Product Description
Amy Ling brings together in one comprehensive volume poets, novelists, dramatists, musicians, songwriters, composers, filmmakers, choreographers, and performance artists who span three generations and represent the broad spectrum of ethnicities that make up Asian America. They share thoughts on their work, their audiences, and their relationship to the Asian American rubric and American life and culture. They provide a rare glimpse of the inspirations and aspirations out of which their energy and ideas grow and place their work, each differently, in the complex fabric of American life. An indispensible anthology of work and an inspiring and provocative cultural record, i??Yellow Lighti?? casts a revealing glow on the contradictions, influences, imagination, and humanity expressed through the vastly varied creative projects of Americans with Asian roots. This book will engage readers interested in Asian American literature, film, and culture and students and scholars of Asian American studies, American culture, and multicultural studies. What is Asian America? a place? a race? a frame of reference? a government-imposed expedient? or a box to check on a form?It's a dream in the heart Like Bulosan's claim, a tug in the gut, a gleam of recognition: Asian ancestry American struggle. - Amy Ling. Author note: The late Amy Ling was Professor in the Department of English and the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She authored numerous books, including i??Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestryi?? and i??Chinamerican Reflectionsi??, a chapbook of poems and paintings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Good Effort But Not A Place To End

Yellow Light is an important collection of interviews with different members of the Asian Pacific artists community who are still with us today.

Covering a wide swath of disciplines and styles, and catching people at different stages of their careers, it's an enormously intriguing insight into the diverse opinions which exist within our community and how we each set our priorities.

Is it a perfect text? Perhaps not. All books will have their detractors. But for Asian American writers and artists, this is a wonderful, often candid snapshot of where we're at, but hopefully not necessarily where we're staying.

Despite the uniformity of the interview questions, which some may see as an advantage or a disadvantage to the text, in most cases, the personalities of the subjects really do come to life within their words. We should be grateful to Ms. Ling for going through so much hard work and crossing so many cultural lines to bring this picture of Asian America to the world.

Having met some of the people interviewed in the book, some of their opinions have changed or remodulated since the original interviews it seems. People would do well to remember that and try and seek out other recent interviews and works by these artists after you've read this particular text.

Should you agree with all of their opinions? Of course not. But this book lets them say their piece and take key steps to articulating a greater Asian American consciousness that most of us don't hear within the mainstream today.

Or in a nutshell: I discovered several good writers within this book, and a few of the excerpted stories continue to linger with me long after I'd placed it back on my shelf.

If you're thinking of buying it, I can think of far worse things to buy.

Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Arts
This is the kind of pseudo-pc nonsense people grasp at while trying to "publish or perish." Talking on both sides of the issue -- pay more attention to Asian artists, but don't consider us as Asian, or as agroup. Anger and ambivalence, "flavor of the month", whining thatmainstream culture is insensitive and "nude pantyhose are three shadestoo light," this book collects a hypocritical melange of opinion andpersonal experience with little redeeming value. ... Read more

Product Description
When Asian people began to immigrate to the United States in the 1800s, they met with both gratitude for providing labor, and mistrust for their unfamiliar culture. This two-volume set, written for students in grades 6-8, traces the turbulent history of Asian Americans from their first arrival to the present day. ... Read more

Product Description
One can hardly understand American history without knowing the crucial role people of Asian ancestry have played in shaping our past, politics, and culture.Exploding myths and stereotypes, with more than fifty pages of new material, this absorbing and accessible reference answers such questions as:

• Where and when did the history of Chinese America begin?
• What is Zen?
• Why do Filipinos have Spanish names?
• How did the U.S. get involved in Vietnam?
• What is the difference between Hindu and Hindi?
• And much, much more.

In a lively question-and-answer format, Everything You Need to Know About Asian-American History provides a complete understanding of the traditions and ideas that people of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, and Pacific Island descent have contributed to American life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Everything You Need to Know about Asian American History
This is indeed a valuable resourse, an education in easily assimilated format. Thanks to Ms. Novas for such a concise and wide-reaching work!

Excellent and Readable and Fun History book!
This books covers the whole range of Asian American history in a quick and fun way while being extremely well researched and deceptively scholarly. If a book can be both popular and easy read and yet a perfect academic resource, this is it. I learned more in one hour of reading it than in whole semesters in school. I strongly recommed this book as well as other fiction and non-fiction work by Himilce Novas.

Great Read! Very informative and full of fun stuff!
Wow! I love this book. The question and answer format is really user friendly. It covers all the Asian American groups and gives their history and all sorts of cultural information without feeling heavy. And yet, is IS heavy in the sense that it gave me a very good handle on the struggles and the contribution of the various Asian American groups, as well as all their celebrations, important holidays, legal landmarks, etc. I am half Japanese and it made me very proud of my mother. I am giving the book to all my relatives on my father's side. This one's a definite for any home library. They should teach it in schools. Maybe they do.It should be required reading for all non-Asians as well.

It's Not Brain Surgery, But. . .
This book is in a readable format consisting of questions that middle and senior high school students might ask about Asian Americans. For the most part, the explanations are clear and short.I do not agree with the reviewers who hated this book.The titles they recommended are scholarly works more suitable for the college level.This book is a useful introduction, not "Everthing you need to know," as the title suggests. This book has sparked interest in Asian American history and many of my middle school students have gone further to read Sucheng Chan and Ron Takaki's Asian Pacific Islander series, but I haven't had much luck using the more scholarlyAsian American histories as a starting point.

EXCELLENT HISTORY BOOK! FAST AND FUNNY AN DEEP!
this book was an unexpected bonus. not only did i totally enjoy it, it was a breeze to read cause it's in funny Q & As, and when i finished it (i read it here and there, cafeteria style), i really felt like a whole door had been opened to me about asian american history and asian american life--this is an incredible and great and excellent culture. i was also able to use this book to help me with my college history courses, and even with my asian american friends when i visited with their families. two thumbs up! ... Read more

Product Description
Largely as a result of multiracial activism, the US Census for 2000 offers people the unprecedented opportunity to officially identify themselves with more than one racial group. Among Asian-heritage people in this country and elsewhere, racial and ethnic mixing has a long but unacknowledged history. According to the last US Census, nearly one-third of all interracial marriages included an Asian-descent spouse, and intermarriage rates are accelerating. This unique collection of essays focuses on the construction of identity among people of Asian descent who claim multiple heritages. In the U.S., discussions of race generally center on matters of black and white; mixed heritage Asian Americans usually figure in conversations about race as an undifferentiated ethnic group or as exotic Eurasians. The contributors to this book disrupt the standard discussions by considering people of mixed Asian ethnicities. They also pay particular attention to non-white multiracial identities to decenter whiteness and reflect the experience of individuals or communities who are considered a minority within a minority.With an entire section devoted to the Asian diaspora, "The Sum of Our Parts" suggests that questions of multiracial and multiethnic identity are surfacing around the globe.This timely and provocative collection articulates them for social scientists and students. Teresa Williams-Leon is an Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at California State University, Northridge. Cynthia L. Nakashima is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Ethnic Studies at University of California, Berkeley. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Great value!
Buying text books for college can be expensive! I bought most of my books (used) through Amazon and it was a great value. All of the books were in exatly the condition described, so I will have no problem re-selling them after the school year is over.

imperfect in trying to fill in the gaps
I commend this book for a lot of reasons.First, there are already enough anthologies of personal essays from mixed people.This anthology both shows and proves that mixed people can be subject to rigorous academic study.Second, most books on mixed people, focus on black-white.This book focuses on part-Asian, and not just Asian-white and not just biracial in the USA.Still, I have to agree with other reviewers that this book is a little dry.So many of the articles are just academics commenting on OTHER people's studies.The chapters read quickly, but while some are rich, others have little to say.For instance, the chapter comparing white-Asians to black-Asians said less about black-Asians than many of the other articles in the book.Further, this book is broken into four sections and the best section is the one where people speak more personally and avoid sociological studies.The best essay is about lesbigay mixed Asians.I applaud the editor for her piece.I'm glad this book was made, but lots of it left me unimpressed.As a whole, this was decent enough, just some things were problematic.

A Lot of Great Stuff
This book isn't for the simple minded or someone who just wants an easy answer -- skip this one and read People or something.But if you're really interested in hapa issues (and I'm hapa so yes) it's a great, articulate, intelligent group of essays covering many different aspeacts of hapahood.Some of the writing takes some mental acuity to comprehend but I found it really worth the effort.

Disappointed, too academic
Academics are presumptuous. This is not for the everyday reader.Too bad.The topic is interesting (being mixed heritage Asian Americans).The book is boring --too academic.This is not for the average reader who wants to read something for fun. I would prefer What Are You? by Pearl Gaskins and the book, Half and Half (by biracial and bicultural writers) before I'd recommend this academic mumbo-jumbo. The book's title is misleading.It should be titled, "Academics Gotta Make a Project Out of Everyting, including hapas"The writings are presumptuous.

A Great Contribution
I've been searching for a book like this. I bought some other personal testimonials, but this one combines personal stories and accounts and interviews with deeper analysis.I myself am mixed Asian-Spanish-Portugues-African born in Brazil, moved to Mexico at a young age and then, my family immigrated to the U.S. fiften yeers ago so this topic is close to my heart.I especially liked how the book deals with class issues, gender issues, and other issues that a lot of mixed-race and biracial research doesn't deal with.Especially worthy of mentioning is breaking the perspective that mixed-race issues and race matters in general are about black versus white conflicts. The last section of the book looks at mixed Asian communities in other parts of the world not just the Amerasians in the Philippines or Korea or Japan,but in SOuth America (Suriname), Europe (England), etc.Mr. Omi's Foreward adds a special sociological and cultural studies touch to the work.For these reasons, I think this book will be regarded as an important contribution. ... Read more

Product Description
"National Geographic" magazine is an American popular culture icon that, since its founding in 1888, has been on a nonstop tour classifying and cataloguing the peoples of the world. With more than ten million subscribers, "National Geographic" is the third largest magazine in America, following only "TV Guide" and "Reader's Digest". "National Geographic" has long been a staple of school and public libraries across the country.In "Veils and Daggers", Linda Steet provides a critically insightful and alternative interpretation of "National Geographic". Through an analysis of the journal's discourses in Orientalism, patriarchy, and primitivism in the Arab world as well as textual and visual constructions of Arab men and women, Islam, and Arab culture, "Veils and Daggers" unpacks the ideological perspectives that have guided "National Geographic" throughout its history. Drawing on cultural, feminist, and postcolonial criticism, Steet generates alternative readings that challenge the magazine's claims to objectivity.In this fascinating journey, it becomes clear that neither text nor image in the magazine can be regarded as natural or self-evident and she artfully demonstrates that the act of representing others 'inevitably involves some degree of violence, decontextualization, miniaturization, etc.' The subject area known as Orientalism, she shows, is a man-made concept that as such must be studied as an integral component of the social, rather than the natural or divine world."Veils and Daggers" repositions and redefines "National Geographic" as an educational journal. Steet's work is an important and groundbreaking contribution in the area of social construction of knowledge, social foundations of education, educational media, and social studies as well as racial identity, ethnicity, and gender. Once encountered, readers of "National Geographic" will never regard it in the same manner again. Linda Steet is Assistant Professor of Social Foundation of Education and Co-Coordinator of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the University of Michigan, Flint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

It's about time
It's about time someone took National Geographic to task for their ethnocentric coverage of the world. Steet does this with a sophisticated, yet accessible (and sometimes humorous) understanding and use of theory. Her analysis and discussion of one hundred years of photographs published by NG is provocative and educational. This book is great for curriculum classes, journalism classes, photography classes, cultural studies, women studies, and many others I am sure. ... Read more

Product Description
Asian immigrants to America and their descendants have confronted numerous negative forces -fear, arrogance, prejudice, and chauvinism -and contributed many more positive elements -courage, pride, tolerance, determination -throughout their history in this country. This collection of key documents presents the rich Asian American heritage through primary sources -speeches, diary entries, editorials, advertisements, court opinions, legislation, songs, and poems -along with expert, concise editorial commentary. It testifies not only to the rapid expansion of the field of Asian American studies in the last decade but also to the innovations in scholarship on Asian Americans in many fields, including western history, feminist studies, political science, anthropology, and military history.
Selections from the early twentieth century and before treat mostly Chinese and Japanese experience. For the period after 1965, when patterns of Asian immigration to American changed dramatically in the wake of the 1965 immigration act, a variety of documents tell the story of South and Southeast Asians´ transplantation to a new culture, enabling readers to grapple with such issues as gender relations and sexuality, racial profiling and stereotyping, and diasporic connections to homeland cultures. Here are excerpts from the 1898 Supreme Court decision United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which guaranteed citizenship to all individuals born in the United States; accounts of the 1970 International Hotel struggle in San Francisco´s Manilatown, when socially conscious academics united with community activists to preserve vital social services for San Francisco´s Filipino population; and the 2000 Hmong Veterans Naturalization Act, which provided a temporary window for Laotian immigrants to enter the United States, part of the long legacy of America´s war in Southeast Asia.
Broad in scope and vividly multivocal, The Columbia Documentary History of the Asian American Experience presents the fullest picture to date of the historical fortunes and lasting influences of Asian peoples in America. ... Read more

Product Description
Filipino Americans are now the second largest group of Asian Americans as well as the second largest immigrant group in the United States. As reflected in this collection, their lives represent the diversity of the immigrant experience and their narratives are a way to understand ethnic identity and Filipino American history. Men and women, old and young, middle and working class, first and second generation, all openly discuss their changing sense of identity, the effects of generational and cultural differences on their families, and the role of community involvement in their lives. Pre- and post-1965 immigrants share their experiences, from the working students who came before WWII, to the manongs in the field, to the stewards and officers in the U.S. Navy, to the 'brain drain' professionals, to the Filipinos born and raised in the United States. As Yen Le Espiritu writes in the Introduction, 'each of the narratives reveals ways in which Filipino American identity has been and continues to be shaped by a colonial history and a white-dominated culture.It is through recognizing how profoundly race has affected their lives that Filipino Americans forge their ethnic identities identities that challenge stereotypes and undermine practices of cultural domination.' Author note: Yen Le Espiritu is Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of "Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities" (Temple). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Experiences of being uprooted
Tells the story, of families being uprooted from the Philippines to a new life in the USA. This wasn't always of their choosing or likes.The book is enjoyable to read and is especially recommended to those who have went through this process.

The truth about Filipino Americas
Filipino Americans have often fought to have their stories heard. The histories of their ancestors have been written from the perspectives of everyone but actual Filipino Americans. The book Filipino American Lives, by Yen Le Espiritu is just a stepping-stone toward developing the true history of Filipino Americans. The book tries to give an overview of Filipino American life, as the title reveals. The introduction is a brief outline of the main events that occurred throughout Filipino American history. Yen Le Espiritu is a well renowned author and professor. She teaches at the University of California, San Diego in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Her encounters with Filipino Americans and their hunger for information about their identities prompted her to begin a study on Filipino Americans. Espiritu's first intention was to understand the multiple facets of Filipino American identities, paying particular attention to regional, generational, gender, and class differences. She planned to use the life-history method as the main tool of research, tracing the connections between the life experiences of Filipino Americans and their changing sense of identities. It was during her interviews when she took a different approach toward writing this book. Espiritu realized the importance of presenting some of these accounts in full- not only because they are rich and compelling, but also because the narrators desire to see their life stories in print. And that is what this book as developed into. It is a book that brings to life the stories of many Filipino Americans from a span of three generations. Topics include family and immigration history, ethnic identity and practice, and community development among San Diego's Filipinos. These are the stories of those interviews. This is the history that is yet to be exposed to all of America. After reading some of the few books about Filipino Americans, I believe this book is a great book to have as a class textbook, as a leisure reading book, or even as a bedtime story to read to the children; our future Filipinos of America. It is very accurate, as accurate as first hand stories go. You cannot get any more accurate then this book shows. The best way to present, teach a history subject is by showing the first hand stories. These stories are what make history books into books of facts. What history books need to model is Espiritu's book because this book gives details that no one else could give unless they were right there at the same event at the same time. I feel this book could catch anyone's attention. It is the stories of these Filipino Americans that will stick in my mind. How can someone learn history and remember history by just reading the facts? Filipino American Lives gives narrative after narrative of different stories, similar stories. And these are the stories that will help me to remember what happened during the days of racism and anti-miscegenation laws, of Navy years and 2nd generation history. I recommend this book, and I hope that many people in the future pick up this book to read even if it is not for a class. These are one of the only Filipino American books that have been co-written by actual Filipino Americans. This is what history is all about, finding out the facts from the actual people who experience it. By reading this book, we are fighting the long battle that many Filipino Americans have. For once, our stories will be told and written. For once, the writer will not be a person with any relation to this ethnic group. The battle is not over yet, but Filipino American Lives is a great stepping-stone toward our goals for us and for our future generations.

Why aren't Filipinos politically powerful in the US?
Several streams of thought are reflected within the oral histories compiled by Espiritu. None is more apparent than the lack of Filipino voices within the political establishment.

If you have ever wondered why the Filipino community is, paradoxically, a putatively cohesive ethnicgroup (with shared pasts and struggles in America) yet divided (alongclass/profession lines or along regional/province rifts), then this book isfor you. The variety of stories presented- ranging from those who livedduring the Spanish and American colonial periods to the American-born-present an overall picture of why Filipinos today are not politicallypowerful. The megalomania of community leaders, as expressed by some of theinterviewees, who seek to further their personal interest rather than ofthe community as a whole speak much for the impotence of the Filipino voicein the realm of policy. Is it no wonder, then, that our grandfathers arestill fighting for the rights due them for their World War II service? Isit not surprising that the younger generations are encouraged to adoptassmiliationist attitudes in this country? In essence, the youngerFilipinos are taught not to appreciate their own heritage (this is apparentin the demeanor of at least two interviewees).

This book really does makeyou think. Whether you see the histories as representing what I feel oughtto be addressed or whether you see them as an affirmation of shared pasts,Espiritu chose her subjects well. They were open and didn't leave much tochance with their responses.

Excellent Book on Individual Experiences and Group Identity
This book is a compilation of interviews with 13 Filipino Americans, and it is a perfect example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.The individuals interviewed have a very wide diversity in age,education, economic status, and experience, and their individual storiesare each very interesting in their own right.As you get further alonginto the book, however, you are struck by how similar many of theirpersonal thoughts and experiences are despite their diverse backgrounds. The most interesting similarity is the experience of all of them instruggling to define their own identity:"Am I Filipino? American?Filipino/American?What do those terms mean? How do I fit in?"Amongthe younger interviewees this takes on the added dimension of"FOB" (Fresh Off the Boat) vs. "AB" (American-Born)Filipino Americans. There are also similarities in the thoughts of many ofthe interviewees on what they want and expect for their children in termsof Filipino and American values, traditions, and identity.

The author (aProfessor of Asian-American Studies at UCSD) is, in my estimation, a veryadept interviewer as he is able to spur very thoughtful, introspectivecommentaries from the interviewees.This book does not make anygeneralizations or force any conclusions about the Filipino Americanexperience on you.Instead, it lets these interviews stand on their ownand compels you to draw you own insights.

I highly recommend this bookfor anyone interested in thought-provoking material on Filipino-Americanexperiences and identity. ... Read more

Product Description
She sports a nose-ring and duppata (a scarf worn by South Asian women) along with the latest fashion in slinky club wear; he's decked out in Tommy gear. Their moves on the crowded dance floor, blending Indian film dance with break-dancing, attract no particular attention. They are just two of the hundreds of hip young people who flock to the desi (i.e., South Asian) party scene that flourishes in the Big Apple.New York City, long the destination for immigrants and migrants, today is home to the largest Indian American population in the United States. Coming of age in a city remarkable for its diversity and cultural innovation, Indian American and other South Asian youth draw on their ethnic traditions and the city's resources to create a vibrant subculture. Some of the city's hottest clubs host regular bhangra parties, weekly events where young South Asians congregate to dance to music that mixes rap beats with Hindi film music, bhangra (North Indian and Pakistani in origin), reggae, techno, and other popular styles.Many of these young people also are active in community and campus organizations that stage performances of "ethnic cultures."In this book Sunaina Maira explores the world of second-generation Indian American youth to learn how they manage the contradictions of gender roles and sexuality, how they handle their "model minority" status and expectations for class mobility in a society that still racializes everyone in terms of black or white. Maira's deft analysis illuminates the ways in which these young people bridge ethnic authenticity and American "cool." Author note: Sunaina Marr Maira is Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies in the English and Anthropology Departments at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; she is the co-editor of "Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America", recipient of the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award in 1997. Her short fiction has appeared in literary journals and anthologies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not an entertaining or accurate account
This book might suffice as a light college reading assignment (as there is not much in publication that deals with this subject matter), but if you are not forced to read it, stay away.Full of inaccurate accounts and plain falsisms, this book nowhere near respects it's subject matter, and gives an overly pedantic and bland report of Indian American Youth Culture in NYC.It is clearly the work of an individual on the outside, looking in.

good account
Maira does a pretty good account of look at the South Asian sub-culture of the northeast around new york and new jersey. This part of the country has long experienced different waves of immigration. South Asians are a new group to the area mainly starting in the late 1960s and is continuing today. Maira looks at how second generation south asian americans or 'desis' cope with identities as being in between black and white and dealing with stereotypes of the asian intellectual and asian store owner. Maira also focuses on obstacles they overcome while growing up such as racism (dotbusters in New Jersey, racial insults...) and with cultural differences with parents (especially for females). In addition, there is also a focus on the different ethnic/relgious differences that exist within the South Asian community that come into play. Of course with other immigrant groups, there is a a strong desire for the second and third generation to 'reconnect' with their heritages which is an important part of the book. She deals with how in the interviews desis have a desire to go to South Asia to discover their heritiage. One issue she deals with is south asian immigration patterns to the U.S. Often we think of South Asians as coming directly from the subcontinent to the U.S. directly after the immigration act of 1965. However, it's deeper then that. The first South Asians migrating started in the late 1800s and early 1900s. South Asian also come fromo other part of the South Asian Diasporia such as east Africa, United Kingdom and the West Indies. These South Asians add to the complexity of studying the group.

Overall, an easy to read book about 'desis' in the northeast. ... Read more

Product Description
Challenging the dominant view of Hawai'i as a "melting pot paradise" - a place of ethnic tolerance and equality - Jonathan Okamura examines how ethnic inequality is structured and maintained in island society. He finds that ethnicity, not race or class, signifies difference for Hawai'i's people and therefore structures their social relations. In Hawai'i, residents attribute greater social significance to the presumed cultural differences between ethnicities than to more obvious physical differences, such as skin colour.According to Okamura, ethnicity regulates disparities in access to resources, rewards, and privileges among ethnic groups, as he demonstrates in his analysis of socioeconomic and educational inequalities in the state. He shows that socially and economically dominant ethnic groups - Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and whites - have stigmatized and subjugated the islands' other ethnic groups - especially Native Hawaiians, Filipino Americans, and Samoans.He demonstrates how ethnic stereotypes have been deployed against ethnic minorities and how these groups have contested their subordinate political and economic status by articulating new identities for themselves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Diversity Is Still A Four Letter Word
For so many years inequality has been on going - we like to think we're not like those who have been perpetuating these injustices but if we allow them to continue we are just as guilty.We are all God's children and I know He doesn't show favoritism!Mahalo - Dahmia ... Read more

Product Description
Introducing this collection of personal narratives, renowned author Sucheng Chan presents a history of Vietnam that enables readers to understand the larger historical, social, and political contexts within which the refugee exodus occurred between 1975 and 1997. The heart of the book consists of vivid personal testimonies written by members of the 1.5 generation of Vietnamese Americans when they were students at various campuses of the University of California. Six of the stories recall the April 1975 evacuation on U.S. military aircraft and naval vessels; nine tell tragic but ultimately triumphant tales of the "boat people" who fled by sea and were confined in refugee camps in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Hong Kong while awaiting resettlement abroad. As testaments to the strength of human beings who persevere against severe odds in horrifying circumstances, the stories are gripping and inspiring. The book's bibliography and videography serve as guides to students, teachers, and other readers who may be interested in more in-depth knowledge about particular topics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Informative and succint
Since the history of Vietnam (prior to the Vietnam War) is often difficult to find, this book gives a brief and objective (if there is such a thing) history of Vietnam.I found it very helpful as an introduction to my understanding of Vietnamese history as a PhD student working on Vietnamese American literature.

The Power of Narratives!
Chan's The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation is a collection of personal narratives. Edited by Chan -- wrote arguably the best history of Vietnam -- situates the Vietnam story within its historical context. This historical introduction allows the reader to appreciate the broad historical, social, and political context. By sharing this extensive history, readers get a better sense of the context within which the refugee mass departure took place. According to Chan there were to waves one in 1975 and one in 1997. The core of the collection consists of oral histories of Chan's students at the University of California - mostly members of the controversial designation "1.5 generation" of Vietnamese Americans. The oral histories disclose several core issues vis-à-vis the Vietnamese American experience. The critical intervention of this book, aside from the historical component of the early chapters is that the book contributes to preservation of refugee history. Similar in style and function to Elaine H. Kim and Eui-Young Yu's East to America: Korean American Life Stories and Gary Okihiro's Storied Lives, this book also stands as an important work of the understudied aspect of the immigrant experience. Although this book is about the Vietnamese Americans, it contributed to Asian American Studies as a field of study. First, Chan examines the fissure between the two driving ideologies: Capitalism and Communism. Second, she looks at the contrapuntal dynamics between pedagogy and politics. By examining these two tensions, she allows us to experience the complexity of being Vietnamese American.

The student-written oral histories, as a change of method, are both refreshing and unique. This approach is a major contribution to both Vietnamese American Studies and Asian American Studies. Six of the oral histories bring to presence the April 1975 flight on U.S. military aircraft and naval vessels. Nine tell heartrending but ultimately victorious stories of the "boat people" who were incarcerated in refugee camps through out Southeast Asia. This work stands as a testimony to the power of the human spirit who despite the odds survive to inspire. Note: One of the more compelling of the oral histories was Chapter 20: The Never-Ending Struggle (Chan, The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation 190-197). The author's ethnic Chinese family lived comfortably in Saigon prior to the fall. In this narrative, the author deals with both her Vietnamese and Chinese heritage as she is finally settled in Oakland, California. Bounced around from island to island she finally settles down to explore and find her "Chineseness" in her Chinese-language school experience. One of the more compelling issues, I think, that surrounds Asian's in the diaspora is the tension between maintaining their "ness" while navigating and negotiating their way around the mainstream white challenge. The tensions are real, as expressed in this narrative, but it also points to the socially constructed and psychologically motivated qualities about both identity and culture. Nonetheless, the struggles - and the results that can go either way - are real and exist in material reality. The challenge now is for us to understand that dynamic and allow for personal growth and fulfillment.

Excellent book, especially for other 1.5 generation Asian Americans
Someone who is "1.5 Generation" is someone who immigrated to America at a very young age, not quite 1st generation and not quite 2nd generation. This book is excellent for those like me, who are of this generation.

I completely agree with Smallchief's review. Half of the book is a quick history of the American involvement in Vietnam and the refugee process that followed that period.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a 1.5 generation immigrant from Vietnam or who has any close friends or family from this group.

Refugee Lives
The sub-title of this book is "Stories of War, Revolution, Flight, and New Beginnings."That about sums it up.Sucheng Chan, a well-known Southeast Asian scholar, edited the book which consists mostly of contributions by her Vietnamese students at the University of California in Santa Barbara. The book begins with 100 pages covering briefly the history of Vietnam, the Vietnam War, and the refugee crisis in its aftermath. We then have 150 pages of personal accounts by 15 Vietnamese American students of their escapes from Vietnam and and lives in America.

The book is hardly unique as rooms could be filled with books about the Vietnam War and about Vietnamese living in the U.S., and quite a few of them have delved more deeply than this one.The virtues of "The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation" are a good introduction, well written background chapters, an epilog by the editor --a former refugee -- good notes and a good bibliography.The concept of a collaboration between students and teacher is also interesting and is fully explained in the introduction.

Smallchief ... Read more

Product Description
This anthology of work by three Asian American women playwrights—Wakako Yamauchi, Genny Lim, and Velina Hasu Houston—features pioneering contemporary writers who have made their mark in regional and ethnic theatres throughout the United States. In her introduction, Houston observes that the Asian American woman playwright is compelled "to mine her soul" and express the angst, fear, and rage that oppression has wrought while maintaining her relationship with America as a good citizen.

The plays are rich with cultural and political substance and have a feminist concern about women's spirit, intellect, and lives. They portray Asian and Asian American women who challenge the cultural and sexual stereotypes of the Asian female. Yamauchi's two plays deal with how easily a country can dishonor its citizens. In "12-1-A," a Japanese American family is incarcerated during World War II in an Arizona camp where Yamauchi herself was interned. "The Chairman's Wife" dramatizes the life of Madame Mao Tse Tung through the lens of events at Tien An Men Square in 1989. Lim's "Bitter Cane" is about the exploitation of Chinese laborers who were recruited to work the Hawaiian sugar cane plantations. In "Asa Ga Kimashita" ("Morning Has Broken"), Houston explores a Japanese woman's interracial romance in postwar Japan and the influence of traditional patriarchy on the lives of Japanese women.

These plays will entertain and enlighten, enrage and profoundly move audiences. With honesty, imagination and courage, each grapples with the politics of life. ... Read more

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Monterey Park, California, only eight miles east of downtown Los Angeles, was dubbed by the media as the "First Suburban Chinatown." The city was a predominantly white middle-class bedroom community in the 1970s when large numbers of Chinese immigrants transformed it into a bustling international boomtown. It is now the only city in the United States with a majority Asian American population. Timothy P. Fong examines the demographic, economic, social, and cultural changes taking place there, and the political reactions to the change.

Fong, a former journalist, reports on how pervasive anti-Asian sentiment fueled a series of initiatives intended to strengthen "community control," including a movement to make English the official language. Recounting the internal strife and the beginnings of recovery, Fong explores how race and ethnicity issues are used as political organizing tools and weapons. ... Read more

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When bombs rained down on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese American college students were among the many young men enrolled in ROTC and immediately called upon to defend the Hawaiian islands against invasion. In a few weeks, however, the military government questioned their loyalty and disarmed them.

In No Sword to Bury, Franklin Odo places the largely untold story of the wartime experience of these young men in the context of the community created by their immigrant families and its relationship to the larger, white-dominated society. At the heart of the book are vivid oral histories that recall their service on the home front in the Varsity Victory Volunteers, a non-military group dedicated to public works, as well as in the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Illuminating a critical moment in ethnic identity formation among this first generation of Americans of Japanese descent (the nisei), Odo shows how the war-time service and the post-war success of these men contributed to the simplistic view of Japanese Americans as a model minority in Hawai`i. ... Read more

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This is a collection of the last essays by Yuji Ichioka, the foremost authority on Japanese-American history, who passed away two years ago.The essays focus on Japanese Americans during the interwar years and explore issues such as the nisei (American-born generation) relationship toward Japan, Japanese-American attitudes toward Japan's prewar expansionism in Asia, and the meaning of "loyalty" in a racist society—all controversial but central issues in Japanese-American history.

Ichioka draws from original sources in Japanese and English to offer an unrivaled picture of Japanese Americans in these years.Also included in this volume are an introductory essay by editor Eiichiro Azuma that places Ichioka's work in Japanese-American historiography, and a postscript by editor Chang reflecting on Ichioka’s life-work. ... Read more

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Nation, Race & History in Asian American Literature discusses the ideological processes at work in nationalism, both in its assertion that the nation is natural and self-evident, and in the way it seeks to suppress the irrational and contingent. The book examines the symbolic processes through which the United States constitutes its subjects as citizens, connecting such processes to the global dynamics of empire building and a suppressed history of American imperialism. ... Read more

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This collection offers multifaceted explorations of how Chinese Americans have shaped their ethnic culture and identities to claim recognition and acceptance as participants in America's multiracial, multicultural democratic state. In a field that has recently demonstrated its centrality to American processes of racialized nation-state and ideological formations, these articles represent a cutting edge in American, immigration, and ethnic studies.Sucheng Chan introduces this valuable new anthology with a commanding discussion of the field of Chinese American studies, in which she examines its history and points the way ahead. Here, she and Madeline Y. Hsu have brought together leading-edge scholarship from a new generation of thinkers, as useful for scholars as it is for undergraduate readers. The contributors address a broad range of issues, from the activism of left-wing and Communist Chinese immigrants to the U.S. in the 1920s and early 1930s and humanitarian relief during the Sino-Japanese War to the construction of new Chinese regional identities in New York. ... Read more

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Between 1870 and 1942, successive generations of Asians and Asian Americans—predominantly Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino—formed the predominant body of workers in the Pacific Coast canned-salmon industry.

This study traces the shifts in the ethnic and gender composition of the cannery labor market from its origins through it decline and examines the workers' creation of work cultures and social communities. Resisting the label of cheap laborer, these Asian American workers established formal and informal codes of workplace behavior, negotiated with contractors and recruiters, and formed alliances to organize the workforce.

Whether he is discussing Japanese women workers' sharing of child-care responsibilities or the role of Filipino workers in establishing the Cannery and Field Workers Union, Chris Friday portrays Asian and Asian American workers as people who, while enduring oppressive restrictions, continually attempted to shape their own lives. ... Read more

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Spotlighting Asian Americans on both sides of the motion picture camera, "Countervisions" examines the aesthetics, material circumstances, and politics of a broad spectrum of films released in the last thirty years. This anthology focuses in particular on the growing presence of Asian Americans as makers of independent films and cross-over successes. Essays of film criticism and interviews with film makers emphasize matters of cultural agency that is, the practices through which Asian American actors, directors, and audience members have shaped their own cinematic images. One of the anthology's key contributions is to trace the evolution of Asian American independent film practice over thirty years.Essays on the Japanese American internment and historical memory, essays on films by women and queer artists, and the reflections of individual film makers discuss independent productions as subverting or opposing the conventions of commercial cinema. But "Countervisions" also resists simplistic readings of 'mainstream' film representations of Asian Americans and enumerations of negative images.Writing about Hollywood stars Anna May Wong and Nancy Kwan, director Wayne Wang, and erotic films, several contributors probe into the complex and ambivalent responses of Asian American audiences to stereotypical roles and commerical success. Taken together, the spirited, illuminating essays in this collection offer an unprecedented examination of a flourishing cultural production.Darrell Y. Hamamoto is Associate Professor in the Asian American Studies Program at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of "Nervous Laughter: Television Situation Comedy and Liberal Democratic Ideology", "Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Poltics of Television Representation", and "New American Destinies: a Reader in Contemporary Asian and Latino Immigration". Sandra Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ... Read more

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This is a study of the flexibility of ethnic identity. In the early twentieth century, men from India's Punjab province came to California to work on the land. The new immigrants had few chances to marry. There were very few marriageable Indian women, and miscegenation laws and racial prejudice limited their ability to find white Americans. Discovering an unexpected compatibility, Punjabis married women of Mexican descent and these alliances inspired others as the men introduced their bachelor friends to the sisters and friends of their wives. These biethnic families developed an identity as "Hindus" but also as Americans. Karen Leonard has related theories linking state policies and ethnicity to those applied at the level of marriage and family life. Using written sources and numerous interviews, she invokes gender, generation, class, religion, language, and the dramatic political changes of the 1940s in South Asia and the United States to show how individual and group perceptions of ethnic identity have changed among Punjabi Mexican Americans in rural California. Karen Isaksen Leonard is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A scholarly book with a powerful story
Professor Karen Leonard's study of one of California's more interesting multi-ethnic communities, founded at the turn of the 20th century by Hindu, Moslem and Sikh men from India's Punjab region and their Mexican-American wives, is a well-researched look into how different immigrant cultures meld to become American, while retaining some ethnic traditions.Leonard also examines the effects of discriminatory U.S. and California laws on the community.As it happens, anti-miscegenation laws were influential in forming many of the original marriages, as those with like racial classifications married like.

An earlier reviewer of Leonard's book claims that the author was unaware of the difference between Hindus, Moslems, and Sikhs--and this reviewer thereby questions her scholarship.The claim is simply not true.Leonard makes clear that the lumping of all three Indian groups under the category "Hindu" was accomplished by the prevailing "Anglo" community in California.The term became so widely used that the Indian men finally acquiesed and referred to themselves in that way, whatever their religion.But they were not confused, and neither is Dr. Leonard.All this is explained clearly in her study.

For a unique and eye-opening view of Americanization under the most trying of circumstances, buy and read this book.

Both Insightful and Irritating
Karen Leonard had done research on Hindus in Hyderabad during the 1970s (see her "Social History of an Indian Caste: the Kayasths of Hyderabad, 1978).It is important to know a little about the Kayasth caste of Hindus because Leonard's impression of them most certainly affected her ability to do research later on Punjabi Sikhs and Muslims in California.The Kayasths were devoted to the acquistion of knowledge rather than practicing the Hindu religion. They transformed themselves under Mughal rule in India and later transformed themselves again after the British took over. Kayasths switched allegiance faster than any invader could expect. Their neutrality made them into Indian chameleons, which allowed them to not only survive but prosper. Under British rule in India, they rose to the highest positions accessible to Indians. They dressed and talkedBritish and were the first Indians to drop their cultural identities.

After she presented a talk on "Women in Indian Culture" at Yuba Community College in 1979, she discovered that Punjabi males of the Sikh religion and a small number of Punjabi Muslims had immigrated to California (many via Canada) before the British partitioned Punjab into the Pakistani West and the Indian East, and that most of the Sikhs and Muslims in California had married Mexican-American Catholic or Mexican Catholic wives. Further their half-caste American-born offspring were marrying Sikhs and Muslims back home from India through arranged marriages rather than mixing with the opposite sex in California and stumbling into lust relationships.Leonard said in her preface that she "had been totally unaware of the recent large Punjabi immigration to rural northern California and of the operation of this marriage network linking Marysville and Yuba City with peasant villages back in Punjab" (p ix). Without any previous knowledge of Sikhism or Islaam, Leonard "decided to trace the handful of Mexican-Hindu [sic] families to see how these pioneer Punjabi men had transmitted Indian beliefs and behaviors to their descendants. That was my initial, simple preconception of the research project" (p x).

Leonard's methodology was historical social science rather than ethnography and participant observation.Not knowing the difference between a Sikh and a Hindu, or a Muslim and a Hindu, Leonard unknowingly charted an oral history course for herself involving a steep learning curve that she had difficulty ascending. By lumping Sikhs and Muslims together under the misnomer of "Hindu", she displays ignorance of the cultural and even linguistic differences between the three groups. Her background was equally ignorant of Mejicana Catholic culture. In addition, Leonard'sr unfamiliarity with Sikh and Muslim cultures and her inability to distinguish Sikhs and Muslims from Hindus raises questions about her previous study on Hindus in Hyderabad, India and the extent to which she truly understood Hindu culture.

The result, alternatingly insightful and irritatingly wrong to the initiated reader is this book - "Making Ethnic Choices", which contains 13 chapters grouped into three parts.The three parts are 1. Introduction,2. The World of the Pioneers, and 3. The Construction of Ethnic Identity.The 13 chapters are 1. Exploring Ethnicity, 2. Contexts: California and Punjab, 3. Early Days in the Imperial Valley, 4. Marriages and Children, 5. Male and Female networks, 6. Conflict and Love in the Marriages, 7. Childhood in Rural California, 8. The Second Generation Comes of Age, 9. Political Change and Ethnic Identity, 10. Encounters with the Other, and 11. Contending Voices.These interesting and pleasantly readable chapters are followed by appendixes, over 60 pages of notes, a bibliography, and an index.

Chapter 7 -11 under Section Three examines the English-speaking American-born offspring of the Sikh and Muslim Punjabis with their Mejicana wives (or "Hispanic" wives according to Leonard) and is where the author's understanding of cultural theory begins to show.She shows how the second generation of Punjabis saw themselves as Indian rather than Mexican, yet often went on to marry Mejicana spouses that shared ethnicity with their mothers.Most of the second generation was assimilated after that and the third generation was not to be.

Leonard's empathy and ability to interpret and analyze the data from her research clearly lies with the second generation who most resembled Leonard.When Leonard otherized the Indian-born Sikhs and Muslims, worse - when she lumped them under the misnomer of "Hindu", she displayed her difficulty in remaining objective. Leonard's attempts at interviews and interpretation were related to sociological issues of "self and other".Her research was biased in seeing cultural differences from the standpoint of her own here and now and judging those differences according to the degree they deviated as cultural backwardness.Worse, Leonard may not even be aware of her bias. Aristotle said it succinctly - "we like those who resemble ourselves".If Leonard could live and teach in Jullinder or Lahore long enough to speak and understand Punjabi, then live in Mexicali or Hermosillo long enough to speak and understand Spanish, then rewrite this book under her newly acquired culturally-informed awareness, the result would probably bring more validity by relating to all participants rather than those who most resemble Leonard.
... Read more

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In this pathbreaking volume, Velina Hasu Houston gathers together eleven plays that speak in the "hybridized, unique American voices of Asian descent—and often dissent." These writers resist the bigotry that attempts to target them solely as people of color as well as the homogenizing tendencies of a multiculturalism that fails to recognize the varied make-up of Asian-America. Anthologized for the first time, these plays testify to the rich complexity of Asian-American experience while they also demonstrate the different styles and thematic concerns of the individual playwrights.

What are Asian-American plays about? Family conflicts, sexuality, social upheaval, betrayal . . . the stuff of all drama. Whether the characters are a middle-aged Taiwanese woman who is married to an Irish American and who dreams of opening a Chinese restaurant, a Chinese-American female bond trader trying to survive a corporate takeover, or an ABC (American Born Chinese) gay man whose lover has AIDS, their Asian-ness is only a part of their story.

As a playwright, Houston is keenly aware of the rigid formulas that often exclude writers of color and women writers from mainstream theater. But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise brings forth vibrant new work that challenges producers and audiences to broaden their expectations, to attend to the unfamiliar voices that express the universal and particular vision of Asian-American playwrights. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

amazing stuff
i was taking an acting class and we were required to prepare 3-4 scenes. we were encouraged to seek out classics as well as ethnic plays/playwrites, which is how i happed upon BUT STILL, LIKE AIR, I'LL RISE. and man, there is good stuff in here. inevitably the playwrites address cultural issues, via idividual characters' lives, but everyone, regardless of race or roots, should be able to appreciate the masterful writing, the universal themes, and the imipressively wide range of plots. even though i'm not a serious actor, i couldn't NOT buy this book.

A Diversity of Voices within Asian-America
Most of these plays don't succumb to the pressure (as does much of Asian-American fiction and non-fiction literature) to try and represent ALL Asian-Americans at once - it is in the specific that a people are expressed, and as the drama in this anthology gets more and more specific, we see how many voices we really have.

Different angles . . . sometimes even from the gutter.
BUT STILL, LIKE AIR, I'LL RISE is from cover to cover an angle on America Theatre often left alone by most of the mainstream, except during ethnic appreciation month, or whatever.So, yes it is very refreshing to have an anotholgy so compact.It's like a treasure for your library of great Asian America plays.

However, the content of the plays is not G, PG, or PG13 on average.Some of the plays are dirty for the sake of being dirty.I don't think that is a reason to not buy BUT STILL, LIKE AIR, I'LL RISE, but I'm sure you'll appreciate the warning.

Refreshingly Original and Vital
BUT STILL, LIKE AIR, I'LL RISE is a deliciousanthology that celebrates refreshingly original voices that frequently go unheard, unseen and unnoticed.The book showcases 11 exciting plays by Asian American playwrights, underscoring the depth and range of the Asian Americanexperience.The plays raises provocative questions and offers wonderfulinsights on identity, family, language, trust, betrayal. A must have forany library. ... Read more