Asian American, Native Hawai'ian, and Pacific Islander Heritage: Readings and Resources

"... firmly situates the South Asian American narratives she examines in “the ongoing American story” of immigration and assimilation ... focusing on how these narratives complicate our understanding of the American dream and reveal the complexities of (national) belonging in an era of heightened trans-national exchanges.

"Fine artist, activist, and Titans actor Chella Man uses his own experiences as a deaf, transgender, genderqueer, Jewish person of color to talk about cultivating self-acceptance and acting as one's own representation"

"Through raw and relatable essays, Constance shares private memories of childhood, young love and heartbreak, sexual assault and harassment, and how she "made it" in Hollywood. Her stories offer a behind-the-scenes look at being Asian American in the entertainment industry and the continuing evolution of her identity and influence in the public eye."

"... offers an engaging survey of Asian American literature from the nineteenth century to the present day."

"... unpacks Lee’s global impact, linking his legendary status as a martial artist, actor, and director to his continual traversals across the newly interconnected Asia and America."

"... studies three domains of acculturation--language attitudes, cultural participation and social network--in relation to home language maintenance."

Winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry "captures the migratory latticework of those transformed by war and colonization."

"... contends that aesthetic forms are inseparable from social, political, and historical contexts in the writing and reception of all poetry. Wang questions the tendency of critics and academics alike to occlude the role of race in their discussions of the American poetic tradition and casts a harsh light on the double standard they apply in reading poems by poets who are racial minorities."

"... in recounting this search, he describes a journey of identity where meaning, fulfillment, and even liberation were often most available to him through music and its diverse delivery systems. Hongo writes about being a Hawaiian-born, Japanese kid growing up in the shadow of the shameful internment of his ancestors during World War II; about picking up music tips from kids with darker skin than his own; about being a fish out of water with his white peers."

"First comprehensive study of the lives and artistic production of artists of Asian ancestry active in the United States before 1970."

"Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter's search through intimate and global history to understand herself and the cultural roots of her mother's condition."

Each essay "addresses how Asian-American writers reflect and shape their cultural identities in fiction" and draws "attention to the diversity within the Asian communities of the United States and Canada ...."

"... gathers writings, documentation and ephemera from Godzilla: Asian American Arts Network, a collective based in New York from 1990 to 2001, which was formed to provide a support structure for Asian American artists, writers and curators to stimulate visibility and critical discourse for their work."

"Focused on the Heartland cities of Chicago, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri, this book draws rich evidences from various government records, personal stories and interviews, and media reports, and sheds light on the commonalities and uniqueness of the region, as compared to the Asian American communities on the East and West Coast and Hawaii."

"... makes the case that, rather than simply reflect the West's cultural fantasies of an imagined 'Orient,' images of East Asian ethnicities (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) have long been contested ideological sites where the commercial interests of Hollywood studios and the political mandates of U.S. foreign policy collide, compete against one another, and often become compromised in the process."

"... an informative, lively, and inclusive celebration of both shared experiences and singular moments, and all the different ways in which we have chosen to come together."

"Offers pedagogical techniques for teaching Asian American and Asian Canadian literature, film, and media, including topics such as diaspora, transnationalism, trauma, history, law, and resisting racism, along with literary techniques and genres Gives syllabus suggestions for undergraduate and graduate courses in literature, gender studies, ethnic studies, and Asian American studies."

"'Voluntary evacuation,' a little-known Japanese American experience during World War II with roughly 120,000 people forced from their homes by Executive Order 9066. Around 5,000 escaped. Recounting her family's flight from home and the influence of those experiences."

Uses "the concept of mimicry to think through hallyu's adaption of American sensibilities and genres, he shows how the commercialization of Korean popular culture has upended the familiar dynamic of major-to-minor cultural influence, enabling hallyu to become a dominant global cultural phenomenon."

"... analyzes how certain heroines who are culturally rooted in Asian regions have been transformed and re-imagined in America and have played significant roles in Asian American literary studies as well as community life."

"Provides a sweeping and nuanced history of Asian Americans, revealing how and why the perception of Asian immigrants changed over time."

"... analyzes home pages and other online communities organized by diasporic and immigrant Indians from the late 1990s through the social media period."

"Focusing on the development of the Japanese Center, Meredith Oda shows how this multilayered story was embedded within a larger story of the changing institutions and ideas that were shaping the city. During these formative decades, Oda argues, San Francisco's relations with and ideas about Japan were being forged within the intimate, local sites of civic and community life."

"Like many six-year-olds, Mira Jacob's half-Jewish, half-Indian son, Z, has questions about everything. At first they are innocuous enough, but as tensions from the 2016 election spread from the media into his own family, they become much, much more complicated. Trying to answer him honestly, Mira has to think back to where she's gotten her own answers: her most formative conversations about race, color, sexuality, and, of course, love."

Study of late twentieth and early twenty-first genre fiction by female-identified Asian American authors featuring Asian American characters which also "contribute critically to public dialogue about national belonging."

"... explores the tropes of return, tracing both literal return visits by Asian emigrants and symbolic "returns": first visits by diasporic offspring. Chu argues that these Asian American narratives seek to remedy widely held anxieties about cultural loss and the erasure of personal and family histories from public memory."

"Written by two internationally successful writers and teachers, each chapter contains complete short stories and writing exercises for practice and inspiration."

"From the early 1900s, liberal Protestants grafted social welfare work onto spiritual concerns on both sides of the Pacific. Their goal: to forge links between whites and Asians that countered anti-Asian discrimination in the United States. Their test: uprooting racial hatreds that, despite their efforts, led to the shameful incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II."

"... T Kira Madden's raw and redemptive debut memoir is about coming of age and reckoning with desire as a queer, biracial teenager amidst the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where she found cult-like privilege, shocking racial disparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hiding in plain sight."

"... carefully maps how transnational itineraries of Indian beauty and fashion shaped South Asian American cultural identities and racialized belonging from the 1990s through the first decade of the twenty-first century."

"By focusing upon the lives, work, and activism of specific, often unacknowledged, migrant populations, the contributors present a more comprehensive vision of the South Asian presence in the United States."

"In her most personal book to date, Yayoi Kusama brings us into her private world through poetic recollections, giving insight into her creative process and the essential role language plays in her work and daily life."

"In 1949, four Chinese women--drawn together by the shadow of their past--begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club--and forge a relationship that binds them for more than three decades."

"n August 1947, unrest plagues the streets of New Delhi leading up to the birth of the Muslim majority nation of Pakistan, and the Hindu majority nation of India. Sixteen-year-old Deepa navigates the changing politics of her home, finding solace in messages of intricate origami from her secret boyfriend Amir."

"A vibrant story collection about Cambodian-American life-immersive and comic, yet unsparing-that offers profound insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities."

"... a journey into the past as well as the present―into the narrative hidden from the poet since birth, as well as the strategies that she has adopted to survive. It is a journey about how we learn to cope with, to perceive and describe, the world."

"With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro's only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be Ro's last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager."

"When Kumiko's well-meaning adult daughters place her in an assisted living home, the seventy-six-year-old widow gives it a try, but it's not where she wants to be. She goes on the lam and finds a cozy bachelor apartment, keeping the location secret even while communicating online with her eldest daughter."

"... cracks open reverberant, vexed experiences of diasporic homecoming, intergenerational memory transfer, state-enforced amnesia, public secrecies, and the psychic fallout of the Chinese Cultural Revolution."

"... offers a moving appraisal of lives buffeted by personal and systemic traumas; a deep dive into the good, the bad and the ugly of self-serving corporate culture; and no shortage of “wait, what the heck just happened?” thrills."

"With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory."

"... spins an epic tale of America's struggle for civil rights as it played out in San Francisco's Chinatown from 1968-1977."

"... follows a complicated flaneuse across the Indian subcontinent as she reckons with her past, her desires, and the tumultuous present."

"Spanning decades and perspectives, seamlessly shifting between the gothic and the tenderhearted, Welcome Me to the Kingdom announces the arrival of an immensely talented new voice in literary fiction. Organized around the devastating financial crisis of 1997, these stories introduce us to an unforgettable cast of characters...."

"The first book in a new culinary cozy series full of sharp humor and delectable dishes--one that might just be killer...."

"A young Indian woman falsely rumored to have killed her husband finds a way to make her unfortunate reputation surprisingly useful-but complications arise when other village women seek her help offing their husbands-in this provocative, razor-sharp debut."

"In this high octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed young playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all."

"After the tragic death his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house-a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain."

"An Asian American activist is challenged by his mother to face this question in this powerful--and funny--debut novel of generational change, a mother's secret, and an activist's coming-of-age. "

"Heartfelt, humorous, and hard-hitting, Members Only explores what membership and belonging mean, as [the protagonist] navigates the complicated space between black and white America."

"When a chance encounter with Marina ignites an electric romance, it looks like salvation-if only they can overcome the lie that threatens to undo the trust they've built. A novel of working lives, friendships, and self-discovery in flux,All This Could Be Different is a wry, intimate, and redemptive exploration of the freedom and fragility of youth, and what it means to devote oneself to others in search of a better world."

"Shelley Wong's debut, As She Appears, foregrounds queer women of color in their being and becoming."

"In her stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong."

"In each story, with sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by wonder."

"These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died ("civility," "language," "the future," "Mother's blue dress") and the cultural impact of death on the living."

"Follows a Viet Cong agent as he spies on a South Vietnamese army general and his compatriots as they start a new life in 1975 Los Angeles."

"Describes the transition to life in America and presents the world from several intimate angles, concluding with a celebration of the enduring love between mother and child."

"Seventeen-year-old Ocean Wu moves to New York City to start college, but she defers her enrollment, keeping it a secret from her immigrant mother, and instead uses the time to deal with her ambivalence about her place in the world."

"Embarrassed about gathering watercress from a roadside ditch, a girl learns to appreciate her Chinese heritage after learning why the plant is so important to her parents."

"As he discovers the meaning of his Hawaiian name, a young boy learns about an ancient, now extinct, Hawaiian forest bird and the importance of bird conservation."

"Susannah Mikami dreams of becoming a famous sushi chef like her dad. And this summer, she plans to learn everything about his traditional kitchen. Only he refuses to teach her, and won't tell her why."

"A brief biography of Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, five-time Olympic swimming champion from the early 1900s who is also considered worldwide as the 'father of modern surfing'.

"Lily is upset when her mother announces the family will be moving back to Taiwan to care for her Ah Ma, but when her mother explains Taiwan is her home, Lily agrees it is her home too."

"Recounts the story of Hawaii's last heir to the throne, who was denied her right to rule when the monarchy was abolished" by the United States in order to annex the islands.

"Alice can go anywhere in the magical pages of her favorite book. So when it flaps its pages and invites her in, she is swept away to a world of wonder and adventure. But at the end of her imaginative journey, she yearns for the place she loves best of all."

"Four individuals of dual male and female spirit bring their healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii, where they are beloved for their gentle ways and miraculous cures and where they imbue four giant boulders with their powers."

"In this heartfelt mother's ode to her baby boy, she shares her hopes and dreams for him as she envisions him exploring the world and blazing his own trail."

"In graphic novel format, retells the Hawaiian story of Nanaue, born of human mother and shark father, who struggles to find his place in a village of humans."

"... contains the complete alphabet ..., 4 or 5 examples for each letter, and a word list with English translations.... a wonderful starter ... for educators, and parents, who wish to introduce culturally relevant images and words into their classrooms."

A family enjoys food and togetherness over a Sunday meal of dim sum.

"When nineteen-year-old international pop sensation Winter Young is recruited by a covert organization to take down a criminal tycoon, he is paired with Sydney Cossette, a fierce and unpredictable secret agent, but suspicions soon turn to sparks as the two are drawn into a tangled web of secrets and deception."

"From the acclaimed actor and Stonewall Honor-winning author of The Best at It, Maulik Pancholy, comes a new middle grade novel about a gay Indian American boy who learns the power of using his voice."

"Alejandra Kim doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere.... But when a microaggression at school thrusts Ale into the spotlight--and into a discussion she didn't ask for--Ale must discover what is means to carve out a space for yourself to belong."

"Unable to find their rhythm, once-close twin sisters Maya and Chaya make a bet: they'll switch places at summer camp and whoever can keep the ruse going the longest will get to make a life-changing decision, which isn't as easy as it sounds."

"Ming's wishes at the tree on Lunar New Year with his grandmother always seemed to come true, but one year the tree does not help, and he alone must make peace with the loss of his grandmother and the spirit of the tree."

"This book is for everyone. Because we can all be allies. As an ally, you use your power--no matter how big or small--to support others. You learn, and try, and mess up, and try harder. In this collection of true stories, 17 critically acclaimed and bestselling YA authors get real about being an ally, needing an ally, and showing up for friends and strangers. From raw stories of racism and invisible disability to powerful moments of passing the mic, these authors share their truths. They invite you to think about your own experiences and choices and how to be a better ally. There are no easy answers, but this book helps you ask better questions. Self-reflection prompts, resources, journaling ideas, and further reading suggestions help you find out what you can do. Because we're all in this together. And we all need allies""

"Winston Chu saves the owner of a curiosities shop from a robbery only to be gifted a broomstick and a dustpan for his trouble--items that turn out to be more a curse than a blessing when they sweep away important stuff, like his baby sister."