Solidarity! Third Worldism and The Activist Origins of Asian American Studies

Why did people of Asian descent in the United States begin calling themselves Asian American in the late 1960s, and why did so many young Asian Americans join the movement to demand Asian American Studies on college campuses? This talk explores the activist origins of Asian American identity, with a focus on how Asian Americans thought about multiethnic and multiracial solidarity.

Calvin Cheung-Miaw is an Assistant Research Professor of History at Duke. He is a historian of race who works at the intersection of intellectual history and social movement history. His current book project, Asian Americans and the Color-Line, uses the history of Asian American Studies to explore the rise and fall of Third Worldism within the United States.