About the Oral Histories
On March 16th 2021, a mass shooting in Atlanta saw multiple Asian women murdered. These murders were just one of the many instances of violence against Asian and Asian Americans which had only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This Oral History project is the creator's own personal response to this incident.
Racism against Asians in American is not a new phenomenon even in a city like Iowa City.
1998, the counseling center at the University of Iowa tapped Dr. Dau-Shen Ju to run programming for Asian Americans at the University of Iowa. He would call the session Asian Americans: Am I Invisible? The phrase resonated with a group of graduate and undergraduate students who attended this event. In 1998 they felt their needs were not being met by the University.
2004, a hate crime occurred in the University of Iowa where a group of white students made monkey sounds at an Asian woman and her white boyfriend and called the woman a racial epithet. The students would brutally beat up the boyfriend after he stood up for his girlfriend.
2014, Yik Yak posts found students felt uncomfortable by Asian students wearing masks because they felt they were planning a chemical attack.
2021, A man spits on me, tells me I killed people and I need to go back to China, and chases me across a street while I am test riding a bike.
These Oral Histories hope to capture some of the experiences of being Asian American at the University of Iowa and in Iowa City broadly. Whether its stories of racialization, political protesting, finding community, or navigating their own identity, these stories show a unique history for Asian Americans not often told by a field dominated by the experiences of Asian Americans on the coast.