel in the 5th Avenue Theatre's holiday production of The Little Mermaid in Seattle. She happens to be Asian American. Because why the hell not?

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Basement Bhangra, NYC's Longest-Running Dance Night, Blends Politics With Punjabi Beats Since 1997, Basement Bhangra has functioned as an inclusive, activist-minded party night championing DJ Rekha's preferred style of South Asian groove.

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Shutting Down Hecklers Using Humor and Compassion: An Interview with The Slants: An interview with the infamous Portland-based all-Asian American Chinatown Dance-Rock band The Slants.

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Ted Chiang, the science fiction genius behind Arrival: Award-winning science fiction writer Ted Chiang's complex, thoughtful and futuristic short stories should prove fertile ground for filmmakers now that Hollywood has discovered him.