LibGuides: Asian Pacific American History: Books & eBooks

Featured eBooks

Go to A-Z Databases: Books & eBooks to search for more eBooks. Must access on campus or login with your COM account for off campus access.

Want more on finding books or eBooks? Try our How to Use Books & eBooks guides.

American History Unbound: Asians and Pacific Islanders 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.
Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850 In this important and masterful synthesis of the Chinese and Japanese experience in America, historian Roger Daniels provides a new perspective on the significance of Asian immigration to the United States. Examining the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early 1980s, Daniels presents a basic history comprising the political and socioeconomic background of Chinese and Japanese immigration and acculturation. He draws distinctions and points out similarities not only between Chinese and Japanese but between Asian and European immigration experiences, clarifying the integral role of Asians in American history. Daniels' research is impressive and his evidence is solid. In forthright prose, he suggests fresh assessments of the broad patterns of the Asian American experience, illuminating the recurring tensions within our modern multiracial society. His detailed supporting material is woven into a rich historical fabric which also gives personal voice to the tenacious individualism of the immigrant. The book is organized topically and chronologically, beginning with the emigration of each ethnic group and concluding with an epilogue that looks to the future from the perspective of the last two decades of Chinese and Japanese American history. Included in this survey are discussions of the reasons for emigration; the conditions of emigration; the fate of first generation immigrants; the reception of immigrants by the United States government and its people; the growth of immigrant communities; the effects of discriminatory legislation; the impact of World War II and the succeeding Cold War era on Chinese and Japanese Americans; and the history of Asian Americans during the last twenty years. This timely and thought-provoking volume will be of value not only to specialists in Asian American history and culture but to students and general historians of American life.
Asian American Chronology: Chronologies of the American Mosaic Key moments in Asian American history come alive in this concise and accessible chronology. * 20 photographs bring events and people to vibrant life * Short entries are organized chronologically by date and then alphabetically by subject heading to make it easy for students to find what they need * Engaging sidebars, illustrations, and print and electronic sources enable further research * An extensive bibliography offers a wealth of print and electronic resources for further research, including government reports, census and immigration information, and websites specific to several Asian subgroups
The Columbia Guide to Asian American History 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. It examines, comments, and questions the changing assumptions and contexts underlying the experiences and contributions of an incredibly diverse population of Americans. Arriving and settling in this nation as early as the 1790s, with American-born generations stretching back more than a century, Asian Americans have become an integral part of the American experience; this cleverly organized book marks the trajectory of that journey, offering researchers invaluable information and interpretation. * Part 1 offers a synoptic narrative history, a chronology, and a set of periodizations that reflect different ways of constructing the Asian American past. * Part 2 presents lucid discussions of historical debates--such as interpreting the anti-Chinese movement of the late 1800s and the underlying causes of Japanese American internment during World War II--and such emerging themes as transnationalism and women and gender issues. * Part 3 contains a historiographical essay and a wide-ranging compilation of book, film, and electronic resources for further study of core themes and groups, including Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Hmong, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, and others.
Fighting Invisibility: Asian Americans in the Midwest In Fighting Invisibility, Monica Mong Trieu argues that we must consider the role of physical and symbolic space to fully understand the nuances of Asian American racialization. By doing this, we face questions such as, historically, who has represented Asian America? Who gets to represent Asian America? This book shifts the primary focus to Midwest Asian America to disrupt--and expand beyond--the existing privileged narratives in United States and Asian American history.   Drawing from in-depth interviews, census data, and cultural productions from Asian Americans in Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan, this interdisciplinary research examines how post-1950s Midwest Asian Americans navigate identity and belonging, racism, educational settings, resources within co-ethnic communities, and pan-ethnic cultural community. Their experiences and life narratives are heavily framed by three pervasive themes of spatially defined isolation, invisibility, and racialized visibility.   Fighting Invisibility makes an important contribution to racialization literature, while also highlighting the necessity to further expand the scope of Asian American history-telling and knowledge production.  
Flashpoints for Asian American Studies Emerging from mid-century social movements, Civil Rights Era formations, and anti-war protests, Asian American studies is now an established field of transnational inquiry, diasporic engagement, and rights activism. These histories and origin points analogously serve as initial moorings for Flashpoints for Asian American Studies, a collection that considers-almost fifty years after its student protest founding--the possibilities of and limitations inherent in Asian American studies as historically entrenched, politically embedded, and institutionally situated interdiscipline. Unequivocally, Flashpoints for Asian American Studies investigates the multivalent ways in which the field has at times and--more provocatively, has not--responded to various contemporary crises, particularly as they are manifest in prevailing racist, sexist, homophobic, and exclusionary politics at home, ever-expanding imperial and militarized practices abroad, and neoliberal practices in higher education.
Japanese Americans: The History and Culture of a People This book provides a comprehensive story of the complicated and rich story of the Japanese American experience--from immigration, to discrimination, to adaptation, achievement and contributions to the American mosaic. * Includes more than 200 clearly written, cross-referenced entries that present brief histories on the key people, places, and events associated with Japanese American history * Highlights the distinctive contributions of Japanese Americans to the fabric and plurality of American life * Describes the political, social, and religious institutions founded by Japanese Americans and the community-building, activist, and philanthropic roles they have played * Provides a chronology of events, illustrations, and collection of primary documents
The Making of Asian America A "comprehensive...fascinating" (The New York Times Book Review) history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, by one of the nation's preeminent scholars on the subject, with a new afterword about the recent hate crimes against Asian Americans. 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 much of their long history has been forgotten. "In her sweeping, powerful new book, Erika Lee considers the rich, complicated, and sometimes invisible histories of Asians in the United States" (Huffington Post). The Making of Asian America shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life, from sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500 to the Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. Over the past fifty years, a new Asian America has emerged out of community activism and the arrival of new immigrants and refugees. But as Lee shows, Asian Americans have continued to struggle as both "despised minorities" and "model minorities," revealing all the ways that racism has persisted in their lives and in the life of the country. Published fifty years after the passage of the United States' Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, these "powerful Asian American stories...are inspiring, and Lee herself does them justice in a book that is long overdue" (Los Angeles Times). But more than that, The Making of Asian America is an "epic and eye-opening" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) new way of understanding America itself, its complicated histories of race and immigration, and its place in the world today.
Also available in print: E184.A75 L43 2015
Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture In this classic book on 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. While exploring anew the meanings of Asian American social history, Okihiro argues that the core values and ideals of the nation emanate today not from the so-called mainstream but from the margins, from among Asian and African Americans, Latinos and American Indians, women, and the gay and lesbian community. Those groups in their struggles for equality, have helped to preserve and advance the founders' ideals and have made America a more democratic place for all.
Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American: Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second Generation South Asians Salam examines how second generation South Asian Americans assimilate by analyzing their family experiences, their structural circumstances and their adult life choice through the lens of arranged marriage. Arranged marriage, as an analytical frame, uncovers the ways in which gender, autonomy and intergenerational dilemmas shape individual lives. Contrary to popular assumptions about South Asians, the subjects of this study are not bound by the traditions of arranged marriage, but rather their experiences reflect a great deal of variation, negotiation, compromise and a nuanced understanding of "tradition." The findings support similar current research which recognizes how individuals navigate and negotiate family, gender conflicts, and individualism in American society.
The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies brings together leading scholars and scholarship to capture the state of the field of Asian American Studies, as a generation of researchers have expanded the field with new paradigms and methodological tools. Inviting readers to consider new understandings of the historical work done in the past decades and the place of Asian Americans in a larger global context, this ground-breaking volume illuminates how research in the field of Asian American Studies has progressed. Previous work in the field has focused on establishing a place for Asian Americans within American history. This volume engages more contemporary research, which draws on new archives, art, literature, film, and music, to examine how Asian Americans are redefining their national identities, and to show how race interacts with gender, sexuality, class, and the built environment, to reveal the diversity of the United States. Organized into five parts, and addressing a multitude of interdisciplinary areas of interest to Asian American scholars, it covers: * a reframing of key themes such as transnationality, postcolonialism, and critical race theory * U.S. imperialism and its impact on Asian Americans * war and displacement * the garment industry * Asian Americans and sports * race and the built environment * social change and political participation * and many more themes. Exploring people, practice, politics, and places, this cutting-edge volume brings together the best themes current in Asian American Studies today, and is a vital reference for all researchers in the field.
Suburban Sahibs: Three Immigrant Families and Their Passage from India to America America has long been a destination, then a launch pad, for newcomers seeking better lives. This text focuses on three waves of immigration through the stories of three families: the Kotharis, Patels and Sarmas.
When Half Is Whole: Multiethnic Asian American Identities "I listen and gather people's stories. Then I write them down in a way that I hope will communicate something to others, so that seeing these stories will give readers something of value. I tell myself that this isn't going to be done unless I do it, just because of who I am. It's a way of making my mark, leaving something behind . . . not that I'm planning on going anywhere right now."So explains Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu in this touching, introspective, and insightful examination of mixed race Asian American experiences. The son of an Irish American father and Japanese mother, Murphy-Shigematsu uses his personal journey of identity exploration and discovery of his diverse roots to illuminate the journeys of others. Throughout the book, his reflections are interspersed among portraits of persons of biracial and mixed ethnicity and accounts of their efforts to answer a seemingly simple question: Who am I?Here we meet Norma, raised in postwar Japan, the daughter of a Japanese woman and an American serviceman, who struggled to make sense of her ethnic heritage and national belonging. Wei Ming, born in Australia and raised in the San Francisco of the 1970s and 1980s, grapples as well with issues of identity, in her case both ethnic and sexual. We also encounter Rudy, a "Mexipino"; Marshall, a "Jewish, adopted Korean"; Mitzi, a "Blackinawan"; and other extraordinary people who find how connecting to all parts of themselves also connects them to others.With its attention on people who have been regarded as "half" this or "half" that throughout their lives, these stories make vivid the process of becoming whole.

Featured Print Books

Go to OneSearch to search for more print books.

Want more on finding print books? Try our How to Use OneSearch guide.

Asian American dreams : the emergence of an American people This groundbreaking book traces the transformation of Asian Americans from a few small, disconnected, and largely invisible ethnic groups into a self-identified racial group that is influencing every aspect of American society. It explores the events that shocked Asian Americans into motion and shaped a new consciousness. Helen Zia, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, writes as a personal witness to the dramatic changes involving Asian Americans.
Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that Asian Americans are the best-educated, highest-income, and best-assimilated racial group in the United States. Before reaching this level of economic success and social assimilation, however, Asian immigrants' path was full of difficult,even demeaning, moments. This book provides a sweeping and nuanced history of Asian Americans, revealing how and why the perception of Asian immigrants changed over time.Asian migrants, in large part Chinese, arrived in significant numbers on the West Coast during the 1850s and 1860s to work in gold mining and on the construction of the transcontinental Railroad. Unlike their contemporary European counterparts, Asians, often stigmatized as "coolies," challengedAmerican 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 onemployment, 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 and1970s that Asian Americans gained ground and acceptance, albeit in the still stereotyped category of "model minorities."Madeline Y. Hsu weaves a fascinating historical narrative of this "American Dream." She shows how Asian American success, often attributed to innate cultural values, is more a result of the immigration laws, which have largely pre-selected immigrants of high economic and social potential. AsianAmericans have, in turn, been used by politicians to bludgeon newer (and more populous) immigrant groups for their purported lack of achievement. Hsu deftly reveals how public policy, which can restrict and also selectively promote certain immigrant populations, is a key reason why some immigrantgroups appear to be more naturally successful and why the identity of those groups evolves differently from others.
Asian American Psychology: The Science of Lives in Context Asian Americans are proportionally the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. Since the early 1970s, Asian American psychology has been an emerging field, with an increasingly complex and sophisticated research base. This volume offers a framework for the conceptual and methodological development of Asian American psychology and provides future research directions by experts in the field. The book demonstrates that Asian American are a heterogeneous group that must be understood in context, with multiple racial, ethnic, gender and cultural identities. Conceptual and methodological models highlighted in this work contribute parallel advances not only in the psychological studies of ethnic minority groups but in the psychological research of an increasingly multicultural and increasingly global American population.
The Asian Pacific American Heritage This companion unlocks the work of contemporary Asian Pacific American writers and artists by providing the background and information needed to understand multicultural literature and arts. It includes a cultural lexicon and a chronology.
Biting the Hand Julia Lee is angry. And she has questions. What does it mean to be Asian in America? What does it look like to be an ally or an accomplice? How can we shatter the structures of white supremacy that fuel racial stratification? When Julia was fifteen, her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her. However, the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, following the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper, forced Julia to question her racial identity and complicity. She was neither Black nor white. So who was she? This question would follow Julia for years to come, resurfacing as she traded in her tumultuous childhood for the white upper echelon of elite academia. It was only when she began a PhD in English that she found answers--not through studying Victorian literature, as Julia had planned, but rather in the brilliant prose of writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. Their works gave Julia the vocabulary and, more important, the permission to critically examine her own tortured position as an Asian American, setting off a powerful journey of racial reckoning, atonement, and self-discovery. With prose by turns scathing and heart-wrenching, Julia lays bare the complex disorientation and shame that stem from this country's imposed racial hierarchy. And she argues that Asian Americans must work toward lasting social change alongside Black and brown communities in order to combat the scarcity culture of white supremacy through abundance and joy. In this passionate, no-holds-barred memoir, Julia interrogates her own experiences of marginality and resistance, and ultimately asks what may be the biggest question of all--what can we do?
Encyclopedia of Japanese American Internment This book addresses the forced removal and confinement of Japanese Americans during World War II--a topic significant to all Americans, regardless of race or color. * Provides comprehensive, authoritative, concise, and clearly written information about the internment of Japanese Americans in a single volume * Combines first-hand accounts by participants in this tragic and historic experience with detailed descriptions of assembly centers, concentration camps, and military and Justice Department internment camps to enable readers to imagine what being interned was like * Describes historic events; examines the legal, political, and social ramifications; supplies biographies of key individuals; and discusses the significance of Japanese internment in Asian American history * Serves as an effective introduction to the subject of Japanese American internment for high school and undergraduate students as well as general readers
Facing the Mountain A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of NPR's "Books We Love" of 2021 Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography  Winner of the Christopher Award    "Masterly. An epic story of four Japanese-American families and their sons who volunteered for military service and displayed uncommon heroism... Propulsive and gripping, in part because of Mr. Brown's ability to make us care deeply about the fates of these individual soldiers...a page-turner." - Wall Street Journal From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and resistance, focusing on four Japanese American men and their families, and the contributions and sacrifices that they made for the sake of the nation. In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese Americans across the continent and Hawaii were changed forever. In this unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe, Daniel James Brown portrays the journey of Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho, who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of Gordon Hirabayashi, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best--striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.
Good Luck Life : The Essential Guide to Chinese American Celebrations and Culture Good Luck Life is the first book to explain the meanings of Chinese rituals and to offer advice on when and how to plan for Chinese holidays and special occasions such as Chinese weddings, the Red Egg and Ginger party to welcome a new baby, significant birthdays, and the inevitable funeral. Packed with practical information, Good Luck Life contains an abundance of facts, legends, foods, old-village recipes, and quick planning guides for Chinese New Year, Clear Brightness, Dragon Boat, Mid-Autumn, and many other festivals. Written with warmth and wit, Good Luck Life is beautifully designed as an easily accessible cultural guide that includes an explanation of the Lunar Calendar, tips on Chinese table etiquette for dining with confidence, and dos and don'ts from wise Auntie Lao, who recounts ancient Chinese beliefs and superstitions. This is your map for celebrating a good luck life.
History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots A comprehensive, compelling, and clearly written title that provides a rich examination of the history of Asians in the United States, covering well-established Asian American groups as well as emerging ones such as the Burmese, Bhutanese, and Tibetan American communities. * Examines Asian migration to the United States and the resulting formation of diverse Asian American communities that include Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, South Asian, and Vietnamese and new emerging Asian American communities such as the Burmese, Bhutanese, and Tibetan American * Compares 19th-century Asian American history in Hawaii with that on the American mainland * Employs racialization and push-pull theories as well as a transnational approach to document the rich and diverse experiences of Asians in the United States
The Loneliest Americans A riveting blend of family history and original reportagethat explores-and reimagines-Asian American identity in a Black and white world "A smart, vulnerable, and incisive exploration of what it means for this brilliant and honest writer-a child of Korean immigrants-to assimilate and aspire while being critical of his membership in his community of origin, in his political tribe, and in America."-Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko In 1965, a new immigration law lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigrants to the United States. Nobody, including the lawmakers who passed the bill, expected it to transform the country's demographics. But over the next four decades, millions arrived, including Jay Caspian Kang's parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They came with almost no understanding of their new home, much less the history of "Asian America" that was supposed to define them. The Loneliest Americans is the unforgettable story of Kang and his family as they move from a housing project in Cambridge to an idyllic college town in the South and eventually to the West Coast. Their story unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Asian America, as millions more immigrants, many of them working-class or undocumented, stream into the country. At the same time, upwardly mobile urban professionals have struggled to reconcile their parents' assimilationist goals with membership in a multicultural elite-all while trying to carve out a new kind of belonging for their own children, who are neither white nor truly "people of color." Kang recognizes this existential loneliness in himself and in other Asian Americans who try to locate themselves in the country's racial binary. There are the businessmen turning Flushing into a center of immigrant wealth; the casualties of the Los Angeles riots; the impoverished parents in New York City who believe that admission to the city's exam schools is the only way out; the men's right's activists on Reddit ranting about intermarriage; and the handful of protesters who show up at Black Lives Matter rallies holding "Yellow Peril Supports Black Power" signs. Kang's exquisitely crafted book brings these lonely parallel climbers together amid a wave of anti-Asian violence. In response, he calls for a new form of immigrant solidarity-one rooted not in bubble tea and elite college admissions but in the struggles of refugees and the working class.
A New History of Asian America A New History of Asian America is a fresh and up-to-date history of Asians in the United States from the latenbsp;eighteenth century to the present. Drawing on current scholarship, Shelley Lee brings forward the many strands of Asian American history, highlighting the distinctive nature of the Asian American experience while placing the narrative in the context of the major trajectories and turning points of U.S. history. Covering the history of Filipinos, Koreans, Asian Indians, and Southeast Indians as well as Chinese and Japanese, the book gives full attention to the diversity within Asian America. A robust companion website features additional resources for students, including primary documents, a timeline, links, videos, and an image gallery. From the building of the transcontinental railroad to the celebrity of Jeremy Lin, people of Asian descent have been involved in and affected by the history of America. A New History of Asian America gives twenty-first-century students a clear, comprehensive, and contemporary introduction to this vital history.
The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History After emerging from the tumult of social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the field of Asian American studies has enjoyed rapid and extraordinary growth. Nonetheless, many aspects of Asian American history still remain open to debate. The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History offers thefirst comprehensive commentary on the state of the field, simultaneously assessing where Asian American studies came from and what the future holds. In this volume, thirty leading scholars offer original essays on a wide range of topics. The chapters trace Asian American history from the beginning of the migration flows toward the Pacific Islands and the American continent to Japanese American incarceration and Asian American participation inWorld War II, from the experience of exclusion, violence, and racism to the social and political activism of the late twentieth century. The authors explore many of the key aspects of the Asian American experience, including politics, economy, intellectual life, the arts, education, religion, labor,gender, family, urban development, and legal history.The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History demonstrates how the roots of Asian American history are linked to visions of a nation marked by justice and equity and to a deep effort to participate in a global project aimed at liberation. The contributors to this volume attest to the ongoingimportance of these ideals, showing how the mass politics, creative expressions, and the imagination that emerged during the 1960s are still relevant today. It is an unprecedentedly detailed portrait of Asian Americans and how they have helped change the face of the United States.
A Principled Stand: The Story of Hirabayashi v. United States In 1943, University of Washington student Gordon Hirabayashi defied the curfew and mass removal of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, and was subsequently convicted and imprisoned as a result. In A Principled Stand, Gordon's brother James and nephew Lane have brought together his prison diaries and voluminous wartime correspondence to tell the story of Hirabayashi v. United States, the Supreme Court case that in 1943 upheld and on appeal in 1987 vacated his conviction. For the first time, the events of the case are told in Gordon's own words. The result is a compelling and intimate story that reveals what motivated him, how he endured, and how his ideals changed and deepened as he fought discrimination and defended his beliefs. A Principled Stand adds valuable context to the body of work by legal scholars and historians on the seminal Hirabayashi case. This engaging memoir combines Gordon's accounts with family photographs and archival documents as it takes readers through the series of imprisonments and court battles Gordon endured. Details such as Gordon's profound religious faith, his roots in student movements of the day, his encounters with inmates in jail, and his daily experiences during imprisonment give texture to his storied life.
Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific An award-winning scholar explores the sixty-thousand-year history of the Pacific islands in this dazzling, deeply researched account. The islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia stretch across a huge expanse of ocean and encompass a multitude of different peoples. Starting with Captain James Cook, the earliest European explorers to visit the Pacific were astounded and perplexed to find populations thriving thousands of miles from continents. Who were these people? From where did they come? And how were they able to reach islands dispersed over such vast tracts of ocean?   In Voyagers, the distinguished anthropologist Nicholas Thomas charts the course of the seaborne migrations that populated the islands between Asia and the Americas from late prehistory onward. Drawing on the latest research, including insights gained from genetics, linguistics, and archaeology, Thomas provides a dazzling account of these long-distance migrations, the seagoing technologies that enabled them, and the societies they left in their wake.
We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future "Powerful...Iyer catalogues the toll that various forms of discrimination have taken and highlights the inspiring ways activists are fighting back. [She] is an ideal chronicler of this experience." --The Washington Post NOW IN PAPERBACK The nationally renowned racial justice advocate's illumination of the ongoing persecution of a range of American minorities In the lead-up to the recent presidential election, Donald Trump called for a complete ban on Muslims entering the United States, surveillance against mosques, and a database for all Muslims living in the country, tapping into anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim hysteria to a degree little seen since the targeting of South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh people in the wake of 9/11. In the American Book Award-winning We Too Sing America, nationally renowned activist Deepa Iyer shows that this is the latest in a series of recent racial flash points, from the 2012 massacre at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to the violent opposition to the Islamic Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and to the Park 51 Community Center in Lower Manhattan. Iyer asks whether hate crimes should be considered domestic terrorism and explores the role of the state in perpetuating racism through detentions, national registration programs, police profiling, and constant surveillance. Reframing the discussion of race in America, she "reaches into the complexities of the many cultures that make up South Asia" (Publishers Weekly) and provides ideas from the front lines of post-9/11 America.
The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown A revelatory history of the trafficking of young Asian girls that flourished in San Francisco during the first hundred years of Chinese immigration (1848-1943) and an in-depth look at the "safe house" that became a refuge for those seeking their freedom Beginning in 1874, the Occidental Mission Home on the edge of San Francisco's Chinatown served as a gateway to freedom for thousands of enslaved and vulnerable young Chinese women and girls. Run by a courageous group of female abolitionists who fought the slave trade in Chinese women, it survived earthquakes, fire, bubonic plague, and violence directed against its occupants and supporters. With compassion and an investigative historian's sharp eye, Siler tells the story of both the abolitionists who challenged the corrosive anti-Chinese prejudices of the time and the young women who dared to flee their fate. She relates how the women who ran the home defied contemporary convention--even occasionally breaking the law--by physically rescuing children from the brothels where they worked or by snatching them off ships as they were being smuggled in--and how they helped bring the exploiters to justice. She also shares the moving stories of many of the girls and young women who sought refuge at the mission, and she writes about the lives they went on to lead. This is a remarkable chapter in an overlooked part of our history, told with sympathy and vigor.