Author: Mark Tseng Putterman

Mark Tseng Putterman (@tsengputterman) is a NYC-based Asian American educator and historian. He is passionate about critical coalitional organizing and Asian American political education, and works towards unlearning mainstream American historical narratives in order to center the experiences and perspectives of communities of color.

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What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice

On November 9, 2015, a tent encampment set up on the University of Missouri Columbia’s campus quad erupted in celebration. President Tim Wolfe, who student protesters charged with failing to address campus racism, had announced his resignation.

Amidst cheers, tears, and a mass rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” a new controversy emerged. A six-minute viral video clip showed a student reporter named Tim Tai, who is Asian American, being physically blocked by a group of protesters demanding the media stay out of the encampment.

“I don’t have to move back. I have a job to do,” the video shows an … Read more “What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice”

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When Asian Emasculation Meets Misogyny: On Eddie Huang’s Black Feminist Problem

I was an awkward and impressionable pre-pubescent Asian American boy when America’s imagination was captured by a certain William Hung and his off-key 2004 rendition of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on American Idol. That the most visible Asian male mainstream representation of the moment (other than, perhaps, the cartoonified Jackie Chan of the beloved Jackie Chan Adventures) was the butt of a crude national joke, and heir to a long history of Asian male pop culture buffoonery, is indicative of the messages that I and other Asian American young men received, and continue to receive, about our own … Read more “When Asian Emasculation Meets Misogyny: On Eddie Huang’s Black Feminist Problem”