DISCO Network Presents - Fear of Asian Tech: Chips, Platforms, and Social Networks
Fear and suspicion of Asian technology-- from DeepSeek AI, to social media platforms like TikTok, to Taiwanese semiconductor giants like TSMC that supply the world with chips-- is higher in the U.S. than it has been for decades. This panel brings together leading Asian American researchers, artists, and filmmakers to explore Asia’s role in building today’s high technology. We will also examine how rising anxiety around Asian tech impacts Asian American communities in the U.S. today.
We want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART services will be provided. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate or would like help filling out the RSVP form, please email Cherice Chan at chericec@umich.edu.
Meet the Panelists
Christopher Fan is an Associate Professor of English at UC Irvine, Director of UCI Global Asias, and co-director of the Geographers at UCI Research Cluster. Dr. Fan holds courtesy appointments in Asian American Studies and East Asian Studies. He is a senior editor at Hyphen magazine, which he co-founded, and serves on the editorial board of the journal American Literary History. He is the author of Asian American Fiction After 1965: Transnational Fantasies of Economic Mobility (Columbia University Press, 2024) and co-editor of Techno-Orientalism 2.0: New Intersections and Interventions (Rutgers University Press, 2025). He is currently working on two books about the trope of China’s rise in fiction and film. The second is a cultural history of semiconductors, centering on the industry’s emergence in Taiwan.
Janice Lobo Sapigao (she/her) is a Filipina American poet, writer, and independent scholar from the San Francisco Bay Area (unceded Ohlone land). She is the author of the poetry collections like a solid to a shadow (Nightboat Books, 2022) and microchips for millions (PAWA, Inc., 2016), along with two other chapbooks. Sapigao contributed three entries to The SAGE Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies. She is a 2023-2026 Lucas Arts Resident in Literary Arts at the Montalvo Arts Center. She is a tenured Associate Professor of English at Skyline College. Sapigao also co-founded Santa Clara County’s Youth Poet Laureate Program and Sunday Jump Open Mic in Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown.
Tony Shyu is a noted director and award-winning screenwriter. He recently directed Builders of the Silicon Dream, a groundbreaking social impact film that chronicles the untold stories of Asian American entrepreneurs who helped shape Silicon Valley into the global hub of technology and innovation. Tony serves as director and producer of Himalaya Entertainment. Tony spent many years in Asia creating award-winning commercials for major brands such as Avon, Volvo, and Visa. He won the Taiwan Times award, which is Asia’s equivalent of a Clio award. The PSA he directed for API Vote starring George Takei, John Cho, and Constance Wu won the 2016 Videographer award.
Meet the Moderator
Lisa Nakamura is the Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor in the Department of American Culture, and the founding Director of the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Since 1994, Nakamura has written books and articles on digital bodies, race, and gender in online environments, on toxicity in video game culture, and the many reasons that Internet research needs ethnic and gender studies. These books include, Race After the Internet (co-edited with Peter Chow-White, Routledge, 2011); Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (Minnesota, 2007); Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet (Routledge, 2002); and Race in Cyberspace (co-edited with Beth Kolko and Gil Rodman, Routledge, 2000). In November 2019, Nakamura gave a TED NYC talk about her research called “The Internet is a Trash Fire. Here’s How to Fix It."