Putting the Politics Back in ‘Asian American’
Corny diaspora fiction and media narratives are just symptoms of a larger sickness: if we stand for nothing, our identity can be co-opted for any purpose.
BY JULIANA GEORGE | MAY 14, 2025
How to Drop a Lit Match on a Paper Trail
The trouble with deferring to a version of the United States that follows the law is that the law, the goal, and the global business of the United States has always been to cull populations both within and outside of its borders as it sees fit.
BY KARISSA KORMAN | APRIL 06, 2025
Blue or Red: The Election Results Won’t Alter the American Imperial Project
In this year’s U.S. presidential election, there was no option to vote against genocide and settler colonialism, to vote against fascism, to vote against the accelerating deterioration of the planet.
BY juliana george | dec 21, 2024
A Starting Point of Affirmative Action Analysis: Asian American Mediation, Race, and the Law
What can Supreme Court cases from the early twentieth century teach us about the racial logics present in contemporary affirmative action jurisprudence?
Jesica bak | dec 21, 2024
On the Need for Racial Justice in the Reproductive Rights Movement
As the state-sanctioned assault on the reproductive rights movement continues, legal mechanisms and healthcare institutions are furthering racialized disparities.
ella chin | dec 21, 2024
On Northeastern’s Response to Gaza Solidarity Encampment
From the Ivy League to community colleges and from coast to coast, politicians and university administrators are proudly collaborating to militarize and repress the very spaces that we pay to stand on and learn in—those which are supposedly democratic terrains of free speech, free expression, and free inquiry.
the editorial board |apr 29, 2024
Illume speaks with Munawwar Abdulla, an organizer for the Boston Uyghur Association, on the CCP’s ongoing systemic campaign of persecution and genocide against Uyghurs and Tibetans.
YULIA Murthy |apr 04, 2024
Positioning the ‘Bad Asian’ in a Post-Affirmative Action U.S.
In the aftermath of the Court’s overturn of affirmative action using the co-optation of Asian American identity politics—and amidst other ongoing horrors of our world—who are the “bad Asians” today?
jesica bak | mar 01, 2024
Reviving Aloha in the Aloha State
If Hawaiian tourism is inextricably rooted in the U.S. colonial project, is it possible to shift to a model of tourism that no longer exploits the resources and values that belong to Kanaka Maoli?
malia ching | feb 20, 2024
On Israel–Palestine, Pro-Palestine Journalists Are Subject to Unique Censorship
The sanitization of Israel–Palestine coverage spans from U.S. censorship to dangerous incitement of violence against journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza.
juliana george | feb 20, 2024
Conversational Ruptures: Student-Activist Mariam Hassan on Organizing for Palestine
Illume speaks with Mariam Hassan, Egyptian American activist for the Palestinian liberation and solidarity movement.
juliana george | feb 19, 2024
Conversational Ruptures: Demystifying Asian American Studies at NU
Illume speaks with the Associate Director of Asian American Studies at Northeastern Denise Khor, and Assistant Professor Sasha Sabherwal.
jesica bak | feb 19, 2024
Illume Directors on Affirmative Action
Without affirmative action, how can we ensure that the liminal spaces we exist and operate in won’t become permanent?
sharon chen and jesica bak | August 29, 2023
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