The Politics of Friendship: Black and Korean Soldiers in U.S. Military Expansion. The Race/Solidarity: Transpacific Conversations series invites faculty and guest speakers to discuss the current racial reckoning at USC and beyond and start this conversation within a global context. This series will provide a platform for faculty and students to engage with a host of social and cultural issues related to race and racism on both sides of the Pacific. Our aim is to help broaden and deepen the current discussion on race with global and historical perspectives, drawing in particular on the expertise and connections of our a expertise and connections of our affiliated faculty and graduate students who have worked on these topics within diverse East Asian contexts and among Asian diasporic communities.
In this session, Tiara Wilson, East Asian Area Studies MA student, has invited Jang Wook Huh, Assistant Professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, to discuss the informal, or even homosocial friendship between African American and Korean soldiers in the mid-1940 to consier how the act of developing intimate feelings can envision a form of solidarity. We invite you to join us for this discussion on the promises and liabilitiesof the solidarity between African Americans and Koreans.