Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White

Amazon.com
Yellow by Frank H. Wu is an eclectic, incisive investigation-cum-meditation that, though focusing on Asian Americans, recasts the United States' ongoing debate about racial identity in all forms. Wu suggests that the widespread stereotyping of Asian Americans, while "superficially positive," is inherently damaging. Mixing personal anecdotes, current events, academic studies, and court cases, Wu not only debunks the myth of a "model minority" but also makes discomfiting observations about attitudes toward affirmative action, what he calls "rational" discrimination, mixed marriages, racial profiling, and the "false divisions" of integration versus pluralism and assimilation versus multiculturalism. Though its conclusions are unremarkable, Yellow is thought provoking. The book's strength--besides its clarity and thoughtfulness--is a lack of tendentiousness. Wu prefers to suggest, not posit; muse, not shout; and ask questions, not necessarily answer them. --H. O'Billovitch


From Publishers Weekly
Beginning with a recap of his childhood bewilderment with the paltry selection of appealing Asian characters in 1970s American pop culture, Frank H. Wu, associate professor at the Howard University School of Law, describes the alienation experienced by Asian-Americans in the 20th-century in Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. An activist and journalist (the Washington Post, the Nation, the L.A. Times, etc.), Wu discusses key moments and phenomena in Asian-American history: the WWII internment camps, the 1992 L.A. riots, the "model minority myth," the virulent anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. during the 1980s' recession (exemplified by the murder of a Chinese American engineer by two white auto workers, fined $3,780 for the crime) and periodic fads involving "Asian-ness" in American media. His sobering, astute, compelling investigation locates the particulars of Asian-American experience with racism in this country's spectrum of ethnic and cultural prejudice. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Most discussions of race and affirmative action focus on the relationship between Caucasian Americans and those of African descent. With this important book, Wu, an associate professor of law at Howard University School of Law in Washington, DC, and a columnist for A. Magazine, attempts to expand the discussion by including Americans of Asian descent. Starting with his own childhood experiences, Wu talks about the difficulties of being Asian in America, discussing the stereotypes associated with Asian Americans and the reasons why they are often blamed for discrimination. He then goes on to discuss crimes committed against Asian Americans because of their race and way of life, explaining that police investigations are often more thorough when Asian Americans are accused of criminal wrongdoing. This fascinating blend of Wu's personal experiences and his experiences as a lawyer, professor, and reporter provides a different and much-needed perspective on an important and often neglected subject. The only drawback is the lack of bibliography. Even so, this title belongs in all academic libraries. Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Wu, an associate professor of law at Howard University School of Law, offers a provocative perspective on race relations in America. While many would look on Asian Americans as America's "model minority," Wu demonstrates how even positive references to Asians can have damaging effects on Asian American psyches. Indeed, he discusses at length "the model minority myth" (that Asians are "intelligent, gifted in math and science, polite, hard-working, family-oriented, law-abiding, and successfully entrepreneurial"). Although Wu sometimes seems overly sensitive, he makes a valid point that while white Americans might have felt superior to poor, uneducated (if held back) blacks, "Asian-Americans are the first group that seems to jeopardize the dominance of white Americans." He calls for coalition building among Asian Americans, but one that does not selfishly seek political power. Rather, he proposes a principled coalition--what Cornel West has called the "ethics of ethnicity." Wu has contributed another chapter to the continuing saga of American democracy. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Mother Jones
"[Wu's] defiant yellow-in-a-black-and-white-world perspective is refreshing."


Book Description
A leading voice in America's Asian community tackles what it means to be Asian American in contemporary America. Writing in the tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois, Cornel West, and others who confronted the "color line" of the twentieth century, journalist, scholar, and activist Frank H. Wu offers a unique perspective on how changing ideas of racial identity will affect race relations in the twenty-first century. Wu examines affirmative action, globalization, immigration, and other controversial contemporary issues through the lens of the Asian-American experience. Mixing personal anecdotes, legal cases, and journalistic reporting, Wu confronts damaging Asian-American stereotypes such as "the model minority" and "the perpetual foreigner." By offering new ways of thinking about race in American society, Wu's work dares us to make good on our great democratic experiment.


About the Author
The first Asian American to serve as a law professor at Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C., Frank H. Wu has written for a range of publications including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and The Nation, and writes a regular column for Asian Week. He lives in Washington, D.C.


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Beginning with a recap of his childhood bewilderment with the paltry selection of appealing Asian characters in 1970s American pop culture, Frank H. Wu, associate professor at the Howard University School of Law, describes the alienation experienced by Asian-Americans in the 20th-century in Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. An activist and journalist (the Washington Post, the Nation, the L.A. Times, etc.), Wu discusses key moments and phenomena in Asian-American history: the WWII internment camps, the 1992 L.A. riots, the "model minority myth," the virulent anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. during the 1980s' recession (exemplified by the murder of a Chinese American engineer by two white auto workers, fined $3,780 for the crime) and periodic fads involving "Asian-ness" in American media. His sobering, astute, compelling investigation locates the particulars of Asian-American experience with racism in this country's spectrum of ethnic and cultural prejudice. (Jan.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. Read all 7 "From The Critics" >


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