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Blogs Categories: Asian American History

Blogs Categories: Asian American History

Botkin Folklife Lectures Plus: Joseph Palackal on Syriac Christian Music

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In the Botkin Folklife Lectures Plus series, we present selected lectures in our Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lectures series that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post. In this post, we'll present a classic lecture from 2018: Joseph J. Palackal and his presentation Syriac Chants & Aramaic Christianity in India. As usual for posts in this series, you'll find a lecture video, an interview video, and a set of links to explore.

Homegrown Plus: From China to Appalachia with Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, and Chao Tian

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Welcome back to Homegrown Plus! We're continuing the series with a concert and interview featuring Grammy Award winning American Roots artists Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer together with accomplished Chinese classical hammered dulcimer player Chao Tian. The trio's repertoire includes traditional Chinese and Appalachian music as well as contemporary and traditional music from around the world. They use instruments that include yangqin (Chinese hammered dulcimer), gourd banjo, five-string banjo, ukulele, guitars, dumbek, cello-banjo and mandolin, employing them in unusual combinations to create exciting new arrangements of old music. Cathy and Marcy join Chao in singing Chinese songs, and Chao easily adds her love of American Old-Time music to fiddle tunes and songs. As usual with Homegrown Plus blogs, you'll find the concert video, an interview video, and a wealth of links to related collections and concerts, all right here in this blog post. 

Dr. Mabel Ping Hua Lee's Push for Suffrage

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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 …

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month on the Folklife Today Podcast

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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.

Research Inspired by Fiction and Fiction Inspired by Research: Exploring San Francisco’s Historic Chinatown

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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 …