Teaching Asian American History

Drawing on in-depth interviews, this text examines how Asian American teachers in the US have adapted, persisted, and resisted racial stereotyping and systematic marginalization throughout their educational and professional pathways. Utilizing critical perspectives combined with tenets of Asian Critical Race Theory, Kim and Hsieh structure their findings through chapters focused on issues relating to anti-essentialism, intersectionality, and the broader social and historical positioning of Asians in the US. Applying a critical theoretical lens to the study of Asian American teachers demonstrates the importance of this framework in understanding educators’ experiences during schooling, training, and teaching, and in doing so, the book highlights the need to ensure visibility for a community so often overlooked as a "model minority", and yet one of the fastest growing racial groups in the US. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in the sociology of education, multicultural education, and teachers and teacher education more broadly. Those specifically interested in Asian American history and the study of race and ethics within Asian studies will also benefit from this book.

Teaching about Asian Pacific Americans was created for educators and other practitioners who want to use interactive activities, assignments, and strategies in their classrooms or workshops. Experts in the field of Asian American Studies will find powerful, innovative teaching activities that clearly convey established and new ideas. The activities in this book have been used effectively in workshops for staff and practitioners in student services programs, community-based organizations, teacher training programs, social service agencies, and diversity training.

Offering a rich and insightful road map of Asian American history as it has evolved over more than 200 years, this book marks the first systematic attempt to take stock of this field of study. It examines, comments, and questions the changing assumptions and contexts underlying the experiences and contributions of an incredibly diverse population of Americans. Arriving and settling in this nation as early as the 1790s, with American-born generations stretching back more than a century, Asian Americans have become an integral part of the American experience; this cleverly organized book marks the trajectory of that journey, offering researchers invaluable information and interpretation. Part 1 offers a synoptic narrative history, a chronology, and a set of periodizations that reflect different ways of constructing the Asian American past. Part 2 presents lucid discussions of historical debates—such as interpreting the anti-Chinese movement of the late 1800s and the underlying causes of Japanese American internment during World War II—and such emerging themes as transnationalism and women and gender issues. Part 3 contains a historiographical essay and a wide-ranging compilation of book, film, and electronic resources for further study of core themes and groups, including Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Hmong, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, and others.

From 1910 to 1940, over half a million people sailed through the Golden Gate, hoping to start a new life in America. But they did not all disembark in San Francisco; instead, most were ferried across the bay to the Angel Island Immigration Station. For many, this was the real gateway to the United States. For others, it was a prison and their final destination, before being sent home. In this landmark book, historians Erika Lee and Judy Yung (both descendants of immigrants detained on the island) provide the first comprehensive history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Drawing on extensive new research, including immigration records, oral histories, and inscriptions on the barrack walls, the authors produce a sweeping yet intensely personal history of Chinese "paper sons," Japanese picture brides, Korean students, South Asian political activists, Russian and Jewish refugees, Mexican families, Filipino repatriates, and many others from around the world. Their experiences on Angel Island reveal how America's discriminatory immigration policies changed the lives of immigrants and transformed the nation. A place of heartrending history and breathtaking beauty, the Angel Island Immigration Station is a National Historic Landmark, and like Ellis Island, it is recognized as one of the most important sites where America's immigration history was made. This fascinating history is ultimately about America itself and its complicated relationship to immigration, a story that continues today.

In this important book, Nicholas Hartlep and Daniel Scott’s detailed analyses on both visual and historical representations of Asian Americans in textbooks and teacher manuals used in our elementary and secondary schools poignantly tell us that generations of children are growing up being fed this single story about Asian Americans. As Hartlep and Scott write. Asian Americans have once again been constructed as the “good minority” that can succeed on their own and be used as a political instrument to shame the Blacks for their underachievement and their fight for equality. Over and over again, the media has been telling “a single story” about Asian Americans to the public for the past fifty years. The consequence of this fabricated story is that it “discourages others—even Asian-Americans themselves—from believing in the validity of their struggles” (Linshi, 2014, p. 1).

In Defense of Asian American Studies offers fascinating tales from the trenches on the origins and evolution of the field of Asian American studies, as told by one of its founders and most highly regarded scholars. Wielding intellectual energy, critical acumen, and a sly sense of humor, Sucheng Chan discusses her experiences on three campuses within the University of California system as Asian American studies was first developed--in response to vehement student demand--under the rubric of ethnic studies. Chan speaks by turns as an advocate and an administrator striving to secure a place for Asian American studies; as a teacher working to give Asian American students a voice and white students a perspective on race and racism; and as a scholar and researcher still asking her own questions. The essays span three decades and close with a piece on the new challenges facing Asian American studies. Eloquently documenting a field of endeavor in which scholarship and identity define and strengthen each other, In Defense of Asian American Studies combines analysis, personal experience, and indispensable practical advice for those engaged in building and sustaining Asian American studies programs.

After emerging from the tumult of social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the field of Asian American studies has enjoyed rapid and extraordinary growth. Nonetheless, many aspects of Asian American history still remain open to debate. The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History offers the first comprehensive commentary on the state of the field, simultaneously assessing where Asian American studies came from and what the future holds. In this volume, thirty leading scholars offer original essays on a wide range of topics. The chapters trace Asian American history from the beginning of the migration flows toward the Pacific Islands and the American continent to Japanese American incarceration and Asian American participation in World War II, from the experience of exclusion, violence, and racism to the social and political activism of the late twentieth century. The authors explore many of the key aspects of the Asian American experience, including politics, economy, intellectual life, the arts, education, religion, labor, gender, family, urban development, and legal history. The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History demonstrates how the roots of Asian American history are linked to visions of a nation marked by justice and equity and to a deep effort to participate in a global project aimed at liberation. The contributors to this volume attest to the ongoing importance of these ideals, showing how the mass politics, creative expressions, and the imagination that emerged during the 1960s are still relevant today. It is an unprecedentedly detailed portrait of Asian Americans and how they have helped change the face of the United States.