Well well well, you made it to Sunday. It seems that everyone in the world had a hell of a week, so make sure you carve out some time for yourself today. Hey, maybe this is the time you carved out — we’re so honored that you wanted to spend it with us. Alright, we’ll stop rambling. Let’s get to the good stuff.
Here are the top takeaways from the current diplomatic news cycle:
An Asian Pacific American Heritage Month reading list
Publication: NBC | By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang 
- May has officially begun, (hope you remembered to say rabbit rabbit on Thursday) which means Asian-Pacific American Heritage month has also begun. If you haven’t stuck to your New Year’s resolution of actually picking up a book, have no fear! NBC has compiled a list of the best books to help you enrich your mind while also celebrating Americans from the Asia-Pacific.
- First up, check out “All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir” by Nicole Chung. It tells the gripping story of her journey to find her birth parents.
- Into authors writing about writing? Then “A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Writing” is for you. In the book, David Mura critiques how whiteness is often the default point of view, and argues that the ability to discuss race and identity are crucial to the teaching of creative writing.
- Are anthologies more your speed? This one brings together 17 refugees, originally from places such as Mexico, Bosnia, Iran, & Afghanistan, to write about their experiences as refugees.
Fashion at Center of Czech-Styled Diplomacy
Publication: VOA | By Natalie Liu
- “We live in the 21st century. The connection between fashion and diplomacy is very, very strong,” Hynek Kmoníček, ambassador of the Czech Republic to the US, said on the sidelines of a fashion show that his embassy hosted.
The Africa Union’s ambassador to the United States, Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao, walked the stage in a colorful indigenous dress, while the wife of Mozambique’s ambassador, Maria Isabel Macedo dos Santos, modeled her own design in elegant black and white, proving that fashion can bridge the gap in understanding cultural diversity.
- Marie Royce, U.S. assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, said, “Oftentimes, you don’t even have a chance to speak to the person. But their fashion speaks for them.” Word, Marie.
PS: Check out this project on fashion diplomacy
How emerging markets are moving beyond neoliberalism
Publication: Brookings Institute | By Geoffrey Gertz and Homi Kharas
- Ah, there’s nothing like a global financial crisis to really bring people together. After the crisis it took several years of painful austerity to spur the debate on how to build a post-neoliberal economy, which is now taking off in the US and Europe.
- On both sides of the aisle, academics and policymakers are articulating alternative visions for society; ideas that are more skeptical of neoliberalism’s embrace of market mechanisms.
- Check out Brookings’ report to dive deeeeep into this complex topic.
