When will Asian Americans stop being seen as "perpetual foreigners"?

There is a fundamental duality in how Asian Americans are perceived in our country. They’ve at times been held up as the “model minority”, affirming this idea that the American Dream is alive and well if only immigrants could work harder.  At other times they’ve been regarded as threatening and perpetually foreign. A recent example of this is the dramatic rise in anti-Asian violence in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. On this episode of UnTextbooked, producer Victor Ye interviews Dr. Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America: A History. They discuss the history of Asians in America and why stereotypes from hundreds of years ago still persist today. Book: The Making of Asian America: A History Guest: Erika Lee, PhD, History Professor at the University of Minnesota Producer: Victor Ye Music: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton Editors: Bethany Denton and Jeff Emtman

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UnTextbooked is brought to you by teen change-makers who are looking for answers to big questions. Have you ever wondered if protests really can save lives, why assimilation required Native American kids to attend boarding schools, how Black-led organizations for mutual aid began, how the fear of communism led the United States to plan the overthrows of many leaders in Latin America, or why Brazilian cars run on sugar? Or maybe you've questioned when Asian Americans will stop being seen as "perpetual foreigners," how African heritage influences Black activism, or what resilience looks like for Iranian women?  Your textbooks probably didn't teach you how American Jews were an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement, if history’s greatest leaders were generalists or specialists, how a Black teenager and his young lawyer changed America’s criminal justice system, or if either the US or the USSR won the Cold War. Did you know some of the forgotten BIPOC women of history were spying in aid of the French Resistance, that there's more to being a leader than going down with your battleship, or that there is a long history of gender expression in Native American cultures that goes beyond the male/female binary? Listen in as we interview famous authors and historians who have the answers.  Context is the key to understanding topics like British imperialism, segregation, racism, criminal justice, identifying as non-binary and so much more. These intergenerational conversations bring the full power of history to you with the depth and vividness that most textbooks lack. Real history, to help you find answers to your big questions. UnTextbooked makes history unboring forever.