The Why and Whither of Asian American Studies: Toward a Reckoning

Yuri Kochiyama (1921–2014) On March 11, 2020, roughly three months after the first death attributed to the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus was confirmed in Wuhan, China, the World Health Organization elevated its characterization of the ensuing outbreaks from "public health emergency of international concern" (PHEIC) to global pandemic. [...]we editors, along with the contributors to this special issue, acknowledge from the outset that the formation of Asian American studies—along with ethnic studies and gender/sexuality studies—was first and foremost a paradigmatic endeavor, one that, as Lisa Lowe productively characterizes it, remains "key to thinking in comparative relational ways about race, power, and interconnected colonialisms. More than a few students found themselves spending more time in the community than in school. [...]were born a host of Asian American community organizations and services, as well as an increasing vector of Asian American political activism in defense of our communities. "4 Such reckonings, intimately tied to the formation of Asian American studies as a critical race-based interdiscipline born out of 1960s civil rights movements and liberation fronts, encapsulate the field's aspirational politics.