A History of the Bay Area Asian American Movement
You Hadda Be There.
The Sixties and Seventies, I mean.
You had to be there, sensing the world turning upside down.
It wasn’t remote or academic at all.
On our TVs and in our newspapers we witnessed Asian faces rising up to finish off the latest colonial occupation.
An entire quarter of humanity,
once dismissed as clinging to a colorful past
while waiting for some foreign missionary power to take it under its protection,
had now stood up,
an enormous Red banner of self-determination.
Every American guy graduating high school stared right into the gun barrel of the military draft
and had to decide for himself what the world was about
and where he stood in it.
Political assassinations that shocked the nation and sparked frightening riots happened right here in our own cities.
There was no irony in a militant Black Power salute
or a gentle wave of “Peace, man”.
It was real.
when i hear about all those amazing, history-changing events that happened in the past, i think about what could possibly happen now. like it seems like things are just really comfortable now and i can’t imagine what there is to try to revolutionize or what movement i could be a part of
like what story will i pass down
