There is a symmetry between Corky Lee’s passing and the rise of Stop Anti-Asian Hate: the departure of Asian America’s greatest documentarian and its most visible recent efflorescence. Years earlier, the brief window of postwar Asian American radicalism seemed to have already swung shut. Today, our most notable figures are corporate CEOs and conservative politicians, the eponymous Asians rich and crazy, so the artists, revolutionaries, and workers preserved in Lee’s prints can feel as elusive as their author. No matter how distant an Asian American poor people’s movement may seem, his prints still vibrate with radical temporality and potential.
Most everyone can agree on one thing: They support Taiwan’s democratic way of life and don’t want China, which considers the island part of its territory, to take over by force.
A Las Vegas man pleaded not guilty today to opening fire inside a Laguna Woods church in an alleged hate crime attack that killed a local doctor and injured five other parishioners.