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Customer Reviews (3)

Robot Stories: 4 Awesome shorts
Cliff's Notes Review:
+ 4 Awesome, distinct stories
+ Novel central theme "human emotions and robots"
+ Represents the Asian American/Mixed-Race Community without beating you over the head with issues.
+ Charming and Provocative like an independant film/Professional and polished like a high-budget studio film.

My Take:
Robot Stories is awesome.Its is broken up into a series of 4 charming shorties, each related around a theme of "how humans develop emotions when dealing with robots".Each story has a distinct perspective on this central theme.For example, one story is about a couple who wants to adopt a child, but must babysit a "robo-baby" to prove their worth as parents, while another is about a mother trying to re-connect to her sick son through his collection of toy robots.I think the final point that I'd like about Robot Stories and Greg Pak as a director was that he was able to represent the Asian American/Mixed Race characters in normal situations.While this may feel like a minor point, its refreshing.Its nice once in a while to see an Asian American on the big screen who isn't a Lucy Lu Dragon lady, or a Connie Chung newscaster, but as a normal protagonist whom i can identify with.

An exploration of the problems between men and machines
Filmmaker Pak provides not just the award-winning ROBOT STORIES screenplay, but four other tales which are all infused with considerations about technology. It's not only the futuristic settings which link these plots: it's an exploration of the problems between men and machines, the created and the natural worlds, which creates such a compelling dynamic in these motion pictures. Small black and white shots pepper the account, but it's the screenplays which are the heart of this fine title.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Inspiring!!!
I hadn't seen the Robot Stories movie, but a friend of mine did and raved about it. I'd read a few of Pak's comics for Marvel, so I picked up the book and was actually blown away by the amount of thought Pak has put into not just that movie but his career of writing in general. He gives insightful introductions to his many scripts, which run the gamut from sarcastic short spoofs about sex to the recreation of the life of a pioneering surgeon, and finally to the sci-fi feature from the title.

This was the first time I've actually read a screenplay, and it is different than reading a novel. But the book gives some helpful tips to make the adjustment easier. After I while I got used to the format to where I could really visualize the actors and actresses talking to each other.

Somehow I think that is one of the points of the book: to make films more accessible and to inspire people to create their own vision. Pak touches upon a lot of issues: from the craft of writing and the challenges of making an independent film to the media images of Asian Americans (David Henry Hwang's foreword is excellent in this regard). So it has something that can appeal to most everybody. But ultimately, I found the collection to be oddly inspiring to the artist hidden in me, and has made me want to see Pak's movies. ... Read more

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Past research has revealed that prevalence of intergenerational conflict between parents and children among Asian Americans in general, and Korean Americans in particular, is significant putting many of these families at risk of psychological distress and family conflict. In 2008, Time magazine published an article based on a research finding that family conflict is a strong predictor in suicide and suicide ideation among Asian Americans. Despite the relevance of this topic, there has been less attention given in empirical literature, particularly regarding the ways in which children and parents cope with intergenerational conflict. Therefore, the book covers a study where anonymous survey responses were collected and matched between Korean American college students and their parents to further understand the interpersonal dynamics related to this phenomenon. Given the increasing number of Korean Americans in the United States, this book also aims to provide clinical implications for helpers who work with this population. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Korean Americans are Americans of Korean descent. The Korean American community is the fifth largest Asian American subgroup, after the Chinese American, Filipino American, Indian American, and Vietnamese American communities. The United States is home to the second largest overseas Korean community in the world after China. ... Read more

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In this ground-breaking collection of poetry and fiction Korean American literary artists write from and about unexpected places-landscapes and mindscapes of alienation, obsession, conflict, and belonging. They attest to the tension between habitation within and movement across strange terrains, communities, and languages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Korean Americans share a common voice
Required college reading can sometimes be a drag. It wasn't the case with this one! I've weaved through many minority anthologies, but nothing quite as well organized and thought provoking as this one. A good collection of prose and poetry by contemporary Korean Americans struggling with identity and voice. Sections are divided as such: Arrival, Return, Dwelling, Crossing, Descent, Flight. Each section containing works dealing with the main heading. My favorites are Uys's Rest Stop: "I stretch one ossified leg at a time,/and leaning on a cigarette/watch as it gathers ash/on his faded American flag t-shirt, an ocean/blue cap that reads Veteran/of the Korean War" OR Dennis Kim's Writes of the child: "...i/leap for the unborn promise/...of...you,/echobreath of ancestors/who have traveled up/the roots of evergreens/and flown into my coarse cropped hair..."

If nothing else, get this book for the great, and original, imagery alone. A must read for anyone trying to come to terms with the Self.

Koreans with voices
This book was surprisingly worth the money spent, which is a rarity. The organization was well thought out, and the stories and poems did a good job of depicting the various phases of Korean/American existence and turmoil. The poems were better than the stories (Uys, Kim, Park), especially in dealing with the fragmentation of growing up searching for identity in a culture not really interested in giving voice to such a culturally accepted racial group. The pieces are insightful, powerful, and downright honest. A good read for not only minority Americans, but for anyone trapped under the soil of identity displacement.

Contains a unique emotional core
Collaboratively compiled and edited by Elaine Kim (Professor of Asian American Studies, University of California - Berkeley) and Laura Kang (Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Comparative Literature, University of California - Irvine), Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings is an impressive and seminal anthology of the literary writings of Korean Americans. These brief stories, poems, vignettes, and insights contain a unique emotional core and offer a wide variety of perspectives upon the dual challenge of finding a personal ethnic identity while adapting to the unending press of mainstream culture. Echoes Upon Echoes is a very highly recommended contribution to Asian American Literature collections and supplemental reading lists. ... Read more

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Chapters: Chinese Exclusion Act, Asian American, Korean adoptee, Yellowface, List of Asian Americans, Model minority, Coolie, Custody battle for Anna Mae He, Murder of Robert Eric Wone, List of Asian American jurists, Flower Drum Song, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Yellow Peril, Ching chong, Education outcomes in the United States by race and other classifications, Vincent Chin, Chinaman, 80-20 Initiative, Chink, Asian American theater, The Hapa Project, Ronald Ebens, Demographics of Asian Americans, Dragon Lady, Asian Americans in arts and entertainment, Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles, Sepia Mutiny, Philippine Independence Day Parade, Asian pride, Alcohol flush reaction, Asian American studies, United States foreign born per capita income, Filipino Veterans Fairness Act, Cedar Grove Productions, Chinese massacre of 1871, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Philippine Fiesta, Deportation of Cambodian Americans, Jap, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, List of Asian American theatre companies, Asiatic Exclusion League, Filipino American History Month, Wing Luke Asian Museum, Making Tracks, Balbir Singh Sodhi, National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, Racist love, Asian Boston, Got Rice?, Index of Asian American-related articles, Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, Chinese school, Takao Ozawa v. United States, Joy Dietrich, List of U.S. communities with Asian American majority populations, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, SAAN, U.S. per capita income by ancestry, Tie a Yellow Ribbon, Turban Tide and Hindoo Invasion, Lili Wang, USA for Indonesia, Mr Wong, The Slanted Screen, Fresh off the boat, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Asian American Journalists Association, John Chinaman, Filipino-American Friendship Day, Asian Survey,. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 433. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher...http://booksllc.net/?id=148898 ... Read more

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In Becoming Asian American, Nazli Kibria draws upon extensiveinterviews she conducted with second-generation Chinese and Korean Americans in Boston andLos Angeles who came of age during the 1980s and 1990s to explore the dynamics of race,identity, and adaptation within these communities. Moving beyond the frameworks created tostudy other racial minorities and ethnic whites, she examines the various strategies used bymembers of this group to define themselves as both Asian and American.

In her discussions on such topics as childhood, interaction with non-Asian Americans, college,work, and the problems of intermarriage and child-raising, Kibria finds wide discrepanciesbetween the experiences of Asian Americans and those described in studies of other ethnicgroups. While these differences help to explain the unusually successful degree of socialintegration and acceptance into mainstream American society enjoyed by this "model minority,"it is an achievement that Kibria’s interviewees admit they can never take for granted. Instead,they report that maintaining this acceptance "requires constant effort on their part." Kibriasuggests further developments may resolve this situation—especially the emergence of a new kindof pan–Asian American identity that would complement the Chinese or Korean Americanidentity rather than replace it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not much new...
In the research on contemporary immigration and identity formation, Professor Kibria has done some pretty good work on gender negotiations (In journal such as gender and society) as well as other aspects of identity. In this book however there's just not much in this book here that noone else has touched on, the research is pretty extensive and comprehensive in its scope and does capture the social field of Second generation Asian Americans- but there really is not much depth and in the end, there's nothing new... ... Read more

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This book challenges the "model minority" stereotype of Asian American students as a critical step toward educating all children well. Focusing on Korean American youth in New York City schools, Jamie Lew compares high-achieving students attending an elite magnet high school with students who have dropped out of a neighborhood high school. She finds that class, race, social networks, parental strategies, and schooling resources all affect the aspirations and academic achievement of Asian American youth. This in-depth examination:

* Debunks the simplistic "culture of poverty" argument that is often used to explain the success of Asian Americans and the failure of other minorities.
* Illustrates how Asian Americans, in different social and economic contexts, negotiate ties to their families and ethnic communities, construct ethnic and racial identities, and gain access to good schooling and institutional support.
* Offers specific recommendations on how to involve first-generation immigrant parents and ethnic community members in schools to foster academic success.
* Looks at implications for developing educational policies that more fully address the needs of second-generation children. ... Read more

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Alumkal examines the beliefs and life experiences of American-born/raised Asian American evangelicals in two congregations, one Chinese American and one Korean American, near New York City. He documents how the culture of American evangelicalism has shaped the worldviews of its second-generation Asian American adherents. The religious beliefs of the individuals in this study were indistinguishable from those of most white evangelicals. These individuals also affirmed the view that Christian identity transcends racial/ethnic lines. Yet, paradoxically, they testified to the significance of race and ethnicity in their lives and saw their churches as places to strengthen ethnic ties. In conclusion, scholars need new theoretical approaches for understanding the post-1965 immigrants and their offspring. ... Read more

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The majority of the nearly 28,000 undergraduates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign--including a large population of Korean American students--come from nearby metropolitan Chicago. Among the campus's largest non-white ethnicities, Korean American students come to college hoping to realize the liberal ideals of the modern American university, in which individuals can exit their comfort zones to realize their full potential regardless of race, nation, or religion. However, these ideals are compromised by their experiences of racial segregation and stereotypes, including images of instrumental striving that set Asian Americans apart. In The Intimate University, Nancy Abelmann explores the tensions between liberal ideals and the particularities of race, family, and community in the contemporary university.

Drawing on ten years of ethnographic research with Korean American students at the University of Illinois and closely following multiple generations of a single extended Korean American family in the Chicago metropolitan area, Abelmann investigates the complexity of racial politics at the American university today. Racially hyper-visible and invisible, Korean American students face particular challenges as they try to realize their college dreams against the subtle, day-to-day workings of race. They frequently encounter the accusation of racial self-segregation--a charge accentuated by the fact that many attend the same Evangelical Protestant church--even as they express the desire to distinguish themselves from their families and other Korean Americans. Abelmann concludes by examining the current state of the university, reflecting on how better to achieve the university's liberal ideals despite its paradoxical celebration of diversity and relative silence on race. ... Read more

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Current models of acculturation in multicultural counseling literature are severely limited in describing how individuals deal with the complexity of culture change.The reasons for immigration, the historical period during which the immigration occurred, educational and socioeconomic levels, ethnic community and religious involvements, family functioning, and social support, to name a few, all have an impact in the process of cultural adaptation.This book examines Korean American women's dual-cultural identity.By utilizing multiple case studies, the book highlights: (1) the complexity of issues involved as individuals go through different levels of culture change, and (2) the multiplicity of people negotiating their lives in the dual-cultural context and creating meaning out of many ambiguous and even contradictory life situations. ... Read more

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This book explores the causes of Korean Black conflict as well as the methods of containing and managing such conflict. The author conducted field research from 1994 to 2003 in a Korean owned grocery store in South (Central) Los Angeles and followed the lives of a Korean American merchant family, their customers, and the lives of residents in a neighborhood which has been the object of a great deal of popular discussion (and especially scorn) in both journalistic and academic circles. The author offers detailed stories about the lives of Korean shopkeepers, their African American and Latino employees, neighborhood residents, security guards, police officers, "gangbangers" and addicts in South Central Los Angeles as their lives intersect in the confines and immediate vicinity of a store owned by "Brother Jang" and "Mama (Jang)" in "Trouble City" (i.e., South Central Los Angeles). ... Read more

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This book reclaims Korean history in Hawaii through the examination of works by three local writers of Korean descent: Margaret Pai, Ty Pak, and Gary Pak. ... Read more