Yellow Peril Past and Present: Understanding Asian America through Personal and Historical Stories

This performance/presentation offers an exciting mixture of intimate personal storytelling and mini-presentations linking the past and the present on Asian American experiences. In this one-hour session, Dr. Ada Cheng will weave personal stories to highlight the myth of the model minority, the image of the perpetual foreigner, othering via micro-aggression, and the negative impact of stereotypes on Asian Americans under the global pandemic. She will use mini-presentations to explore historical legal constraints facing immigrants from the Asian diaspora. This presentation is highly interactive and will take about 45 minutes, followed by a facilitated dialogue. 

Bio: 

An educator-turned artist, storyteller, and speaker, Dr. Ada Cheng has utilized storytelling to illustrate structural inequities, raise critical awareness, and build intimate communities. Committed to amplifying and uplifting marginalized voices, she has created numerous storytelling platforms for BIPOC and LGBTQIA community members to tell difficult and vulnerable stories. Dr. Cheng has been a speaker for Illinois Humanities Road Scholars Speakers Bureau since 2019. She is 2023-24 Lund-Gill Endowed Chair at Dominican University. She currently teaches part time at Dominican University. Her interests encompass academia, storytelling/performance, and advocacy. 

Illinois Humanities is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom and the Illinois General Assembly [through the Illinois Arts Council Agency], as well as by contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations.