John Kuo Wei Tchen is a historian, curator, and writer. Professor Tchen is founding director of the A/P/A (Asian/Pacific /American) Studies Program and Institute at New York University, NYU. He co-founded the Museum of Chinese in America in 1979-80 where he continues to serve as senior historian. Yellow Peril: An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear (2014) is a critical archival study of images, excerpts and essays on the history and contemporary impact of paranoia and xenophobia. He served as the senior historian for a New-York Historical Society exhibition on the impact of Chinese Exclusion Laws on the formation of the US. He is currently working on a two-hour “The American Experience” PBS documentary with Ric Burns and Lishin Yu on the “Chinese Exclusion Act.” And he is also curating a series of exhibit, conferences, and performances retelling NYC-US history from the lens of scientific racism and eugenics hierarchies of “fit” white Protestants versus the world’s “unfit” others. This work will increasingly be presented via location-sensitive wearable tech.
Photo credit: Christopher Ferri
