About the Book

With contributions from activists, artists, and scholars, Afro Asia is a groundbreaking collection of writing on the historical alliances, cultural connections, and shared political strategies linking African Americans and Asian Americas. Bringing together autobiography, poetry, scholarly criticism, and other genres, this volume represents an activist vanguard in the cultural struggle against oppression. Afro Asia opens with analyses of historical connections between people of African and of Asian descent. W. E. B. Du Bois's neglected work on Afro-Asian antiquity, "Asia in Africa," appears along with essays including a historical account of nineteenth-century Chinese labourers who fought against slavery and colonialism in Cuba. Contributors examine the fertile period of Afro-Asian exchange that began around the time of the 1955 Bandung Conference, the first meeting of leaders from Asian and African states in the postcolonial era. One assesses the relationship of two important 1960s Asian American activists to Malcolm X and the Black Panthers.Mao Ze Dong's 1963 and 1968 statements in support of black liberation are juxtaposed with an overview of the influence of Maoism on African American leftists. Turning to the arts, Ishmael Reed provides a brief account of how he met and helped several Asian American writers. A Vietnamese American spoken-word artist describes the impact of black hip-hop culture on working-class urban Asian American youth. Fred Ho interviews Bill Cole, an African American jazz musician who plays Asian double-reed instruments. This pioneering collection closes with an array of creative writing, including poetry, memoir, and a dialogue about identity and friendship that two writers, one Japanese American and the other African American, have performed around the United States.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction / Fred Ho and Bill Mullen 1
Part I. The African and Asian Diasporas in the West: 1800–1950
Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen: The Roots to the Black-Asian Conflict / Fred Ho 20
Chinese Freedom Fighters in Cuba: From Bondage to Liberation, 1847–1898 / Lisa Yun 30
Seoul City Sue and the Bugout Blues: Black American Narratives of the Forgotten War / Daniel Widener 55
Part II. From Bandung to the Black Panthers: National Liberation, the Third World, Mao, and Malcolm
Statement Supporting the Afro-American in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism, August 8, 1963 / Mao Zedong 91
Statement by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968 / Mao Zedong 94
Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution / Robin D. G. Kelley and Betsy Esch 97
The Inspiration of Mao and the Chinese Revolution on the Black Liberation Movement and the Asian Movement on the East Coast / Fred Ho 155
The Black Liberation Movement and Japanese American Activism: The Radical Activism of Richard Aoki and Yuri Kochiyama / Diane C. Fujino 165
Why Do We Lie About Telling the Truth? / Kalamu ya Salaam 198
Part III. Afro/Asian Arts: Catalysts, Collaborations, and the Coltrane Aesthetic
The Yellow and the Black / Ishmael Reed 217
Not Just a "Special Issue": Gender, Sexuality, and Post-1965 Afro Asian Coalition Building in the Yardbird Reader and This Bridge Called by Back / Cheryl Higashida 220
Bill Cole: African American Musician of the Asian Double Reeds / Fred Ho 256
Martial Arts Is Nothing if Not Cool: Speculations on the Intersection between Martial Arts and African American Expressive Culture / Kim Hewitt 265
The American Drum Set: Black Musicians and Chinese Opera along the Mississippi River / royal hartigan with Fred Ho 285
Is Kung Fu Racist? / Ron Wheeler with David Kaufman 291
Yellow Lines: Asian Americans and Hip Hop / Thien-bao Thuc Phi 295
Part IV. Afro/Asia Expressive Writing
Secret Colors and the Possibilities of Coalition: An African American-Asian American Collaboration / David Mura and Alexs Pate 321
We Don't Stand a Chinaman's Chance Unless We Create a Revolution / Kalamu ya Salaam 354
El Chino / Lisa Yun 359
Samchun in the Grocery Store / Ishle Park 363
Self-Rebolusyon, April 1998 / Maya Almachar Santos 365
Chyna and Me / JoYin C Shih 369
All That / Everett Hoagland 376
Contributors 379
Index 383