Hello AACP Newsletter Readers.

In Timothy Snyder’s wonderful book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” lesson 2 is “Defend Institutions.”

I learned last week that one of my favorite local institutions may soon be closing down – the San Francisco office of the National Archives in San Bruno. For many years now, the National Archives has been under funded and threats of closure to the San Bruno Archives have come and gone. This time, the danger seems more imminent with plans to start the closing process beginning in September.

If you’ve never been to the San Bruno Archives, imagine a big warehouse full of government documents and a reading room where you can see items pulled from the archives by very helpful archivists. Some of the things store there are thousands of immigration files that can help people interested in doing genealogy research.

I was quite moved when I found a photo of my father (when he was a young teen) in my grandmother’s file. I was not expecting to see him in the file because he never left the United States until he retired, but he was a witness for my grandmother who was traveling to China for a trip. Photos from the 1930s were much more rare than today. But if you look at these files you may find a lot of rare photos and items belonging to your family. These files are our family’s history and it may all soon be moving or damaged or destroyed.

Please read our interview with Grant Din who is leading the organization that is working to save the San Bruno and Chicago archives.

Here’s your chance to help save a valuable institution. Start by learning and then by acting now. And if it can’t be prevented, please visit the San Bruno Archives before it is forever lost.

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This month’s book selection is the second part of our summer reading list. For this selection, we picked some fine children’s folktales and fourteen speculative fiction novels. For you that are not up on the meaning of speculative fiction, it is a broad category that includes fantasy, science fiction, and horror (focusing on worlds and events outside of normal reality).

There are so many AAPI speculative novels being written these days. Many are parts of series, including many of the books that we selected this month. So if you like these books, you’ll have plenty more to read.

Please check out all of our great books.

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I’m afraid that’s all the time I have for this message. I have to get up earlier to be at the Palo Alto Obon. If you are in the area, please check us out.

Thank you Grant Din for the interview and for working to save “our” national archives.

Everyone, please do your part to help him out. Spread the word.

Take care.