Bookcase

[Faithless]

In Search of Equality.
By Charles J McClain. 1994.
ISBN: 0-520-08337-7.

The jacket covers describes it well:
"This illuminating volume probles the efforts of th Chinese community to battle the manifold kinds of discrimination encountered at the hands at the government during the nineteenth century. Contrary to the stereotypical image of a passive, univolved, and insular group, the population revealed by Charles McClain is politically savvy and familiar with American political institutions, resentful of discriminatory treatement and capable of mobilizing to fight it. He draws on English- and Chinese language documents, court files, and other sources to chronicle the ways the Chinese sought redress and change."

Me: The key words -- "the nineteenth century". So, while ABC depicted a Kwai Chang Kane running around looking for his father, real Chinese American men and women were fighting a political struggle in their communities and the court systems to gain equality.

Haven't thought about this book until I saw this thread.

You talk about all your important amendments to the constitution. What other one could be as important as the fourteenth? As the book says, "that provision of the amendment provides that 'no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'"

McClain focuses on California cases. He looks at some interesting groups, as well -- one being laundrymen. You know, the "we need more Calgon!" type. Except these people demanded, instead, "we need more fucking rights, fuckahs!" Curious, we've never seen that side expressed on Bonanza.

Surprising, the book reads less like a legal brief, than it does as interesting history and stories.

McClain, at the time, was a lecturer at Cal's Boalt School of Law, among other things.

[ism]

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
by Dai Sijie. 2002.
ISBN: 0385722206

A fiction with the Cultural Revolution as the primary force that somehow reads like a fable. Two teenagers are considered intellectual enemies because of their parents and are sent to the countryside to be "reeducated." They spend their days under harsh conditions, hauling manure and working the coal mine. One day they discover a trove of banned books -- Western literature translated into Chinese, and this changes their lives. They meet a little seamstress and decide to educate her with the books until she becomes as refined as the cityfolk. Part historical, love story, coming of age, and working within a framework of literature's function. Delightful and wry at times, a fast read.

4/5

[raacluse]

Against All Odds
Chuck Norris with Ken Abraham
2004

autobiography by this action icon with a little help from a ghostwriter... I learned that he had met with Bruce Lee a week or so before the latter's mysterious death. Lee mentioned experiencing blackouts while filming, and blamed it on stress...

a fast read... more like an oral history than a literary memoir... I'm waiting for someone to published an unauthorized biography, which would put Norris' experiences into context.

[NtshiabLiDej]

Title: Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992
Editors: Jane Hamilton-Merritt

Non-fiction

The Hmong, a mountain people of Laos, were U.S. allies during the Vietnam war. A noble, friendly folk with a 4000-year-old culture, they are the object of a genocidal campaign by the communist Laotian and Vietnamese governments. In this bitter, tragic and disturbing saga, Asian scholar/journalist/photographer Hamilton-Merritt documents the horrible suffering endured by the Hmong since they were abandoned by the U.S. in 1975. Her collection of eyewitness testimonies establishes that the Laotian-Vietnamese forces have field-tested chemical and biological toxins by using Hmong villages as targets (the "yellow rain" dismissed by the Western media as bee dung). The situation is especially urgent because those thousands of Hmong who succeeded in escaping to Thailand are now being forcibly repatriated to their homeland, where they face extermination as a despised minority and former "running dogs of the imperialist." Hamilton-Merritt's impressive study, one hopes, will lead to the belated U.S. recognition of responsibility for the plight of the Hmong. - Publisher's Weekly

5/5

[ahsingjai]

Chinese Playground: A Memoir
Bill Lee
ISBN 0-9670023-0-3; Hardcover; 288 pages; $28.00 (You can get it cheaper on amazon or bn.com

I did a search query on this thread and it didn't show "The Chinatown Playground: A Memior" by Bill Lee.

It's about S.F Chinatown in the 70s. Bill Lee was a member of the "Joe's Boys" a Chinese gang that rivial with the nortorious still active Wah Ching gang. Also talked about the famous Golden Dragon massacre.

It is a very good book to read, and I loved it a lot because he was Taishanese, with simliar upbringing. The most interesting parts of the book is the first half.

Rating: 5/5

Some samples:
http://www.chineseplayground.com/thebook.html

[nola]

The State of Asian America: Activism and Resistance in the 1990s
by Karin Aguilar-San Juan (Editor)

"One hot summer weekend in July 1992, I took the train from Boston to New York City to meet Yuri and Bill Kochiyama, an elder Japanese American couple with a long history of activism on a wide range of issues-including notable personal and political alliances with the African American community."

From Publishers Weekly
This collection of 18 essays by activists and academics should provoke recognition that discussions of race in the U.S. must go beyond the binary black-white model. Glenn Omatsu contributes a valuable overview of Asian-American activism, dating it to the 1968 student strike at San Francisco State University. In a stimulating essay exploring the Los Angeles riots, Bong Hwan Kim notes that simply trying to foster dialogue between blacks and Koreans to solve racial tension is useless without an agenda for social transformation. Sonia Shah observes that Asian women's groups have yet to develop a specifically Asian feminism, though Asian women are victimized by highly particular stereotypes of dress, beauty and accent. Jessica Hagedorn and David Mura argue that their hybrid identities can be a source of richness. Addressing mainstream politics, Milyoung Cho traces political battles in New York City's Chinatown, warning that race-based voting can be self-defeating. Other essays address protests against the musical, Miss Saigon , domestic violence and the future of Asian-American studies. Aguilar-San Juan is a former editor at South End Press.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal
This second book in the "Race and Resistance" series is the first collection exclusively devoted to contemporary Asian American activism. It touches upon a range of pressing issues, including the rise in anti-Asian violence, the social construction of race and ethnicity, the politics of Asian American studies, and the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. The contributors reflect the diverse, often radical voices of labor organizers, artists, film critics, lawyers, writers, and historians. The themes covered here explore not only conventional topics of race and identity but also the empowerment of Asian Americans in the 1990s. The book further advocates an end to all forms of discrimination, from class and gender to geography and generation, within Asian American communities. For libraries with Asian American studies collections.

Hardcover: 504 pages
Publisher: South End Press; 1st ed edition (November 1, 1993)
Language: English
ISBN: 0896084779

A Much Needed Anthology about Activism in Asian America, June 29, 1999
Reviewer: A reader
This was very much the first anthology that specifically addressed contemporary grass-roots orientated social movements of the Asian Pacific Islander American community. The essays are diverse and useful, allowing the reader a full picture of the issues that the APIA community have organized around. Glen Omatsu's essay is astounding clear, concise, and his ability to "tell it like it" is gives readers a true sense of what community-orientated leaders have to say. Not only does this anthology address struggles with other communities but also within the diverse APIA community itself. In a nut-shell, this anthology puts it all together.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...=books#sipbody

[applehead]

the kite runner-khaled hosseini

fiction.

a story about family and friendship that spans
almost four decades. a story about life in afghanistan
pre russian invasion and post taliban rule.
a story about being afghan american, life as an immigrant.
that sorta thing.

i really enjoyed reading about the culture,
the muslim religion and practices.
very interesting.

[nola]

I saw this book at Barnes and Noble and it looked good.

Okihiro says that the mainstream derives its meaning from the "Other" and oppression of the Other which is marginalized groups such as African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, women, gays & lesbians. It reminds me of the definition of white supremacist racism by Dr. Frances Welsing which says that the ultimate purpose of racism is to prevent white genetic annihilation on Earth - a planet in which the overwhelming majority of people are classified as non-white (black, brown, red and yellow) by white-skinned people. As the link I've provided at the bottom of this post says only 30% of the world population is white. 57% of the world, the majority of the world, is in fact, Asian.


Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture
by Gary Y. Okihiro
University of Washington Press, April 1, 1994

Deeper Understandings (review by Amazon reader)
Gary Okihiro, in his book "Margin as Mainstream", examines the margins of historical consciousness, race, gender, class and culture of Asians by widening the discourse in a compelling and scholarly way. Okihiro offers these crucial viewpoints to gain a deeper understanding and a clearer perspective on the mainstream of America today. Okihiro suggests that the mainstream is neither uniform nor all-powerful but actually derives its identity from its representation of its "Other". Okihiro encompases the "other" marginalized groups such as African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, women, gays & lesbians in his book but focuses on how Asians have helped to redefine the meaning of the American identity and to expand it beyond the narrower idea of only white and black. In this wonderful contribution to Asian American studies, historical and legal scholars and Asians in general, Okihiro aptly surfaces and dives into the struggles of Asians in America in how it has helped preserve and advance the principles and ideals of democracy and thereby making America a freer place for all. A good read!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...061446-6876926


“White supremacist racism” is defined in The Isis Papers by Dr. Frances Welsing: The local and global power system structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as white, whether consciously or subconsciously determined; this system consists of patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labor, law politics, religion, sex and war). The ultimate purpose of the system is to prevent white genetic annihilation on Earth - a planet in which the overwhelming majority of people are classified as non-white (black, brown, red and yellow) by white-skinned people. All of the non-white people are genetically dominant (in terms of skin coloration) compared to the genetically recessive white-skinned people.

You can read this in the book Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society by Inga Muscio which you can read about at:

www.ingalagringa.com


If the World was a Village of 100 People

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.

There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South America
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth;
all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

Posted: September 1999

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...of+color&hl=en

[nola]

Ordinary Workers; Extraordinary Warriors
by Merilynne Hamano Quon,
posted 10/30/01

Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory by Miriam Ching Louie, published by South End Press, 2001

"Contrary to conventional wisdom that leans heavily on white/or male academics, (immigrant women workers) are the REAL EXPERTS about the inner workings of the global economy, labor markets, and immigrant communities-speaking to us from the bottom of the sweatshop industry pyramid. They stand steadfast as the first line of whistle-blowers and flak-catchers against corporate greed, government negligence, and racial wrongs. They serve as the tree shakers who knock down the fruit, the piñata busters who break open the goodies-of economic democracy, gender justice, and human rights-for ALL OF US. They are neither victims or superwomen. These sweatshop warriors are simply everyday women who have much to tell and teach”.

Sweatshop Warriors is a scholarly work with a forty page bibliography and detailed footnotes. It qualifies as a must read for every Asian American Studies 101 Class. But just like her essay in the Asian Americans: the Movement and the Moment," this read is feisty, down to earth, and creative!

Miriam Ching Louie speaks to us in the everyday language of women, workers, and young bloods everywhere. She mixes English and the words from our ethnic heritages. She"talks the talk” because, for thirty years, she has"walked the walk” in the student, community, labor, and third world solidarity movements. She is an internationally known speaker clocking in time with Asian Immigrant Women Advocates; Fuerza Unida; and Women of Color Resource Center. Who better to share the stories of her fellow women warriors?

She takes us on a virtual tour that begins in the homelands of China, Korea, Thailand, and Mexico to the factories of the Southwest; the restaurants of Korea town; the sweatshops of El Monte; and the side streets of New York City. We hear from the women worker/warriors directly in verbatim interviews. Our mouths water with vivid descriptions of soul foods cooking while the women tell their stories. Tears of anger well up as we hear the stories of the daily insults on the shop floor; unpaid wages; and deplorable living conditions.

Miriam Ching Louie brilliantly"breaks down” the global economic picture: showing us how most manufacturing, clerical, and services jobs are sub-contracted into tiny, seemingly controllable pieces-rendering 87% of the US work force non-unionized. Rather than leaving us hopeless and helpless, however, we gain courage and inspiration from the struggles and victories of women worker/warriors as they take on Levis Strauss; Jessica McClintock; Donna Karan as well as government agencies and labor unions not stepping up to address their needs.

We learn how the women organized themselves and their communities through community-based workers centers like Chinese Staff and Workers Association in New York City; La Mujer Obrera in El Paso, Texas; Asian Immigrant Women Advocates in Oakland, California; Fuerza Unida in San Antonio, Texas; Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates; Thai Community Development Center and Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles, California.

“These community-based workers centers have"enabled (immigrant women workers) to both resist oppressions they face and begin to fashion new ways to work, live, think, and create..to taste the freedom of remaking themselves as fuller human beings…”as (immigrant women workers) carried out their battles, they started to define not only what they were fighting AGAINST but what they were fight FOR."

Community-based workers centers address not only workplace issues but racism against Asian immigrant communities and sexism in the workplace and home. The centers became training grounds for the next generation of activists: where sons and daughters could fight side by side with their mothers. These workers centers developed a model of leadership from the bottom up; not a model of"professional”; hit and run organizers who jump from one struggle to the next. Not a model of"social service” where professionals have to"do for” workers; but a model of self-determination where everyday folk"do for themselves”. It's about women's liberation and community empowerment. It's about workers standing up for their rights. Such centers have integrated the personal and collective lives of these women for the long haul-providing a stable base from which women can support unite with and strengthen others.

Sweatshop Warriors shows us how ordinary women workers became extraordinary warriors and better human beings. We learn from the example of these women that we do not have to be victims of the global economy and a seemingly senseless war. We learn that we can, and MUST, stand up for our rights as workers, women, and members of the third world. We must fight each and every day for economic and political justice, equality and peace. The survival of humanity depends on it.

www.aamovement.net

[younggiftedandblack]

Not sure if this ounts as Asian American lit.

Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat : Secrets of My Mother's Tokyo Kitchen
by Naomi Moriyama

From Publishers Weekly
It's well known that Japanese women have the lowest obesity rate in the industrialized world (3%) and the highest life expectancy (85 years), and that their cuisine is based on simplicity. Tokyo native Moriyama puts a human face on this phenomenon, that of her mother, Chizuko, in this well-organized, persuasive introduction to a non-Western everyday cooking plan. Just as Moriyama reconstructed Chizuko's cooking practices for herself and her coauthor husband, Doyle (Inside the Oval Office), she shows readers the elements of Chizuko's 6'×12' Tokyo kitchen. She details its pantry ingredients, including bonito (fish) flakes and daikon (radish) and tools such as a rice cooker and wok. Most recipes are based on at least one of the "seven pillars"—fish, vegetables, rice, soy, noodles, tea, fruit—and are familiar and easy to make (Shrimp and Vegetable Tempura, Teriyaki Fish, etc.). Cooking tips abound, but what adds a French Women Don't Get Fat angle is the useful eating advice, such as "Hara hachi bunme," or "Eat until you are 80 percent full." It's a call for moderation that occurs throughout other cultures, and if it's the Japanese version that speaks to readers, good for Moriyama.

Link

[younggiftedandblack]

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places

by Le Ly Hayslip

Hayslip was born a Vietnamese peasant in 1949; little more than 20 years later she left for the United States with an American husband. Her early years were spent as a Viet Cong courier and lookout; a black marketeer; an unwed mother; a bar girl; a hospital aide; and (once) a prostitute. She was tortured by the South Vietnamese army, raped by Viet Cong, and harassed by Americans. This story is juxtaposed with the tale of her difficult return to Vietnam in 1986. Her account is a part of the Vietnamese conflict that we seldom hear, of the survivors in the middle; it concludes with a plea for both sides to put the war behind them. Frankly written, moving, and meaningful, this is highly recommended for adult and academic collections.
- Kenneth W. Berger, Duke Univ. Lib., Durham, N.C.

Child of War, Woman of Peace

by Le Ly Hayslip

Alternately shocking and inspiring, this sequel to Hayslip's award-winning 1989 account of her youth in wartime Vietnam, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, tells how that peasant girl, now in the U.S., parlays a quick wit and a spirit toughened by war, poverty, rape and desertion into personal worth of more than a million dollars, and finds spiritual peace. Wary of men, but hoping unsuccessfully to gain security through two marriages with Americans, she exchanges the horrors of Vietnam for the unknown ones she finds in southern California. There the deaths of both unloved husbands in short order leave her with a little cash, some Social Security aid and income from small jobs. On this, she raises her children (the eldest of whom is her coauthor here), makes canny investments and almost continually suffers through sorry relations with men who deceive her. But religious faith bolsters her, and she finds satisfaction in the foundation she sets up to help her devastated country, called East Meets West. A drama-packed fairy tale cum horror story, the book is filled with cutting observations about American and Vietnamese victims of the war.

[robotic]

Joy Kogawa's, Obasan



genre: fiction, based on historical context (connotations)

summary blurb:
naomi is a sheltered and beloved 5 year old when pearl harbor changes her life. seperated from her mother, she watches bewildered as she and her family become enemy aliens, persecuted and despised in their own land. surrounded by hardship and pain, naomi is protected by the resolute endurance of her aunt, obasan, and the silence of those around her. only after naomi grows up, does she return to question that haunting silence.

about the author: joy kogawa is a canadian author, born in vancouver in 1935. her and her family were interned during world war II for their japanese ancestry in slocan, british columbia and coaldale, alberta. kogawa pursued studies at the university of alberta and taught elementary school in coaldale. she then studied music at the university of toronto and started studying at the anglican women's training college and the university of saskatchewan. in 1957, she married and had two children. to-date, she has published several collections of poetry, essays, children's literature and the novels obasan, itsuka and the rain ascends. she has also been involved in seeking redress from the canadian government for the internment of twenty thousand japanese-canadians during world war II.

[Filiprish]

Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks

[robotic]

Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos



Deportation. Green Card. Residency. Asylum.
For fourteen-year-old Nadira and eighteen-year-old Aisha, these are the words that define their lives.

Nadira and her family are illegal aliens, fleeing to the Canadian border - running from the country they thought would one day be their home. For years, they have lived on expired visas in New York City, hoping they can realize their dream of becoming legal citizens of the United States. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly, being Muslim means being dangerous. A suspected terrorist. And when Nadira's father is arrested and detained at the border, she and her sister, Aisha are sent back to Queens, and told to carry on, as if everything is the same.

But of course nothing is the same. Nadira and Aisha live in fear they'll have to return to a Bangladesh they hardly know. Aisha, once the academic star, falls apart. Now it's up to Nadira to find a way out.

Ask Me No Questions is a searing portrait of modern America in the days of terrorism, orange alerts, and the Patriot Act. It is a story of two sisters, one of whom must find strength to save her family.

read first two chapters


Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers by Marina Budhos



Grade 6 Up-For two-and-a-half years, Budhos interviewed immigrant teenagers from around the country: the New York metropolitan area; Los Angeles; Madison, WI; and Cambridge, MA. The resulting book contains 14 in-depth profiles of older teens, most accompanied by a photograph, and 6 shorter pieces, told solely in the immigrants' own words. They are randomly arranged, except for grouping together the stories of three Muslim girls. Six of the interviewees are from Asia; the rest are from Europe, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. These moving accounts tell of the young people's changing relationships within their own families and ethnic communities, as well as their struggles and adjustments with peer groups at school and individuals in the neighborhoods. They also provide insight into American teenage culture. - amazon.com

[n3bulous]

Title: Asian American X: An Intersection of Twenty-First Century Asian American Voices
Editors: Arar Han and John Hsu

Collection of anectdotes submitted by college students sharing their experiences growing up/being Asian in America. Good read.

4/5