AAAYA AANHPI Month Webinar Reflection: “Asian American Science Fiction: Linking Heritage with Futurity” with Professor Maria Bo

On Weds May 21st, the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni (AAAYA) continued its celebration of AANHPI Heritage Month with a powerful second installment in our 2025 webinar series: “Asian American Science Fiction: Linking Heritage with Futurity.” We were honored to host Dr. Maria Bo, Assistant Professor of English at Stanford University, whose scholarship and insight offered a compelling lens into one of the fastest-growing subfields of Asian American literature—science fiction.

Traditionally viewed as a genre rooted in futurism, technological advancement, and the speculative unknown, science fiction is often imagined as a forward-looking literary form. Yet, Professor Bo encouraged us to revisit this assumption. What if, she asked, science fiction could also be a way of looking back? Of exploring the cultural and linguistic vestiges of one’s past? Her talk offered a provocative rethinking of Asian American science fiction—not just as a tool for forecasting future possibilities, but as a genre deeply entwined with questions of heritage, memory, and identity.

Drawing from both literary examples and cultural theory, Dr. Bo demonstrated how science fiction’s emphasis on science and technology brings into sharp relief the ways Asian Americans have historically been racialized. She compared Asian versus Asian-American science fiction and how their roots and themes have diverged. She explored how language and culture themselves can be understood as technologies of self-making and reimagining. The post-talk Q&A was just as dynamic, with a highly engaged audience posing questions about genre boundaries, diasporic imagination, translation, and more. The conversation was thoughtful and wide-ranging, and it was clear that the topic struck a chord.

As we continue to honor AANHPI Heritage Month, Professor Bo’s talk leaves us with much to reflect on—about our relationships to history, language, culture, and the futures we imagine for ourselves and our communities. We are so grateful to her for sharing her work with us, and to our attendees for making the event such a rich dialogue.

Stay tuned for our next AAAYA AANHPI webinar—we look forward to continuing this journey of celebration, reflection, and learning together.

Full recording below: