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Available From UC Press
American Peril
The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism
This probing account shines a new light on the problem of anti-Asian violence and inspires us to build lasting solidarity.
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. Written in the radical spirit of Howard Zinn, American Peril represents the culmination of thirty-five 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.
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. Written in the radical spirit of Howard Zinn, American Peril represents the culmination of thirty-five 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.
Scott Kurashige is author of The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles and coauthor, with Grace Lee Boggs, of The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century.
"We all owe a debt of gratitude to Scott Kurashige for assembling these truths about our history. Our failure to face the truth of anti-Asian racism is part of what renders us unsafe and our democracy vulnerable. At the same time, facing this history will help unlock the opportunity—for all of us—that lies in our multiracial future."—Ai-jen Poo, cohost with Alicia Garza of the Sunstorm podcast and President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance
"Asian Americans face a two-headed monster when enduring anti-Asian violence: the act itself, and the erasure caused when we are told the act was not racially motivated. Kurashige has done the vital work of placing all of this into a historical framework, backed by the wisdom of a community servant. This book is blood, guts, sweat, and tears. Our bodies. Our minds. Our refusal to be erased. In short, this history, this erasure, and this fight against it all is as much a part of American history as anything else. Good god, I need this book to exist. I hope the rest of the world feels that way about it too."—Bao Phi, poetry slam champion, published poet (Sông I Sing, Thousand Star Hotel), and children's book author (A Different Pond, My Footprints) "While the Covid-19 lockdown era saw a surge in xenophobic hostility, harassment, and physical attacks on Asians in the United States, anti-Asian sentiment—and the violence that all too often springs up in its wake—is neither new nor fleeting. As Kurashige shows in this urgent and necessary book, it's a shockingly regular response by nativist Americans toward any internal or external perceived threat, from trade competition to supply chain breakdowns; loss of jobs to excessive foreign investment; rising crime, falling birthrates, inflation, recession, and, of course, both cold and hot war. Kurashige's career and bold advocacy make him the ideal voice to tell this story. American Peril will become a mainstay in classrooms and libraries, and on the shelves and nightstands of any who want to understand the pernicious role that white supremacy has played in shaping what it means to be American: carving off, cutting out, excluding and sometimes executing those who it judges do not belong in this nation."—Jeff Yang, author of The Golden Screen and coauthor of New York Times bestseller Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now
"Asian Americans face a two-headed monster when enduring anti-Asian violence: the act itself, and the erasure caused when we are told the act was not racially motivated. Kurashige has done the vital work of placing all of this into a historical framework, backed by the wisdom of a community servant. This book is blood, guts, sweat, and tears. Our bodies. Our minds. Our refusal to be erased. In short, this history, this erasure, and this fight against it all is as much a part of American history as anything else. Good god, I need this book to exist. I hope the rest of the world feels that way about it too."—Bao Phi, poetry slam champion, published poet (Sông I Sing, Thousand Star Hotel), and children's book author (A Different Pond, My Footprints) "While the Covid-19 lockdown era saw a surge in xenophobic hostility, harassment, and physical attacks on Asians in the United States, anti-Asian sentiment—and the violence that all too often springs up in its wake—is neither new nor fleeting. As Kurashige shows in this urgent and necessary book, it's a shockingly regular response by nativist Americans toward any internal or external perceived threat, from trade competition to supply chain breakdowns; loss of jobs to excessive foreign investment; rising crime, falling birthrates, inflation, recession, and, of course, both cold and hot war. Kurashige's career and bold advocacy make him the ideal voice to tell this story. American Peril will become a mainstay in classrooms and libraries, and on the shelves and nightstands of any who want to understand the pernicious role that white supremacy has played in shaping what it means to be American: carving off, cutting out, excluding and sometimes executing those who it judges do not belong in this nation."—Jeff Yang, author of The Golden Screen and coauthor of New York Times bestseller Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now