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A Chinese American woman riveter at work.

Could “Rosie the Riveter” Be Chinese American?

Despite having their citizenship withheld before the war, Chinese American women in the Bay Area made significant contributions to the wartime labor force.
Hazel Ying Lee (right) and fellow pilot Virginia Wong (left).

This Chinese American Aviatrix Overcame Racism to Fly for the U.S. During World War II

A second-generation immigrant, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Chinese American woman to receive her pilot's license.
Martial arts fighting scene from Warrior.

Bruce Lee’s “Warrior,” and the Politics of Kung Fu

The Max series makes a radical argument for what constitutes American history.
Mabel Ping‑Hua Lee holding flowers.

The Revolutionary Chinese Suffragette Who Challenged America’s Politics

The story of Mabel Ping‑Hua Lee.
Picture of The Pekin Noodle Parlor, America's first Chinese restaurant.

The First Chinese Restaurant in America Has a Savory—and Unsavory—History

Venture into the Montana eatery, once a gambling den and opium repository, that still draws a crowd.
Illustration by Valerie Chiang; Source text from PBS; Library of Congress; Source photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston / Library of Congress / Corbis / Getty (children); Getty (other)

The Forgotten History of the Campaign to Purge Chinese from America

The surge in violence against Asian-Americans is a reminder that America’s present reality reflects its exclusionary past.
Chinese railroad camp.

Remembering the Forgotten Chinese Railroad Workers

Archaeologists help modern descendants of Chinese railroad workers in Utah commemorate their ancestors' labor and lives.
Alice Lee Hum with her mother Jean, at a laundry on 21st Ave in Astoria, Queens, c. 1951.

How Childhoods Spent in Chinese Laundries Tell the Story of America

The laundry: a place to play, grow up, and live out memories both bitter and sweet.
Anna May Wong in the Toll of the Sea.

Chromatic Aberrations: The Toll of the Sea (1922)

Hollywood's first natural-color feature film and the breakout role for Anna May Wong, considered the first Chinese American movie star.
1906 plan of proposed street widening in San Francisco.

Putting Chinatown on the Map: Resisting Displacement through Infrastructural Advocacy

How San Francisco's Chinatown community used infrastructure as a conduit for identity, empowerment, and resilience.
Torn photos juxtaposing the face of a Black man and an Asian woman.

A New Theory of Race in America

How white-dominated racial power produces inter-ethnic group conflict.
Bruce Lee in a classic pose from the movie ‘Enter the Dragon.'

The Fighting Spirit of Bruce Lee

The actor and martial arts star also wanted to be regarded as a poet-philosopher.
Sign for the Hong Kong Restaurant

The Rotten Science Behind the MSG Scare

How one doctor’s letter and a string of dodgy studies spurred a public health panic.
A phot taken by Corkey Lee of an Asian woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty in front of a diamond store with a Statue of Liberty mural.

Corky Lee and the Work of Seeing

Lee's life and work suggested that Asian American identity did not possess—and did not need—any underlying reality beyond solidarity.
Cartoon of several Chinese-Americans holding a sign that says, "Chinatown is Not For Sale"

Dynasty Center: Exclusion and Displacement in Los Angeles’s Chinatown

The original Los Angeles Chinatown, now known as “Old Chinatown,” developed in the 1860s.
Flowers and signs laid out at a makeshift memorial for the March 19th Georgia shooting.
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Teaching Asian American History in its Complexity Can Help Fight Racism

Asian Americans have been both the victims and perpetrators of racial discrimination.
Tarred as a “coolie race,” the Chinese were cast as a threat to free white labor. Train with fire around it and a face in the back.

America Was Eager for Chinese Immigrants. What Happened?

In the gold-rush era, ceremonial greetings swiftly gave way to bigotry and violence.
Yuri Kochiyama holding a sign during a protest in support of waiters

Behind This Photo Is the Story of Two Asian American Folk Heroes

Remembering Asian-American activists Corky Lee and Yuri Kochiyama.
Chinatown architecture

The Surprising Reason Why Chinatowns Worldwide Share the Same Aesthetic

It all started with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee.

The 16-Year-Old Chinese Immigrant Who Helped Lead a 1912 US Suffrage March

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee fought for the rights of women on two sides of the world.
Two people playing mahjong in black-and-white photo

White Women and the Mahjong Craze

Travelers brought the Chinese game to American shores in the early 1920s. Why was it such a hit?
Nurse Minnie Sun holding a baby in the Chinese Hospital

When Chinese Americans Were Blamed for 19th-Century Epidemics, They Built Their Own Hospital

The Chinese Hospital in San Francisco is still one-of-a-kind.
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Transcontinental

Ed Ayers visits the site where the transcontinental railroad was completed. He considers the project's human costs, and discovers how the environment and photography played key roles on the rails.
Hop Louie Restaurant in Los Angeles, California.

The Old Menus of New Chinatown

Retracing the history of Chinatown in Los Angeles using old Chinese restaurant menus as a guide.

Inside San Francisco’s Plague-Ravaged Chinatown

A city on the edge.
Street in Chinatown, Los Angeles

Remapping LA

Before California was West, it was North and it was East: an arrival point for both Mexican and Chinese immigrants.

The Surprising History of the Fortune Cookie

Searching for the roots of an American classic.
Birds eye view of the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1867.

The Tacoma Method

How the Chinese community of Tacoma, Washington Territory was violently expelled in 1885, and what happened next.

How Chop Suey Saved San Francisco's Chinatown

For Chinese immigrants, surviving in America has always required intense strategy.

How The White Establishment Waged A 'War' On Chinese Restaurants In The U.S.

Chinese restaurants are now an American staple, but in the past some Americans tried to shut them down.

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