Asian American movement

The Asian American Movement was a sociopolitical movement in which the widespread grassroots effort of Asian Americans affected racial, social and political change in the U.S., reaching its peak in the late 1960s to mid-1970s. During this period Asian Americans promoted anti-war and anti-imperialist activism, directly opposing what was viewed as an unjust Vietnam war. The American Asian Movement (AAM) differs from previous Asian American activism due to its emphasis on Pan-Asianism and its solidarity with U.S. and international Third World movements such as the Third World Liberation Front.

This movement emphasized solidarity among Asian people of all ethnicities, as well as multiracial solidarity among Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, and Native Americans in the United States.^[1] This movement was also global in nature, as it occurred against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and Decolonization.^[2] There was additionally transnational solidarity with people around the world impacted by U.S. militarism.^[1]

Initially student-based, the Asian American Movement emerged simultaneously on various college campuses and urban communities. They were largely concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York City but extended as far as Honolulu. The movement created community service programs, art, poetry, music, and other creative works; offered a new sense of self-determination and Asian American unity; and raised the political and racial consciousness of Asian Americans.^[3]