Forum from the Archives: The New Yorker’s Michael Luo on ‘the Epic Story of the Chinese in America'

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1889, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the now infamous Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country. Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen J. Field characterized Chinese migrants as “strangers in the land.” New Yorker editor Michael Luo says that label persists today, even as more than 22 million people of Asian descent now reside in the U.S. In a new history book, Luo tells the stories of 19th and 20th century Chinese migrants and analyzes the long tail of contemporary anti-Asian racism and violence while championing those who fought against it. We listen back. Guests: Michael Luo, executive editor, The New Yorker; author, “Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, a wellness resort in Baja, California, just an hour from San Diego,
0:07.4	recently voted the number one destination spa by readers of travel and leisure magazine.
0:12.8	Summer retreat packages of three, four, or seven nights including hiking, water classes, mindfulness,
0:19.9	spa therapies, and culinary adventures with
0:22.8	farm-fresh ingredients. Learn more at Rancho LaPuerta.com.
0:27.3	Switch to Comcast Business Mobile and save hundreds a year in your wireless bill.
0:31.4	Comcast Business, powering possibilities.
0:33.9	Restrictions apply. Comcast Business Internet required.
0:36.0	Compar as two unlimited intro lines and lowest price 5D plans of top three carriers. Tax on fees extra, reduce speeds after 30 gigabytes of usage. Data thresholds may vary. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim.
1:03.2	Coming up on forum, Michael Luo's new narrative history of the Chinese in America was sparked
1:08.5	by the experience of having a racial slur hurled at him and his family.
1:12.2	In 2016, his write-up of the incident made the front page of the New York Times,
1:17.3	and Luo, a go-to expert on the Chinese-American experience, a story he realized he didn't fully know.
1:24.1	Luo's new book, Strangers in the Land, tells the story he learned. We listened back to our
1:28.7	conversation earlier this month. Join us. Mina Kim here.
1:47.7	Before we get started with the show, we have a little bonus for you I like to call Behind the Scenes.
1:56.8	Mina Kim here.
1:58.0	We've got a short pledge break going on right now, so you on the pledge free stream get a little bonus that I like to call behind the scenes.
2:05.5	Sometimes our forum editorial meetings about upcoming shows triggered discussions of past shows.
2:10.6	And today's topic got us talking about covering the pandemic as it unfolded with its terrible hardships and unexpected silver linings.
2:18.3	One of our favorite shows back then was from December of 2020,
2:21.9	when we were just getting word that the first vaccines would be rolling out.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 15 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.