This panel proposal centers the AANHPI experience in the U.S. South as the dominant literature often directs attention on AANHPI communities from the East and West coasts. From the St. Malo community of “Manilamen” in mid-eighteenth century Louisiana, the first permanent Asian American settlement, to the AANHPI resistance against anti-Asian racism amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2021 Atlanta Spa and 2023 Allen, Texas Mall Shootings, we focus on how AANHPI communities continue to shape the U.S. South by strengthening and preserving their communities while resisting and transforming what many people expect Southern culture to look, taste, and sound. Our accented tongues go beyond the Southern drawl and help build and change the U.S. South.
Our panel includes Dr. Elaine Cho, Lecturer, Department of Literature, at American University; Dr. Thao Ha, Sociology Professor at MiraCosta College; Stephanie Drenka, Denise Johnson, and Christina Hahn, Co-Founders and Creative Director of the Dallas Asian American Historical Association; and Dr. Roy Vũ, History Professor at Dallas College. We cover the range in which AANHPI communities reclaim and reconstruct the U.S. South. Are Asian Americans Southern enough? The answer is a resounding yes! Our histories, contributions, and presence speak for themselves. Despite a history of marginalization, erasure, and racial violence, we find ways to define and celebrate our Southern accents via cultural foodways, historical preservation, the arts, education, etc. AANHPI communities in the U.S. South have earned and deserved our greater attention and study.