Over centuries, Asian Americans have changed the face of America, and been changed by it, but much of their long history in the US has been forgotten and unknown. Asian American history begins long before the US was even a country. The history of Asian Americans is also immigration history. It is a history of America in a global age. And the history of Asian Americans is a history of how race works in the US. Erika Lee’s comprehensive and sweeping history considers the rich, complicated, and sometimes invisible histories of Asians in the US –from sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s, to the Chinese laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad, to the Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII, to more recent immigrants and refugees from other wars in Asia and postwar circumstances. While becoming the fastest-growing group in the US, Asian Americans continue to struggle as both “despised minorities” and “model minorities”. In fact, Asian Americans are overrepresented at both ends of the educational and socioeconomic spectrum of privilege and poverty. Obscured by the broad definition of “Asian” and “Asian American” is a diversity of peoples that represents 24 distinct groups. There is not one single story, but many. Both the diversity and the shared experiences reveal the complex story of the making and remaking of Asian America, and its importance in the history of America. With histories of both exclusion and inclusion, Asian Americans are uniquely positioned to raise questions about what it means to be American in the 21st century.
1. Beginnings: Asians in the Americas – Los Chinos in New Spain and Asians in Early America; World diaspora; Coolies; Motivation to leave Asia; Roadblocks facing Chinese; Means of migration, Introduction, Chapters 1, 2
2. The Making of Asian America During the Age of Mass Migration and Asian Exclusion – Chinese Immigrants in Search of Gold Mountain; Welcoming cheap labor; Threat of cheap labor – “The Chinese Must Go!”; the Anti-Chinese Movement; Laws singling out a specific race; Diaspora in America; Where can we get work – railroad building, Chapters 3, 4
3. Japanese Immigrants and the “Yellow Peril”; Pineapples and Paper brides – the making of our most exotic state; Asian beginnings in American politics; Asian America in a World at War – “Military Necessity”: The Uprooting of Japanese Americans During World War II; Executive Order 9066, Chapters 5, 10
4. “Grave Injustices”: The incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II; 1988 Japanese Reparations Act, Chapter 11
5. “We Must Struggle in Exile”: Korean Immigrants; Japanese colonial rule & Korean War; stateless exiles & independence activists; military brides, adoptions; Christianity; South Asian Immigrants and the “Hindu Invasion”; circuitous life of migration; nationalist activities, Chapters 6, 7
6. “We Have Heard Much of America”: Filipinos in the U.S. Empire; “U.S. national” or “foreign immigrant”; benevolent assimilation; Border Crossings and Border Enforcement: Undocumented Asian Immigration; Asian exclusion acts; “undocumented Asian immigration was a big business”; border diplomacy vs border policing, Chapters 8, 9
7. Good War, Cold War; China – our new ally; 1988 Japanese Reparations Act; Remaking Asian America in a Globalized World – Making a New Asian America Through Immigration and Activism; 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act; greater diversity of Asian immigration in multiple aspects; Asian beginnings in American politics; activists for various civil rights and social justice causes, Chapters 12, 13
8. In Search of Refuge: Southeast Asians in the United States; unintended legacies of war: refugees, war brides, mixed-race children, orphans & adoptees; Making a New Home: Hmong Refugees and Hmong Americans; never-ending international refugees, “compassion fatigue”; anti-immigrant backlash; Transnational Immigrants and Global Americans; “flexible citizens”, circular migration, “the Pacific shuttle”, “parachute kids”, transnational Asians, reverse migration, new diasporas, Chapters 14, 15, 16
9. Twenty-first Century Asian Americans – The “Rise of Asian Americans”? Myths and Realities; anti-Asian bias and discrimination, hate crimes; Redefining American in the Twenty-first Century; political power and representation; “Hapa” issues; immigrant rights; Asian Americans’ Racial Reckoning, Chapter 17, Epilogue, Postscript
Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History (2016). Note: editions vary. If possible, look for one that includes the 16-page Postscript, “Asian Americans’ Racial Reckoning”.