#michael luo

[doubledaybooks]

Chinese Miners at the head of the Auburn Ravine, c. 1852.

As the number of Chinese miners grew, ugly episodes of racial violence became increasingly common. (Source: Huntington Library)

Learn more in STRANGERS IN THE LAND: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America by Michael Luo (Now available for preorder | on sale 4/29/25)

[doubledaybooks]

Before the discovery of gold, fewer than a thousand hardy inhabitants occupied the windswept settlement of San Francisco. (Source: California Historical Society)

Learn more in STRANGERS IN THE LAND: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America by Michael Luo

(Now available for preorder | on sale 4/29/25)

[doubledaybooks]

Strangers in the Land by Michael Luo (Signed & Personalized)

Pre-Order to Get Your Copy Signed and Personalized by the Author, Michael Luo! From New Yorker Executive Editor and writer Michael Luo, an u

New Yorker journalist, Mike Luo, shares the history of Chinese exclusion and belonging in America in his new book: STRANGERS IN THE LAND. Preorder your (SIGN & PERSONALIZED!) copy today from Yu & Me Books!

Why it matters:

Asian American history IS American history.

Put your dollar towards an Asian-American Woman-owned indie bookstore.

Preordering (in addition to directly supporting the author) is like a gift for your future self!

[redshift-13]

American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem

History, theology, and culture all contribute to the racist attitudes embedded in the white church.

Early on in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” the first of three autobiographies Douglass wrote over his lifetime, he recounts what happened—or, perhaps more accurately, what didn’t happen—after his master, Thomas Auld, became a Christian believer at a Methodist camp meeting. Douglass had harbored the hope that Auld’s conversion, in August, 1832, might lead him to emancipate his slaves, or at least “make him more kind and humane.” Instead, Douglass writes, “If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways.” Auld was ostentatious about his piety—praying “morning, noon, and night,” participating in revivals, and opening his home to travelling preachers—but he used his faith as license to inflict pain and suffering upon his slaves. “I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture—‘He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes,’ ” Douglass writes.

...

In his new book, “White Too Long” (Simon & Schuster), Robert P. Jones, the head of the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan polling and research organization, marshals this and other data to lay out a startling case that “the more racist attitudes a person holds, the more likely he or she is to identify as a white Christian.”

...

“If you were recruiting for a white supremacist cause on a Sunday morning, you’d likely have more success hanging out in the parking lot of an average white Christian church—evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, or Catholic—than approaching whites sitting out services at the local coffee shop,” he writes.

...

Much more at the link.

[bessielovesculture]

"Sunday’s tweets felt different to me. They were too dangerous to go unchallenged, the path from words to action too well trodden. There’s the assumed association with the countries of the congresswomen’s ancestry, a trope that has been used to question the loyalties of immigrants throughout American history. There’s the us-versus-them delineation in the language around “our government.” There’s the reproach to get out. On Sunday, I searched Nexis, a newspaper database, for variants of “go back to your country” and “murder” or “attack.” Some of what I found: On February 22, 2017, Srinivas Kuchibhotla was having drinks after work with his best friend, Alok Madasani, at Austin Bar & Grill, in Olathe, Kansas. Kuchibhotla and Madasani both worked as engineers at Garmin, the G.P.S.-technology firm. Austin was a regular spot for them after work. A white man approached and demanded to know their immigration status. His name was Adam W. Purinton. He was fifty-one, a Navy veteran, and a regular at Austin. He continued to heckle the two friends and hurl ethnic slurs before other patrons intervened and escorted him from the premises. A short while later, he returned with a gun and opened fire, killing Kuchibhotla and wounding Madasani, as well as a bystander who chased after Purinton. Witnesses said that before Purinton started shooting, he yelled, at the men, “Get out of my country.” In July, 2018, Rodolfo Rodriguez, a ninety-one-year-old resident of Willowbrook, a neighborhood south of downtown Los Angeles, was going for a walk when he passed a woman and a child on the sidewalk and suddenly found himself being beaten with a concrete brick. A witness said that she heard the woman, who was later identified as Laquisha Jones, shout, at Rodriguez, “Go back to your country. Go back to Mexico.” In February, in Indianapolis, Mustafa Ayoubi, a thirty-three-year-old immigrant from Afghanistan, was shot to death by a man named Dustin Passarelli. Witnesses alleged that Passarelli yelled slurs about Islam and told Ayoubi, “Go back to your . . . country.” (Passarelli disputed the account.)"

Michael Luo’s piece on Trump’s Racist Tweets and Who Belongs in America

I've been around the world this year and felt safer and more welcomed than I have traveling in many states and cities in the US, where I was born, because people have been raised on this poison. And it's gotten less safe and less welcoming in the last few years because White nationalists and their sympathizers feel empowered.

Ironically, I also can't help but notice how much the world has improved while US has stagnated and declined (Did you know Medellin has one of the world's most innovative transit systems? That Portugal has one of the most successful public policies on drug abuse treatment vs the War on Drugs? That pretty much any nation that has the money to has figured out public healthcare? That generous maternity and paternity leave are normal thing in Germany?) because of racist voters blockading process for everyone. 

[ithelpstodream]

“New York Times editor Michael Luo wrote an open letter to a woman who told him to “Go back to China” in October and started the hashtag, #thisis2016. Asians/Asian Americans across the nation responded to Luo and his encounter by using the hashtag and sharing stories of their own racist experiences. We decided to respond to the hashtag as well on Bowdoin’s campus. These are all real statements, quotes and encounters that Bowdoin students have experienced recently. This is our version of #thisis2016.

Video: http://nyti.ms/2e0F76M

Co-sponsored by ASA & SASA

The photos are currently on display in Smith Union and will be there until mid December.”

-- Bowdoin Asian Students Association

[jasmined]

via Michael Luo on Twitter: "From the letter bag. Got this in my mailbox today: "Immigrant go home!" #thisis2016 https://t.co/fiqEGmPDqX"

[susielee92]

The New York Times, New York, NY. 12,097,274 likes · 92,156 talking about this. Welcome to The New York Times on Facebook - a hub for conversation about...

People tend to underestimate the discrimination and racism that other, non-Black races face. Though a lot of progress has been made in eliminating racism and discrimination in this country, it is still a problem that many face and have to deal with. Glad that someone brought it to light.