The founder and editor of the popular blog Angry Asian Man and an alternative hip-hop artist and documentary series producer will speak on campus Tuesday about the role of social media in social justice and identity politics.
Phil Yu and Dan Matthews are the featured speakers at the Michi and Walter Weglyn Institute Lecture Series event.
Yu founded Angry Asian Man as a college student in 2001 to express his sentiments about Asian Americans and racial issues he saw in the media.
“In the beginning, there wasn’t really a goal. It was more or less shaking my fist in the air and shouting, perhaps mostly to myself,” Yu recalled in an interview with NBC News. “These days, I’ve settled on three broad aims for the blog: to inform, entertain and activate.”
The blog has since expanded to include a podcast series, “Sound and Fury,” and a YouTube talk show, “Angry Asian America.”
Matthews is a Los Angeles-based rapper who goes by the name DANakaDAN. He was born in South Korea, but was adopted by American parents and raised in Camarillo.
The artist produced a documentary series detailing how he met his biological family in Seoul for the first time, including an identical twin brother who also raps. Matthews raps about his experience as an adoptee in an album, “Stuntman,” that accompanies the documentary.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Bronco Student Center, Ursa Major. It is co-sponsored by the Asian and Pacific Islander Student Center.
For more information, contact Professor Mary Yu Danico, at (909) 869-3895 or mkydanico@cpp.edu.
The Weglyn Institute, established in the name of civil rights activists Michi and Walter Weglyn, hosts events that spark discussions and challenge opinions on multiculturalism, including gender, ethnicity, sexuality, race and class.