Asian American Histories of the United States
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
An inclusive and landmark history, emphasizing how essential Asian American experiences are to any understanding of US history
Original and expansive, Asian American Histories of the United States is a nearly 200-year history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the US. Reckoning with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in anti-Asian hate and violence, award-winning historian Catherine Ceniza Choy presents an urgent social history of the fastest growing group of Americans. The book features the lived experiences and diverse voices of immigrants, refugees, US-born Asian Americans, multiracial Americans, and workers from industries spanning agriculture to healthcare.
Despite significant Asian American breakthroughs in American politics, arts, and popular culture in the twenty-first century, a profound lack of understanding of Asian American history permeates American culture. Choy traces how anti-Asian violence and its intersection with misogyny and other forms of hatred, the erasure of Asian American experiences and contributions, and Asian American resistance to what has been omitted are prominent themes in Asian American history. This ambitious book is fundamental to understanding the American experience and its existential crises of the early twenty-first century.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Learn about the impactful, brilliant, and sometimes tragic stories of Asian Americans in this passionate and definitive history. In the wake of a wave of discrimination and violence levied at people of Asian descent during the COVID-19 pandemic, UC Berkeley professor Catherine Ceniza Choy set out to tell the multifaceted racial group’s full, unvarnished story from the past 200 years. Some of what Choy writes about is well-known, like the atrocities of Japanese internment during World War II, while other moments she highlights have long been buried. We were shocked to read that immediately following the massive contributions made by Chinese workers during the construction of the transcontinental railroad, backhanded laws were passed to essentially identify all immigrant Chinese women as sex workers. If you want a full understanding of American history, this is an absolute must-read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Choy (Empire of Care), a professor of ethnic studies at U.C. Berkeley, chronicles the diverse experiences of Asian Americans over the past 150 years in this illuminating history. Contending that Asian American contributions and struggles have been erased from standard histories of the U.S., Choy highlights the complexity of the Asian American experience, noting that various groups migrated at different times and under different circumstances. She details the recruitment of male Chinese railroad workers in the 1860s; the increase in international adoptions from Asian countries, in particular Korea, in the 1950s; and the influx of refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. She also discusses how nursing shortages have been filled by the recruitment of Filipino nurses and describes the distressing uptick in anti-Asian violence during the Covid-19 pandemic as the latest chapter in a "long-standing history of racializing Asians as disease carriers." Amid the harrowing stories of abuse and prejudice—including the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII—Choy interweaves inspiring acts of resistance, among them Filipino American labor activist Larry Itliong's leadership of the Delano Grape Strike in 1965. Sharply drawn profiles of individual Asian Americans add depth to Choy's broad overview and bring historic events to dramatic life. The result is an essential reconsideration of American history.
