In 2012, Timothy Yu published a short essay entitled, “Has Asian American Studies Failed?”[1] Over the past dozen years, many scholars have tried to answer this question. I addressed it in an essay I wrote in late 2022, and pointed out that the field has had limited success beyond the academy. I wrote, “Since the 1970s, the field of Asian American Studies and activists have successfully documented the long history of our communities’ trauma, and recovered the stories of those who fought back. Yet, such work has had only limited success at changing the racial discourse in North America.”[2] The recent election—and especially the growing number of Asian Americans who support mass deportation—reinforced just how little progress the field has made.
In this situation, what can AA&PI public historians do? I believe there is an urgent need for institutions to talk together and see whether there are common goals that can benefit wider Asian American communities. Given that most public history institutions are underfunded and understaffed, the lack of coordination between different museums and historic sites is understandable. However, can we find a few narratives that many institutions can incorporate in their interpretations? Given the highly varied experiences and desires of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, I understand that finding common narratives across ethnicities, social hierarchies, experiences of empire and colonialism, and migration journeys is not easy. Nonetheless, it is necessary if we want to move the public racial discourse beyond the Black-White binary.
I believe that one limitation of Asian American studies scholarship is its sustained emphasis on trauma and resistance. Until recently, there have not been a lot of books and articles on food, entertainment, recreation, and community celebrations that make life worth living. This is particularly true of the scholarship on Asian America before 1970. In contrast, public historians have done significantly more work on the joys of Asian American life. My question is: can we do a better job placing these joys within the context of racial trauma? I understand that some public historians are already implementing what I am suggesting. What I hope is that this practice will become much more widespread.
I hope that this NCPH working group—which includes curators, preservationists, academics, archivists, and others—can jumpstart conversations between varied AA&PI public history institutions. At the very least, we are committed to creating directories and showcases that will let practitioners know who and what institutions are interested in working towards a more robust AA&PI public history. I hope we can go even further. Perhaps we can publish a white paper or other documents that will lead to the formation of AA&PI public history as a field or a robust subfield within both Asian American studies and public history.
[1] Timothy Yu, “Has Asian American Studies Failed?” Journal of Asian American Studies 15, no. 3 (October 2012): 327–29.
[2] Eric Hung, “Reflections of a Public Musicologist During the Current Wave of Anti-Asian Discrimination.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 77, no. 2 (Summer 2024): 552.