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Asian American Studies
New and Forthcoming
From a Three-Cornered World James Masao Mitsui
Over two decades' time and three previous volumes, James Mitsui's poetry has asserted a strong and significant voice within the growing tradition of Asian American literature. The 60 poems presented here, 25 of them new, contain a family history of immigration, assimilation, and World War II experiences in the relocation camps. The Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies
1997. 112 pp.
Dark Blue Suit Peter Bacho "These tales, so disarming in their sense of humanity, so lovingly and engagingly narrated in a style which appears effortless, deal with the shadows the massive facts of emigration and identity cast over the lives of Filipino Americans--a literary turf Bacho has made particularly his own. Here he moves with an inveigling confidence amongst lives caught between the raucous demands of modern America and the potent ghosts of ethnicity. It is a superb performance."--Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List
October 1997. 192 pp.
Personal Justice Denied Foreword by Tetsuden Kashima "Personal Justice Denied is one of the seminal documents illuminating recent Asian American history. Its findings made possible the long-delayed monetary redress for the unjustified wartime incarceration of most mainland Japanese Americans in concentration camps."--Roger Daniels Published with the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund
1997. 480 pp., notes, index
Chinese American Portraits Ruthanne Lum McCunn "McCunn's book is a gift to readers yearning for a history of the Chinese in America which does not reduce them to charts and statistics and which does not tell us merely what was done to them. Here we are offered immensely readable vignettes of real people, not faceless Chinese. McCunn has humanized history in her portraits, weaving general history into biographies and introducing us to the Chinese as actors in the past."--Ronald Takaki
1988. UWP ed., October 1996. 176 pp., 164 illus., bibliog., index Picture Bride Yoshiko Uchida A young Japanese girl is sent to marry an Oakland, California shopkeeper in 1917. This is a novel based on the stories of several hundred Japanese "picture brides" whose arranged marriages brought them to America in the early 1900s. "Yoshiko Uchida is the foremost Japanese American woman writer of our time. Picture Bride is a tender, painful, exquisitely written novel . . . a very serious and important book."--Barry Gifford
May 1997. 222 pp. DreamEden Linda Ty-Casper Recent events in the Philippines--the 1986 People Power Revolution, the ouster of President Marcos, the election of Corazon Aquino, and the coup of 1989--are the backdrop of this new novel by a celebrated Filipina writer. A gifted novelist at the height of her powers, Linda Ty-Casper combines historical objectivity with convincing moral authority and provides readers with a remarkable sense of people and place, a leap of insight into what it is to live in the Philippines today.
1997. 480 pp.
Backlist
America Is in the Heart
Carlos Bulosan These autobiographical reminiscences of the well-known Filipino poet speak memorably of his boyhood in his native village, his coming to America, and the years of hardship and bitterness here during the thirties. "People interested in driving from America the scourge of intolerance should read Mr. Bulosan's autobiography. . . .They will not find it difficult to read. The author writes simply and well. He makes no effort to spare the reader's nerves; he recounts his incidents shamelessly and realistically, be they love, murder, or brutality."--Saturday Review of Literature
1946. UWP ed., 1973. 352 pp.
And the View from the Shore Stephen H. Sumida
This study of a little-explored branch of American literature both chronicles and reinterprets the variety of patterns found within Hawaii's pastoral and heroic literary traditions. Unprecedented in its scope and theme, it covers two centuries of Hawaii's culture since the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778. "[A] generous-hearted, brave, and category-defining study."--Hawaii Herald Winner of the 1992 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award
A Samuel and Althea Stroum Book
Asian America Roger Daniels "This well-conceived and excellently researched book provides readers with a comprehensive and timely chronicle of the common challenges and unique experiences of the two pioneer Asian American groups. Roger Daniels's work provides a fresh approach to the study of the immigrant experience and the role of race and ethnicity in American life."--History: Reviews of New Books Winner of the Outstanding Book Award of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America
1989. 400 pp., illus., bibliog., index
The Bread of Salt N. V. M. Gonzalez Long considered the dean of modern Philippine literature, N. V. M. Gonzalez has influenced an entire generation of young Philippine writers and has also acquired a devoted international readership. The Bread of Salt and Other Stories provides a retrospective selection of nineteen of his short stories (all originally written in English), arranged in order of their writing, from the early 1950s to the present day.
1993. 264 pp. Cebu Peter Bacho "Cebu is a darkly comic and often painfully graphic story of the moral and cultural dilemmas that face second generation Filipino Americans in today's urban environments. . . . There is a dark and brooding quality to the prose that is elegantly balanced by fiery flashes of poetic brilliance. This is an exceptional book, and Peter Bacho deserves to be recognized as a major voice in contemporary literature."--MultiCultural Review
1991. 212 pp. Changing Lives of Refugee Hmong Women Nancy D. Donnelly This detailed and personal study of the Hmong, an isolated, rural people from Laos who resettled in various American cities after the Vietnam War, focuses on how members of an immigrant culture have been compelled to rethink their identity. Anthropologist Donnelly draws heavily on oral history as well as her personal experiences teaching English to Hmong women.
1994. 208 pp., 26 b&w illus.
"The Chickencoop Chinaman" Frank Chin "The Year of the Dragon barges through the comfortable stereotypes of the Asian American--the quiet, hardworking contented character who keeps to himself, rarely bothering the white community. . . . As a portrait of an Asian American's furious struggle for identity, the play is a searing statement, a powerful cry."--New York Times
1981. 172 pp., illus.
Chinese Women of America Judy Yung
"With unflinching eye and contemporary voice, Judy Yung has chosen images and created text that illuminate not only the circumstances of individuals, but which depict the broader American society that they encountered."--Amerasia Journal Pub. for the Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco Citizen 13660 Mine Okubo This poignantly written and beautifully illustrated memoir of life in a relocation center by a Japanese American woman was first published in 1946. "A remarkably objective and vivid and even humorous account. . . . In dramatic and detailed drawings and brief text, she documents the whole episode. . . . MinŽ was everywhere with her sketch pad, recording all that she saw, objectively, yet with a warmth of understanding."--New York Times Book Review
1946.1983. 226 pp., illus.
The Coming Man Edited by Philip P. Choy, Lorraine Dong, and Marlon K. Hom
Early Chinese immigrants, who played an important role in the development of America's West, were depicted in a number of 19th-century illustrations and cartoons. Selected from American newspapers and magazines dating from 1869 to 1900, the 116 pictorials included in this book vividly portray the perception and treatment of Chinese by mainstream white America.
1995. 178 pp., 139 illus., 39 in color, bibliog., appendixes
Desert Exile Yoshiko Uchida "A lasting and important contribution to the historical literature of the Japanese American experience in World War II. Desert Exile is a beautifully written personal history of the author's family, of their life before the war, and of their internment during the war. . . . Uchida's intention was to illuminate the Issei and Nisei internment experience on a personal level for the benefit of later generations, and perhaps also to pay tribute to their parents, to their values, and to their generation. She has succeeded."--Western Historical Quarterly
1982. 160 pp., illus. Fifth Chinese Daughter Jade Snow Wong
"The autobiography of a Chinese American woman who triumphs over obstacles of discrimination and ignorance is a tribute to any immigrant who has been able to take the best of the old world and the new world, and to use those lessons to succeed. The book's value as an historical document for Chinese Americans is invaluable."--Amerasia Journal
1989. 256 pp., illus.
Fish Head Soup
Philip Kan Gotanda Exploring the relationships among the Issei (first generation), Nisei (second generation), and Sansei (third generation), playwright Philip Kan Gotanda has crafted four powerful dramas. Japanese American family life is at the heart of the plays, from elder traditionalists and Nisei still troubled by the message of the wartime camps, to women seeking new roles and brash youth seizing opportunities in a larger society. The four plays included are Song for a Nisei Fisherman, Fish Head Soup, The Wash, and Yankee Dawg You Die.
1995. 272 pp., 9 illus.
The Frontiers of Love
Diana Chang
"[A] remarkable first novel. . . . [Chang] enters the minds and hearts of her characters, young and old, European and Oriental, reveals them in their strengths and weaknesses, in their moments of self-deception and revelation. The Frontiers of Love is a beautifully written novel that cries out to be read."--Benjamin Lease, Chicago Sun Times
1956. UWP ed., 1994. 272 pp.
Island
Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, "To augment the translations of the poems the authors have interviewed older Chinese who once passed through Angel Island and immigration workers as well, and have set their recollections down verbatim as oral history. Together with the interviews, the poems--angry, heroic, wrenchingly forlorn, despairing, provocative, resistant--convey, as no secondhand or thirdhand account could ever do, what it was like to be Chinese and to be on Angel Island."--New York Times
1980. UWP ed., 1991. 174 pp., poems in Chinese & English, illus., notes, bibliog.
Japanese American Ethnicity Stephen S. Fugita and David J. O'Brien Why do some groups retain their ethnicity as they become assimilated into mainstream American life while others do not? This study employs both historical sources and contemporary survey data to explain the seeming paradox of why Japanese Americans have maintained high levels of ethnic community involvement while becoming structurally assimilated. "A valuable study."--Choice Winner of the 1992 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award
1991. 224 pp., tables, bibliog., index
Japanese Americans
Edited by Roger Daniels, Sandra C. Taylor, "This is a superb collection of essays on Japanese Americans, focusing on their wartime relocation. About thirty authors offer analyses of that experience. Although brief (most are only a few pages long), they are well written and informative, and add up to as thorough and penetrating a study of the relocation experience as is available anywhere."--Akira Iriye, Journal of the West
Rev. ed.1991. 264 pp., illus., appendix, bibliog., index
Los Angeles--Struggles toward
Edited by Edward T. Chang Myths and theories of the American melting pot, of assimilation, and of pluralistic society were shattered as racial violence during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising vividly exposed the inadequacy of our prior assumptions. This collection of essays, commentaries and literary works by Latino and Asian and African American scholars, journalists, and writers focuses on race and ethnic relations in Los Angeles as they have emerged from the uprising and as they exist in the broader national picture.
1994. 160 pp., b&w photos, tables
Margins and Mainstreams Gary Y. Okihiro "Presents a convenient summary that deftly synthesizes recent scholarship exploring the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and culture among Asian Americans in the U.S. This stimulating and sophisticated treatment, written by a mature scholar, is well worth reading."--Choice Winner of the Outstanding Book Award of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America
1994. 216 pp., notes, bibliog., index Nisei Daughter
Monica Sone With charm, humor, and deep understanding, a Japanese American woman tells how it was to grow up on Seattle's waterfront in the 1930s and to be subjected to "relocation" during World War II.
1953. UWP ed., 1979. 256 pp. No-No Boy
John Okada
This is the story of Ichiro Yamada, a young Japanese American who chose to go to a federal prison rather than serve in the American army during World War II. His struggles and conflicts upon his return to his family and to the realities of postwar America are revealed in this angry and intense novel.
1957. UWP ed., 1980. 176 pp.
Quiet Odyssey
Mary Paik Lee "In this moving testament, Lee shares with her readers her feelings of growing up poor, Asian, and female. . . . An excellent primary source, enhanced by Chan's scholarly additions, that will enrich a variety of subjects such as anthropology, women in history, psychology, and Asian studies."--School Library Journal Winner of the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award
A Samuel and Althea Stroum Book
Scent of Apples Bienvenido N. Santos
"Santos writes simply and skillfully of his countrymen who leave home for America, of the pain of separation, loneliness, longing, yesterday's hopes and tomorrow's dreams. His portraits of these gentle, courageous exiles are moving as he shows how each struggles to make his way in the new land, trying to find a life far from his roots while sustained by the dream of a return home. . . . Santos gets to the heart of what it is like to be uprooted, alone, alien."--Publishers Weekly
1979. 250 pp.
The Shores of a Dream Jane Myers and Tom Wolf Japanese-born, American-trained painter Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) moved to New York in 1910 to study art and within a decade became an important force in art circles both in New York and at the summer artists' colony in Ogunquit, Maine. This book considers his paintings and drawings produced before his first trip to Europe in 1925. Dist. for Amon Carter Museum
1997. 80 pp., 77 illus., 20 in color
Sushi and Sourdough Tooru J. Kanazawa
"Sushi and Sourdough is a gripping and tantalizing fictional narrative as well as a valuable social and economic history of an era."--Gordon Hirabayashi
1989. 256 pp.
They Painted from their Hearts Edited by Mayumi Tsutakawa The first book to examine Asian Pacific American artists in the Northwest. Through essays, striking color reproductions and black-and-white photographs, the work of eighteen artists from 1900 to 1960 is explored. The second part of the book, The Asian American Artists Directory, compiled by the Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution, adds important information about the lives of 105 notable artists who lived and worked in Washington and Oregon from 1900 to 1975. Distributed for the Wing Luke Asian Museum
1995. 88 pp., 36 illus.
The View from Within Karin M. Higa et al. Among the more than 110,000 Japanese American residents of the U.S. who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II were a significant number of artists. Focusing on the art and the experiences of the artists themselves, this book provides an intimate picture of the internment experience. Dist. for the Japanese American National Museum/UCLA Wight Art Gallery/UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
1994. 100 pp., 32 illus., 20 in color
Whispered Silences
Essay by Gary Y. Okihiro Haunted by a visit to one of the detention camps where Japanese Americans were held during World War II, fine-arts photographer Joan Myers set out to record all ten of the camps as they appear today. Her stark and evocative black-and-white photographs are accompanied here by an essay by historian Gary Okihiro who tells the story of the camps from reminiscences of former internees. A Samuel and Althea Stroum Book
Years of Infamy
Michi Nishiura Weglyn
"In 1942 110,000 West Coast residents, many of them United States citizens, were placed in concentration camps for no reason other than that they were of Japanese origin. One of them, Michi Weglyn, a teenager at the time, recounts their experience, drawing on Government documents and on her own memories of one of the camps. An appalling story of neglect and even brutality."--New York Times Book Review Winner of the 1976 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations
1976. UWP ed., 1995. 352 pp., 16 photos, 2 drawings, map, appendixes, notes, index Yokohama, California
Toshio Mori
Originally published in 1949, this is the first published collection of short stories by a Japanese American. Set in the fictional community of Yokohama, California, Mori's work is alive with the people, gossip, humor, and legends of Japanese America in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Mori is a master craftsman and storyteller.
1949. UWP ed., 1985. 176 pp.
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