Asian American Experience: Home

A survey of U.S. history from its beginnings to the present, American History Unbound reveals our past through the lens of Asian American and Pacific Islander history. In so doing, it is a work of both history and anti-history, a narrative that fundamentally transforms and deepens our understanding of the United States. This text is accessible and filled with engaging stories and themes that draw attention to key theoretical and historical interpretations. Gary Y. Okihiro positions Asians and Pacific Islanders within a larger history of people of color in the United States and places the United States in the context of world history and oceanic worlds.

Offers coverage of the arts, culture, community, education, family, gender, marriage, occupation, and work of more than twenty national-origin groups, both historically and in contemporary American society.

Extending the understanding of race and ethnicity in the South beyond the prism of black-white relations, this interdisciplinary collection explores the growth, impact, and significance of rapidly growing Asian American populations in the American South. Avoiding the usual focus on the East and West Coasts, several essays attend to the nuanced ways in which Asian Americans negotiate the dominant black and white racial binary, while others provoke readers to reconsider the supposed cultural isolation of the region, reintroducing the South within a historical web of global networks across the Caribbean, Pacific, and Atlantic.

Availalbe through June 30, 2022
Asian Americans were brought into the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, during World War II under the assumption of a secure loyalty. They served as research analysts, special operations members, morale operations propagandists, secret agents gathering covert intelligence, and, after the war, as war crimes investigators in East Asia where their cultural and linguistic skills, coupled with the correct racial uniforms, made them invaluable to America’s first centralized intelligence agency. These agents were drawn from New York City to Honolulu, where Asian immigrants and their American-born offspring had developed loyalties that were multiple and flexible, not singular and fixed. Despite this, European American OSS recruiters admitted them even as they believed their own loyalty was more certain and fixed, since they hailed from families with roots reaching far back into America’s past. In their joint struggle against the Imperial Japanese forces, these Asian Americans and their European American OSS colleagues generated propaganda to demoralize the enemy and encourage surrender, gathered overt intelligence from a wide variety of media sources, obtained covert intelligence inside enemy-occupied territory, and trained and executed guerrilla operations scores of miles behind the battle lines where, if captured, they faced torture and execution. Immediately after the war, they conducted war crimes investigations that included some Asian American collaborators, raising questions about the meaning of loyalty. The end result of their activities was not only the satisfaction of seeing Imperial Japan defeated, but a new understanding of loyalty, race, and Asian Americans.

A collection of documents that can serve as a reference for researchers, students, and the general public, particularly in tandem with Gary Okihiro's 2001 The Columbia Guide to Asian American History. They were selected to illuminate issues and events of lasting historical significance for a range of Asian American ethnic groups. The arrangement is chronological, from before 1900 through 2000.

Offering a rich and insightful road map of Asian American history as it has evolved over more than 200 years, this book marks the first systematic attempt to take stock of this field of study.

A Companion to Asian American Studies is comprised of 20 previously published essays that have played an important historical role in the conceptualization of Asian American studies as a field. Essays are drawn from international publications, from the 1970s to the present Includes coverage of psychology, history, literature, feminism, sexuality, identity politics, cyberspace, pop culture, queerness, hybridity, and diasporic consciousness Features a useful introduction by the editor reviewing the selections, and outlining future possibilities for the field Can be used alongside Asian American Studies After Critical Mass, edited by Kent A. Ono, for a complete reference to Asian American Studies.

Since the late nineteenth century, federal and state rules governing immigration and naturalization have placed persons of Asian ancestry outside the boundaries of formal membership. A review of leading cases in American constitutional law regarding Asians would suggest that initially, Asian immigrants tended to evade exclusionary laws through deliberate misrepresentations of their identities or through extralegal means. Eventually, many of these immigrants and their descendants came to accept prevailing legal norms governing their citizenship in the United States. In many cases, this involved embracing notions of white supremacy. John S. W. Park argues that American rules governing citizenship and belonging remain fundamentally unjust, even though they suggest the triumph of a civil rights vision, where all citizens share the same basic rights. By continuing to privilege members over non-members in ways that are politically popular, these rules mask injustices that violate principles of fairness. Importantly, Elusive Citizenship also suggests that politically and socially, full membership in American society remains closely linked with participation in exclusionary practices that isolate racial minorities in America.

Utilizing a lively question-and-answer format, a comprehensive overview of Asian-American history documents the dramatic impact of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, and Pacific Island cultures on American society.

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.

This book explores the meaning of multiculturalism in larger American society, Gary Okihiro explores the significance of Asian American experiences from the perspectives of historical consciousness, race, gender, class, and culture.

Out of the tumult of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s emerged the academic field of Asian American history. Early works focused on the social history of immigrant groups to Hawai’i and the continental United States, with an emphasis on lived experience, resistance, and agency against the backdrop of American racism. More recent scholarship, like the study of United States history as a whole, has taken a transnational and cultural “turn” with empire and war serving key interpretive frames. Propelled by theoretical engagement with other fields and disciplines, intersectional analyses of race, class, gender, and sexuality have come to characterize the historical treatment of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This project represents a wide-ranging commentary on the state of the field—mapping how the field has emerged over time, its current status, and projections about future directions. The handbook is unique in the existing literature in that no other book has assembled so many specialists to engage such a diversity of topics and issues. While no single work could claim to be comprehensive or exhaustive, this handbook represents the fullest exploration of the field of Asian American history to date.

Second edition. First edition published in 1998 is in print at IMSA: 342.730873 ANCHRACE1998
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 second 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 second edition brings fresh insights to U.S. civil rights from an Asian American perspective

Although it is one of the least-known social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the Asian American movement drew upon some of the most powerful currents of the era, and had a wide-ranging impact on the political landscape of Asian America, and more generally, the United States. Using the racial discourse of the black power and other movements, as well as antiwar activist and the global decolonization movements, the Asian American movement succeeded in creating a multi-ethnic alliance of Asians in the United States and gave them a voice in their own destinies. Rethinking the Asian American Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, how it intersected with other social and political movements of the time, and its lasting effect on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the Asian American movement of the twentieth century.

A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps, as one of 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.

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."

William Wei traces to the late 1960s the initial genesis of an Asian American identity, culture, and activism through which members of this pan-Asian group could assert their right to belong to and be respected as responsible members of this society.

The book begins with an overview by editor Kim. In section 2, Braeman treats major cases concerning the question of the government's right to exclude, expel, or deport persons of Asian ancestry. In the next section, Hull focuses on major cases on the constitutional question of U.S. citizenship for persons of Asian ancestry. Stuen then discusses cases dealing with the alien land laws of California and Washington. The Japanese internment cases are discussed by Minami and Bannai; and cases dealing with Asian Americans' legal fight to claim their rights for employment, language, and education follow. Next, Gotanda casts the problem of denying Asian Americans their constitutional rights within the analytical framework of the Asian American identity. In the final chapter Tamayo covers the latest changes in America's immigration policies, reviewing major immigration laws passed by Congress during the 20th century and discussing implications of the Immigration Act of 1990.

Asian American Women: Issues, Concerns, and Responsive Human and Civil Rights Advocacy reveals the struggles of Asian American women at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder where hunger, illness, sweatshop labor, exposure to hazardous chemicals and even involuntary servitude are everyday realities. Asian American women of all socio-economic classes suffer from domestic violence whose root causes stem from the particular forms of patriarchy that exist in Asian cultures. Their health and lives are endangered due to stereotypes about Asian women. The lack of research or the lumping together of the over 24 subgroups of Asian Americans into a homogeneous whole misleads the public as to the extent of injustices inflicted on Asian American women. The book captures their suffering and also the fighting spirit of Asian American women who have waged social and economic justice campaigns to right the wrongs against them. The book is a call to action to Asian Americans, policy makers, civil rights organizations and the philanthropic community to support Asian American women in their struggles to advance their social justice agenda.

n the Jim Crow South, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and, later, Vietnamese and Indian Americans faced obstacles similar to those experienced by African Americans in their fight for civil and human rights. Although they were not black, Asian Americans generally were not considered white and thus were subject to school segregation, antimiscegenation laws, and discriminatory business practices. As Asian Americans attempted to establish themselves in the South, they found that institutionalized racism thwarted their efforts time and again. However, this book tells the story of their resistance and documents how Asian American political actors and civil rights activists challenged existing definitions of rights and justice in the South. From the formation of Chinese and Japanese communities in the early twentieth century through Indian hotel owners'battles against business discrimination in the 1980s and'90s, Stephanie Hinnershitz shows how Asian Americans organized carefully constructed legal battles that often traveled to the state and federal supreme courts. Drawing from legislative and legal records as well as oral histories, memoirs, and newspapers, Hinnershitz describes a movement that ran alongside and at times intersected with the African American fight for justice, and she restores Asian Americans to the fraught legacy of civil rights in the South.

With stories spanning from the 1780s to the present day and bringing together the voices of sixty-four authors, Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America demonstrates the diversity, vibrancy, and power of the South Asian American community.

The number of Asian American students in schools and colleges has soared in the last twenty-five years, and they make up one of the fastest growing segments of the student population. However, classroom material often does not include their version of the American experience. Teaching about Asian Pacific Americans was created to address this void. This resource guide provides interactive activities, assignments, and strategies for classrooms or workshops. Those new to the field of Asian American studies will appreciate the background information on issues that concern Asian Pacific Americans, while experts in the field will find powerful, innovative teaching activities that clearly convey established and new ideas. The activities in this book have been used effectively in classrooms, workshops for staff and practitioners in student services programs, community-based organizations, teacher training programs, social service agencies, and diversity training. Teaching About Asian Pacific Americans serves as a critical resource for anyone interested in race, ethnicity, and Asian Pacific American communities.