Zia, Helen - Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People

[oyceter]

Contrary to expectation, this is not actually a history of Asian Americans. For that, I would grab Ronald Takaki's Strangers from a Different Shore. Instead, this is a history of the politicization of Asian Americans as a group and the formation of an "Asian-American" identity, as opposed to many separate groups (Chinese Americans, Cambodian Americans, Thai Americans, etc.).

(I will be nitpicky and say that the subtitle by no means conveys this, but that is more my problem with the definition of "American" than Helen Zia's; looking at it more, it does make sense in a way that "American" equates "politicization.")

This was an excellent read. Zia was actually instrumental in some of the events of the book, and may have covered others as a journalist. Her writing is immediate and gripping, and I never had a problem keeping my attention on the book. On the other hand, sometimes Zia can editorialize a little too much for me, particularly when she's noting how wrong or ironic something is.

The book starts out with the pivotal Vincent Chin case, which is when Zia basically places the beginning of the Asian-American movement. She also notes the context for those wondering why it took so long for Asian Americans to mobilize: the strict immigration laws that largely kept out Asian-American women meant that the population of an entire generation of Asian Americans largely dwindled and died. It's hard to mobilize when there are only a scattered few of you. The Asian-American population rapidly grew after the 1965 repeal of old immigration laws, and I don't think it's very surprising that it took the next generation to really begin to politicize.

Zia picks out significant moments in the politicization of Asian Americans and dedicates a chapter to each case. Each chapter is prefaced with personal memories. She covers the controversy over casting Jonathan Pryce in the role of the Engineer for Miss Saigon (yellowface), tension between black shoppers and Korean American storekeepers in both NY and LA (and Cambodian Americans' role in the LA race riots), Filipino Americans' struggle over the Wards Cove lawsuit both in Alaska and Washington DC, the Hmong Americans' condemnation of a racist radio show in Minnesota, Japanese Americans in Hawaii pushing for gay marriage, and a coalition of South Asian taxi drivers striking in NY.

I read this not knowing a lot, but also with an odd sense of startled recognition, much like how I felt reading Takaki's history of Asian Americans. "This is my history," I thought. "I'm in here. This affects me." It is not that I can't identify with white American men of the past, but that I am so often asked to. Here was a place where I didn't have to, where my concerns about language and culture and immigration and nationality were discussed. I hope one day that I will no longer be surprised to see this aspect of myself reflected back in books.

It also isn't limited to race, ethnicity and nationality; Zia touches upon issues of class and gender and sexuality as well, though not at all on issues of age and ability. I also liked that she included South Asians and Southeast Asians; I didn't get as much as I wanted, but I wonder if part of that is because of how relatively new those communities are?

The other neat bit was reading and seeing some familiar names pop up ("David Mura! Oh hey, this bit with the Hmong Americans is what he wrote about in his friendship essay!"). I'm still absolutely awful at non-white American history, but it is good to see my bits and pieces of reading here and there suddenly gain context.

I also liked Zia's look at intra-POC and intra-Asian conflicts and coalitions; it gave me a lot of hope. Even though I was deeply disappointed at times -- when the black-Korean association in LA fell apart prior to the race riots, when non-Korean Asian Americans failed to help out the Korean Americans in LA -- I drew strength from knowing that pan-Asian coalitions had existed and worked before, that the NAACP had supported Asian American initiatives, and that Japanese Americans had supported GLBT organizations on gay marriage even when it wasn't specifically a Japanese issue. If it was unjust, it did concern them, they decided; they had keenly felt the lack of support in the past and struggled within their own organization to provide this support to others.

I probably sound dorky and sappy, and I am glossing over many of the difficulties in these coalitions, particularly as they were (are?) the exception and not the rule. But just knowing that these things had happened, regaining these pieces of history -- it made me feel proud and hopeful and comforted and visible and not alone. Even here, where I feel like I don't have that many roots, even here I have a history.

Links:
- nojojojo's review

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

The other neat bit was reading and seeing some familiar names pop up

*giggle* Shortly after I read this, I had Peter Kwong for a class (I was doing urban planning @ Hunter College) & told him that I'd just read the book & was excited to see his name in there. And he was all, "You must be easily impressed!" (Hee. He was so awesomely crabby, I loved him)

I need to reread that book sometime... but so many other books to read, eep!!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oooh, this sounds interesting...another one for the endless Booklist O' Doom!

It is not that I can't identify with white American men of the past, but that I am so often asked to. Here was a place where I didn't have to...

YESSSSSSSSSS!!! I had a bit of a similar breakthrough moment at the powwow this weekend, when it struck me how much flag-waving, anthem-singing, etc., grates on me as feeling like just a coercive empty display in settings like sporting events, but places like here it actually felt right and meaningful and patriotic. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was all about the setting; this is a crowd where I *knew* the overwhelming majority of participants and spectators were intimately aware that this country's history did not spring out of nothingness in 1776, knew that the other folks here read lines like "land where my fathers died" rather differently... Here, having the stars-and-stripes and the maple leaf flying behind the eagle staffs, the flagwaving wasn't about uncomfortable rah-rah-USA jingoism, it was reaffirmation that however much land has been lost, however the national borders have been drawn, we're still here and this is all still Indian Country.

She also notes the context for those wondering why it took so long for Asian Americans to mobilize: the strict immigration laws that largely kept out Asian-American women meant that the population of an entire generation of Asian Americans largely dwindled and died.

And this is another bit where the mainland experience is so different from that of Hawai'i in ways I never really thought much about...interesting, and sad. In the islands you had women coming in much much earlier, so there was never that extreme of a generational break...and so the politicization happened much much earlier, post-WWII.

Is there much in there on Yuri Kochiyama? I remember being just utterly wowed when I first read about her, she was just so inspiring and I was stunned that in all the stuff I'd seen previously on the civil rights movement, everything seemed to be reduced to black and white and stories like hers were overlooked.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

>hat the NAACP had supported Asian American initiatives, and that Japanese Americans had supported GLBT organizations on gay marriage even when it wasn't specifically a Japanese issue<

Oh, that is awesome! This is cheering to hear.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

It gets even more awesome in the details -- the national Japanese American Citizen's League came out in support of equal marriage rights all the way back in 1994, one of the earliest non-gay organizations to do so. (I've seen some references saying they were the second, beaten to the punch only by the ACLU.) In the Hawai'i gay-marriage amendment debates (http://starbulletin.com/specials/samesex.html) of the late 90s, the local branch of the JACL ran advertisements using images of the internment camps to drive home the message that this was another case of a minority being deprived of basic human rights.

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

Ahhh -- thanks for the rec; I'm putting this one on my list too. =)

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

the naacp has done a lot of things that tend to be unknown, like when they majorly supported the 1987 gay rights march on washington.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello would it be possible to have a copy of the flashing against racism icon at the top left of your previous page, the unspecified amount of time for blogging against racism one? I would like to put it up on my DJ Kirkby blog.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I really loved this book for the reasons that you cite. Though I will say that reading it made me so angry at times; when Zia laid out the extent of how Asian Americans have been betrayed at various times by politicians (like that chapter on the fisheries/canneries) I just sat and boggled. But in a good consciousness-raising way. And having more context for the emergence of Asian American identity is really, really helpful.

[sajia.livejournal.com]

Hi, I came here via lea-hazel's link to your Fable posts. Two of the five main characters in my urban adventure comic are Chinese-Canadian (mainland) and Korean-Canadian Christian, so I'd love your input, especially because we at least share the same politics. Re: Japanese-American support of gay marriage - could this also be because Japan has a history of accepting same-sex relationships? Bellatrys mentioned something about same-sex love in feudal Japan.
I'm with you on the neccessity of intra-color coalitions. I can understand why some IBARW bloggers were pissed off by people raising the question of racism by people of color, but I do think we need to look at our own racism - which, btw, has been affected by white racism too - in order to build coalitions.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is really neat. Thanks for the info.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

How utterly cool.

[oyceter]

Oh cool!

I now want to look up rachelmanija's rec of Anne Fadiman's book on Hmong Americans, except I am a little hesitant b/c I didn't like Fadiman's Ex Libris.

[oyceter]

( ICON LOVE!)

Here, having the stars-and-stripes and the maple leaf flying behind the eagle staffs, the flagwaving wasn't about uncomfortable rah-rah-USA jingoism, it was reaffirmation that however much land has been lost, however the national borders have been drawn, we're still here and this is all still Indian Country.

Ohhh, I never quite thought about it in that context. But yes, that makes sense and makes me feel better about displays of patriotism.

I vaguely remember something on Yuri Kochiyama, just because the name sounds familiar, but nothing specific. I think I need to look her up now.

[oyceter]

Yeah! It was!

[oyceter]

Yay!

[oyceter]

Yup, it's shareable! Credit is appreciated ^_^.

[oyceter]

OMG. The chapter on the Wards Cove case drove me crazy. I wanted to shake everyone involved, Robert Kennedy in particular.

I really need to post some time on Asian-American identity and TCKness.

[oyceter]

Hi!

Two of the five main characters in my urban adventure comic are Chinese-Canadian (mainland) and Korean-Canadian Christian, so I'd love your input, especially because we at least share the same politics.

Oh! Cool! Is it a script or something, or sketched out?

Re: Japanese-American support of gay marriage - could this also be because Japan has a history of accepting same-sex relationships?

I don't really think so -- the historical same-sex relationships in Japan were almost all male-male, and were presented as a sort of alternative to marriage, family and home. Also, most of the literature on same-sex relationships was written over two hundred years ago, so while I think it can influence modern attitudes, I don't think it's that likely. Also also, the yaoi/bl subculture in Japan doesn't focus much on gay men as politicized beings; there's a lot of the "Oh, I'm not gay, I'm just in love with a guy" type thing and not much focus on homosexuality as an identity outside of romance.

[sajia.livejournal.com]

I've put up what I've written so far of the script on a friends-locked post; you've been friended, so all you have to do is look back a few weeks through the archives. It doesn't yet go into the East Asian culture and politics, and I'm going to eliminate the white chick Roz from the story because she's not coming alive in my head.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh, Yuri's story is just so incredible, and I don't think I ever even heard of her until her Nobel Prize nomination two years ago. This site (http://www.learntoquestion.com/seevak/groups/2004/sites/kochiyama/main.html) looks pretty thorough.

(And thanks, that icon's what happens when a Saiyuki obsession meets a Shirley Bassey earworm *grin*)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I really need to post some time on Asian-American identity and TCKness.

Oh, please do! :)

[oyceter]

Cool, I'll try and look it over, though I'm going to be a bit busy for the next few weeks.

[oyceter]

Awesome, thanks for the link!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Share and enjoy! :D

_{(And please forgive me for another bit of comment-necromancy, I've been poking through your tags looking for more cool book recs and couldn't resist babbling on in a similar vein in your thread on the Code Talker YA novel. At least that one's only two months old?)}