Gidra: The Monthly of the Asian American Experience, the self-proclaimed “voice of the Asian American movement,” was a revolutionary monthly newspaper-magazine that ran from 1969 to 1974. It was started by a group of Asian American students at the University of California, Los Angeles as a platform to discuss Asian American interests on campus and later expanded to address the entire Los Angeles Asian American community.

Gidra covered mainly issues affecting the Asian American community, including the anti-war movement; ethnic studies at universities; and the struggles of colonized people in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Also crucial to the newspaper was art, mostly illustrations and poetry. Highly politicized, Gidra took stances that were anti-war, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist. One of the first newspapers of its kind in the Asian American community, it inspired the creation of other leftist publications and organizations. Espousing a Third Worldist ideology, Gidra encouraged solidarity with and had ties to paralleling social justice movements in the United States and decolonization movements abroad.

Learn more: https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/gidra-asian-american/