Rise—a pop history of Asian America

As the nation celebrates and honors the many contributions and undeniable influence of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans throughout the month of May, UBS hosted an event with Jeff Yang and Phil Yu. The talented authors of the New York Times bestseller Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now along with some special guests took the audience on a tour through the past three decades of Asian American food, fashion, and entrepreneurship.

The timing of Rise was great for this intimate, eye-opening and frequently hilarious guided tour through the pop-cultural touchstones and sociopolitical shifts of the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and beyond. Jeff Yang and Phil Yu chronicle how we arrived at today’s unprecedented diversity of Asian American cultural representation through engaging, interactive infographics illustrations and graphic essays from major AAPI artists, exclusive roundtables with Asian American cultural icons, and more, anchored by extended insider narratives of each decade by two of the three co-authors. They provided an informative, lively, and inclusive celebration of shared experiences and singular moments, and all the different ways in which we have chosen to come together.

Jeff Yang and Phil Yu, along with Philip Wang, are the authors of RISE; together, they cohost the acclaimed podcast They Call Us Bruce (https://theycallusbruce.libsyn.com/), an "unfiltered conversation about Asian America."

Jeff Yang has been observing, exploring, and writing about the Asian American community for over thirty years. He launched one of the first Asian American national magazines, A. Magazine, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and now writes frequently for CNN, Quartz, Slate and elsewhere. He has written/edited three books—Jackie Chan’s New York Times-best-selling memoir I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action; Once Upon a Time in China, a history of the cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland; and Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture. He lives in Los Angeles.

Phil Yu is the founder and editor of the popular Asian American news and culture blog Angry Asian Man, which has had a devoted following since 2001. His commentary has been featured and quoted in the The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.