To access the e-books, log in as you would in to Canvas.
All the World's a Fair: : visions of empire at American international expositions, 1876-1916 by
Robert W. Rydell contends that America’s early world’s fairs actually served to legitimate racial exploitation at home and the creation of an empire abroad. He looks in particular to the "ethnological" displays of nonwhites—set up by showmen but endorsed by prominent anthropologists—which lent scientific credibility to popular racial attitudes and helped build public support for domestic and foreign policies....
America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by
An award-winning historian reframes our continuing debate over immigration with a compelling history of xenophobia in the United States and its devastating impact The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported. Today, Americans fear Muslims, Latinos, and the so-called browning of America. Forcing us to confront this history, America for Americans explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America. It is a necessary corrective and spur to action for any concerned citizen.
Americans First by
World War II was a watershed event for many of America's minorities, but its impact on Chinese Americans has been largely ignored. Utilizing extensive archival research as well as oral histories and letters from over one hundred informants, K. Scott Wong explores how Chinese Americans carved a newly respected and secure place for themselves in American society during the war years. Long the victims of racial prejudice and discriminatory immigration practices, Chinese Americans struggled to transform their image in the nation's eyes. As Americans racialized the Japanese enemy abroad and interned Japanese Americans at home, Chinese citizens sought to distinguish themselves by venturing beyond the confines of Chinatown to join the military and various defense industries in record numbers. Wong offers the first in-depth account of Chinese Americans in the American military, tracing the history of the 14th Air Service Group, a segregated unit comprising over 1,200 men, and examining how their war service contributed to their social mobility and the shaping of their ethnic identity. Americans First pays tribute to a generation of young men and women who, torn between loyalties to their parents' traditions and their growing identification with America and tormented by the pervasive racism of wartime America, served their country with patriotism and courage. Consciously developing their image as a "model minority," often at the expense of the Japanese and Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans created the pervasive image of Asian Americans that still resonates today.
And Justice for All by
At the outbreak of World War II, more than 115,000 Japanese American civilians living on the West Coast of the United States were rounded up and sent to desolate ?relocation? camps, where most spent the duration of the war. In this poignant and bitter yet inspiring oral history, John Tateishi allows thirty Japanese Americans, victims of this trauma, to speak for themselves. And Justice for All captures the personal feelings and experiences of the only group of American citizens ever to be confined in concentration camps in the United States. In this new edition of the book, which was originally published in 1984, an Afterword by the author brings up to date the lives of those he interviewed.
Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850 by
In this important and masterful synthesis of the Chinese and Japanese experience in America, historian Roger Daniels provides a new perspective on the significance of Asian immigration to the United States. Examining the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early 1980s, Daniels presents a basic history comprising the political and socioeconomic background of Chinese and Japanese immigration and acculturation. He draws distinctions and points out similarities not only between Chinese and Japanese but between Asian and European immigration experiences, clarifying the integral role of Asians in American history. Daniels' research is impressive and his evidence is solid. In forthright prose, he suggests fresh assessments of the broad patterns of the Asian American experience, illuminating the recurring tensions within our modern multiracial society. His detailed supporting material is woven into a rich historical fabric which also gives personal voice to the tenacious individualism of the immigrant. The book is organized topically and chronologically, beginning with the emigration of each ethnic group and concluding with an epilogue that looks to the future from the perspective of the last two decades of Chinese and Japanese American history. Included in this survey are discussions of the reasons for emigration; the conditions of emigration; the fate of first generation immigrants; the reception of immigrants by the United States government and its people; the growth of immigrant communities; the effects of discriminatory legislation; the impact of World War II and the succeeding Cold War era on Chinese and Japanese Americans; and the history of Asian Americans during the last twenty years. This timely and thought-provoking volume will be of value not only to specialists in Asian American history and culture but to students and general historians of American life.
Asian American History: a Very Short Introduction by
A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that Asian Americans are the best-educated, highest-income, and best-assimilated racial group in the United States. Before reaching this level of economic success and social assimilation, however, Asian immigrants' path was full of difficult, even demeaning, moments. This book provides a sweeping and nuanced history of Asian Americans, revealing how and why the perception of Asian immigrants changed over time. Asian migrants, in large part Chinese, arrived in significant numbers on the West Coast during the 1850s and 1860s to work in gold mining and on the construction of the transcontinental Railroad. Unlike their contemporary European counterparts, Asians, often stigmatized as "coolies," challenged American ideals of equality with the problem of whether all racial groups could be integrated into America's democracy. The fear of the "Yellow Peril" soon spurred an array of legislative and institutional efforts to segregate them through immigration laws, restrictions on citizenship, and limits on employment, property ownership, access to public services, and civil rights. Prejudices against Asian Americans reached a peak during World War II, when Japanese Americans were interned en masse. It was only with changes in the immigration laws and the social and political activism of the 1960s and 1970s that Asian Americans gained ground and acceptance, albeit in the still stereotyped category of "model minorities." Madeline Y. Hsu weaves a fascinating historical narrative of this "American Dream." She shows how Asian American success, often attributed to innate cultural values, is more a result of the immigration laws, which have largely pre-selected immigrants of high economic and social potential. Asian Americans have, in turn, been used by politicians to bludgeon newer (and more populous) immigrant groups for their purported lack of achievement. Hsu deftly reveals how public policy, which can restrict and also selectively promote certain immigrant populations, is a key reason why some immigrant groups appear to be more naturally successful and why the identity of those groups evolves differently from others.
Asian American Women and Men by
Labor, laws, and love. Yen Le Espiritu explores how racist and gendered labor conditions and immigration laws have affected relations between and among Asian American women and men. Asian American Men and Women documents how the historical and contemporary oppression of Asians in the United States has (re)structured the balance of power between Asian American women and men and shaped their struggles to create and maintain social institutions and systems of meaning. Espiritu emphasizes how race, gender, and class, as categories of difference, do not parallel but instead intersect and confirm one other.
Asian Mystique by
Few Westerners escape the images, expectations and misperceptions that lead us to see Asia as exotic, sensual, decadent, dangerous, and mysterious. Despite -- and because of -- centuries of East-West interaction, the stereotypes of Western literature, stage, and screen remain pervasive icons: the tea-pouring, submissive, sexually available geisha girl; the steely cold dragon lady dominatrix; as well as the portrayal of the Asian male as effeminate and asexual. These "Oriental" illusions color our relations and relationships in ways even well-respected professional "Asia hands" and scholars don't necessarily see. The Asian Mystique lays out a provocative challenge to see Asia and Asians as they really are, with unclouded, deeroticized eyes. It traces the origins of Western stereotypes in history and in Hollywood, examines the phenomenon of 'yellow fever, ' then goes on a reality tour of Asia's go-go bars, middle-class homes, college campuses, business districts, and corridors of power, providing intimate profiles of women's lives and vivid portraits of the human side of an Asia we usually mythologize too well to really understand. It strips away our misconceptions and stereotypes, revealing instead the fully dimensional human beings beyond our usual perceptions. The Asian Mystique is required reading for anyone with interest in or interaction with Asia or Asian-origin people, as well as any serious student or practicioner of East-West relations.
At America's Gates by
With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants. At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a "gatekeeping nation." Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before. Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.
Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots by
No one will soon forget the image, blazed across the airwaves, of armed Korean Americans taking to the rooftops as their businesses went up in flames during the Los Angeles riots. Why Korean Americans? What stoked the wrath the riots unleashed against them? Blue Dreams is the first book to make sense of these questions, to show how Korean Americans, variously depicted as immigrant seekers after the American dream or as racist merchants exploiting African Americans, emerged at the crossroads of conflicting social reflections in the aftermath of the 1992 riots. The situation of Los Angeles's Korean Americans touches on some of the most vexing issues facing American society today: ethnic conflict, urban poverty, immigration, multiculturalism, and ideological polarization. Combining interviews and deft socio-historical analysis, Blue Dreams gives these problems a human face and at the same time clarifies the historical, political, and economic factors that render them so complex. In the lives and voices of Korean Americans, the authors locate a profound challenge to cherished assumptions about the United States and its minorities. Why did Koreans come to the United States? Why did they set up shop in poor inner-city neighborhoods? Are they in conflict with African Americans? These are among the many difficult questions the authors answer as they probe the transnational roots and diversity of Los Angeles's Korean Americans. Their work finally shows us in sharp relief and moving detail a community that, despite the blinding media focus brought to bear during the riots, has nonetheless remained largely silent and effectively invisible. An important corrective to the formulaic accounts that have pitted Korean Americans against African Americans, Blue Dreams places the Korean American story squarely at the center of national debates over race, class, culture, and community.
Chains of Babylon by
In Chains of Babylon, Daryl J. Maeda presents a cultural history of Asian American activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, showing how the movement created the category of "Asian American" to join Asians of many ethnicities in racial solidarity. Drawing on the Black Power and antiwar movements, Asian American radicals argued that all Asians in the United States should resist assimilation and band together to oppose racism within the country and imperialism abroad. As revealed in Maeda's in-depth work, the Asian American movement contended that people of all Asian ethnicities in the United States shared a common relationship to oppression and exploitation with each other and with other nonwhite peoples. In the early stages of the civil rights era, the possibility of assimilation was held out to Asian Americans under a model minority myth. Maeda insists that it was only in the disruption of that myth for both African Americans and Asian Americans in the 1960s and 1970s that the full Asian American culture and movement he describes could emerge. Maeda challenges accounts of the post-1968 era as hopelessly divisive by examining how racial and cultural identity enabled Asian Americans to see eye-to-eye with and support other groups of color in their campaigns for social justice. Asian American opposition to the war in Vietnam, unlike that of the broader antiwar movement, was predicated on understanding it as a racial, specifically anti-Asian genocide. Throughout he argues that cultural critiques of racism and imperialism, the twin "chains of Babylon" of the title, informed the construction of a multiethnic Asian American identity committed to interracial and transnational solidarity.
Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present by
Described by others as quaint and exotic, or as depraved and threatening, and, more recently, as successful and exemplary, the Chinese in America have rarely been asked to describe themselves in their own words. This superb anthology, a diverse and illuminating collection of primary documents and stories by Chinese Americans, provides an intimate and textured history of the Chinese in America from their arrival during the California Gold Rush to the present. Among the documents are letters, speeches, testimonies, oral histories, personal memoirs, poems, essays, and folksongs; many have never been published before or have been translated into English for the first time. They bring to life the diverse voices of immigrants and American-born; laborers, merchants, and professionals; ministers and students; housewives and prostitutes; and community leaders and activists. Together, they provide insight into immigration, work, family and social life, and the longstanding fight for equality and inclusion. Featuring photographs and extensive introductions to the documents written by three leading Chinese American scholars, this compelling volume offers a panoramic perspective on the Chinese American experience and opens new vistas on American social, cultural, and political history.
The Chinese Exotic by
The Chinese Exotic examines new representations of diasporic Chinese femininity emerging from Asia Pacific modernities since the late twentieth century. Through an analysis of cultural artefacts such as films, popular fiction, food and fashion cultures, the book challenges the dominant tendency in contemporary cultural politics to define Chinese femininity from a mainland perspective that furthermore equates it with notions of primitivism. Rather, the book argues for a radical reconfiguration of the concept of exoticism as a frame for understanding these new representations. This engaging study raises important questions on the relationship between the Chinese diasporas and gender. The Chinese Exotic provides a timely critical intervention into the current visualizations of diasporic Chinese femininity. The book contends that an analysis of such images can inform the reconfigured relations between China, the Chinese diasporas, Asia and the West in the context of contemporary globalization, and in turn takes these new intersections to account for the complex nature of modern definitions of diasporic Chinese femininity.
The Chinese in America by
Iris Chang made headlines in 1997 with the publication of The Rape of Nanking-a meticulously researched and brilliantly rendered examination of the sacking of that great city by the Japanese during World War II. Many readers of The Rape of Nankingresponded to its themes of the fight for justice and the assertion of cultural identity-themes Chang expands upon in her new book. Chang, the daughter of second-wave Chinese immigrants, has written an extraordinary narrative that encompasses the entire history of one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States, an epic story that spans 150 years and continues to the present day. Chang takes a fresh look at what it means to be an American and draws a complex portrait of the many accomplishments of the Chinese in their adopted country, from building the transcontinental railroad to major scientific and technological advances. A sensitive, deeply moving story of individuals whose lives have shaped and been shaped by this history, The Chinese in Americais a saga of raw human tenacity and a testament to the determination of a people to forge an identity and destiny in a strange land.
Citizen 13660 by
Mine Okubo was one of over one hundred thousand people of Japanese descent - nearly two-thirds of whom were American citizens - who were forced into "protective custody" shortly after Pearl Harbor. Citizen 13660, Okubo's graphic memoir of life in relocation centers in California and Utah, illuminates this experience with poignant illustrations and witty, candid text. Now available with a new introduction by Christine Hong and in a wide-format artist edition, this graphic novel can reach a new generation of readers and scholars. Read more about Mine Okubo in Mine Okubo: Following Her Own Road, edited by Greg Robinson and Elena Tajima Creef. http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/ROBMIN.html
Citizen Internees by
Through a new collection of primary documents about Japanese internment during World War II, this book enables a broader understanding of the injustice experienced by displaced people within the United States in the 20th century. In the 1940s, Japanese and Japanese American internees of Redwood City, CA, had a dedicated ally: J. Elmer Morrish, a banker who kept their businesses alive, made sure their taxes were paid, and safeguarded their properties until after the end of World War II and the internees were finally released. What were Morrish's motivations for his tireless efforts to help the internees? How did the unjustly incarcerated deal with the loss of freedom in the camps, and how did they envision their future? And how did the internees both cooperate with the U.S. government and attempt to resist victimization? Citizen Internees: A Second Look at Race and Citizenship in Japanese American Internment Camps is an edited selection from a collection of more than 2,000 pieces of correspondence--some of which is previously unpublished--regarding the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans from Redwood City, CA. These primary source documents reveal the experiences and emotions of a group of imprisoned people attempting to run the necessary day-to-day tasks of the lives they were forced to leave behind--as property owners, taxpayers, and proprietors. Through these letters about practical matters, readers can gain insight into the internees' changing family relations, their financial concerns, and their struggles in making decisions about an uncertain future. The book also includes essays that supply background information, analysis of the documents' contents and meaning, and historical context. Enables readers to see--through primary documents comprising letters written by the internees and banker J. Elmer Moorish in Redwood City, CA--how Japanese-American citizens who were interned during World War II handled their financial affairs Analyzes the interactions between Japanese Americans and Anglo-Americans during a period of widespread xenophobia and racial tension in the United States Helps readers to better understand the important issues of citizenship and race in America during and just after World War II Reveals new information on the day-to-day lives of Japanese Americans while residing in internment camps located in various areas of the United States
Claiming America : constructing Chinese American identities during the exclusion era by
This collection of essays centers on the formation of an ethnic identity among Chinese Americans during the period when immigration was halted. The first section emphasizes the attempts by immigrant Chinese to assert their intention of becoming Americans and to defend the few rights they had as resident aliens. Highlighting such individuals as Yung Wing, and ardent advocate of American social and political ideals, and Wong Chin Foo, one of the first activists for Chinese citizenship and voting rights, these essays speak eloquently about the early struggles in the Americanization movement. The second section shows how children of the immigrants developed a sense of themselves as having a distinct identity as Chinese Americans. For this generation, many of the opportunities available to other immigrants' children were simply inaccessible. In some districts explicit policies kept Chinese children in segregated schools; in many workplaces discriminatory practices kept them from being hired or from advancing beyond the lowest positions. In the 1930s, in fact, some Chinese Americans felt their only option was to emigrate to China, where they could find jobs better matched to their abilities. Many young Chinese women who were eager to take advantage of the educational and work options opening to women in the wider U.S. society first had to overcome their family's opposition and then racism. As the personal testimonies and historical biographies eloquently attest, these young people deeply felt the contradictions between Chinese and American ways; but they also saw themselves as having to balance the demands of the two cultures rather than as having to choose between them.
Coming Man: 19th century American perceptions of the Chinese by
Racist graphic depictions of Chinese in the 19th century portrayed in the media at that time.
The First Chinese American by
Chinese in America endured abuse and discrimination in the late nineteenth century, but they had a leader and a fighter in Wong Chin Foo (1847-1898), whose story is a forgotten chapter in the struggle for equal rights in America. The first to use the term "Chinese American," Wong defended his compatriots against malicious scapegoating and urged them to become Americanized to win their rights. A trailblazer and a born showman who proclaimed himself China's first Confucian missionary to the United States, he founded America's first association of Chinese voters and testified before Congress to get laws that denied them citizenship repealed. Wong challenged Americans to live up to the principles they freely espoused but failed to apply to the Chinese in their midst. This evocative biography is the first book-length account of the life and times of one of America's most famous Chinese--and one of its earliest campaigners for racial equality.
Growing up Nisei by
The place occupied by Japanese Americans within the annals of U.S. history has consisted mainly of a cameo appearance as victims of incarceration after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In this provocative work, David Yoo broadens the scope of Japanese-American history beyond its usual confines to examine how the second generation--the Nisei--has shaped its identity and negotiated its place within American society. Framed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively curtailed migration from Japan to the United States, and the Tokyo Rose treason trial of 1949, Growing Up Nisei traces the emergence of a dynamic Nisei subculture and shows how the foundations laid during the 1920s and 1930s helped many Nisei adjust to the upheaval of the concentration camps. Yoo demonstrates that schools, racial-ethnic churches, and the immigrant press served not merely as waystations to assimilation but as tools by which Nisei affirmed their identity in connection with both Japanese and American culture. Rather than a simple choice between two alternatives, identity formation for the Nisei who came of age during the war entailed negotiating multiple meanings related to race, gender, class, generation, the economy, politics, and international relations. A thoughtful consideration of the gray area between accommodation and resistance, Growing Up Nisei attests to a complexity of experience and context that foregoes one-dimensional cardboard figures and moves toward a portrayal of Japanese Americans as fully human.
Hate Unleashed by
This book investigates the psychological factors that led to the election of Donald Trump and the accompanying escalation of hate violence and intolerance in the United States. It also spells out the challenge for Americans living in a time of political conservatism and unbridled hostility towards minorities, immigrants, and socially progressive individuals--and what democratic-minded people can do to take action. After the U.S. presidential election in November of 2016, it became clear that hostility, intolerance, and violence targeting minorities, immigrants, and socially progressive individuals was more prevalent in the United States than many thought--and that these hateful sentiments had played a significant role in the election of Donald Trump. What are the reasons for this cataclysmic shift in the U.S.? Have these feelings been entrenched and rampant but under the surface for decades? We are now witnessing the consequences of a different kind of "freedom of expression"-- one that is challenging our notions of living in a multicultural and internationally-focused society. Hate Unleashed: America's Cataclysmic Change looks at the process by which America moved away from a progressive democratic model of governance in response to themes of economic and cultural vulnerability. Drawing on the notions of authoritarianism and ultranationalism--as well as insights from polling research and the advent of fake news--Hate Unleashed portrays how American politics became a battleground about culture and diversity. Author Edward Dunbar exposes how xenophobia, the synthesis of hate speech into political rhetoric, and appeals to a nationalism of nostalgia are linked to the escalation in hate activity after the November 2016 election. In his examination of election results, hate crime activity, and the history of black lynching, Dunbar places the Trump victory as the latest battle in the unending civil war of the United States. Presents and examines presidential polling data and the discernible relationship to hate crime incidence data Looks at data on victims of post-election 2016 hate incidents Identifies the patterns in and correlations between historical violence, political differences, and voting patterns Shows how demographic information regarding economics and poverty could have strongly predicted the 2016 election outcome
In Search of Equality by
Charles McClain's illuminating new study probes Chinese efforts to battle manifold discrimination?in housing, employment, and education?in nineteenth-century America. Challenging the stereotypical image of a passive, insular group, McClain reveals a politically savvy population capable of mobilizing to fight mistreatment. He draws on English- and Chinese-language documents and rarely studied sources to chronicle the ways the Chinese sought redress and change in American courts. McClain focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area, the home of almost one-fifth of the fifty thousand Chinese working in California in 1870. He cites cases in which Chinese laundrymen challenged the city of San Francisco's discriminatory building restrictions, and lawsuits brought by parents to protest the exclusion of Chinese children from public schools. While vindication in the courtroom did not always bring immediate change (Chinese schoolchildren in San Francisco continued to be segregated well into the twentieth century), the Chinese community's efforts were instrumental in establishing several legal landmarks. In their battles for justice, the Chinese community helped to clarify many judicial issues, including the parameters of the Fourteenth Amendment and the legal meanings of nondiscrimination and equality. Discussing a wide range of court cases and gleaning their larger constitutional significance, In Search of Equality brings to light an important chapter of American cultural and ethnic history. It should attract attention from American and legal historians, ethnic studies scholars, and students of California culture.
The Lost Tribe of Coney Island by
The Lost Tribe of Coney Island is an Amazon Best Book of the Month October 2014 The Lost Tribe of Coney Island is a New York Post "must read"! October 2014 Coney Island, summer 1905: a new attraction opened at Luna Park. Within weeks it would be the talk of the nation. For the first time, The Lost Tribe of Coney Island unearths the incredible true story of the Igorrotes, a group of "headhunting, dog eating" tribespeople brought to America from the Philippines by the opportunistic showman Truman K. Hunt. At Luna Park, the g-string-clad Filipinos performed native dances and rituals before a wide-eyed public in a mocked-up tribal village. Millions of Americans flocked to see the tribespeople slaughter live dogs for their daily canine feasts and to hear thrilling tales of headhunting. The Igorrotes became a national sensation--they were written up in newspaper headlines, portrayed in cartoons, and even featured in advertising jingles, all fueled by Truman's brilliant publicity stunts. By the end of the summer season, the Igorrote show had made Truman a rich man. But his genius had a dark side and soon he would be on the run across America with the tribe in tow, pursued by ex-wives, creditors, Pinkerton detectives, and the tireless agents of American justice. Award-winning journalist Claire Prentice brings this forgotten chapter in American history to life with vivid prose and rich historical detail. The book boasts a colorful cast of characters, including the mercurial Truman Hunt; his ambitious, young Filipino interpreter, Julio Balinag; Fomoaley Ponci, the tribe's loquacious, self-important leader; Luna Park impresarios Fred Thompson and Elmer "Skip" Dundy; and Frederick Barker, the government man dead set on bringing Truman to justice. At its heart, The Lost Tribe of Coney Island is a tale of what happens when two cultures collide in the pursuit of money, adventure, and the American Dream. It is a story that makes us question who is civilized and who is savage.
The Making of Asian America: A History by
The definitive history of Asian Americans by one of the nation's preeminent scholars on the subject. In the past fifty years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day. An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured "coolies" who worked alongside African slaves in the Caribbean; and Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States only to face massive racial discrimination, Asian exclusion laws, and for Japanese Americans, incarceration during World War II. Over the past fifty years, a new Asian America has emerged out of community activism and the arrival of new immigrants and refugees. No longer a "despised minority," Asian Americans are now held up as America's "model minorities" in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States. Published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the United States' Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that has remade our "nation of immigrants," this is a new and definitive history of Asian Americans. But more than that, it is a new way of understanding America itself, its complicated histories of race and immigration, and its place in the world today.
Marginal Sights: Staging the Chinese in America by
Since the beginning of the Western tradition in drama, dominant cultures have theatrically represented marginal or foreign racial groups as other - different from normal people, not completely human, uncivilized, quaint, exotic, comic. Playwrights and audiences alike have been fascinated with racial difference, and this fascination has depended upon a process of fetishization. By the time Asians appeared in the United States, the framework for their constructed Lotus Blossom and Charlie Chan stereotypes had preceded them. In Marginal Sights, James Moy dismantles these stereotypes in an unrelenting attack on Anglo American institutions of racial representation. Reading the Chinese stereotype through several media, Moy notes the consistency of Anglo America's construction of what he terms Chineseness. He rejects the dominant cultural assertion that stereotypes contain a germ of truth, arguing instead that this so-called germ of truth is itself a construction that serves the evolving social and material concerns of an often sinophobic white America. Through time the stereotypes have taken on a life of their own, and those who sought to overturn them have often failed, thus seemingly validating them. Moy, on the other hand, spotlights the constructed Orientals so brilliantly that the real Asian Americans behind them can become visible at last. Consisting of ten readings of Chineseness in America, this sophisticated text reveals the source of representational racial oppression in America. Moy examines diverse sites of representation from museum displays, cartoons, and plays to early photographs, films, circus acts, performance art, and pornography. His persuasive assault on the responsibleinstitutions is uncompromising. However, with surprising insouciance, Moy juxtaposes wit with the often grim details of America's representational legacy. While Marginal Sights focuses on Chineseness in America, Moy makes explicit its applicability to all institutionally managed representations, racial and otherwise. Anyone interested in Anglo American and Asian American studies, cultural and film studies, theatre history, communication, and psychology will need to read this book.
The New Face of Asian Pacific America by
Excerpt:
"Although Asian Pacific Americans comprised less than one percent of the total U.S. population in 1960, they increased their share to just under four percent by 2000, including hapas, those of mixed ancestry. In absolutely numbers, the Asian American population grew from just under 1 million in 1960 to 10 million in 2000 - a tenfold increase. The Census predicted that this rapid growth will continue through the next two decades, with Asian Pacific Americans projected to number about 19.6 million and comprise an estimated 6 percent of the nation’s population by 2020."
Only What We Could Carry by
In the wake of wartime panic that followed the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans residing along the West Coast of the United States were uprooted from their homes and their communities and banished to internment camps throughout the country. Through personal documents, art, and propaganda,Only What We Could Carry expresses through words, art, and haunting recollections, the fear, confusion and anger of the camp experience. The only anthology of its kind,Only What We Could Carry is an emotional and intellectual testament to the dignity, spirit and strength of the Japanese American internees.
On My Own by
"The Los Angeles riots shattered Korean immigrants'naive belief in the American dream. As many as 2,300 Korean shopkeepers lost their lifetime investments in one day. Korean immigrants had struggled for years to become economically independent through small businesses of their own. However, the riots made them realize how fragile their economic base is because their businesses are dependent on the impoverished, oppressed, and rebellious classes."
Opening the Gates to Asia by
Over the course of less than a century, the U.S. transformed from a nation that excluded Asians from immigration and citizenship to one that receives more immigrants from Asia than from anywhere else in the world. Yet questions of how that dramatic shift took place have long gone unanswered. In this first comprehensive history of Asian exclusion repeal, Jane H. Hong unearths the transpacific movement that successfully ended restrictions on Asian immigration. The mid-twentieth century repeal of Asian exclusion, Hong shows, was part of the price of America's postwar empire in Asia. The demands of U.S. empire-building during an era of decolonization created new opportunities for advocates from both the U.S. and Asia to lobby U.S. Congress for repeal. Drawing from sources in the United States, India, and the Philippines, Opening the Gates to Asia charts a movement more than twenty years in the making. Positioning repeal at the intersection of U.S. civil rights struggles and Asian decolonization, Hong raises thorny questions about the meanings of nation, independence, and citizenship on the global stage.
Personal Justice Denied by
Personal Justice Denied tells the extraordinary story of the incarceration of mainland Japanese Americans and Alaskan Aleuts during World War II. Although this wartime episode is now almost universally recognized as a catastrophe, for decades various government officials and agencies defended their actions by asserting a military necessity. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment was established by act of Congress in 1980 to investigate the detention program. Over twenty days, it held hearings in cities across the country, particularly on the West Coast, with testimony from more than 750 witnesses: evacuees, former government officials, public figures, interested citizens, and historians and other professionals. It took steps to locate and to review the records of government action and to analyze contemporary writings and personal and historical accounts. The Commission's report is a masterful summary of events surrounding the wartime relocation and detention activities, and a strong indictment of the policies that led to them. The report and its recommendations were instrumental in effecting a presidential apology and monetary restitution to surviving Japanese Americans and members of the Aleut community.
Philip Vera Cruz by
Filipino farmworkers sat down in the grape fields of Delano, California, in 1965 and began the strike that brought about a dramatic turn in the long history of farm labor struggles in California. Their efforts led to the creation of the United Farm Workers union under Cesar Chavez, with Philip Vera Cruz as its vice-president and highest-ranking Filipino officer. Philip Vera Cruz (1904?1994) embodied the experiences of the manong generation, an enormous wave of Filipino immigrants who came to the United States between 1910 and 1930. Instead of better opportunities, they found racial discrimination, deplorable living conditions, and oppressive labor practices. In his deeply reflective and thought-provoking oral memoir, Vera Cruz explores the toll these conditions took on both families and individuals. Craig Scharlin and Lilia V. Villanueva met Philip Vera Cruz in 1974 as volunteers in the construction of Agbayani Village, the United Farm Workers retirement complex in Delano, California. This oral history, first published in 1992, is the product of hundreds of hours of interviews. Elaine H. Kim teaches Asian American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context.
Prisoners Without Trial by
Part of Hill and Wang's Critical Issues Series and well established on college reading lists, PRISONERS WITHOUT TRIAL presents a concise introduction to a shameful chapter in American history: the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. With a revised final chapter and expanded recommended readings, Roger Daniels's updated edition examines a tragic event in our nation's past and thoughtfully asks if it could happen again.
Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience by
In Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience, Angelo N. Ancheta demonstrates how United States civil rights laws have been framed by a black-white model of race that typically ignores the experiences of other groups, including Asian Americans. When racial discourse is limited to antagonisms between black and white, Asian Americans often find themselves in a racial limbo, marginalized or unrecognized as full participants. Ancheta examines legal and social theories of racial discrimination, ethnic differences in the Asian American population, nativism, citizenship, language, school desegregation, and affirmative action. In the revised edition of this influential book, Ancheta also covers post-9/11 anti-Asian sentiment and racial profiling. He analyzes recent legal cases involving political empowerment, language rights, human trafficking, immigrant rights, and affirmative action in higher education-many of which move the country farther away from the ideals of racial justice. On a more positive note, he reports on the progress Asian Americans have made in the corporate sector, politics, the military, entertainment, and academia. A skillful mixture of legal theories, court cases, historical events, and personal insights, this revised edition brings fresh insights to U.S. civil rights from an Asian American perspective.
Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chinese Exclusion, and the Fictions of Citizenship by
The end of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade triggered wide-scale labor shortages across the U.S. and Caribbean. Planters looked to China as a source for labor replenishment, importing indentured laborers in what became known as "coolieism." From heated Senate floor debates to Supreme Court test cases brought by Chinese activists, public anxieties over major shifts in the U.S. industrial landscape and class relations became displaced onto the figure of the Chinese labor immigrant who struggled for inclusion at a time when black freedmen were fighting to redefine citizenship. Racial Reconstruction demonstrates that U.S. racial formations should be studied in different registers and through comparative and transpacific approaches. It draws on political cartoons, immigration case files, plantation diaries, and sensationalized invasion fiction to explore the radical reconstruction of U.S. citizenship, race and labor relations, and imperial geopolitics that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act, America's first racialized immigration ban. By charting the complex circulation of people, property, and print from the Pacific Rim to the Black Atlantic, Racial Reconstruction sheds new light on comparative racialization in America, and illuminates how slavery and Reconstruction influenced the histories of Chinese immigration to the West.
Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans by
A powerful and moving history of Asian Americans that spans centuries, from the acclaimed author of A Different Mirror. In an extraordinary blend of narrative history, personal recollection, and oral testimony, the author presents a sweeping history of Asian Americans. He writes of the Chinese who laid tracks for the transcontinental railroad, of plantation laborers in the canefields of Hawaii, of "picture brides" marrying strangers in the hope of becoming part of the American dream. He tells stories of Japanese Americans behind the barbed wire of U.S. internment camps during World War II, Hmong refugees tragically unable to adjust to Wisconsin's alien climate and culture, and Asian American students stigmatized by the stereotype of the "model minority." This is a powerful and moving work that will resonate for all Americans, who together make up a nation of immigrants from other shores.
Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War by
During World War I, Britain and France imported workers from their colonies to labor behind the front lines. The single largest group of support labor came not from imperial colonies, however, but from China. Xu Guoqi tells the remarkable story of the 140,000 Chinese men recruited for the Allied war effort. These laborers, mostly illiterate peasants from north China, came voluntarily and worked in Europe longer than any other group. Xu explores China's reasons for sending its citizens to help the British and French (and, later, the Americans), the backgrounds of the workers, their difficult transit to Europe--across the Pacific, through Canada, and over the Atlantic--and their experiences with the Allied armies. It was the first encounter with Westerners for most of these Chinese peasants, and Xu also considers the story from their perspective: how they understood this distant war, the racism and suspicion they faced, and their attempts to hold on to their culture so far from home. In recovering this fascinating lost story, Xu highlights the Chinese contribution to World War I and illuminates the essential role these unsung laborers played in modern China's search for a new national identity on the global stage.
Sundown Towns by
A history of northern racial exclusion demonstrates the pervasiveness of racism throughout the entire United States, analyzing how sundown towns in northern states participated in racially oppressive practices and victimized black citizens with frequently violent attacks well into the late twentieth century. 30,000 first printing.
Trespassers? Asian Americans and the battle for suburbia by 
Two Faces of Exclusion: the untold history of anti-Asian racism in the United States by
From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Immigration Act of 1924 to Japanese American internment during World War II, the United States has a long history of anti-Asian policies. But Lon Kurashige demonstrates that despite widespread racism, Asian exclusion was not the product of an ongoing national consensus; it was a subject of fierce debate. This book complicates the exclusion story by examining the organized and well-funded opposition to discrimination that involved some of the most powerful public figures in American politics, business, religion, and academia. In recovering this opposition, Kurashige explains the rise and fall of exclusionist policies through an unstable and protracted political rivalry that began in the 1850s with the coming of Asian immigrants, extended to the age of exclusion from the 1880s until the 1960s, and since then has shaped the memory of past discrimination. In this first book-length analysis of both sides of the debate, Kurashige argues that exclusion-era policies were more than just enactments of racism; they were also catalysts for U.S.-Asian cooperation and the basis for the twenty-first century's tightly integrated Pacific world.
We Too Sing America by
In We Too Sing America, nationally renowned activist Deepa Iyer catalogs recent racial flashpoints, from the 2012 massacre at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to the violent opposition to the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and to the Park 51 Community Center in Lower Manhattan. Iyer asks whether hate crimes should be considered domestic terrorism and explores the role of the state in perpetuating racism through detentions, national registration programs, police profiling, and constant surveillance.
Yellow by
In the tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois, Cornel West, and other public intellectuals who confronted the "color line" of the twentieth century, journalist, law professor, and activist Frank H. Wu offers a unique perspective on how changing ideas of racial identity will affect race relations in the new century.Often provocative and always thoughtful, this book addresses some of the most controversial contemporary issues: discrimination, immigration, diversity, globalization, and the mixed-race movement, introducing the example of Asian Americans to shed new light on the current debates. Combining personal anecdotes, social-science research, legal cases, history, and original journalistic reporting, Wu discusses damaging Asian American stereotypes such as "the model minority" and "the perpetual foreigner." By offering new ways of thinking about race in American society, Wu's work challenges us to make good on our great democratic experiment.
Yellow Peril! An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear by
The 'yellow peril' is one of the most long-standing and pervasive racist ideas in Western culture-indeed, this book traces its history to the Enlightenment era. Yet while Fu Manchu evokes a fading historical memory, yellow peril ideology persists, WC animating, for example, campaign commercials from the 2012 presidential election. Yellow Peril! is the first comprehensive repository of anti-Asian images and writing, pop culture artifacts and political polemic. Written by two leading scholars and replete with paintings, photographs and images drawn from dime novels, posters, comics, theatrical productions, movies, polemical and pseudo-scholarly literature, and other pop culture ephemera, this book is both a unique and fascinating archive and a modern analysis of this crucial historical formation.
Find books and articles at Skyline College Library with 
About OneSearch
America Is in the Heart by
First published in 1946, this autobiography of the well-known Filipino poet describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West. Bulosan does not spare the reader any of the horrors that accompanied the migrant's life; but his quiet, stoic voice is the most convincing witness to the terrible events he witnessed.
The Body Papers by
Winner of The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Grace Talusan's critically acclaimed memoir The Body Papers, a New York Times Editors' Choice selection, powerfully explores the fraught contours of her own life as a Filipino immigrant and survivor of cancer and childhood abuse. Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather's nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family's legal status in the country has always hung by a thread--for a time, they were "illegal." Family, she's told, must be put first. The abuse and trauma Talusan suffers as a child affects all her relationships, her mental health, and her relationship with her own body. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. And she discovers another devastating family thread: cancer. In her thirties, Talusan must decide whether to undergo preventive surgeries to remove her breasts and ovaries. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher. On a fellowship, Talusan and her husband return to the Philippines, where she revisits her family's ancestral home and tries to reclaim a lost piece of herself. Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. The generosity of spirit and literary acuity of this debut memoir are a testament to her determination and resilience. In excavating such abuse and trauma, and supplementing her story with government documents, medical records, and family photos, Talusan gives voice to unspeakable experience, and shines a light of hope into the darkness.
Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino-/American postcolonial psychology (with commentaries) = Kayumanggi balat, puti isip by
Filipino Americans have a long and rich history with and within the United States, and they are currently the second largest Asian group in the country. However, very little is known about how their historical and contemporary relationship with America may shape their psychological experiences. The most insidious psychological consequence of their historical and contemporary experiences is colonial mentality or internalized oppression. Some common manifestations of this phenomenon are described below: -Skin-whitening products are used often by Filipinos in the Philippines to make their skins lighter. Skin whitening clinics and businesses are popular in the Philippines as well. The "beautiful" people such as actors and other celebrities endorse these skin-whitening procedures. Children are told to stay away from the sun so they do not get "too dark." Many Filipinos also regard anything "imported" to be more special than anything "local" or made in the Philippines. -In the United States, many Filipino Americans make fun of "fresh-off-the-boats" (FOBs) or those who speak English with Filipino accents. Many Filipino Americans try to dilute their "Filipino-ness" by saying that they are mixed with some other races. Also, many Filipino Americans regard Filipinos in the Philippines, and pretty much everything about the Philippines, to be of "lower class" and those of the "third world." The historical and contemporary reasons for why Filipino -/ Americans display these attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors - often referred to as colonial mentality - are explored in Brown Skin, White Minds. This book is a peer-reviewed publication that integrates knowledge from multiple scholarly and scientific disciplines to identify the past and current catalysts for such self-denigrating attitudes and behaviors. It takes the reader from indigenous Tao culture, Spanish and American colonialism, colonial mentality or internalized oppression along with its implications on Kapwa, identity, and mental health, to decolonization in the clinical, community, and research settings. This book is intended for the entire community - teachers, researchers, students, and service providers interested in or who are working with Filipinos and Filipino Americans, or those who are interested in the psychological consequences of colonialism and oppression. This book may serve as a tool for remembering the past and as a tool for awakening to address the present.
The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World by
From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, "multiracial" to "mixedblood," the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery. With writing from Jamaica Kincaid on the fallacies of national myths, Yusef Komunyakaa connecting the toxic legacy of his hometown, Bogalusa, LA, to a blind faith in capitalism, and bell hooks relating the quashing of multiculturalism to the destruction of nature that is considered "unpredictable" -- amongst more than 35 other examinations of the relationship between culture and nature -- this collection points toward the trouble of ignoring our cultural heritage, but also reveals how opening our eyes and our minds might provide a more livable future.The Colors of Nature comes in four alternating-color covers: red, yellow, green, and blue.
Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans by
In this second edition of Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans, Professor EJR David writes a new FOREWORD and the author has a NEW INTRODUCTION.Coming Full Circle is about the healing of the Filipino colonized psyche through the recovery and re-imagination of Filipino identity and culture. It is about the emergence from the 'culture of silence' to critical consciousness that is able to develop new conceptualizations and frameworks about the Filipino American experience.Decolonization is a psychological process that enables the colonized to understand and overcome the depths of alienation and marginalization caused by the psychic and epistemic violence of colonization. Decolonization transforms the consciousness of the colonized through the reclamation of the Filipino cultural self and makes space for the recovery and healing of traumatic memory, and healing leading to different forms of activism. It is an open-ended process. It is a new way of seeing. As a way of healing, it is also a promise and a hope.
Delilah's Daughter by
your beauty is generational. your beauty was yours before you ever were. kd
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by
Upon its first publication, A Different Mirror was hailed by critics and academics as a dramatic retelling of America's past. Beginning with the colonisation of the New World, it recounted the history of America in the voice of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States - Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and others - groups who helped create this country's rich mosaic culture. Now, Ronald Takaki has revised his landmark work and made it even more relevant and important. Among the new additions to the book are: -The role of black soldiers in preserving the Union -The history of Chinese Americans from 1900-1941- An investigation into the hot-button issue of 'illegal' immigrants from Mexico - A look at the sudden visibility of Muslim refugees from Afghanistan.
History of the Philippines: from Indio Bravos to Filipinos by
From ancient Malay settlements to Spanish colonization, the American occupation and beyond, A History of the Philippines recasts various Philippine narratives with an eye for the layers of colonial and post-colonial history that have created this diverse and fascinating population. A History of the Philippines begins with the pre-Westernized Philippines in the 16th century and continues through the 1899 Philippine-American War, the nation's relationship with the United States' controlling presence, culminating with its independence in 1946 and two ongoing insurgencies, one Islamic and one Communist. Luis H. Francia creates an illuminating portrait that offers the reader valuable insights into the heart and soul of the modern Filipino, laying bare the multicultural, multiracial society of contemporary times.
The Human Tradition in California by
With a land mass one and half times larger than the United Kingdom, a population of more than thirty million, and an economy that would rank sixth among world nations, the history of the state of California demands a closer look. The Human Tradition in California captures the region's rich history and diversity, taking readers into the daily lives of ordinary Californians at key moments in time. These brief biographies show how individual people and communities have influenced the broad social, cultural, political and economic forces that have shaped California history from the pre-mission period through the late-twentieth century. In personalizing California's history, this engaging new book brings the Golden State to life. About the Editors Clark Davis has written extensively about California and its colorful history. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Pacific Historical Review. He is a professor of history at California State University, Fullerton. David Igler is a long-time historian of California history and culture. He has presented for the Western Historical Association, the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, and the California Studies Association. Dr. Igler is professor of history at the University of Utah.
The Land of Forgotten Girls by
In this acclaimed novel from Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly, two sisters from the Philippines, abandoned by their father and living in impoverished circumstances in Louisiana, fight to make their lives better. School Library Journal called The Land of Forgotten Girls "A charming and affecting novel about sisterhood, the magic of imagination, and perseverance." For readers of Pam Muñoz Ryan, Rita Williams-Garcia, and anyone searching for the true meaning of family. Winner of a Parents' Choice Gold Award. Soledad has always been able to escape into the stories she creates. Just like her mother always could. And Soledad has needed that escape more than ever in the five years since her mother and sister died, and her father moved Sol and her youngest sister from the Philippines to Louisiana. After her father leaves, all Sol and Ming have is their evil stepmother, Vea. Sol has protected Ming all this time, but then Ming begins to believe that Auntie Jove--their mythical, world-traveling aunt--is really going to come rescue them. Can Sol protect Ming from this impossible hope? Acclaimed and award-winning author Erin Entrada Kelly writes masterfully about the challenges of finding hope in impossible circumstances, in this novel that will appeal to fans of Cynthia Kadohata and Thanhha Lai. Booklist said, "Kelly's sophomore novel is both hopeful and heartfelt, but strong emotions are only part of the successful equation here. Told in Sol's true voice, the direct dialogue brings the diverse characters to vivid life."
Light, Bright, and Damned near White: Biracial and Triracial Culture in America by
The election of America's first biracial president brings the question dramatically to the fore. What does it mean to be biracial or tri-racial in the United States today? Anthropologist Stephanie Bird takes us into a world where people are struggling to be heard, recognized, and celebrated for the racial diversity one would think is the epitome of America's melting pot persona. But being biracial or tri-racial brings unique challenges - challenges including prejudice, racism and, from within racial groups, colorism. Yet America is now experiencing a multiracial baby boom, with at least three states logging more multiracial baby births than any other race aside from Caucasians. As the Columbia Journalism Review reported, American demographics are no longer black and white. In truth, they are a blended, difficult-to-define shade of brown. Bird shows us the history of biracial and tri-racial people in the United States, and in European families and events. She presents the personal traumas and victories of those who struggle for recognition and acceptance in light of their racial backgrounds, including celebrities such as golf expert Tiger Woods, who eventually quit trying to describe himself as Cablanasin, a mix including Asian and African American. Bird examines current events, including the National Mixed Race Student Conference, and the push to dub this Generation MIX. And she examines how American demographics, government, and society are changing overall as a result. This work includes a guide to tracing your own racial roots.
Little Manila Is in the Heart: The Making of the Filipina/o American Community in Stockton, California by
In the early twentieth century--not long after 1898, when the United States claimed the Philippines as an American colony--Filipinas/os became a vital part of the agricultural economy of California's fertile San Joaquin Delta. In downtown Stockton, they created Little Manila, a vibrant community of hotels, pool halls, dance halls, restaurants, grocery stores, churches, union halls, and barbershops. Little Manila was home to the largest community of Filipinas/os outside of the Philippines until the neighborhood was decimated by urban redevelopment in the 1960s. Narrating a history spanning much of the twentieth century, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon traces the growth of Stockton's Filipina/o American community, the birth and eventual destruction of Little Manila, and recent efforts to remember and preserve it. Mabalon draws on oral histories, newspapers, photographs, personal archives, and her own family's history in Stockton. She reveals how Filipina/o immigrants created a community and ethnic culture shaped by their identities as colonial subjects of the United States, their racialization in Stockton as brown people, and their collective experiences in the fields and in the Little Manila neighborhood. In the process, Mabalon places Filipinas/os at the center of the development of California agriculture and the urban West.
Monstress: Stories by
"The debut of an electric literary talent. Brilliantly quirky, often moving, always gorgeously told....Bravo for this fabulous American fiction!" --Chang-Rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Native Speaker "A wonderful story collection that's as wide and rich and complex as the geography it spans." -- Ben Fountain, PEN/Hemingway award-winning author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera "Tenorio is a deep and original writer, and Monstress is simply a beautiful book." --Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters A luminous collection of heartbreaking, vivid, startling, and gloriously unique stories set amongst the Filipino-American communities of California and the Philippines, Monstress heralds the arrival of a breathtaking new talent on the literary scene: Lysley Tenorio. Already the worthy recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writer's Award, and a Stegner Fellowship, Tenorio brilliantly explores the need to find connections, the melancholy of isolation, and the sometimes suffocating ties of family in tales that range from a California army base to a steamy moviehouse in Manilla, to the dangerous false glitter of Hollywood.
The Namesake by
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America.In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail -- the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase -- that opens whole worlds of emotion. The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named fora Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by whichwe slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. The New York Times has praised Lahiri as "a writer of uncommon elegance and poise." The Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity.
Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach by
Race and Racisms, A Critical Approach, Brief Edition, is a topical critical text that engages students in significant questions related to racial dynamics in the United States and around the world. Approximately thirty percent shorter than Golash-Boza's highly acclaimed comprehensive text, theBrief Edition features a streamlined narrative and is enhanced by its own unique features. It is ideal for instructors who want the flexibility to assign additional readings.Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach engages students in significant questions related to racial dynamics in the U.S. and around the world. Written in accessible, straightforward language, the book discusses and critically analyzes cutting-edge scholarship in the field. Organized into topics andconcepts rather than discrete racial groups, the text addresses:* How and when the idea of race was created and developed* How structural racism has worked historically to reproduce inequality* How we have a society rampant with racial inequality, even though most people do not consider themselves to be racist* How race, class, and gender work together to create inequality and identities* How immigration policy in the United States has been racialized* How racial justice could be imagined and realizedCentrally focused on racial dynamics, Race and Racisms, Brief Edition also incorporates an intersectional perspective, discussing the intersections of racism, patriarchy, and capitalism.
Strangers from a Different Shore by
A powerful and moving history of Asian Americans that spans centuries, from the acclaimed author of A Different Mirror. In an extraordinary blend of narrative history, personal recollection, and oral testimony, the author presents a sweeping history of Asian Americans. He writes of the Chinese who laid tracks for the transcontinental railroad, of plantation laborers in the canefields of Hawaii, of "picture brides" marrying strangers in the hope of becoming part of the American dream. He tells stories of Japanese Americans behind the barbed wire of U.S. internment camps during World War II, Hmong refugees tragically unable to adjust to Wisconsin's alien climate and culture, and Asian American students stigmatized by the stereotype of the "model minority." This is a powerful and moving work that will resonate for all Americans, who together make up a nation of immigrants from other shores.
Not sure where to start?
More resources are available from the public libraries in San Mateo County.
