Shihab MoralHawthorne-Longfellow Library (H-L) presented its 2023 BIPOC Book Collection display last Friday, October 13. Display curator Hannah Kim ’24 presented the collection while Humanities and Media Librarian Carmen Greenlee moderated a Q&A session following the presentation.
This year’s collection, entitled “Asian America and Asian Diasporas,” featured newly released works across multiple genres by Asian American and Asian diasporic authors. The collection coincides with the yearlong Asian American Reckonings initiative and the launch of RepresentASIAN: Bowdoin’s Asian Alumni Association.
Kim said that her curation, located across from H-L’s main circulation desk, aims to direct focus to the library’s array of Asian-centric works.
“I was interested in expanding the Library’s collections, especially since we already have a good collection of Asian American literature, but oftentimes, we didn’t have the writer’s most recent book,” Kim said.
While curating the collection, Kim found her own experience of engaging with diasporic literature particularly influential. Many of the works focus on marginalized experiences within the Asian diasporic community, including working class, queer, multiracial and adoptee narratives.
“Before coming to Bowdoin, I thought Asian Americans were just rich, affluent, Chinese Americans—the idea traditionally portrayed on movie screens. I’m Korean, and I know that Korean culture is getting mainstream attention, but I hadn’t seen narratives of working class Asian Americans, so I never really considered myself to be Asian American until coming here and taking a class called Asian American Margins with Professor Belinda Kong,” Kim said. “During that class, I have this memory of going…
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