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.

Free boba from Unitea will be provided for the first 100 attendees!

All are welcome and we strongly encourage undergraduate and graduate students to attend. Advance registration is recommended:

Register to attend in person: https://myumi.ch/3RMW2
Register to attend on Zoom: https://myumi.ch/NrVjD

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. Dr. Fan 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, one about the trope of China’s rise in fiction and film and another about 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 and 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. She is working on a novel and a non-fiction manuscript on Philippine American archives.

Tony Shyu is an award-winning filmmaker, founder of Neu Wave AI Films, and CEO of Himalaya Entertainment, with over 20 years of experience directing across commercials, narrative films, and documentaries. After earning his BFA and MFA in Film from Art Center College of Design, he began his career directing high-profile campaigns for brands like Doordash, Mastercard, Volvo, and Uni-President earning Advertising Awards and the 2016 Videographer Award for API Vote, featuring George Takei and Constance Wu. His feature debut with Lions Gate and acclaimed documentaries for PBS, including The Race Epidemic and Builders of the Silicon Dream, showcase his talent for impactful storytelling. As a pioneer in AI filmmaking, Tony has directed cutting-edge AI-generated films and founded the Neu Wave AI Film Festival and Cinemarket.AI to support and mentor the next wave of creators.

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."

We want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART services will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate or would like help filling out the RSVP form, please email Cherice Chan at chericec@umich.edu.