Hao Huang, Bessie and Cecil Chair in Music and professor of music, examines California’s history of anti-Asian American racism on History News Network, a publication of The George Washington University. “Surely, California cannot be held up as an unblemished paragon of tolerance and peaceful inclusion,” Huang writes. “During the COVID pandemic, it’s become obvious that self-evident truths of American democracy have been under attack: equality, unalienable rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the Golden State, attacks on these values have been specifically directed towards Asian Americans for over a century and a half.”
Huang is the author of the new play Jianchi/Perseverance, which debuted May 15 on his popular podcast, Blood on Gold Mountain. The two-act play draws parallels between the year 1900, when Chinese were being blamed for bringing the “China plague” to San Francisco, and the year 2021, when an Asian American veteran was beaten as his attackers called him “China virus.” Huang’s work has received support from the National Endowment of the Arts and from sponsors across The Claremont Colleges.