In this issue, Amerasia Journal provides a platform for scholars in Asian American studies to tackle timely topics that place Asian Americans front and center in the public square. Particularly salient is a forum that unpacks myths that Asian Americans benefit from the dismantling of affirmative action policies in higher education as a result of the June 2023 Supreme Court ruling on Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. In a similar vein, this issue features a roundtable on the uses of public history to combat stereotypes and misconceptions of Asian Americans in venues beyond academia and the classroom, in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the concomitant rise in anti-Asian violence and hate rhetoric.
Also included in this issue of Amerasia Journal are research essays that extend to research aims and geographical reach of our previous special issue, “Ocean Feminisms.” Kelsey Leonard expands the scope of oceanic feminisms to the shores of Long Island to highlight the experiences of Shinnecock women, drawing connections between the Atlantic and the Pacific in her essay “Siwá Feminism: Shinnecock Ocean Relationality.” In “Daughters of the Diaspora: Traversing Chamoru Women’s Stories Beyond the Mariana Islands,” Jesi Lujan Bennett delves into the historical record to trace the migrations and intellectual journeys that Chamorro women have undertaken while facing the conditions of colonization and militarism in the Pacific over the past five centuries.
Finally, Amerasia Journal pays tribute to Amy Uyematsu, a trailblazing activist, innovative artist, and longtime friend of our institutional home at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. In remembrance, we are republishing an oral history she provided to the book Mountain Movers, which, fittingly, allows her to tell her own story about her role in the Asian American Movement. In offering this excerpt, we hope you will learn as much from Amy as we have, and appreciate how her journey has coincided with the path that Asian American studies has taken since.