Staff Picks
25 Essential Books About Asian American Identity and Experience
- Mona Verma
- Tuesday, April 06, 2021
Collection
It is really unjust and unfortunate to see the sharp rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans. Books are a great way to educate oneself about the Asian American experience. Racism can be combated by reading these human stories and understanding that we are all more alike than different.
America is Not the Heart
Published in 2018
After fleeing the Philippines, Hero De Vera arrives at her uncles where she is given a fresh start. He asks no questions about her disturbing political past, but his daughter, the first American-born family member, is unable to resist her curiosity especially about her cousin's damaged hands.
We Are Not Free
Published in 2020
For fourteen-year-old budding artist Minoru Ito, her two brothers, her friends, and the other members of the Japanese-American community in southern California, the three months since Pearl Harbor was attacked have become a waking nightmare: attacked, spat on, and abused with no way to retaliate--and now things are about to get worse, their lives forever changed by the mass incarcerations in the relocation camps.
All You Can Ever Know
A Memoir
Published in 2018
Chung investigates the mysteries and complexities of her transracial adoption in this chronicle of unexpected family for anyone who has struggled to figure out where they belong.
Be the Refuge
Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists
Published in 2021
"Despite the fact that two thirds of U.S. Buddhists identify as Asian American, mainstream perceptions about what it means to be Buddhist in America often whitewash and invisibilize the diverse, inclusive, and intersectional communities that lie at the heart of American Buddhism. Be the Refuge is both critique and celebration, calling out the erasure of Asian American Buddhists while uplifting the complexity and nuance of their authentic stories and vital, thriving communities. Drawn from in-depth interviews with a pan-ethnic, pan-Buddhist group, Be the Refuge is the first book to center young Asian American Buddhists' own voices. With insights from multi-generational, second-generation, convert, and socially engaged Asian American Buddhists, Be the Refuge includes the stories of trailblazers, bridge-builders, integrators, and refuge-makers who hail from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds. Championing nuanced representation over stale stereotypes, Han and the 89 interviewees in Be the Refuge push back against false narratives like the Oriental monk, the superstitious immigrant, and the banana Buddhist--typecasting that collapses the multivocality of Asian American Buddhists into tired, essentialized tropes. Encouraging frank conversations about race, representation, and inclusivity among Buddhists of all backgrounds, Be the Refuge embodies the spirit of interconnection that glows at the heart of American Buddhism"-- Provided by publisher.
Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture
Published in 2015
In Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture, Jennifer Ann Ho shines a light on the hybrid and indeterminate aspects of race, revealing ambiguity to be paramount to a more nuanced understanding both of race and of what it means to be Asian American. Exploring a variety of subjects and cultural artifacts, Ho reveals how Asian American subjects evince a deep racial ambiguity that unmoors the concept of race from any fixed or finite understanding. She argues that race is an abstraction that we treat as concrete, a construct that reflects only our desires, fears, and anxieties, and seeing race as ambiguous puts us one step closer to a potential antidote to racism.--From publisher description.
Minor Feelings
An Asian American Reckoning
Published in 2020
"Asian Americans inhabit a purgatorial status: neither white enough nor black enough, unmentioned in most conversations about racial identity. In the popular imagination, Asian Americans are all high-achieving professionals. But in reality, this is the most economically divided group in the country, a tenuous alliance of people with roots from South Asia to East Asia to the Pacific Islands, from tech millionaires to service industry laborers. How do we speak honestly about the Asian American condition--if such a thing exists? Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively confronts this thorny subject, blending memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the truth of racialized consciousness in America. Binding these essays together is Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality--when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity. With sly humor and a poet's searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche--and of a writer's search to both uncover and speak the truth"-- Provided by publisher.
The Leavers
A Novel
Published in 2017
"One morning, Deming Guo's mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left with no one to care for him. He is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. Set in New York and China, the Leavers is the story of how one boy comes into his own when everything he's loved has been taken away--and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past"-- Provided by publisher.
Two Faces of Exclusion
The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States
Published in 2016
From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Immigration Act of 1924 to Japanese American internment during World War II, the United States has a long history of anti-Asian policies. But Lon Kurashige demonstrates that despite widespread racism, Asian exclusion was not the product of an ongoing national consensus; it was a subject of fierce debate. This book complicates the exclusion story by examining the organized and well-funded opposition to discrimination that involved some of the most powerful public figures in American politics, business, religion, and academia. In recovering this opposition, Kurashige explains the rise and fall of exclusionist policies through an unstable and protracted political rivalry that began in the 1850s with the coming of Asian immigrants, extended to the age of exclusion from the 1880s until the 1960s, and since then has shaped the memory of past discrimination. In this first book-length analysis of both sides of the debate, Kurashige argues that exclusion-era policies were more than just enactments of racism; they were also catalysts for U.S.-Asian cooperation and the basis for the twenty-first century's tightly integrated Pacific world.
America for Americans
A History of Xenophobia in the United States
Published in 2019
"Many of us like to think of the United States as a nation of immigrants. We pride ourselves on our history of welcoming foreigners and believe this sets our nation apart from every other. But the phrase 'a nation of immigrants' only dates from the mid-twentieth century, and has served to paper over a much darker history of hatred of -- and violence against -- foreigners arriving on our shores. As the acclaimed historian Erika Lee shows in America for Americans, the recent spasm of xenophobic policy and treatment of immigrants -- from the abuses of ICE to the Muslim ban to the proposed border wall -- is only the latest manifestation of another, less known but even more influential American creed. As Lee argues, an intense fear of strangers based on their race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin has always been at the heart of the American project. From Benjamin Franklin calling German immigrants 'swarthy' aliens to the anti-Chinese exclusion movement in 1876 San Francisco to modern paranoia over Mexican immigration and the 'browning of America,' xenophobia has been an ideological force working hand-in-hand with American nationalism, capitalism, and racism. Offering a new framework and theory of xenophobia to explain what it is, what it does, and how it works, Lee shows that more often than not in our nation's history, xenophobia has been the rule -- not the exception. At the same time, she reveals why we cannot understand institutionalized racism, sexism, classism without first examining the role of xenophobia in creating these related problems. Forcing us to reckon with the less palatable side of American history and beliefs, America for Americans is a necessary corrective and ultimately a spur to action for any concerned citizen"-- Provided by publisher.
The Making of Asian America
A History
Published in 2015
"The definitive history of Asian Americans by one of the nation's preeminent scholars on the subject. In the past fifty years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day. An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured "coolies" who worked alongside African slaves in the Caribbean; and Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States only to face massive racial discrimination, Asian exclusion laws, and for Japanese Americans, incarceration during World War II. Over the past fifty years, a new Asian America has emerged out of community activism and the arrival of new immigrants and refugees. No longer a "despised minority," Asian Americans are now held up as America's "model minorities" in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States. Published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the United States' Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that has remade our "nation of immigrants," this is a new and definitive history of Asian Americans. But more than that, it is a new way of understanding America itself, its complicated histories of race and immigration, and its place in the world today"-- Provided by publisher.
Pachinko
Published in 2017
"A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires, for readers of The Kite Runner and Cutting for Stone. PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity"-- Provided by publisher.
The Buddha in the Attic
Published in 2011
Presents the stories of six Japanese mail-order brides whose new lives in early twentieth-century San Francisco are marked by backbreaking migrant work, cultural struggles, children who reject their heritage, and the prospect of wartime internment.
Yellow Peril!
An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear
Published in 2014
"The "yellow peril" is one of the most long-standing and pervasive racist ideas in Western culture--indeed, this book traces its history to the Enlightenment era. Yet while Fu Manchu evokes a fading historical memory, yellow peril ideology persists, animating, for example, campaign commercials from the 2012 presidential election. Yellow Peril! is the first comprehensive repository of anti-Asian images and writing, pop culture artifacts and political polemic. Written by two leading scholars and replete with paintings, photographs and images drawn from dime novels, posters, comics, theatrical productions, movies, polemical and pseudo-scholarly literature, and other pop culture ephemera, this book is both a unique and fascinating archive and a modern analysis of this crucial historical formation"-- Provided by publisher.
Big Little Man
In Search of My Asian Self
Published in 2014
"A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist's memoir, in the spirit of Richard Rodriquez's Hunger for Memory and Nathan McCall's Makes Me Wanna Holler--an intimate look at the mythology, experience, and psyche of the Asian American male"-- Provided by publisher.
Sigh, Gone
A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit in
Published in 2020
"For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlett Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, teenage rebellion, and assimilation, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents. Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man's bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the '80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes--and ultimately saves--him" Provided by publisher.
First They Killed My Father
A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
Published in 2006
Chronicles the brutality of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, from the author's forced "evacuation" of Phnom Penh in 1975 to her family's subsequent movements from town to town and eventual separation.
Dear Girls
Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life
Published in 2019
"In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so heavily that she became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, Asian culture, working women, and why you never see new mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads. The sharp insights and humor are even more personal in this completely original collection. She shares the wisdom she's learned from a life in comedy and reveals stories from her life off stage, including the brutal singles life in New York (i.e. the inevitable confrontation with erectile dysfunction), reconnecting with her roots (and drinking snake blood) in Vietnam, tales of being a wild child growing up in San Francisco, and parenting war stories. Though addressed to her daughters, Ali Wong's letters are absurdly funny, surprisingly moving, and enlightening (and disgusting) for all"-- Provided by publisher.
From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry
The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial That Galvanized the Asian American Movement
Published in 2021
"A groundbreaking portrait of Vincent Chin and the murder case that took America's Asian American community to the streets in protest of injustice. America in 1982. Japanese car companies are on the rise and believed to be putting American autoworkers outof their jobs. Anti-Asian American sentiments simmer, especially in Detroit. A bar fight turns fatal, leaving Vincent Chin-a Chinese American man-beaten to death at the hands of two white men, autoworker Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz. From aWhisper to a Rallying Cry is a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed. When Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter and received only a $3,000 fine and three years' probation, the lenient sentence sparked outrage inthe Asian American community. This outrage galvanized the Asian American movement and paved the way for a new federal civil rights trial of the case. Extensively researched from court transcripts and interviews with key case witnesses-many speaking for the first time-Yoo has crafted a suspenseful, nuanced, and authoritative portrait of a pivotal moment in civil rights history, and a man who became a symbol against hatred and racism"-- Provided by publisher.
Interior Chinatown
Published in 2020
"From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play."-- Provided by publisher.
Crying in H Mart
A Memoir
Published in 2021
"From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean-American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon;of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence (; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. Asshe grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share,and reread"-- Provided by publisher.
Asian American Dreams
The Emergence of an American People
Published in 2001
" ... about the transformation of Asian Americans ... into a self-identified racial group that is influencing every aspect of American society."--Jacket.