In the late and early hours of June 3rd and 4th, 1989, the People’s Liberation Army converged from the east and west on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, killing hundreds (or even thousands) of civilians and bringing China’s burgeoning democracy movement to its bloody conclusion. The movement was nationwide, with participants from every sector of society: old and young, students and teachers, farmers and workers—in the spring and summer of the fortieth year of the People’s Republic of China—fighting for a people’s republic of China.

Over thirty years later, Tiananmen remains an impossible ideal. For those who directly participated in the movement, for those born in the generations after, and for those in the diaspora, Tiananmen represents the possibilities and promises of a people over one billion strong.