Talk: “Recovering an Asian American Radical Tradition: The Asian American Movement, Third World Solidarities, and the Power of Accompaniment” by Diane C. Fujino

• Event Date: Tuesday, September 19, 2017
• Time: 5:00 pm (CDT)
• Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free Admission

• Talk

Part of the Balgopal Lecture on Human Rights and Asian Americans Series

In the Long Sixties protest era, a hallmark of the Asian American Movement was its focus on Third World solidarities, locally and globally. This talk explores the meanings and work of accompaniment in changing society, while transforming the individuals involved in justice struggles. Taking seriously the uses of history, this talk raises questions about what can be gained by interpreting and critiquing the past in order to analyze and strategize about the present and the future. It further addresses what was lost and what was gained as a result of the invisibility of Asian American activism and the efforts to recover an Asian American radical tradition.

Diane C. Fujino is Professor of Asian American Studies and Director of the Center for Black Studies Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She studies and teaches Asian American and Afro-Asian freedom struggles. She is an activist-scholar in the areas of public education and ethnic studies, prisons and political prisoners, Asian American and racial justice, and international solidarity movements. She is author of Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama; Samurai among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life; and Wicked Theory, Naked Practice: A Fred Ho Reader (as editor). Her current projects focus on the Asian American Movement of the 1960s–70s, the continuing impact of the Black Power movement, and Japanese American radicalism, 1940s–70.

This lecture is presented by the Department of Asian American Studies and is the 10th lecture in this series. The Balgopal Lecture on Human Rights and Asian Americans series was established in 2007 by an endowment from Pallassana R. Balgopal and Syamala Balgopal. This lecture is also cosponsored by the School of Social Work and is paid for in part by the Student Cultural Programming Fee.