Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People
- Book Review,
by Helen Zia
From Publishers Weekly
While growing up in New Jersey in the 1950s and '60s, Zia was provided with plenty of American history by her teachers, while her father inundated her with stories of China's past. Yet she was left wondering about people like herself, Asian Americans, who seemed to be "MIH--Missing in History." In this ambitious and richly detailed account of the formation of the Asian-American community--which extends from the first major wave of immigration to Gold Mountain" (as the Chinese dubbed America during the gold rush) to the recent influx of Southeast Asians, who since 1975 have nearly doubled the Asian-American population--Zia fills those absences, while examining the complex origins of the events she relates. The result is a vivid personal and national history, in which Zia guides us through a range of recent flash points that have galvanized the Asian-American community. Among them are the brutal, racially motivated murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1982; the devastating riots in Los Angeles in 1992, where almost half of the $1 billion in damages to the city were sustained by Korean-American shop owners; and the embattled South Asian New York City cab drivers who, in May of 1998, banded together with the New York Taxi Workers alliance and pulled off a citywide strike. The recent boom in the Asian-American population (from half a million in the 1950s to 7.3 million in 1990), coupled with Zia's fresh perspective, makes it unlikely that their stories will go missing again. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Asian Americans have only recently emerged as a cohesive, self-identified racial group. Now, award-winning Asian American journalist Zia traces the changing politics and cultures of this significant but disjointed group of people by examining the incidents that helped galvanize them. Drawing on both family stories and public events (everything from the Vincent Chin affair to the boycott of Korean American--owned stores in Brooklyn) Zia surveys the history of Asian Americans, the rapid development of their new political force, and the unique issues they face. This well-written book is an important addition to the growing field of Asian American studies. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-Mee-Len Hom, Hunter Coll. Lib., New York Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Somini Sengupta
...this is an important book because it seeks to answer a question that few other popular works pose: What does it take for people like the author to become fully American?
From Booklist
Frustrated by the relative invisibility of Asians in U.S. history and culture, Zia, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, details the diverse cultural backgrounds of Asians in America. She notes the historical cycles that have seen Americans alternately embracing and repudiating Asians. Zia recounts the immigration of her own parents, their marriage, and their attempts to make themselves into Americans, efforts that were complicated when Zia came of age during the social and racial upheaval of the 1960s. She also recounts the dubious U.S. history of race relations regarding Asians, regrouping favored and disfavored nationalities, temporarily reclassifying favored groups as whites. She examines the internment of the Japanese during World War II, exploitation of Chinese workers in the West and the South, and the racial animus aimed at Vietnamese relocated in the U.S. after the war. Zia sees the convergence of growth in Asian populations, the diversity of that population, and an incipient Asian American movement that may initiate increased political power and social influence in the U.S. Vanessa Bush
From Kirkus Reviews
Zia, a Chinese-American and co-editor of the reference Asian American Biography, intertwines a memoir of her own life with an informal history of Asians in America. Unless one starts with prehistoric immigrants crossing the Bering Straits, the first Asians to arrive in America were Filipinos. Spanish traders impressed them as seaman, and many jumped ship in Louisiana in the 16th century. After the Spanish-American War, Filipinos, technically US citizens, immigrated in large numbers to Alaska, where they worked, under barbarous conditions, in salmon canneries. Of course, as Zia points out, the Japanese fared even worse, rounded up and placed in internment camps as WWII began, even as many of the first-born, the nisei, fought both in Europe and the Pacific. In fact, in one of Zia's many telling anecdotes, an all-Japanese unit was set to liberate Dachau, but was held back because of the publicity problem. Zia is perhaps most passionate describing the Chinese, reminding us of the infamous exclusion law of the 1880sinstituted after many of them had died to build the railroads and the country, in a sense, was done with them. Into the larger Chinese story Zia weaves her own more intimate history. A child of the 1960s and initially a traditional, compliant daughter on the path toward becoming a physician, she threw off the traces, joining forces with black activists and groups opposing the Vietnam War. Yet Asians were special, ``invisible'' and yet discriminated against even among activists. Instead of following in the mold of other activists, Zia took yet another routeto Detroit, where she bolted together automobiles and came to see herself as a writer and agitator for Chinese-American rights. Evenhanded, subtle, and engaging, though Zias interwoven memoir is less compelling than the vast story of these many peoples, laboring mightily to become Americans. (B&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Library Journal
"This well-written book is an important addition to the growing field of Asian American studies."
Review
"Serves not only as an invaluable record of a movement but also as a moving and often funny personal memoir." --David Henry Hwang
"An ambitious blend of personal and cultural history, a primer on Asian America that covers everything from the history of Asian immigration to the turbulence of the past three decades as the community has gone from silent majority to demanding its place in American society."--Ferdinand M. de Leon, The Seattle Times
"An important book because it seeks to answer a question that few other popular works pose: What does it take for people like the author to become fully American?"-- Somini Sengupta, The New York Times Book Review
"Written with journalistic clarity Asian American Dreams offers a way out of the cycle of racial prejudice, discrimination and violence. Its examples of individuals and communities that have spanned cultural antipathies to fight for a cause serve as beacons of hope."-- Roger Yim, San Francisco Chronicle
"Helen Zia has produced what many of us were waiting for--an honest, scholarly, yet intensely personal book about the transformation of Asian America. She deftly interweaves the remarkable history of a people with her own unique journey as a pioneer activist and writer. The result--Asian American Dreams--is a fresh and incisive narrative, epic in its sweep, thrilling in its verve and clarity."--Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking
"A rich chronicle of personal and national history involving Asian Americans that examines issues ranging from immigration patterns to stereotypes in entertainment."-- Dinah Eng, Gannett News
"Dreams is a wonderful, sophisticated, lively sociohistorical biography of Asian Pacific Americans fighting back to broaden the human rights of U.S. citizens and immigrants alike. Herein Helen Zia emerges as the foremost activist-chronicler of the eighties and nineties."--John Kuo Wei Tchen, professor, New York University, author of New York Before Chinatown
Ronald Takaki, author of Strangers from a Different Shore
"An inspiring story of the struggles of Zia and diverse Asian Americans to transform themselves from 'aliens' into Americans . . ."
Ferdinand M. de Leon, The Seattle Times
". . . covers everything . . . of the past three decades as the community has gone from silent minority to demanding its place . . ."
Daphne Kwok, Executive Director, Organization of Chinese Americans
"I am so thrilled that . . . Zia has taken the time to preserve the history for us all to learn from . . ."
Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking
"Zia . . . deftly interweaves the remarkable history of a people with her own unique journey as a pioneer activist and writer . . ."
Angela E. Oh, Attorney, former member, Advisory Board to the President's Initiative on Race
". . . captures the words and memories of people who have defined the path taken by Asian Americans in the twentieth century."
John Kuo Wei Tchen, Professor, New York University, author of New York before Chinatown
". . . a wonderful, sophisticated, lively sociohistorical biography . . . Herein Helen Zia emerges as the foremost activist-chronicler of the eighties and nineties."
KaYing Yang, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
"Powerful and encompassing. A must read for everyone who is American of Asian heritage, and especially every other American . . ."
Review
"Serves not only as an invaluable record of a movement but also as a moving and often funny personal memoir." --David Henry Hwang
"An ambitious blend of personal and cultural history, a primer on Asian America that covers everything from the history of Asian immigration to the turbulence of the past three decades as the community has gone from silent majority to demanding its place in American society."--Ferdinand M. de Leon, The Seattle Times
"An important book because it seeks to answer a question that few other popular works pose: What does it take for people like the author to become fully American?"-- Somini Sengupta, The New York Times Book Review
"Written with journalistic clarity Asian American Dreams offers a way out of the cycle of racial prejudice, discrimination and violence. Its examples of individuals and communities that have spanned cultural antipathies to fight for a cause serve as beacons of hope."-- Roger Yim, San Francisco Chronicle
"Helen Zia has produced what many of us were waiting for--an honest, scholarly, yet intensely personal book about the transformation of Asian America. She deftly interweaves the remarkable history of a people with her own unique journey as a pioneer activist and writer. The result--Asian American Dreams--is a fresh and incisive narrative, epic in its sweep, thrilling in its verve and clarity."--Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking
"A rich chronicle of personal and national history involving Asian Americans that examines issues ranging from immigration patterns to stereotypes in entertainment."-- Dinah Eng, Gannett News
"Dreams is a wonderful, sophisticated, lively sociohistorical biography of Asian Pacific Americans fighting back to broaden the human rights of U.S. citizens and immigrants alike. Herein Helen Zia emerges as the foremost activist-chronicler of the eighties and nineties."--John Kuo Wei Tchen, professor, New York University, author of New York Before Chinatown
Book Description
This groundbreaking book traces the transformation of Asian Americans from a few small, disconnected, and largely invisible ethnic groups into a self-identified racial group that is influencing every aspect of American society. It explores the events that shocked Asian Americans into motion and shaped a new consciousness. Helen Zia, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, writes as a personal witness to the dramatic changes involving Asian Americans.
About the Author
Helen Zia, a graduate of Princeton University's first co-educational class, is an award-winning journalist who has covered Asian American communities and political movements for twenty years. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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