American Peril

Most Americans go through their formal education learning very little or merely superficial things about Asian Americans. Popular culture and political discourse too often fills that vacuum with stereotypes and misinformation. This book, and my scholarship broadly speaking, situates Asian Americans into the history and politics of race, capitalism, and social movements in the United States with a focus on anti-Asian racism and violence.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when Asian Americans comprised a significant number of health care workers and first responders working overtime to protect the public, a wave of anti-Asian hate incidents erupted ranging from name calling to physical violence. These incidents drew belated attention from the public and media, in large measure because the president and other prominent political figures were egging them on with xenophobic comments like “China virus” and “kung flu.”

What most shocked the nation was the mass murder of eight people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta area spas in March 2021. For many Americans, this was an introduction to anti-Asian violence. But there’s a longer history of anti-Asian violence stretching back over 175 years tied to white supremacy, colonialism, and misogyny.

This book provides irrefutable documentation of that violent history, but it also reveals how and why that history has been erased and covered up from both the official record and our mainstream textbooks.