Nia Wong

ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. – Sailing through the Mediterranean Sea in the early days of October, it wasn’t fear that had Jas Ikeda gripping the wheel of Sirius, a 200,000-ton vessel that would become part of the largest civilian-led convoy to date. Rather, it was the hope of handing aid boxes to Palestinians subjected to years of starvation, bombings, and what a United Nation commission would declare a genocide under Israel.

SEATTLE, Wash. – With a little more than a month until the FIFA World Cup 2026 descends upon Seattle and 15 other host cities, Washington state is making transportation adjustments to welcome an expected 750,000 visitors for the international sporting event.

It’s difficult to look back at the first half of the 2020s without wincing. While the last six years ushered in events that shook the world, it also unleashed a flood of violence across Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities, leaving us gasping in between waves of grief. Even today, relief feels distant at times, as heavy-handed immigration raids and rapidly shifting policies push the country into what feels like a chaotic second act of the decade. Yet what has been witnessed and experienced in the 2020s isn’t random but rather a recurring theme in our country’s history, according to Dr. Scott Kurashige. In his latest release, ‘American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism,’ Kurashige points to historical moments that barely get a line, if any mention in history books used in formal K-12 education, but are still necessary to know in order to understand what is happening today and the work that needs to be done to steer the country into a more inclusive direction.