Panel: Third World Liberation Front for the Future

Celeste Chan facilitates a panel discussion exploring student activism in the ‘60s Bay Area researched during her ten-week residency as an Artist-in-Residence at the SFPL. Chan's interest in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) strikes, the longest student strikes in U.S. history, which led to the creation of Ethnic Studies as a discipline spanning colleges and secondary schools across the globe, grew during her residency with the library and led to the creation of this panel. Black Student Union co-founder Dr. James Garrett, San Francisco State University (SFSU) Professor of Asian American Studies, Professor Emerita of Asian American Studies at SFSU Laureen Chew other guests answer questions that explore how the student strikers organized and the strategies they used to create Third World solidarity, shining a light on TWLF’s tactics, conversations, and conflicts and also what their legacy looks like today and for the future.

About the Artist 

Celeste Chan is a writer, filmmaker and teaching artist, schooled by Do-It-Yourself culture and immigrant parents from Malaysia and the Bronx, NY. Chan creates, collaborates and curates to amplify voices within marginalized communities. For ten years, Chan co-directed Queer Rebels, a queer and trans people of color arts project. Chan has received residencies and fellowships from Hedgebrook, Hugo House, Lambda Literary, Mesa Refuge, Ragdale, SAFEHouse, Soaring Gardens and VONA. Her writing can be found in several journals, including Ada, Alta, AWAY, Citron Review, cream city review’s genrequeer folio, Feminist Wire, Hyphen, Mixed Race/Queer and Feminist, The Seventh Wave and The Rumpus. Chan is currently researching and writing two books: one about queer lineages, and the other about how her father survived the WWII Japanese occupation of Malaya. Learn more about Celeste Chan.