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By: Jennifer Davis
May is Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month, when the Law Library celebrates the accomplishments that Asian and Pacific Islander Americans have made to American history, society and law. Dr. Mabel Ping Hua Lee, a twentieth-century Chinese American economist, was also a suffragist and a women’s rights advocate who worked within the Chinese American community …
Posted in: In Custodia Legis
By: Stephen Winick
We're back with another episode of the Folklife Today podcast! In this episode for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, John Fenn and Steve Winick invite guests to talk about Asian collections in the American Folklife Center. Allina Migoni talks about the earliest known recordings of Korean music, playing segments of a lecture by Robert Provine and a song sung by Ahn Jeong-Sik. Sara Ludewig discusses the Linda LaMacchia collection, including recordings made of Tibetan singers in India. Steve discusses Asian and Pacific Island collections in the Homegrown concert series, and plays a song, a story, and a flute composition by Grammy-nominated Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal. Special theme music is provided by ukulele master Herb Ohta, Jr.
Posted in: Folklife Today
Ever since I started working at the Library of Congress, I always pull up loc.gov/collections when I’m reading historical fiction to find relevant real-life photographs, newspapers, and documents. Recently, I read Malinda Lo’s Young Adult historical fiction novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club. The story follows Lily, a Chinese-American teenager living in San Francisco …
Posted in: Minerva’s Kaleidoscope
By: Ellen Terrell
This post looks at Wa Chong & Company, a Seattle general merchandise/dry goods store that also sold tea and in business at the end of the 19th and early 20th century.
Posted in: Inside Adams
By: Kristi Finefield
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. As we often do for heritage months, the Library is sharing a set of images from the collections that are free to use and reuse, and that touch on the experiences and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders while living in the United States. In …
Posted in: Picture This
By: Stephen Winick
Welcome back to Homegrown Plus! We're continuing the series with Tenzin Choegyal, a master musician who is part of the global Tibetan diaspora, based in Australia. Like other blogs in the Homegrown Plus series, this one includes a concert video and a video interview with the featured performer, plus links and connections to Library of Congress collections. Tenzin Choegyal is a Tibetan/Australian artist, composer, activist, musical director and cultural ambassador. Born to a nomadic family in Tibet, he escaped the Chinese occupation with his family in the early 1970s and was raised in a Tibetan refugee community in Dharamsala, India. There, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama actively encourages his people to preserve their culture, Tenzin first began to explore his musical talents. He feels a particular connection to the music of the high Himalayan plateau and, as a son of Tibetan nomads, he remains dedicated to preserving the musical traditions of his ancestors. His collaborative albums include The Last Dalai Lama? with Philip Glass and the 2021 Grammy-nominated Songs from the Bardo with Laurie Anderson and Jesse Paris Smith, which is a moving interpretation of the religious text popularly known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Posted in: Folklife Today
By: Neely Tucker
The Library's 2023 Innovator in Residence, Jeffrey Yoo Warren, is building another doorway to the past with his project, "Seeing Lost Enclaves: Relational Reconstructions of Erased Historic Neighborhoods of Color." Using 3D modeling techniques and insights from the collections, Yoo Warren is developing a virtual reconstruction of the once-bustling Chinatown district in Providence, Rhode Island. A vibrant enclave 100 years ago, the Chinatown of Providence largely has been erased from historical memory.
Posted in: Timeless
By: Allina Migoni
Alice Cunningham Fletcher, anthropologist and ethnologist, is most known for her work with Native American groups and her early field recordings of Native American culture. However, this blog will focus another aspect of Fletcher’s fieldwork, a small group of rare and invaluable recordings of traditional Korean music, which she made on July 24, 1896. These cylinders contain the earliest known recordings of Korean music in the world, and predate the next documented recording of Korean song by 11 years. Specifically, they contain songs sung by Korean students whose names are often transliterated today as Ahn Jeong-sik, Lee Hee-Cheol and Son Rong. In this blog you can see a video lecture by Robert Provine about the cylinders, and hear four songs from the collection. These fascinating Korean recordings testify to the historical significance of AFC's cylinder collections to diverse communities all over the world.
Posted in: Folklife Today
By: Allina Migoni
We’re back with another episode of the Folklife Today podcast! In this episode, reference librarian Allina Migoni and folklorist Michelle Stefano do a special takeover of the podcast in honor of National's Women's History Month. In this episode, Allina and Michelle chose interviews with women from across the collections who have shaped those around them and are dedicated to passing down their cultural traditions. Through these brief insights into these women's lives, we hope to tell a greater story about how women through everyday interactions and relationships shape our society. This may be through the stories they tell, the traditions they pass on, the skills they teach, and the legacies they create.
Posted in: Folklife Today
By: Elizabeth Novara
The recently acquired personal papers of award-winning poet and teacher Ai Ogawa (1947-2010) are newly processed and open to researchers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Posted in: Unfolding History