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The Yellow Power movement, conceived from the seeds of the "Yellow…

- - - - "Excremental Colonialism"
        
        Within Warwick Anderson's “Excremental Colonialism,” we are introduced through this lens with which Western powers further their colonialist power struggles through this notion of "innate Filipino fecklessness and lack of civilization," exemplified through the native Filipino's relationship with and location to excrement. This infatuation with the Filipino body, through maintaining both a pseudo-moral and somatic superiority, led to Western powers, especially the United States, to try and control and Westernize the Filipino body.
    - - The Sexualization and Feminization of Asian Women
        
        Within the framework of gendered racialization of Asians and the East at large, Asian women are feminized and hyper-sexualized while Asian men are emasculated. This leads to the sexual exploitation of the Asian female body, specifically through the white colonialist and white male gaze. This dynamic reflects themes of power, military domination, and societal control. These depictions of highly sexualized and exoticized women are the topic of discussion within the film Slaying the Dragon, which highlights Hollywood's role in perpetuating such stereotypes.
        
        Atlanta Spa Shootings
        
        On March 16th, 2021, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long murdered eighth people and wounded one at a shootings taking place at several spas and massage parlors in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Six of the victims were Asian women, spurring a discussion of a racial bias potentially being a factor into the shootings. In discussing the vulnerability of Asians and Asian women in America, the shootings spoke to anxieties about overall racial instability within America, as well as emphasized anxieties of a post-Trumpian society and the prevalent anti-Asian biases existant in American society. Especially vulnerable are Asian women working within service industries like massage parlors and spas, functioning of the association with the Asian female body with sex work.
        
        Asian Women Grief and Preservation
        
        From current news, following the Atlanta shooting and the increased waves of anti-Asian hate, there has understandably come a sense of grief and hopelessness within pockets of the Asian community. R.O. Kwong pens "A Letter to my Fellow Asian Women Whose Hearts Are Still Breaking," relating on a personal level, and trying to spur hope and faith for the future. Another related work is “Care in the Time of Coronavirus: A Zine” by the Asian American Feminist Collective, which implores itself as a self-care guide for Asian women, amidst current events. This reflects the resilience and preservation of Asian American communities and the strength of Asian American women, especially when combatting tumultuous times.
        
        The Invisibility of Queer, Feminine Asian Women
        A consequence of the hyperfeminization of the Asian female body is the invisibility of queer Asian women within white, cisgender, and heterosexually dominated American society. Within JeeYeun Lee's works "Why Suzie Wong Is Not a Lesbian," she discusses the dominant binaries with the framework of sexuality and gender, especially the terms "femininity" and "masculinity" as well as "femme" and "butch." She invokes a discussion on the hyper feminized Asian female through an Orientalist lens and as an object of white, heterosexual male desire, as well as through the lens of gender norms dominant in the U.S. This combination establishes the feminine and queer Asian female as something invisible, existing only as a contradiction of American societal understandings of homosexuality and Asian women. Furthermore, the importation of cultural elements establishes the plight as more specific to Asian women, as Lee cites how long hair, often associated with femininity and consequently heterosexuality, leads to Asian women not fitting into the Western conceptualization of the "butch" lesbian.
        
        Queer in Asian America
        Queer Asian Americans exist at the intersection of several marginalized groups. Often at odds with their cultural values, their resilience as an entity enshroud their fight for representation and visibility within the United States. A part of an NBC News mini-series, the video “Exploring the Roots of Chicago’s Queer South Asian Community," tells about Sangat, an South Asian LGBTQ organization that works to support the Queer Asian Americans in the city. The resources available to them, including through the Queer Asian American Archive at the University of Illinois at Chicago, illustrate the slowly progressing societal acceptance towards the community and the work that individuals are doing to preserve their history and voice. Similar to queer, Asian women, the community at large is working to fight for visibility, still in America.
- - - - Filipino Workers
        
        A considerable and essential labor force within the United States, the many Filipino workers within careers such as healthcare, nannying, elder care, and more, reveals an interesting intersection between the indispensability of such work while at the same time receiving disrespect. Within the reading "Your Cap is a Passport" by Catherine Choy, we study such workers within this contradiction, working as essential while also disrespected and exploited. The novel The Farm by Joanne Ramos further explores this idea of Filipino bodily labor, illustrating a story about the tribulations of Filipino surrogate mothers through demonstrating explicitly the physical and emotional trauma such workers experience. It is this trauma workers withstand to support themselves and their families through the financial and personal incentives of living in the United States.
      - Workers Returning Home
        While America remains the dominant location for immigrants from Asian nations, recent political and economic developments have spurred reverse immigration of Asians from America back into Asia. Within Amy Bhatt's “Returnees: ‘R2I,’ Citizenship, and the Domestic Sphere," she specifically describes the return emigration from America to India and the various social consequences of it. The Americanized Indians are bringing with them American-influenced perceptions of society and living standards. The litany of benefits available to these return immigrants, including financial, professional, and social, often outweighs the living standard difference leaving America. The development of this reverse immigration reveals new promise for the rise of Asia, challenging the supposed superiority of America.
- - - - The Fight for Asian American Studies at Princeton
        At Princeton, the residual student movements fighting for ethnic studies demonstrated themselves through student requests as well as through physical protest. In class, we read a 1993 Asian American Studies Task Force Report as well as a 2013 report by AASA. We also talked about the 1995 Nassau Hall Sit-In with an actual participant, April Chou, who recounted the experience and impact that such an event had. Now, as I take Asian Amrican studies, I have the students who came and fought before me for such an opportunity,
  - - - Protest Film
        
        The role of the protest film, specifically with regard to Asian American documentary film, plays a particular impact in the perpetuation and addressing of societal faults. It symbolizes an upending and rejection of the white status quo, prioritizing the interests of Asians and Asian Americans. Within Curtis Choy's 1983 documentary The Fall of the I-Hotel, the film serves as a protest against the mistreatment of the residents of the International Hotel in San Francisco which served as a residential hotel for Filipino & Chinese elderly, immigrant workers, and families. Within Trinh T. Minh-ha's 1989 documentary Surname Viet Given Name Nam, Minh-ha protests the mistreatment of Vietnamese women within the restrictive Vietnamese society. These both work to illustrate the role of protest in Asian American film, as a means of combatting issues and illustrating viewpoints directly from an Asian perspective, as opposed to the dominant White, Western viewpoint.