history
Minnesota pawn shop owner claims to have discovered lost photos from the Nanjing Massacre
A pawn shop owner in Minnesota claims to have discovered long-lost photos taken during the Nanjing Massacre.
In a video posted to TikTok with over 9.5 million views, Evan Kail says that a customer sent him an old album of photos from World War II with the intention of selling it. When he opened the album and inspected its contents, he found disturbing photos labeled as if they were taken during the December 1937 massacre, which lasted for six weeks and saw at least 200,000 Chinese civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese Army.
‘Why is the story still unknown?’: ‘Free Chol Soo Lee’ co-directors refuse to let America forget Korean American wrongfully convicted of murder in 1973
Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s six-year journey to illuminate the life and legacy of Chol Soo Lee, a Korean American man falsely convicted of murder, began at the end of his story.
While Ha first learned of him through her mentor K.W. Lee, a journalist who played an instrumental role in raising awareness of the injustices that plagued the wrongly convicted man, she truly came to grips with the gravity of Chol Soo Lee’s situation at his funeral.
Thai actor Praya Lundberg to star in film about Rock Springs massacre that killed 28 Chinese miners in Wyoming
- A film about the Rock Springs massacre, the real-life incident that resulted in the deaths of 28 Asian immigrant railroad workers in 1885, is set to star Thai Swedish actor Praya Lundberg.
- “Ghosts of the Railroad” will be based on one of the bloodiest racially motivated massacres against Chinese immigrants in American history, with some fictionalized elements included.
- In the film, Lundberg plays the role of Jade, a woman from the present day whose strange visions transport her to the 1800s and reveal that her family’s estate was the scene where crimes against Asian railroad workers took place.
- According to Zanubon, Lundberg was perfectly cast for the role for being “not just an amazing talent but an amazing human being.”
- On Sept. 2, 1885, armed white miners from the present-day city of Rock Springs in Wyoming shot at Chinese miners, looted their houses and burned 78 Chinese homes, resulting in at least 28 Chinese miners dead and 15 injured.
Thai Swedish actor Praya Lundberg is set to star in a new film about the Rock Springs massacre, the real-life incident that resulted in the deaths of 28 Asian immigrant railroad workers in 1885.
In “Ghosts of the Railroad,” Lundberg will play the role of Jade, a woman from the present day who gets transported to the 1800s via strange visions. Through these visions, she discovers that her family’s estate was the scene where crimes against Asian railroad workers took place.
Denver removes anti-Chinese plaque 142 years after anti-Chinese riot that destroyed its Chinatown
- Due to historical inaccuracies, Denver removed a plaque titled “Chinese Riot of 1880” from a building in Lower Downtown on Monday.
- The plaque was, in fact, not about a “Chinese riot” but an anti-Chinese riot that resulted in damages to homes, businesses and even the death of a man named Look Young.
- The writing also lauded white people who showed “remarkable courage” during the riot and overemphasized the city’s Chinese drug problem as a cause for hostilities.
- The move came after the city officially apologized to early Chinese immigrants and their descendants in April for the riot and historical injustices to the community.
Denver removed a historical marker riddled with inaccuracies about the Chinese community’s presence and influence in the city in the late 1800s on Monday.
The plaque, located in the Lower Downtown (LoDo) neighborhood, inaccurately described events surrounding the so-called “Chinese Riot of 1880,” which occurred on Halloween that year and stemmed from a saloon brawl between white patrons and two Chinese customers.
UK government admits to forcibly deporting Chinese sailors who served the nation in WWII
- An investigation conducted by the United Kingdom's Home Office revealed that Chinese sailors who served in the British Merchant Navy during World War II were forcibly deported.
- Based on the findings of the 22-page report, sailors who had married and had children with women in Liverpool were deported without notice.
- During the period, the Chinese sailors and other foreign men who married British women were not given a legal path or opportunity to live in the U.K.
- The Home Office investigation comes over a year after a parliamentary debate on the matter was raised by opposition lawmaker Kim Johnson.
- According to Johnson, the report “debunks the myth parroted by successive British governments that these repatriations were all voluntary. The conspiracy between the state and the shipping companies to maintain a cheap pool of labor along racial lines is in many ways the story of empire, and the story of Liverpool."
Chinese sailors who served in the United Kingdom’s Merchant Navy during World War II were forcibly deported by the government, its own Home Office has admitted in its investigation.
According to the department’s 22-page report about the deportations, some of the sailors who had built their families in Liverpool, England, were separated from their wives and children without warning.
Kê-tsiap: The surprising Asian origins of ketchup
- The term “ketchup” stems from the Hokkien Chinese word for a preserved fish sauce: kê-tsiap.
- European merchants brought the sauce to Britain in the 17th century, where its ingredients were swapped to suit Western palates while retaining its umami flavor.
- After the sauce was brought to the United States in the 19th century by British settlers, it was altered and mass-produced by manufacturers who incorporated sugar and vinegar to give it a sweet-sour flavor.
- Today, ketchup is a ubiquitous condiment found all over the world.
The history of ketchup is one that spans several centuries and continents, originating in Asia before becoming one of the most popular condiments in America.
From complimenting culinary classics such as hamburgers and fries to spawning billion-dollar corporations, ketchup’s bright and sweet-sour tang is firmly embedded in America’s collective taste buds.
4 trailblazers whose work shaped the APA community today
This Asian American Pacific Heritage Month (APAHM), through colorful illustrations by artist Michelle Lam (MewTripled), we honor four icons whose legacies continue to impact us today.
Who to thank for APAHMJeanie Jew, a former Capitol Hill staffer and board member of the nonprofit Organization of Chinese Americans-Asian Pacific American Advocates (OCA-APAA), was a determined force that championed groundbreaking policies and transformed representation of the APA community in the U.S.
Immortal launches new comic based the Boxer Rebellion and ‘bulletproof’ monk legends
In the bloody war known as the Boxer Rebellion, 100,000 fought and died over the colonization of 1900s China. Among the tales of the war are martial arts legends of “bulletproof” monks that still baffle people to this day.
Anger and struggle after the Opium WarsIn the late 1890s, after the effects of the Opium Wars and China’s many losses, the Qing dynasty was forced to comply with the demands of Western colonizers and Japanese influences. Years of poverty and repeated colonization grew into a rising resentment. The Chinese people who wanted to drive away all foreigners from the country eventually formed a secret society of martial artists called the “Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists.”
Community members show up to restore defaced ‘8 Immortals’ mural in Vancouver’s Chinatown
- Members of Vancouver’s Chinatown community reportedly lined up on East Georgia Street on April 16 to help restore the “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” mural that was defaced last month by graffiti taggers.
- Artists Sean Cao and Katharine Yi of the Bagua Artist Association organized the mural’s repair as a way to gather people through art and build a sense of community.
- The mural, which was meticulously painted onto the side of a two-story building of the Liang You Bookstore, was meant to promote cultural redress.
- The social event was supported by the City of Vancouver’s Chinatown Transformation Team, who is working to revitalize the community and combat anti-Asian racism.
Community members of Vancouver’s Chinatown came together on Saturday to restore the “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” mural that was defaced last month by graffiti taggers.
Artists and volunteers lined up on East Georgia Street on Saturday afternoon with paint brushes in hand to cover up the over five-feet-high black letters graffitied across the mural.
Japan dismisses South Korea complaint over new textbooks that ‘distort’ historical, territorial facts
- Japan has rejected South Korea’s protest against Japan’s approval of textbooks that allegedly “distort historical facts.”
- South Korea’s foreign ministry wrote earlier in a statement that Japan had downplayed the wartime issue of forced labor and sexual slavery against Koreans during World War II.
- Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno described the complaint as “unacceptable” during a press conference in Tokyo.
Japan has dismissed South Korea’s protest over the alleged distortion of historical and territorial facts in Japan’s new high school textbooks that were approved on Tuesday.
After the approval of the textbooks, South Korea filed a complaint against Japan for downplaying the forced labor and sexual slavery of Koreans during World War II.
South Korea says new history textbooks in Japan ‘distorts facts’ about World War II sex slavery
- After Japan approved new history textbooks, South Korea made a formal complaint that the books distorted “historical facts” about forced labor and sexual slavery imposed on Koreans during World War II.
- The textbooks were approved by Japanese authorities on Tuesday and will be studied by second and third-year high school students beginning 2023.
- The South Korea Foreign Ministry stated that the textbooks downplay the severity of forced labor and sexual slavery against Koreans during WWII.
- South Korea is also criticizing the textbooks for claiming that Koreans are illegally occupying the Dokdo Islands.
South Korea filed a complaint against Japan on Tuesday for approving history textbooks that officials say “distort historical facts” about sexual slavery and forced labor imposed on Koreans during World War II.
The new history textbooks were approved on Tuesday by Japanese authorities to be studied by second and third-year high school students beginning in 2023.
President Biden signs bill designating former Japanese incarceration camp in Colorado as historic site
- President Biden signed a bill on Friday designating a former World War II Japanese incarceration camp as a national historic site in Colorado.
- From 1942 to 1945, more than 10,000 people, most of whom were Japanese Americans, were kept in the incarceration camp known as “Camp Amache.”
- Amache is managed by the nonprofit Amache Preservation Society and owned by the town of Granada.
- The site includes a cemetery, monument, rebuilt structures and landscaping.
A former World War II Japanese incarceration camp in Colorado has been designated a historic site in a bill signed by President Biden on Friday.
The Amache National Historic Site Act helps “to preserve, protect, and interpret… resources associated with the incarceration of civilians of Japanese ancestry during World War II at Amache.”
