Ellen Wu | Race Files

Author: Ellen Wu

Ellen Wu is associate professor of history and Director of the Asian American Studies program at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research and teaching interests focus on Asian/Pacific America, immigration, and race. Her first book, The Color of Success (Princeton, 2014), tracks the invention of the Asian American “model minority” stereotype in the mid-twentieth century. Ellen has also written for the Los Angeles Times, History News Network, NPR’s Code Switch, Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, AsAm News, and Nikkei Chicago. She is currently at work on her new book project, Asian Americans in the Age of Affirmative Action, a history of race-making and policy-making in recent times.

When Being Chinese Is Not Enough: Peter Liang and the Future of Ethnic Solidarity

Chinese Americans across the country are planning to rally on April 26 in defense of Peter Liang. The rookie New York Police Department officer fatally shot Akai Gurley in a stairwell of the Louis H. Pink Houses housing project in Brooklyn on November 20, 2014. Gurley, 28, was unarmed at the time.

The demonstrations are the latest response decrying Liang’s indictment for manslaughter. A March gathering outside Manhattan’s City Hall organized by the Greater New York Coalition to Support Officer Liang attracted an estimated 2000 attendees. A live petition to the White House, opened February 17, “Demand[s] Brooklyn District … Read more “When Being Chinese Is Not Enough: Peter Liang and the Future of Ethnic Solidarity”

“Asian Privilege”: Racial Stereotyping 101

File Bill O’Reilly under “unoriginal” and “unsound.”

As the Ferguson crisis continued to roil this week, the Fox News talking head chimed in to deny the existence of “white privilege” in the United States. The implication, of course, was that deeply-rooted, historical patterns of anti-black racism had nothing to do with African American poverty, unemployment, disenfranchisement, and criminalization. To prove his point, O’Reilly turned to “Asians,” trotting out decontextualized numbers to “prove” that our nation is a land of unlimited opportunity for those who conduct themselves in the right ways—including people of color. “Asians” succeed in America because “their families … Read more ““Asian Privilege”: Racial Stereotyping 101”