Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month
|
Recommended Books |
Note: The following
titles are not in our collection but may be of interest.
Annotations taken from various sources including Publishers Weekly, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com.
♦ The
Asian Pacific American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts by
George Leonard. Garland Publishing, 1998 ISBN: 0815329806
The Asian Pacific American
Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts is aimed at a new audience - the new multicultural
classroom -- and is the first reference work of its kind dedicated to explaining
in detail the diverse history of Asian-Pacific American culture. This
collection of 63 original articles, written by expert contributors renowned in
their specialties, has been designed to support students, teachers, and
librarians who may be unfamiliar with Asian-Pacific American culture but need
accessible, in-depth information on topics that will unlock the work of
contemporary Asian-Pacific American writers and artists.
♦ Bearing
Dreams, Shaping Visions: Asian Pacific American Perspectives by
Linda A. Revilla, Gail M. Nomura, Shawn Wong, Shirley Hune. Washington State
University Press, 1994 ISBN: 0874220998
Essays and poems explore the
experience of Asian-Pacific Americans in terms of history, society, literature,
and education. Among the topics are the changing demographics of California,
the Hawaiian fight against geothermal development, and the award-winning play M.
Butterfly. Most of the 26 contributions are from a May 1990 conference in
Santa Barbara. No index (Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, OR).
♦ Extraordinary Asian Americans and Pacific
Islanders by Susan Sinnott. Children's Press; 2003.
ISBN: 051622655X
Biographical sketches of notable
Asian-Americans and Pacific Islander Americans, from the nineteenth century to
the present.
♦ Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii by
Yukiko Kimura. University of Hawaii Press, 1992. ISBN: 0824814819
Between 1861 and 1940, some
275,000 Japanese people moved to Hawaii and to the U.S. mainland. Many of the first
Japanese immigrants were recruited to work in the sugarcane fields of Hawaii
and the fruit and vegetable farms of California. The Issei, or first-generation
immigrants from Japan, faced the difficulty of forging a new life that included
elements of their traditional culture and the culture of their newly found
homes. This book is a history of the
Issei in Hawaii.
♦ Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in
Hawaii 1865-1945 by Gary Y. Okihiro. Temple University
Press, April 1991.
A history of a systematic
anti-Japanese movement in Hawaii from the time migrant workers were brought to
the sugarcane fields until the end of World War II.
♦ Faces of the Islands: When Pacific Islander and American Ways Meet by Willard C. Muller. Lincoln Square Publishing, June 2002. ISBN: 0963737015
This prize-winning nonfiction book is about fascinating
people of some remote, incredibly beautiful Pacific islands near the equator,
and the small band of mostly young Americans sent out by their government to
administer them. The
author, first civilian administrator and American consul of part of the
Carolines, takes the reader by freighter and outrigger canoe around the
islands. Follow him and other Americans and Trukese along palm and breadfruit
tree-shaded paths into the heart of village life.
♦ And the View from the Shore: Literary
Traditions of Hawaii by Stephen H. Sumida.
University of Washington Press, 1991. ISBN: 0295970782
This groundbreaking 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, and is
unprecedented in its scope and theme. As a literary history, it covers two
centuries of Hawaii's culture since the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778.
Its approach is multicultural, representing the spectrum of native Hawaiian,
colonial, tourist, and polyethnic local literatures.
♦ Pacific Diaspora: Island Peoples in the
United States and Across the Pacific by Paul R.
Spickard, Joanne Rondilla, Debbie Hippolite Wright. University of Hawaii Press,
2002. ISBN: 0824825624
Pacific Islander Americans constitute one of the United States' least understood ethnic groups. As expected, stereotypes abound: Samoans are good at football; Hawaiians make the best surfers; all Tahitians dance. Although Pacific history, society, and culture have been the subjects of much scholarly research and writing, the lives of Pacific Islanders in the diaspora (particularly in the U.S.) have received far less attention. The contributors to this volume of articles and essays compiled by the Pacific Islander Americans Research Project hope to rectify this oversight. Pacific Diaspora brings together the individual and community histories of Pacific Island peoples in the U.S. It is designed for use in Pacific and ethnic studies courses, but it will also find an audience among those with a general interest in Pacific Islander Americans.
♦ Eastern Standard Time : A Guide to Asian
Influence on American Culture from Astro Boy to Zen Buddhism by
Jeff Yang, Dina Gan, Terry Hong. Mariner Books, 1997. ISBN: 039576341X
This is the definitive guide to
the influence of East on West. Exhaustively searching out those aspects of
Asian religion, art, language, culture, and inventiveness that have made their
way West, the staff of A. Magazine, the only national magazine dedicated
to the experience of Asian-Americans, have provided a brilliantly packaged,
endlessly amusing compendium of articles, images, and ideas. Need to know the
coolest and strangest candies from the Western Pacific? The hottest Japanese
cartoons and comic books? The basics of Buddhism? Origami's origin? Look no
further. Here is the long-awaited guide
to Asian cultural literacy: the key concepts, events, people, trends, and
products that have been imported from Asia to America and become part of our
way of life.
♦ Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and
White by Frank H. Wu. Basic Books, 2003. ISBN:
046500640X
A leading voice in America's Asian community tackles what it means to be Asian-American in contemporary America. Writing in the tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois, Cornel West, and others who confronted the "color line" of the 20th century, journalist, scholar, and activist Frank H. Wu offers a unique perspective on how changing ideas of racial identity will affect race relations in the 21st century. Wu examines affirmative action, globalization, immigration, and other controversial contemporary issues through the lens of the Asian-American experience. Mixing personal anecdotes, legal cases, and journalistic reporting, Wu confronts damaging Asian-American stereotypes such as "the model minority" and "the perpetual foreigner." The first Asian-American to serve as a law professor at Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C., Wu has written for a range of publications including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Nation, and writes a regular column for Asian Week.
♦ Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of
Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment by
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, James D. Houston. Bantam Books, reissue edition,
1983. ISBN: 0553272586
During World War II a community
called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of
California, east of the Sierras. Its purpose was to house thousands of
Japanese-American internees. One of the first families to arrive was the Wakatsukis,
who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with
them only the belongings they could carry. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a 7 year-old
child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted,
observed and grew. For her father it was essentially the end of his life. At age 37,
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child
she was. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the
dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning
circumstances. Written with her husband, Jeanne delivers a powerful
first-person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar. Farewell to Manzanar has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the
country. Last year the San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the 20th
century’s 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies.
♦ Wherever I Go, I Will Always Be a Loyal
American: Seattle's Japanese American Schoolchildren During World War II by
Yoon K. Pak. Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 0415932343
Wherever I Go, I Will Always be a Loyal American, is Yoon
Pak's fascinating study of how one community responded to the internment of its
Japanese-American students during World War II. Expressing ideas of loyalty,
nationality, citizenship, and the threat of violence, through children's
letters and compositions, the author gives voice to how Seattle's school and
students coped with the contradiction between the school's teaching of
democratic ideals and the enforced evacuation.
Drawing on recent interviews with the letter writers, now in their 60's,
and a wealth of historical documents, Pak also explores the paradox of
Japanese-Americans' response to the internment: As proof of their loyalty to
America, many families left their homes with little resistance, strangely
showing their belief in the land of tolerance by acquiescing to oppression.
♦ The Chinese in America: A Narrative
History by Iris Chang. Viking Press, 2003. ISBN: 0670031232
Iris Chang, the daughter of
second-wave Chinese immigrants, has written an extraordinary narrative that
encompasses the entire history of one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in
the United States, an epic story that spans 150 years and continues to the
present day. Chang takes a fresh look at what it means to be an American and
draws a complex portrait of the many accomplishments of the Chinese in their
adopted country, from building the transcontinental railroad to major
scientific and technological advances. A sensitive, deeply moving story of
individuals whose lives have shaped and been shaped by this history, The
Chinese in America is a saga of raw human tenacity and a testament to the
determination of a people to forge an identity and destiny in a strange land.
♦ On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year
Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family by Lisa See.
Vintage Books, 1996. ISBN: 0679768521
Documenting the history of her own
Chinese-American family, a journalist shares the results of five years of
research, including interviews with nearly 100 Chinese and Caucasian relatives.
♦ Living in America by
Roshni Rustomji-Kerns, Rashmi Sharma. Westview Press, 1995. ISBN: 0813323789
Living in America includes both a historical introduction and one exploring
South Asian literary traditions and the concept of the collection. This is a major compilation of Asian-American
authors, some native-born, others immigrants, refugees or expatriates. While
some of the writers are well known, most are emerging voices. The volume is
divided into poetry and fiction. Poets are represented by one or two poems;
short-story writers by one piece. Each author contributed a
"statement," whether biographical, literary, or philosophical, that
appears before his or her work. The editor has provided more-traditional
biographical information at the back of the book. The writers describe a wide
range of experience in a great variety of styles.
♦ Century of the Tiger: One Hundred Years of
Korean Culture in America by Jenny Ryun Foster,
Heinz Insu Fenkl, Frank Stewart. University of Hawaii Press, 2003. ISBN:
0824826442
The year 2003 marks the 100th
anniversary of Korean immigration to the U.S. Century of the Tiger
gathers work by some of the best and most eloquent Korean authors in Korea and
America, past and present, to tell the dramatic story of Korean culture in
America over the last century and the diverse experiences of Korean-Americans
today, particularly in Hawaii.
Freedom Forum Library Resources / Freedom Forum Celebrates
Updated 4/12/2004