The SSSAD Library is a participatory, ever-evolving sporadically annotated, incomplete collection of articles, books, exhibitions, images, time-based media, tools, and other resources as well as organizations and initiatives that can help us structure our contemporary thinking, design practices, and memory work around solidarity, reciprocity, and collective care in Asian diaspora space. The content on this page is influenced by interviews and conversations with project participants and continues to expand and unfold with community input.
︎ RECOMMEND A RESOURCE
ARTICLES & ESSAYS
“Is There Such a Thing as Asian Diasporic Architecture?” by Tonia Sing Chi and Bz Zhang in the October 2023 issue of Architect Magazine invites Asian diaspora designers to imagine what it would look like for our communities to experience a deep affirmation of who we are.
“In Solidarity: DAP Condemns Anti-Asian Violence” published on March 3, 2021 by Design as Protest Collective contextualizes the rise in anti-Asian violence, highlights the role of public spaces in community safety, and calls out the failures of policing and law enforcement. The article also offers actionable measures, amplifies organizations fighting against anti-Asian violence, and recommends deeper dive reads into Black-Asian solidarity.
“The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans” by Claire Jean Kim
“Equity and Social Inclusion From the Ground Up: Historic Preservation in Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities” by Michelle G. Magalogin Preservation and Social Justice, edited by Erica Avrami
VIDEOS
“Rediscovering AAPI Architects and Designers” roundtable with Society of Architectural Historians, Cooper Hewitt, and Smithsonian Design Museum on March 11, 2022
“Asian American Architecture: Mapping the Field and Its Futures” roundtable during the Society of Architectural Historians 2020 Virtual Conference
“Translations: wǒmen de stories, cóng practice, pedagogy, dào organizing” lecture by Bz Zhang 张迪 and christin hu 胡潇嶙 at the Spitzer Spring 2023 Sciame Lecture Series, “Across the Pacific Rim: Architecture and Landscape in Translation.”
BOOKS
untold: defining moments of the uprooted, a Brown Girl Magazine Anthology, edited by Gabrielle Deonath and Kamini Ramdeen. It includes a piece “Enough” by Nupur Chaudhury, who was interviewed for this project.
The Intimacies of Four Continents by Lisa Lowe, June 2015. Recommended by Bz Zhang. Read more about it in our interview transcript.
Margins & Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture by Gary Y. Okihiro, 1994 & March 2014
The Transnational Politics of Asian Americans, Edited by Christian Collet and Pei-te Lien, 2009
Roots: An Asian American Reader, Edited by Amy Tachiki, Eddie Wong, Franklin Odo, and Buck Wong, 1971
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights by Kenji Yoshino
Orientalism by Edward W. Said, 1978
Taste of Control: Food and the Filipino Colonial Mentality under American Rule by René Alexander D. Orquiza Jr. which discusses, as Chazandra Kern says, “American colonization in the Philippines and the different methods of food being a way to control Filipino history and narrative.” Read more about it in her oral history transcript.
Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans by Leny Mendoza Strobel. Discussed in Chazandra Kern’s oral history transcript.
Living for Change: An Autobiography by Grace Lee Boggs. Referenced in Theresa Hyuna Hwang’s oral history transcript as a book that politicized her and influenced her understanding of what it means to be Asian American, an activist, Asian in Black power movements, and to work in solidarity.
ORAL HISTORY
Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour is a 2-mile walking tour in Berkeley, California with community historians Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee. You’ll visit significant sites and hear the stories of four generations of radical immigrant freedom fighters, feminists, and more. As Asian diasporas, it will change the way you see yourself and who you think you can be. Recommended by Shalini Agrawal.
Texas Freedom Colonies Project by Dr. Andrea Roberts is an educational and social justice intiative dedicated to supporting the preservation of Black settlemen landscapes, heritage, and grassroots preservation practices through research. The site contains a wealth of resources on conducting oral histories, centering the voice of the narrator, and the importance of storytelling in filling gaps in the historical record and making visible what is invisible.
COMPILATIONS
“Anti-Racism Design Resources” by Bz Zhang (SPACE INDUSTRIES), ELL and Design As Protest Collective
Black and Asian-American Solidarities: A Reading List by Black Women Radicals and the Asian American Feminist Collective
SOLIDARITY STATEMENTS
“Model
“AAFC unequivocally stands with Palestinians and their right to freedom, justice, and sovereignty” post from Asian American Feminist Collective on October 17, 2023 calling out anti-colonialism as a deeply feminist project or resistance.
“CPA Joins Calls to End Genocide in Gaza” post from Chinese Progressive Association on October 18, 2023 adding their voice as Asian diasporas who have experienced the devastation of war and genocide due to imperialism and military force.
“In Solidarity with Palestine” post from Asian Solidarity Collective on October 18, 2023 calling on Asian and non-Asian co-conspirators to enter the portal of liberation to demand not only a ceasefire but also Palestinian freedom.
“Koreans for Palestinan Liberation By Any Means Necessary” statement from Nodutdol on October 20, 2023 expressing their solidarity by drawing on parallels between the anti-imperialist liberation struggles for an independent Korea and a free Palestine.
“Solidarity with Palestine” TaiwaneseAmerican.org post on October 21, 2023
“ASATA Statement on Palestine” from Alliance of South Asians Taking Action on October 26, 2023
ORGANIZATIONS
Dark Matter U (DMU) is a network of design educators and practitioners committed to anti-racist design justice education and outcomes in the built environment.
Design as Protest (DAP) is a collective of designers mobilizing strategy to dismantle the privilege and power structures that use architecture and design as tools of oppression. Co-organized by BIPOC designers, we exist to hold our profession accountable in reversing the violence and injustice that architeture, design, and urban planning practices have inflicted upon Black people and communities. Design as Protest champions the radical vision of racial, social, and cultural reparations through the process and outcomes of design.
Asian American Justice + Innovation Lab (AAJIL) is a community racial justice incubator committed to education and community-building for incubating justice, practicing liberation, and cultivating collective agility for change.
AAPI Women Lead is a community-based intergenerational organization that strengthens the progressive social and political power of Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the United States through the leadership of AAPI women, girls, and gender-expansive communities. Our goal is to end racial and gender violence against communities. The work is done in solidarity with other communities of color.
Asian American Feminist Collective is an ever-evolving practice that seeks to address the multi-dimensional ways Asian/American people confront systems of power at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, disability, migration history, citizenship and immigration status. We are indebted to ways Black feminist thought and Third World feminist movements enable us to think and act critically through our own positionalities to address systems of anti-Black racism, settler colonialism, and xenophobia.
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