Stories

Honoring the Past, Building a Pan-Asian Future   By Kim Kisner After decades of dormancy, Detroit’s historic Chinatown is stirring with renewed purpose. The neighborhood near Cass and Peterboro—once home to thriving Chinese American businesses and cultural hubs—is undergoing a revival driven by a coalition of residents, business owners, and community leaders committed to honoring […]

  Forty-three years ago this month, Vincent Chin, a Detroit area Chinese American, was beaten to death with a baseball bat. Hiskilling and subsequent court proceedings marked the beginning of the modern Asian American civil rights movement nationwide. That story has been extensively reported, including an award-winning 1987 documentary “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” co-produced by Detroit PBS.

Offered by Chair Vega Pederson Commissioner Moyer Commissioner Brim-Edwards Commissioner Singleton Commissioner Jones-Dixon Communications Office June 26, 2025 Decades after Multnomah County bulldozed the graves of Chinese and Chinese American residents for a maintenance building and parking lot, the Board of Commissioners formally acknowledged and apologized for the harm, expressing sincere regret to families and

Review: ‘Strangers in the Land’ by Michael Luo By Ryan Zhang When I was still a child living in China, we called the Chinese immigrants in America “Gold Mountain Uncles.” When they returned to visit, they stayed in the best hotels and paid for elaborate dinners in large restaurants. To many of us back then,

By Dalia Al-Dujaili All images © Vivian Wan Today, Tomorrow is playful, collaborative approach to the “precious” photo album which the Chinese-American photographer rebuilt to heal her ruptured roots Silence between generations of immigrant families is a common experience. The debilitating inability to give a voice to loss can result in many of us from immigrant families

This is part one of a two-part series on the City of Isleton, and its exemplary community engagement and resourcefulness in pursuing downtown revitalization. The second part focuses on Isleton’s participation in the Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ Rural Main Streets Technical Assistance Program, as well as its upcoming work with CivicWell and the Caltrans Sustainable

By Annette Poizner In North America, May is a time of cultural celebration, honoring both Jewish Heritage and Asian Heritage. It is a good time to reflect on the camaraderie and shared resilience of two ancient communities: Jewish and Chinese. A few years ago, amid a disturbing rise in anti-Asian hate during the pandemic, nearly

By Michael Barnes Scanning the American-Statesman archives for evidence of the earliest Chinese American families in Austin — inspired by May being Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month — I came across some fleeting references to Chinese news and culture during this newspaper’s first years. One 1876 article that included a reference to young

By Crystal Valencia Few have studied the experiences of children of immigrants who move to their ancestral homelands—countries with which they share cultural ties but haven’t necessarily had direct contact. In her new book, Chasing the American Dream in China: Chinese Americans in the Ancestral Homeland, Associate Professor of Sociology Leslie Wang addresses this gap,

Across the state, 12 new plaques will highlight often overlooked stories.  By Mackenzie Krumme  As a Chinese American growing up in Milwaukee, Adam Carr never associated his family history with the city. He knew Milwaukee was known as the “machine shop of the world,” creating jobs in an industrialized economy and the big boom in