Over 300 people attended and celebrated the first book launch and Lunar New Year party of Third State Books (TSB) and the Asian American Foundation (TAAF) in New York City.
“The main difference between this project and the other projects we’ve done so far is that we have a very clear purpose and that is to educate middle grade readers about Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander history, because for a lot of Asian Americans, including me in my youth, we didn’t have a lot of conception about being represented properly in the United States,” Chang tells NextShark. “I think this book is a way of informing general audiences about our longstanding history and to empower and embolden AANHPI readers that we are citizens and we do belong here.”
Chu, who has written for comic book companies Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, was the first woman to write for “The Green Hornet” and “Deadpool” series. She has long fought for Asian American studies since she was a student at Wellesley College in the 1980s. She received dual degrees at Wellesley College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for East Asian studies and architectural design, respectively. During her time at MIT, she became friends with Norman Chen, who now serves as TAAF’s CEO. Decades later, Chen reached out to Chu about creating a graphic novel dedicated to advancing and serving the AAPI community.
“I told him comics are a very effective way of reaching people, and he said, ‘OK, let’s do it!’ and we did,” Chu recalls.
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