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Published Aug 2022
240 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
An inclusive and landmark history, emphasizing how essential Asian American experiences are to any understanding of US history
Original and expansive, Asian American Histories of the United States is a nearly 200-year history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the US. Reckoning with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in anti-Asian hate and violence, award-winning historian Catherine Ceniza Choy presents an urgent social history of the fastest growing group of Americans. The book features the lived experiences and diverse voices of immigrants, refugees, US-born Asian Americans, multiracial Americans, and workers from industries spanning agriculture to healthcare.
Despite significant Asian American breakthroughs in American politics, arts, and popular culture in the 21st century, a profound lack of understanding of Asian American history permeates American culture. Choy traces how anti-Asian violence and its intersection with misogyny and other forms of hatred, the erasure of Asian American experiences and contributions, and Asian American resistance to what has been omitted are prominent themes in Asian American history. This ambitious book is fundamental to understanding the American experience and its existential crises of the early 21st century.
"An impressive new work about how major moments in Asian American history continue to influence the modern world...An empathetic and detailed recounting of Asian American histories rarely found in textbooks." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Contending that Asian American contributions and struggles have been erased from standard histories of the U.S., Choy highlights the complexity of the Asian American experience...The result is an essential reconsideration of American history." - Publishers Weekly
"Systematically and unapologetically, this country has attempted to erase Asian Americans from the American story. Catherine Ceniza Choy has an urgent reminder: the America of today would not exist without Asian Americans. She reminds us, too, that anti-Asian hate is hardly a new phenomenon—in fact, it has been central in the creation of this country for well over a century. Still, Choy channels hope but underscores that there is no moving forward without reckoning with the sins of our past. I promise you, this is unlike any history you'll ever read—a book only Catherine Ceniza Choy could have written." - Anthony Christian Ocampo, author of The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race
"Catherine Ceniza Choy makes a convincing argument that we must understand the past if we are to adequately address the anti-Asian violence of the present. Written with love and respect for our communities, this book illuminates histories as diverse as Asian America itself." - Grace M. Cho, author of National Book Award finalist Tastes Like War: A Memoir
"By documenting multiple origin stories, by recounting various histories, by examining a heterogeneous history of violence, erasure, and resistance, Catherine Ceniza Choy closes the door on narrow and uniform understandings of Asian Americans. This book is a monument to the complexity of history and the fullness of historical prose." - Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
This information about Asian American Histories of the United States was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Catherine Ceniza Choy is professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Before that, she was an assistant professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author of the books Empire of Care and Global Families and the co-editor of the anthology Gendering the Trans-Pacific World. An engaged public scholar, she has been interviewed in many media outlets, including ABC 2020, The Atlantic, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News, the New York Times, ProPublica, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time, and Vox.
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