American Eyes

In this unique collection of touching and heartfelt short stories, ten young Asian-American writers re-create the conflicts that all young people feel living in two distinct worlds -- one of memories and traditions, and one of today. Whether it includes dreams of gossiping with the prettiest blond girl in class, not wanting to marry the man your parents love, or discovering that your true identity is ultimately your decision, these extraordinary stories by writers of Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Filipino, and Korean descent explore the confusion and ambivalence of growing up in a world different from the one their parents knew -- and the choices we all must make when looking for a world to which we want to belong.

This book explores how Canada is imagined primarily by US writers, and what readers and scholars on both sides of the Canada-US border can learn from these recent depictions by examining a selection of US-authored fiction from 9/11 to the present. The novels — and occasionally paintings, films, and musicals — that are the subject of the book provide a deliberately varied set of case studies to probe how US texts, along with works of art produced on both sides of the Canada-US border, uncover moments in Canadian historical and literary studies that have been buried or occluded to protect Canada's self-representation as an exceptional nation.

This abridgement of the unique journal of Francis Hall, America's leading business pioneer in nineteenth-century Japan, offers a remarkable view of the period leading to the Meiji Restoration. An upstate New York book dealer, Hall went to Japan in 1859 to collect material for a book on the country and to serve as correspondent for Horace Greely's New York Tribune. Seeing the opportunities for commerce in Yokohama, he helped found Walsh, Hall, and Co., an institution that became one of the most important American trading houses in Japan. Hall was a shrewd businessman, but also a perceptive recorder of life around him. Privately preserved for more than a hundred years, this document shows Hall to have been an astute observer and story-teller as well as an influential opinion-maker in the United States during the crucial decade of the American Civil War and the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. While contemporary American and British diplomatic accounts have focused on the official record, Hall reveals the private side of life in the treaty port. The publication of his journal, now in abridged form for the student and general reader, furnishes us with an insightful and sensitive portrayal of Japan on the eve of modernity.

As scholars and writers have attested throughout the years, Germany can be a fascinating as well as challenging country in which to study and live. Its geopolitical position in Central Europe has given it significant influence over the course of European history. It has been a country of contradictions and of momentous events that have had tremendous impact on the international community. For the U.S. Fellows in the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow Program there may be as many reasons for participation in the program as there are Fellows. The program's objective is to give young U.S. professionals experience in German government and industry at an early point in their career. The Robert Bosch Foundation Alumni Association has undertaken to further the goal of U.S.-German relations with this book.

During the more than 90 years of the Pulitzer Prizes, quite a number of awards went to articles, cartoons and books dealing with Germany. For the first time, this volume not only presents prize-winning material of that kind but also mentions the circumstances of the various prize-givings and adds details about the winners. The confidential jury reports give some background information about the decision-making processes. All sources come exclusively from the Pulitzer Prize Collection at Columbia University, New York.

Largely based on the information conveyed by bestselling novels, magazines, cartoons, movies and television shows, this is an illuminating look at American attitudes and stereotypes about Japan since World War II. The book is illustrated with one photograph and sixteen cartoons.

Cultural understanding between the United States and China has been a long and complex process. The period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century is not only a critical era in modern Chinese history, but also the peak time of illustrated news reporting in the United States. Besides images from newspapers and journals, this collection also contains pictures about China and the Chinese published in books, brochures, commercial advertisements, campaign posters, postcards, etc. Together, they have documented colourful portrayals of the Chinese and their culture by the U.S. print media and their evolution from ethnic curiosity, stereotyping, and racial prejudice to social awareness, reluctant understanding, and eventual acceptance. Since these publications represent different positions in American politics, they can help contemporary readers develop a more comprehensive understanding of major events in modern American and Chinese histories, such as the cause and effect of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the power struggles behind the development of the Open Door Policy at the turn of the twentieth century. This collection of images has essentially formed a rich visual resource that is both diverse and intriguing; and as primary source documents, they carry significant historical and cultural values that could stimulate further academic research. Contents: The State Affairs of the Celestial Empire in the late Nineteenth Century The Spectacular Geography of the Chinese Empire The Economic, Social, and Cultural Lives of the Late Qing Dynasty Life and Struggles of the Chinese in the New Continent The Chinese Question in American Politics The Chronology of Modern Chinese and American Histories, and Major Events in Chinese Immigration and Sino–US Relations Readership: General readers interested in Chinese culture and Chinese people.Keywords: Chinese People and Culture;American Perceptions;China;United States;Sino-US Relations;Nineteenth Century;Immigrants;The Chinese Exclusion Act;Engravings;Illustrations;Newspapers and MagazinesReview: Key Features: Nearly one thousand historical images of Chinese and their culture are presented in this book Rich primary source documents of American perception of the Chinese and their culture

"Foreigners have been writing about the United States ever since its foundation. Now it is my turn. But please don't hold this against me: the United States itself is at fault. Like a great many people on earth, I've long been fascinated by this remarkable phenomenon which calls itself America. My fate -or perhaps good fortune- has been that of a foreigner who for half a century lived the American experience-as a child, as a student, as an author, as a recurrent visitor and as a university professor. Being Mexican places me in a special category: having lost half its territory to the United States in the 19th century, having found itself caught up in the maelstrom of America's current identity crisis, Mexico can never ignore what happens north of the border. Further, while serving as Mexico's Foreign Minister from 2000 to 2003, I had the privilege of peeping inside the machinery of power that makes this great nation tick. That said, this book is not written from a Mexican perspective but rather from that of a sympathetic foreign critic who has seen the United States from both inside and outside. And its hope is to contribute something to how Americans view themselves and are viewed by the world. Before embarking on this journey, I naturally looked back at some of my forebears, earlier foreigners who were drawn to visit or live in the United States and who then went on to offer their version of America to their home readers. Some like the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the early 19th century classic, Democracy in America, felt European nations had much to learn from the American democratic experiment. Others like Charles Dickens left dismayed by what he considered to be the country's singular obsession with money. But they are just two of dozens who have tried-and continue to try- to find a magic key that unlocks the complexities and contradictions of American society. Indeed, it is as if the United States seeks to challenge foreign writers to explain it, confident they will fail. And in taking it on, these outsiders have variously experienced frustration, hope, anger, excitement, disappointment and enlightenment- but never indifference"--