Poster from the Amerasian Generation conference at UCLA, 1971. The conference brought northern and southern California Movement activists together for discussion about "Identity and Change in America."

Pontifications on the Distinctions Between Grains of Sand and Yellow Pearls

By Chris Iijima

I often have thought that the original content of Asian American identity, and thus the basis of Asian American culture was simply the construction of a counter-narrative -- an oppositional voice -- to the white supremacist narrative and culture about the inferiority of people of color, and Asians in particular. In reality at its beginning, "Asian American culture" had no cohesive or thematic ethnic or even racial strain. It was a loosely connected sense among a broad spectrum of people that what we were doing separately was politically progressive, racially oppositional, and thus somehow interconnected.

Asian American identity was originally meant to be a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It was as much a mechanism to identify with one another as [it was] to identify with the struggles of others whether it is African American or Asians overseas, and that it was less a marker of what one was and more a marker of what one believes.

We are Asian,
And we like to sing for the people.
We speak the same language,
Because we struggle for the same things.

[01 Transforming Ourselves]     [02 Not Without Struggle]     [03 Serve the People]
[04 Listening to the Small Voice]     [05 The Big Picture]     [06 Revolution]
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