Ethnic studies / Ethnicity Books

Book SynopsisMigration to new destinations in Europe and the United States has expanded dramatically over the past few decades. Within these destinations, there is a corresponding greater variety of ethnic, cultural, and/or religious diversity. This timely volume, The Politics of New Immigrant Destinations, considers the challenges posed by this proliferation of diversity for governments, majority populations, and immigrants.The contributors assess the effectiveness of the policy and political responses that have been spawned by increasing diversity in four types of new immigrant destinations: intermediate destination countriesIreland and Italy; culturally distinct regions experiencing new migration such as Catalonia in Spain or the American South; new destinations within traditional destination countries like the state of Utah and rural towns in England; and early migration cycle countries including Latvia and Poland. The Politics of New Immigrant Destinations examines how these new destinations f

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Book SynopsisMigration to new destinations in Europe and the United States has expanded dramatically over the past few decades. Within these destinations, there is a corresponding greater variety of ethnic, cultural, and/or religious diversity. This timely volume, The Politics of New Immigrant Destinations, considers the challenges posed by this proliferation of diversity for governments, majority populations, and immigrants.The contributors assess the effectiveness of the policy and political responses that have been spawned by increasing diversity in four types of new immigrant destinations: intermediate destination countriesIreland and Italy; culturally distinct regions experiencing new migration such as Catalonia in Spain or the American South; new destinations within traditional destination countries like the state of Utah and rural towns in England; and early migration cycle countries including Latvia and Poland. The Politics of New Immigrant Destinations examines how these new destinations f

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Book SynopsisWhile focused on serving children and families, the adoption industry must also generate sufficient revenue to cover an agency's operating costs. With its fee-for-service model, Elizabeth Raleigh asks, How does private adoption operate as a marketplace? Her eye-opening book, Selling Transracial Adoption, provides a fine-grained analysis of the business decisions in the adoption industry and what it teaches us about notions of kinship and race.Adoption providers, Raleigh declares, are often tasked with pitching the idea of transracial adoption to their mostly white clientele. But not all children are equally desirable, and transracial adoptiona market calculationis hardly colorblind. Selling Transracial Adoption explicitly focuses on adoption providers andemploys candid interviews with adoption workers, social workers, attorneys, and counselors, as well as observations from adoption conferences and information sessions, toillustrate how agencies institute a racial hierarchyespecially whTrade Review"Elizabeth Raleigh boldly dares to address adoption’s proverbial elephant in the room in her powerful and enlightening book, Selling Transracial Adoption.... The organization of the material, the explicit detailing of the objectives, and the rich content make a compelling case for her arguments in each chapter and the book overall.... In a sea of books on transracial adoption from psychological, counseling, and social work perspectives, this sociological contribution is much needed and appreciated."--Contemporary Sociology

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Book SynopsisThe Before Columbus Foundation 2018 Winner of the AMERICAN BOOK AWARD Tommy J. Curry's provocative book The Man-Not is a justification for Black Male Studies. He posits that we should conceptualize the Black male as a victim, oppressed by his sex. The Man-Not, therefore,is a corrective of sorts, offering a concept of Black males that could challenge the existing accounts of Black men and boys desiring the power of white men who oppress them that has been proliferated throughout academic research across disciplines. Curry argues that Black men struggle with death and suicide, as well as abuse and rape, and their genred existence deserves study and theorization. This book offers intellectual, historical, sociological, and psychological evidence that the analysis of patriarchy offered by mainstream feminism (including Black feminism) does not yet fully understand the role that homoeroticism, sexual violence, and vulnerability play in the deaths and lives of Black males. Curry challengesTrade Review"Tommy Curry has written a cool, brilliant defense of the men who are the pariahs of American society: the ones who, regardless of class, find themselves at the bottom of every hierarchy; the ones whose demographics and statistics in terms of the criminal justice, health care, and other systems are abysmal. Countless billions have been made from the portrayal of Black males as Boogeymen. The Man-Not is heavy work, but the general reader will find its arguments well worth the time and effort. This book is controversial. Those who've dogged and stalked Black men in the academy and popular culture for the past few decades are sure to have their critical knives out. I know. But it's rare for an American intellectual to step up, regardless of the fallout. This book is the one that I've been waiting for. Curry has taken a bullet for the brothers."—Ishmael Reed, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Visiting Scholar at the California College of the Arts"In a bold—indeed, fearless—intervention in the ongoing race/gender/sexual orientation debates, Tommy Curry challenges the cozy consensus among self-conceived progressives in the humanities. The oppression of black men has been conceptually erased, he argues, by theoretical frameworks indifferent to the social science data that refute them. Sure to ignite a firestorm of controversy, The Man-Not is an impassioned protest against orthodoxies, both mainstream and radical, white and black. It is required reading for anyone interested in understanding oppression or having unquestioned assumptions put to the test." —Charles W. Mills, Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center "The Man-Not introduces a progressive black male studies that is decidedly nonfeminist, and the book demands a radical rethinking of the category of 'gender' itself.... It is impressive to watch Curry build arguments and the seamless manner in which the philosopher moves between sources across disciplines.... (It is) refreshing to read a book that has little time for academic pleasantries and is so eager to transcend the boundaries of traditional gender theorizing.... (R)eaders from diverse academic backgrounds can still learn much in its pages." —Men and Masculinities"This book reads as a spiritual successor to W.E.B. Dubois's 1906 keynote speech delivered during the second annual Niagara Movement Conference.... Curry echoes the same sentiment that Black men have been subjugated due to systemic violence, denial of rights, and oppression. The author is open and candid that this is as much an emotional book as an academic one.... It is an impassioned plea for justice and legitimation that is often read in books but rarely felt.... The book is an incredible piece of scholarship for Black Male Studies and completely convincing in its claim that there is not only a need for Black Male Studies but a need to study it across multiple disciplines, particularly at the intersection of race, masculinity, law, politics, and class. His ability to deliver scholarship that is part literature review, part critique, part analysis, and part biography makes this book an important piece of work set to help steer Black Male Studies into a new, exciting direction."—Sociology of Race and Ethnicity"Curry offers a provocative discussion of black masculinity by critiquing both the social and academic treatment of killings of black men and boys in the US. The author forces readers to reevaluate the interpretations and stereotypes the media uses. He argues that gender studies has disadvantaged black men by imposing and supporting negative historical stereotypes and ignoring the diversity of black boys and men and by falsely aligning black masculinity with white masculinity.... The present book is an attempt to fill the gap by presenting a philosophical theory on black masculinity that Curry claims is nonexistent in philosophy.... (A)n excellent basis for discussions of the academic constructs of legitimacy in research. Many readers may find this book an uncomfortable read, and that is the very reason it should be read....Summing Up: Highly recommended." —Choice"The Man-Not is an impressive book, sure to upset scholars invested in static gender theory based on racial myths reproduced in the academy in lieu of empirical debates addressing the impossibility of Black patriarchy amid anti-Black achievement policies that disproportionately affect Black males.... The Man-Not exemplifies the deep, risky criticism that all scholars should aspire to, particularly as Curry’s call for the institutionalization of Black male studies is compelling.... Curry’s argument is contentious yet indispensable amid the oftentimes deadly systemic oppressions that Black males encounter."--Women's Studies in Communication

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Book Synopsis As recently as the early 1960s, Latinos were almost totally excluded from city politics. This makes the rise of Latino mayors in the past three decades a remarkable American story—one that explains ethnic succession, changing urban demography, and political contexts. The vibrant collection Latino Mayors features case studies of eleven Latino mayors in six American cities: San Antonio, Los Angeles, Denver, Hartford, Miami, and Providence. The editors and contributors analyze Latino mayors for their governing styles and policies. They describe how candidates shaped race, class, and economic issues—particularly in deracialized campaigns. Latino Mayors also addresses coalition politics, political incorporation, and how community groups operate, as well as the challenges these pioneers have faced in office from political tensions and governance issues that sometimes even harm Latinos. Ultimately, Latino Mayors charts the performances, suc

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Book Synopsis Human rights violations have always been part of Asian American studies. From Chinese immigration restrictions, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, yellow peril characterizations, and recent acts of deportation and Islamophobia, Asian Americans have consistently functioned as subordinated “subjects” of human rights violations. The Subject(s) of Human Rights brings together scholars from North America and Asia to recalibrate these human rights concerns from both sides of the Pacific. The essays in this collection provide a sharper understanding of how Asian/Americans have been subjected to human rights violations, how they act as subjects of history and agents of change, and how they produce knowledge around such subjects. The editors of and contributors to The Subject(s) of Human Rights examine refugee narratives, human trafficking, and citizenship issues in twentieth- and twenty-first century literature. These themes further refract issues

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Book Synopsis Human rights violations have always been part of Asian American studies. From Chinese immigration restrictions, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, yellow peril characterizations, and recent acts of deportation and Islamophobia, Asian Americans have consistently functioned as subordinated “subjects” of human rights violations. The Subject(s) of Human Rights brings together scholars from North America and Asia to recalibrate these human rights concerns from both sides of the Pacific. The essays in this collection provide a sharper understanding of how Asian/Americans have been subjected to human rights violations, how they act as subjects of history and agents of change, and how they produce knowledge around such subjects. The editors of and contributors to The Subject(s) of Human Rights examine refugee narratives, human trafficking, and citizenship issues in twentieth- and twenty-first century literature. These themes further refract issues

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Book Synopsis Cynthia Wu’s provocative Sticky Rice examines representations of same-sex desires and intraracial intimacies in some of the most widely read pieces of Asian American literature. Analyzing canonical works such as John Okada’s No-No Boy, Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt, H. T. Tsiang’s And China Has Hands, and Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging, as well as Philip Kan Gotanda’s play, Yankee Dawg You Die, Wu considers how male relationships in these texts blur the boundaries among the homosocial, the homoerotic, and the homosexual in ways that lie beyond our concepts of modern gay identity. The “sticky rice” of Wu’s title is a term used in gay Asian American culture to describe Asian American men who desire other Asian American men. The bonds between men addressed in Sticky Rice show how the thoughts and actions founded by real-life intraracially desiring Asian-raced m

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Book SynopsisEvery day, undocumented immigrants are rendered vulnerable through policies and practices that illegalize them. Moreover, they are socially constructed into dangerous criminals and taxpayer burdens who are undeserving of rights, dignity, and respect. Meghan Conley's timely book, Immigrant Rights in the Nuevo South, seeks to expose and challenge these dehumanizing ideas and practices byexamining the connections between repression and resistance for unauthorized immigrants in communities across the American Southeast. Conley uses on-the-ground interviews to describe fear and resistance from the perspective of those most affected by it. She shows how, for example, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act in Georgia prompted marches and an action that became a day of non-compliance. Likewise, an enforcement lottery that created unpredictable threats of arrest and deportation in the region mobilized immigrants to organize and demonstrate. However, as immigrant rights activists m

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Book SynopsisEvery day, undocumented immigrants are rendered vulnerable through policies and practices that illegalize them. Moreover, they are socially constructed into dangerous criminals and taxpayer burdens who are undeserving of rights, dignity, and respect. Meghan Conley's timely book, Immigrant Rights in the Nuevo South, seeks to expose and challenge these dehumanizing ideas and practices byexamining the connections between repression and resistance for unauthorized immigrants in communities across the American Southeast. Conley uses on-the-ground interviews to describe fear and resistance from the perspective of those most affected by it. She shows how, for example, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act in Georgia prompted marches and an action that became a day of non-compliance. Likewise, an enforcement lottery that created unpredictable threats of arrest and deportation in the region mobilized immigrants to organize and demonstrate. However, as immigrant rights activists m

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Book Synopsis The Emergency Detention Act, Title II of the Internal Security Act of 1950, is the only law in American history to legalize preventive detention. It restricted the freedom of a certain individual or a group of individuals based on actions that may be taken that would threaten the security of a nation or of a particular area. Yet the Act was never enforced before it was repealed in 1971. Masumi Izumi links the Emergency Detention Act with Japanese American wartime incarceration in her cogent study, The Rise and Fall of America’s Concentration Camp Law. She dissects the entangled discourses of race, national security, and civil liberties between 1941 and 1971 by examining how this historical precedent generated “the concentration camp law” and expanded a ubiquitous regime of surveillance in McCarthyist America. Izumi also shows how political radicalism grew as a result of these laws. Japanese Americas were instrumental in forming grassr Trade Review "Izumi presents a compelling argument, claiming that US lawmakers, gripped by the fear of a communist (rather than Japanese) incursion, relied on the legal precedents created by the internment to institute America’s only preventive detention law—one aimed at potentially subversive individuals or groups.... The frequent inclusion of excerpts and illustrations from contemporary sources will help make the text more accessible for some readers.... [T]his is a welcome addition to both American and legal history. Summing Up: Highly recommended."— Choice"This is policy history at its best, showing the complex interactions between policy makers and their larger society. It is built on a sturdy foundation of an explanation of why and how the United States interned hundreds of thousands of people during World War II but is also informed by the cultural turn in historical analysis.... What Izumi reveals about those times speaks to our current time, as racialized imagery and hysterical fears about national security have moved the nation to create concentration camps for a different racial group of aliens."—Pacific Historical Review"For a detailed analysis of the genesis of the Emergency Detention Act, its impact on ideas of citizenship, rights, the interpretation of the US constitution and the role of race in the legal culture of the country, this represents an informative and readable account. Stronger on narrative than it is on analysis in some cases, the book reveals a little-discussed episode in US legal history, one thankfully never invoked in practice, that sheds light on a period of contested civil liberties....The dangers and prejudices so well documented here have not gone away, and certainly in that sense there is a great deal to learn from history." —Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Book Synopsis The Emergency Detention Act, Title II of the Internal Security Act of 1950, is the only law in American history to legalize preventive detention. It restricted the freedom of a certain individual or a group of individuals based on actions that may be taken that would threaten the security of a nation or of a particular area. Yet the Act was never enforced before it was repealed in 1971. Masumi Izumi links the Emergency Detention Act with Japanese American wartime incarceration in her cogent study, The Rise and Fall of America’s Concentration Camp Law. She dissects the entangled discourses of race, national security, and civil liberties between 1941 and 1971 by examining how this historical precedent generated “the concentration camp law” and expanded a ubiquitous regime of surveillance in McCarthyist America. Izumi also shows how political radicalism grew as a result of these laws. Japanese Americas were instrumental in forming grassr Trade Review "Izumi presents a compelling argument, claiming that US lawmakers, gripped by the fear of a communist (rather than Japanese) incursion, relied on the legal precedents created by the internment to institute America’s only preventive detention law—one aimed at potentially subversive individuals or groups.... The frequent inclusion of excerpts and illustrations from contemporary sources will help make the text more accessible for some readers.... [T]his is a welcome addition to both American and legal history. Summing Up: Highly recommended."— Choice"This is policy history at its best, showing the complex interactions between policy makers and their larger society. It is built on a sturdy foundation of an explanation of why and how the United States interned hundreds of thousands of people during World War II but is also informed by the cultural turn in historical analysis.... What Izumi reveals about those times speaks to our current time, as racialized imagery and hysterical fears about national security have moved the nation to create concentration camps for a different racial group of aliens."—Pacific Historical Review"For a detailed analysis of the genesis of the Emergency Detention Act, its impact on ideas of citizenship, rights, the interpretation of the US constitution and the role of race in the legal culture of the country, this represents an informative and readable account. Stronger on narrative than it is on analysis in some cases, the book reveals a little-discussed episode in US legal history, one thankfully never invoked in practice, that sheds light on a period of contested civil liberties....The dangers and prejudices so well documented here have not gone away, and certainly in that sense there is a great deal to learn from history." —Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Book SynopsisDisabled Futures makes an important intervention in disability studies by taking an intersectional approach to race, gender, and disability. Milo Obourn reads disability studies, gender and sexuality studies, and critical race studies to develop a framework for addressing inequity. They theorize the concept of racialized disgenderto describe the ways in which racialization and gendering are social processes with disabling effectsthereby offering a new avenue for understanding race, gender, and disability as mutually constitutive. Obourn uses readings of literature and popular culture from Lost and Avatar to Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy to explore and unpack specific ways that race and gender constructand are constructed byhistorical notions of ability and disability, sickness and health, and successful recovery versus damaged lives. What emerges is not only a more complex and deeper understanding of the intersections between ableism, racism, and (cis)sexism, but also possibilit

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Book SynopsisDisabled Futures makes an important intervention in disability studies by taking an intersectional approach to race, gender, and disability. Milo Obourn reads disability studies, gender and sexuality studies, and critical race studies to develop a framework for addressing inequity. They theorize the concept of racialized disgenderto describe the ways in which racialization and gendering are social processes with disabling effectsthereby offering a new avenue for understanding race, gender, and disability as mutually constitutive. Obourn uses readings of literature and popular culture from Lost and Avatar to Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy to explore and unpack specific ways that race and gender constructand are constructed byhistorical notions of ability and disability, sickness and health, and successful recovery versus damaged lives. What emerges is not only a more complex and deeper understanding of the intersections between ableism, racism, and (cis)sexism, but also possibilit

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Book SynopsisExamining the political impact of Black migration on politics in three northern cities from 1915 to 1965Trade Review“ An impressive work of political scholarship, The Great Migration and the Democratic Party captures the political agency of Black migrants to the urban North. Tracing Black political activity across Chicago, Detroit, and New York City, Grant shows how migrants eagerly grasped the possibility of place by engaging in strategic coalition building with local parties. Political activism, in turn, led to the election or appointment of Black women and men to local and state offices, giving political voice and influence to the new migrants and, in some cases, to the Black Americans disenfranchised in the South. The possibility of the Black ‘balance of power’ vote and the activism of Black officials created the northern urban roots of the Democratic Party’s twentieth-century realignment. Grant’s careful historical scholarship and political analysis provide a clear and systematic breakdown of the Great Migration and its consequences.” —Kimberley Johnson, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at the Wagner School, New York University, and author of Reforming Jim Crow: Southern Politics and State in the Age before Brown“Scholars have long analyzed the Great Migration’s social and economic effects on U.S. cities. In this well-documented study, Keneshia Grant goes where few scholars have gone before, by focusing on the Great Migration’s significant political consequences on U.S. cities. Using in-depth case studies and historical analysis, Grant demonstrates how the massive influx of Black migrants from the South transformed local political regimes in Detroit, Chicago, and New York. She paints a vivid portrait of the political agency of Black migrants from the South, including many who won election to local, state, and federal offices in their adopted cities.” —Marion Orr, Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science, Brown University, and co-editor of Latino Mayors: Political Change in the Postindustrial City (Temple).

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Book SynopsisExamining the political impact of Black migration on politics in three northern cities from 1915 to 1965Trade Review“ An impressive work of political scholarship, The Great Migration and the Democratic Party captures the political agency of Black migrants to the urban North. Tracing Black political activity across Chicago, Detroit, and New York City, Grant shows how migrants eagerly grasped the possibility of place by engaging in strategic coalition building with local parties. Political activism, in turn, led to the election or appointment of Black women and men to local and state offices, giving political voice and influence to the new migrants and, in some cases, to the Black Americans disenfranchised in the South. The possibility of the Black ‘balance of power’ vote and the activism of Black officials created the northern urban roots of the Democratic Party’s twentieth-century realignment. Grant’s careful historical scholarship and political analysis provide a clear and systematic breakdown of the Great Migration and its consequences.” —Kimberley Johnson, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at the Wagner School, New York University, and author of Reforming Jim Crow: Southern Politics and State in the Age before Brown“Scholars have long analyzed the Great Migration’s social and economic effects on U.S. cities. In this well-documented study, Keneshia Grant goes where few scholars have gone before, by focusing on the Great Migration’s significant political consequences on U.S. cities. Using in-depth case studies and historical analysis, Grant demonstrates how the massive influx of Black migrants from the South transformed local political regimes in Detroit, Chicago, and New York. She paints a vivid portrait of the political agency of Black migrants from the South, including many who won election to local, state, and federal offices in their adopted cities.” —Marion Orr, Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science, Brown University, and co-editor of Latino Mayors: Political Change in the Postindustrial City (Temple).

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Book SynopsisMany Filipino Americans feel obligated to give charitably to their families, their communities, or social development projects and organizations back home. Their contributions provide relief to poor or vulnerable Filipinos, and address the forces that maintain poverty, vulnerability, and exploitative relationships in the Philippines. This philanthropy is a result of both economic globalization and the migration of Filipino professionals to the United States. But it is also central to the moral economies of Filipino migration, immigration, and diasporic return. Giving-related practices and concerns—and the bonds maintained through giving—infuse what it means to be Filipino in America.Giving Back shows how integral this system is for understanding Filipino diaspora formation. Joyce Mariano “follows the money” to investigate the cultural, social, economic, and political conditions of diaspora giving. She takes an interdisciplinary approach t

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Book SynopsisMany Filipino Americans feel obligated to give charitably to their families, their communities, or social development projects and organizations back home. Their contributions provide relief to poor or vulnerable Filipinos, and address the forces that maintain poverty, vulnerability, and exploitative relationships in the Philippines. This philanthropy is a result of both economic globalization and the migration of Filipino professionals to the United States. But it is also central to the moral economies of Filipino migration, immigration, and diasporic return. Giving-related practices and concerns—and the bonds maintained through giving—infuse what it means to be Filipino in America.Giving Back shows how integral this system is for understanding Filipino diaspora formation. Joyce Mariano “follows the money” to investigate the cultural, social, economic, and political conditions of diaspora giving. She takes an interdisciplinary approach t

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Book SynopsisBlack queer lives often exist outside conventional civic institutions and therefore have to explore alternative intimacies to experience a sense of belonging. Civic Intimacies examines howand to what extentthese different forms of intimacy catalyze the values, aspirations, and collective flourishing of Black queer denizens of Baltimore. Niels van Doorn draws on 18 months of immersive ethnographic fieldwork for his innovative cross-disciplinary analysis of contemporary debates in political and cultural theory.Van Doorn describes the way that these systematically marginalized communities improvise on citizenship not just to survive but also to thrive despite the proliferation of violence and insecurity in their lives. By reimagining citizenship as the everyday reparative work of building support structures, Civic Intimacies highlights the extent to which sex, kinship, memory, religious faith, and sexual health are rooted in collective practices that are deeply political. These systems suTrade Review“Civic Intimacies is a thoughtful, timely, and engaging critique that rethinks the category of citizenship not simply as the domain of those on the inside but as constituted through its outside, through those subjects or nonsubjects that are seen as the very antithesis of sovereignty, subjectivity, and citizenship. Van Doorn challenges hegemonic notions of citizenship while also demonstrating how Black queer subjects create new understandings of citizenship through political, social, and cultural work.”—Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor in the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, and author of Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago

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Book SynopsisBlack queer lives often exist outside conventional civic institutions and therefore have to explore alternative intimacies to experience a sense of belonging. Civic Intimacies examines howand to what extentthese different forms of intimacy catalyze the values, aspirations, and collective flourishing of Black queer denizens of Baltimore. Niels van Doorn draws on 18 months of immersive ethnographic fieldwork for his innovative cross-disciplinary analysis of contemporary debates in political and cultural theory.Van Doorn describes the way that these systematically marginalized communities improvise on citizenship not just to survive but also to thrive despite the proliferation of violence and insecurity in their lives. By reimagining citizenship as the everyday reparative work of building support structures, Civic Intimacies highlights the extent to which sex, kinship, memory, religious faith, and sexual health are rooted in collective practices that are deeply political. These systems suTrade Review“Civic Intimacies is a thoughtful, timely, and engaging critique that rethinks the category of citizenship not simply as the domain of those on the inside but as constituted through its outside, through those subjects or nonsubjects that are seen as the very antithesis of sovereignty, subjectivity, and citizenship. Van Doorn challenges hegemonic notions of citizenship while also demonstrating how Black queer subjects create new understandings of citizenship through political, social, and cultural work.”—Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor in the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, and author of Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago

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Book SynopsisIn the Cold War era, Chinese Americans were caught in a double-bind. The widespread stigma of illegal immigration, as it was often called, was most easily countered with the model minority, assimilating and forming nuclear families, but that in turn led to further stereotypes. In Illegal Immigrants/Model Minorities, Heidi Kim investigates how Chinese American writers navigated a strategy to normalize and justify the Chinese presence during a time when fears of Communism ran high.Kim explores how writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Jade Snow Wong, and C. Y. Lee, among others, addressed issues of history, family, blood purity, and law through then-groundbreaking novels and memoirs. Illegal Immigrants/Model Minorities also uses legal cases, immigration documents, and law as well as mass media coverage to illustrate how writers constructed stories in relation to the political structures that allowed or disallowed their presence, their citizenship, and their blended i

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Book SynopsisIn the Cold War era, Chinese Americans were caught in a double-bind. The widespread stigma of illegal immigration, as it was often called, was most easily countered with the model minority, assimilating and forming nuclear families, but that in turn led to further stereotypes. In Illegal Immigrants/Model Minorities, Heidi Kim investigates how Chinese American writers navigated a strategy to normalize and justify the Chinese presence during a time when fears of Communism ran high.Kim explores how writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Jade Snow Wong, and C. Y. Lee, among others, addressed issues of history, family, blood purity, and law through then-groundbreaking novels and memoirs. Illegal Immigrants/Model Minorities also uses legal cases, immigration documents, and law as well as mass media coverage to illustrate how writers constructed stories in relation to the political structures that allowed or disallowed their presence, their citizenship, and their blended i

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Book SynopsisCommunists and Community seeks to reframe the traditional chronology of the Communist Party in the United States as a means to better understand the change that occurred in community activism in the mid-twentieth century. Ryan Pettengill argues that Popular Front activism continued to flourish throughout the war years and into the postwar period. In Detroit, where there was a critical mass of heavy industry, Communist Party activists mobilized support for civil rights and affordable housing, brought attention to police brutality, sought protection for the foreign-born, and led a movement for world peace.Communists and Community demonstrates that the Communist Party created a social space where activists became effective advocates for the socioeconomic betterment of a multiracial work force. Pettengill uses Detroit as a case study to examine how communist activists and their sympathizers maintained a community to enhance the quality of life for the city's working class. He investigatesTrade Review“Communists and Community greatly contributes to our understanding of an understudied period of U.S. communism. In this excellent monograph, Ryan Pettengill—utilizing extensive archival sources, including Detroit Red Squad records—recounts the important role Communists played in a variety of union and community-based coalitions devoted to fighting racism, wartime price and rent gouging, labor and housing discrimination, and police brutality. According to Pettengill, those alliances unfortunately did not survive the party-line shifts and the Cold War purges of the left, thus destroying the possibility of achieving a more inclusive and just social and economic order.”—Gerald Zahavi, Professor of History at the University at Albany, SUNY, and author of Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism: The Shoeworkers and Tanners of Endicott Johnson, 1890–1950“Move over, Saul Alinsky! Communists and Community uncovers the hidden history of community organizing in Detroit before Alinsky’s version emerged. Pettengill’s sharp portrait reveals working-class radicals attempting to connect community and workplace power struggles; these were overlooked because Communist Party history was erased. From activism that began in bowling halls and clubs to campaigns for anti-police brutality and civil rights, Pettengill shows that direct action outside the workplace was a vital part of the quest for working-class power. He also rewrites the history of postwar conservatism by showing that right-wing community activists prevailed in part because of the removal of radicals during the Cold War who had acted as a bridge between labor and community struggles.”—Rosemary Feurer, Associate Professor of History at Northern Illinois University and author of Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900–1950

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Book SynopsisExamines how social media has changed the way Asian Americans participate in politics

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Book SynopsisExamines how social media has changed the way Asian Americans participate in politicsTrade Review“In Asian American Connective Action in the Age of Social Media, James Lai convincingly shows why he is a leading scholar on Asian American and ethnic politics. Exploring the causal linkage between social media use and offline political mobilization in the immigrant-majority community, Lai breaks new ground in studying Asian American political behavior by combining case studies and elite interviews with Twitter hashtag analysis. Smartly labeling it as connective action, Lai argues that this relatively new form of political action has afforded the largely foreign-born and politically marginalized population a new tool to influence policy and politics.”—Pei-te Lien, Professor of Political Science and of Asian American Studies, Feminist Studies, and Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of The Making of Asian America through Political Participation"Lai finds that Asian Americans have used social media to mobilize swiftly and effectively, overcoming barriers to political participation that might otherwise pose major stumbling blocks to largely immigrant populations.... Lai’s case studies examine both conservative and liberal causes, deftly expanding understanding of the political diversity of Asian Americans. Students will be fascinated to see how media familiar to them can be politically potent and how important timing is.... This work is a major contribution to the understanding of political participation, new media, and racial and ethnic studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice"Lai does a remarkable job of encouraging the reader to focus on understanding how connective action played a role for Asian Americans on either side of the dividing line.... [F]or those who are interested in better understanding the broadening landscape of Asian American activism—both progressive and conservative strands—and the ways that they utilize social media for activist purposes, Lai’s book is a fruitful and extensive starting point."—Mobilization"[A]n informative, detailed portrait of the many complicated layers that characterize Asian American politics in the twenty-first century.... One of the most useful resources that can be taken from this book is the collection of six case studies of recent political activism exercised by Asian Americans.... Lai uses these cases to help readers better understand the complex modes in which Asian Americans have entered political debates on racial justice in recent years."—Perspectives on Politics"Lai’s Asian American Connective Action in the Age of Social Media advances [Pei-te] Lien’s groundbreaking insight by showing how social media has created greater opportunities for both pan-Asian American alliances and intra-Asian divides.... Drawing on interviews, hash tag analyses, media reports, and other documents, Lai’s case studies document how a high level of digital connectivity among Asian Americans has enabled them to overcome many hurdles to political mobilization."—Political Science Quarterly“Lai’s timely book provides a nuanced analysis of the ideological and other divisions among Asian Americans, scrupulously refusing to homogenize or essentialize them. He uses the generative concept of ‘connective action’ to enhance our understanding of how social media participation has transformed Asian American civic engagement. Charting the political mobilization of first-generation, affluent Chinese Americans in support of conservative political causes, Lai’s argument that social media enables this largely foreign-born population with limited English proficiency to bypass formal organizations, develop new forms of collective action, and grow new subjectivities as political actors is persuasive and important.”—Claire Jean Kim, Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age

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Book SynopsisRetired Captain Pao Yang was a Hmong airman trained by the U.S. Air Force and CIA to fly T-28D aircraft for the U.S. Secret War in Laos. However, his plane was shot down during a mission in June 1972. Yang survived, but enemy forces captured him and sent him to a POW camp in northeastern Laos. He remained imprisoned for four years after the United States withdrew from Vietnam because he fought on the American side of the war.Prisoner of Wars shows the impact the U.S Secret War in Laos had on Hmong combatants and their families. Chia Vang uses oral histories thatpoignantly recount Yang’s story and the deeply personal struggles his loved ones—who feared he had died—experienced in both Southeast Asia and the United States. As Yang eventually rebuilt his life in America, he grappled with issues of freedom and trauma.Yang’s life provides a unique lens through which to better understand the lasting impact of the wars in Southeast Asia an

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Book SynopsisRetired Captain Pao Yang was a Hmong airman trained by the U.S. Air Force and CIA to fly T-28D aircraft for the U.S. Secret War in Laos. However, his plane was shot down during a mission in June 1972. Yang survived, but enemy forces captured him and sent him to a POW camp in northeastern Laos. He remained imprisoned for four years after the United States withdrew from Vietnam because he fought on the American side of the war.Prisoner of Wars shows the impact the U.S Secret War in Laos had on Hmong combatants and their families. Chia Vang uses oral histories thatpoignantly recount Yang’s story and the deeply personal struggles his loved ones—who feared he had died—experienced in both Southeast Asia and the United States. As Yang eventually rebuilt his life in America, he grappled with issues of freedom and trauma.Yang’s life provides a unique lens through which to better understand the lasting impact of the wars in Southeast Asia an

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Book SynopsisDeath threatens migrants physically during perilous border crossings between Central and North America, but many also experience legal, social, and economic mortality. Rooted in histories of colonialism and conquest, exclusionary policies and practices deliberately take aim at racialized, dispossessed people in transit. Once in the new land, migrants endure a web of systems across every facet of their worldwork, home, healthcare, culture, justicethat strips them of their personhood, denies them resources, andcreates additional obstacles that deprive them of their ability to live fully. As laws and policies create ripe conditions for the further extraction of money, resources, and labor power from the dispossessed, the contributors to this vibrant anthology, Migration and Mortality, examine restrictive immigration policies and the broader capitalist systems of exploitation and inequality while highlighting the power of migrants' collective resistance and resilience.The case studies inTrade Review"Migration and Mortality’s thematically tight focus offers a well-organized book that is hard to put down.... Because of the denaturalizing work it does, this book would serve as an excellent teaching tool... The book’s thoughtful structure organically lends itself to a course.... Migration and Mortality offers readers different ways to reflect on the relationship between past and present forms of racial capitalism."—Contemporary Sociology"Like the rest of the collection, the epilogue connects individual stories to broader themes in history, theory, and politics. The editors and contributors of this book make a strong case for a multidisciplinary approach to assess the health impacts of migration."—Journal of American Ethnic History“This poignant collection of essays clearly and boldly drives home the critical point that borders and migration policies lead to premature death and suffering, and, by doing so, carry on the long tradition of a country founded on settler colonialism, genocide, and enslavement. Using a broad range of voices from students to established scholars, the editors and contributors collectively detail the myriad ways U.S. migration policies constitute the worst of the intertwined systems of racism and capitalism. This powerful edited volume would be a great addition to classes on migration, human rights, globalization, social inequality, and race. Migration and Mortality should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand the role of border and migration policies in late capitalism.”—Tanya Golash-Boza, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced, and author of Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism“Migration and Mortality is a timely, thorough, and compelling volume. Its focus on ‘social death’ to capture a variety of experiences—some of which amount to suffering that translates into ‘slow death,’ while others encompass death more literally—is creative, novel, and needed. This book is a significant contribution to migration studies.”—Cecilia Menjívar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities and Professor of Sociology at UCLA, and coauthor of Immigrant Families"This expansive and interdisciplinary volume brings together a range of perspectives on the necropolitics of US immigration enforcement. Drawing from empirical sites as diverse as a border security industry conference in Texas, heat illness among farmworkers in Florida, and immigrant detention in New Jersey county jails, the chapters represent the cruel complexity and life-and-death consequences of the political economy of immigration in the 21st century.... [T]his volume...stands as a compendium of the mortality-producing politics of 21st-century immigration enforcement."—Bulletin of Latin American Studies

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Book SynopsisDeath threatens migrants physically during perilous border crossings between Central and North America, but many also experience legal, social, and economic mortality. Rooted in histories of colonialism and conquest, exclusionary policies and practices deliberately take aim at racialized, dispossessed people in transit. Once in the new land, migrants endure a web of systems across every facet of their worldwork, home, healthcare, culture, justicethat strips them of their personhood, denies them resources, andcreates additional obstacles that deprive them of their ability to live fully. As laws and policies create ripe conditions for the further extraction of money, resources, and labor power from the dispossessed, the contributors to this vibrant anthology, Migration and Mortality, examine restrictive immigration policies and the broader capitalist systems of exploitation and inequality while highlighting the power of migrants' collective resistance and resilience.The case studies inTrade Review"Migration and Mortality’s thematically tight focus offers a well-organized book that is hard to put down.... Because of the denaturalizing work it does, this book would serve as an excellent teaching tool... The book’s thoughtful structure organically lends itself to a course.... Migration and Mortality offers readers different ways to reflect on the relationship between past and present forms of racial capitalism."—Contemporary Sociology"Like the rest of the collection, the epilogue connects individual stories to broader themes in history, theory, and politics. The editors and contributors of this book make a strong case for a multidisciplinary approach to assess the health impacts of migration."—Journal of American Ethnic History“This poignant collection of essays clearly and boldly drives home the critical point that borders and migration policies lead to premature death and suffering, and, by doing so, carry on the long tradition of a country founded on settler colonialism, genocide, and enslavement. Using a broad range of voices from students to established scholars, the editors and contributors collectively detail the myriad ways U.S. migration policies constitute the worst of the intertwined systems of racism and capitalism. This powerful edited volume would be a great addition to classes on migration, human rights, globalization, social inequality, and race. Migration and Mortality should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand the role of border and migration policies in late capitalism.”—Tanya Golash-Boza, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced, and author of Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism“Migration and Mortality is a timely, thorough, and compelling volume. Its focus on ‘social death’ to capture a variety of experiences—some of which amount to suffering that translates into ‘slow death,’ while others encompass death more literally—is creative, novel, and needed. This book is a significant contribution to migration studies.”—Cecilia Menjívar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities and Professor of Sociology at UCLA, and coauthor of Immigrant Families"This expansive and interdisciplinary volume brings together a range of perspectives on the necropolitics of US immigration enforcement. Drawing from empirical sites as diverse as a border security industry conference in Texas, heat illness among farmworkers in Florida, and immigrant detention in New Jersey county jails, the chapters represent the cruel complexity and life-and-death consequences of the political economy of immigration in the 21st century.... [T]his volume...stands as a compendium of the mortality-producing politics of 21st-century immigration enforcement."—Bulletin of Latin American Studies

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Book SynopsisThe protestors that comprised the Occupy Wall Street movement came from diverse backgrounds. But how were these activistswho sought radical social change through many ideologiesable to break down oppressions and obstacles within the movement? And in what ways did the movement perpetuate status-quo structures of inequality? Are We the 99%? is the first comprehensive feminist and intersectional analysis of the Occupy movement. Heather McKee Hurwitz considers how women, people of color, and genderqueer activists struggled to be heard and understood. Despite cries of We are the 99%, signaling solidarity, certain groups were unwelcome or unable to participate. Moreover, problems with racism, sexism, and discrimination due to sexuality and class persisted within the movement. Using immersive first-hand accounts of activists' experiences, online communications, and media coverage of the movement, Hurwitz reveals lessons gleaned from the conflicts within the Occupy movement. She compares her f

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Book SynopsisThe protestors that comprised the Occupy Wall Street movement came from diverse backgrounds. But how were these activistswho sought radical social change through many ideologiesable to break down oppressions and obstacles within the movement? And in what ways did the movement perpetuate status-quo structures of inequality? Are We the 99%? is the first comprehensive feminist and intersectional analysis of the Occupy movement. Heather McKee Hurwitz considers how women, people of color, and genderqueer activists struggled to be heard and understood. Despite cries of We are the 99%, signaling solidarity, certain groups were unwelcome or unable to participate. Moreover, problems with racism, sexism, and discrimination due to sexuality and class persisted within the movement. Using immersive first-hand accounts of activists' experiences, online communications, and media coverage of the movement, Hurwitz reveals lessons gleaned from the conflicts within the Occupy movement. She compares her f

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Book SynopsisPolitical Black Girl Magicexplores black women's experiences as mayors in American cities. The editor and contributors to this comprehensive volumeexamine black female mayoral campaigns and elections where race and gender are a factorand wherederacialized campaigns have garnered candidate support from white as well as Hispanic and Asian American voters.Chapters also consider how Black female mayors govern, from discussions of their pursuit of economic growth and how they use their power toenact positive reforms to the challenges they face that inhibit their abilities to cater to neglected communities. Case studies in this interdisciplinary volume includefemale mayors in Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Compton, and Washington, DC, among other cities, along with discussion of each official's political context. Covering mayors from the 1960s to the present,Political Black Girl Magicidentifies the most significant obstacles black women have faced as mayors and mayoral candidates,Trade Review“An impressive, well-researched, and thorough look at the complex leadership of Black women mayors. The editor and contributors explore the intersections of race and gender in the elections, administrative styles, and media coverage about Black women in positions of power and offer provocative questions and answers about the nature of politics in the United States. With a depth and scope that recognizes the distinct features of region and location, Political Black Girl Magic is essential reading for anyone interested in leadership and racial justice.”—Marcia Chatelain, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America“Sharon Wright Austin has assembled a dynamic team of mostly women scholars to cover an important yet understudied topic: Black women in American state and local government and politics. Thick with carefully detailed demographic data and individual case studies of Black women’s campaigns and governance, Political Black Girl Magic takes readers from the election of the first Black woman mayor through to the politics of today. This book is an outstanding and significant contribution to the discipline.”—Keneshia N. Grant, Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University, and author of The Great Migration and the Democratic Party: Black Voters and the Realignment of American Politics in the 20th Century (Temple)

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Book SynopsisPolitical Black Girl Magicexplores black women's experiences as mayors in American cities. The editor and contributors to this comprehensive volumeexamine black female mayoral campaigns and elections where race and gender are a factorand wherederacialized campaigns have garnered candidate support from white as well as Hispanic and Asian American voters.Chapters also consider how Black female mayors govern, from discussions of their pursuit of economic growth and how they use their power toenact positive reforms to the challenges they face that inhibit their abilities to cater to neglected communities. Case studies in this interdisciplinary volume includefemale mayors in Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Compton, and Washington, DC, among other cities, along with discussion of each official's political context. Covering mayors from the 1960s to the present,Political Black Girl Magicidentifies the most significant obstacles black women have faced as mayors and mayoral candidates,Trade Review“An impressive, well-researched, and thorough look at the complex leadership of Black women mayors. The editor and contributors explore the intersections of race and gender in the elections, administrative styles, and media coverage about Black women in positions of power and offer provocative questions and answers about the nature of politics in the United States. With a depth and scope that recognizes the distinct features of region and location, Political Black Girl Magic is essential reading for anyone interested in leadership and racial justice.”—Marcia Chatelain, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America“Sharon Wright Austin has assembled a dynamic team of mostly women scholars to cover an important yet understudied topic: Black women in American state and local government and politics. Thick with carefully detailed demographic data and individual case studies of Black women’s campaigns and governance, Political Black Girl Magic takes readers from the election of the first Black woman mayor through to the politics of today. This book is an outstanding and significant contribution to the discipline.”—Keneshia N. Grant, Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University, and author of The Great Migration and the Democratic Party: Black Voters and the Realignment of American Politics in the 20th Century (Temple)"The book answers the call for research on Black female mayors in an admirably detailed, comprehensive, and instructive fashion.... The book should serve as a valuable sourcebook for future research on this vital topic."—Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Book SynopsisWarring Genealogies examines the elaboration of kinships between Chicano/a and Asian American cultural production, such as the 1954 proxy adoption of a Korean boy by Leavenworth prisoners. Joo Ok Kim considers white supremacist expressions of kinship—in prison magazines, memorials, U.S. military songbooks—as well as critiques of such expressions in Chicana/o and Korean diasporic works to conceptualize racialized formations of kinship emerging from the Korean War.Warring Genealogies unpacks writings by Rolando Hinojosa (Korean Love Songs, The Useless Servants) and Luis Valdez (I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges, Zoot Suit) to show the counter-representations of the Korean War and the problematic depiction of the United States as a benevolent savior. Kim also analyzes Susan Choi’s The Foreign Student as a novel that proposes alternative temporalities to dominant Korean War narratives. In addition,Trade Review“Warring Genealogies offers a sophisticated analysis that compellingly demonstrates the broader significance of the Korean War as a crucible for a variety of U.S. Cold War concerns in the post–World War II era. Crucially, Kim’s juxtaposition and brilliant analysis of unlikely archival materials and cultural texts make an original and exceedingly important contribution to our understandings of the links between the Korean War and U.S. racial, carceral, and settler colonial formations. This is a rigorous and impressive interdisciplinary cultural study.”—Jodi Kim, Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and author of Settler Garrison: Debt Imperialism, Militarism, and Transpacific Imaginaries“In recent years, we have seen the emergence of a vital nexus of works in Asian American and American Studies on the topic of the Korean War. Warring Genealogies makes a vital contribution to this field. Kim organizes her study around the problematic of kinship in illuminating and original ways, synthesizing and inventively finding points of connection among a number of significant approaches. What is most compelling is the archive Kim constructs: Not only are many of the objects she takes up themselves fascinating—the adoption of Bok Nam Om by white prisoners at Leavenworth, the Korean War historiography of the United Daughters of the Confederacy—but they are also placed in startling juxtaposition with more easily accessible cultural works like published histories and novels. The prolific scope of the theoretical and historiographical studies that Kim draws on here provides readers with a comprehensive awareness of the relevance of such fields and persuasively demonstrates how kinship functions as a conceptual through line among them as well.”—Daniel Y. Kim, Professor of English and American Studies at Brown University, and author of The Intimacies of Conflict: Cultural Memory and the Korean War"The Korean War should not be forgotten. Kim’s work proves that the study of it is relevant to anyone interested in understanding the complex histories and current dynamics of globalized white supremacy, even as it demonstrates just how foundational it is to interrogate, through the lens of US empire, what we think we know."—American Literary History

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Book SynopsisWarring Genealogies examines the elaboration of kinships between Chicano/a and Asian American cultural production, such as the 1954 proxy adoption of a Korean boy by Leavenworth prisoners. Joo Ok Kim considers white supremacist expressions of kinship—in prison magazines, memorials, U.S. military songbooks—as well as critiques of such expressions in Chicana/o and Korean diasporic works to conceptualize racialized formations of kinship emerging from the Korean War.Warring Genealogies unpacks writings by Rolando Hinojosa (Korean Love Songs, The Useless Servants) and Luis Valdez (I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges, Zoot Suit) to show the counter-representations of the Korean War and the problematic depiction of the United States as a benevolent savior. Kim also analyzes Susan Choi’s The Foreign Student as a novel that proposes alternative temporalities to dominant Korean War narratives. In addition,Trade Review“Warring Genealogies offers a sophisticated analysis that compellingly demonstrates the broader significance of the Korean War as a crucible for a variety of U.S. Cold War concerns in the post–World War II era. Crucially, Kim’s juxtaposition and brilliant analysis of unlikely archival materials and cultural texts make an original and exceedingly important contribution to our understandings of the links between the Korean War and U.S. racial, carceral, and settler colonial formations. This is a rigorous and impressive interdisciplinary cultural study.”—Jodi Kim, Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and author of Settler Garrison: Debt Imperialism, Militarism, and Transpacific Imaginaries“In recent years, we have seen the emergence of a vital nexus of works in Asian American and American Studies on the topic of the Korean War. Warring Genealogies makes a vital contribution to this field. Kim organizes her study around the problematic of kinship in illuminating and original ways, synthesizing and inventively finding points of connection among a number of significant approaches. What is most compelling is the archive Kim constructs: Not only are many of the objects she takes up themselves fascinating—the adoption of Bok Nam Om by white prisoners at Leavenworth, the Korean War historiography of the United Daughters of the Confederacy—but they are also placed in startling juxtaposition with more easily accessible cultural works like published histories and novels. The prolific scope of the theoretical and historiographical studies that Kim draws on here provides readers with a comprehensive awareness of the relevance of such fields and persuasively demonstrates how kinship functions as a conceptual through line among them as well.”—Daniel Y. Kim, Professor of English and American Studies at Brown University, and author of The Intimacies of Conflict: Cultural Memory and the Korean War"The Korean War should not be forgotten. Kim’s work proves that the study of it is relevant to anyone interested in understanding the complex histories and current dynamics of globalized white supremacy, even as it demonstrates just how foundational it is to interrogate, through the lens of US empire, what we think we know."—American Literary History

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Book SynopsisIn her pathbreaking book, Ocean Passages, Erin Suzuki explores how movement through—and travel across—the ocean mediates the construction of Asian American and Indigenous Pacific subjectivities in the wake of the colonial conflicts that shaped the modern transpacific. Ocean Passages considers how Indigenous Pacific scholars have emphasized the importance of the ocean to Indigenous activism, art, and theories of globalization and how Asian American studies might engage in a deconstructive interrogation of race in conversation with this Indigenous-centered transnationalism.The ocean passages that Suzuki addresses include the U.S. occupation and militarization of ocean space; refugee passage and the history and experiences of peoples displaced from the Pacific Islands; migratory circuits and the labors required to cross the sea; and the different ways that oceans inform postcolonial and settler colonial nationalisms. She juxtaposes work by Indigenous PaTrade Review"Each chapter offers thoughtful and thorough analyses of literary texts by writers or artists respectively from Asian/settler-colonial America and Indigenous Pacific Islands.... Suzuki’s challenging and insightful work deserves much praise and will undoubtedly benefit a large readership across many fields of study."—American Literary History"Ocean Passages is a timely book that will be of interest to scholars and students of Indigeneity, race, and diaspora across the fields of ethnic, Native, Asian American, and Pacific studies. It is, in particular, essential reading for Asian Americanists. In addition to Suzuki's superb literary analyses, her book asks pointed questions about a field's relationship—or perhaps its obligations—to Oceanic peoples and places. This reckoning has been a long time coming (calls for the disaggregation of the AAPI acronym are now decades old and still unresolved)." —Native American and Indigenous Studies“Ocean Passages examines how movement within, through, and across the Pacific Ocean mediates the subjectivities of Asian American and Indigenous Pacific communities in the wake of colonial conflicts that have shaped the region. Through a sustained analysis of how various narratives of ‘ocean passages’ disrupt and revise hegemonic constructions of the Pacific, Suzuki demonstrates what new orientations, concepts, and openings can emerge by bringing Asian and Pacific Islander passages across the same sea into a critical analytic of relation…. Ocean Passages demonstrates how transpacific studies can evolve and continue to be a generative framing for counterhegemonic, decolonial research across disciplines.” —Lateral"Through her skillful handling of these passages, Suzuki provides routes that gives due value to both Indigenous Pacific and Asian diasporic perspectives. She does not seek to resolve their disjuncture but to revitalize their engagement. Her rigorous and grounded navigation of these literatures is an important exercise in expanding the critical purchase of the field and 'transpacific,' ensuring its contemporary relevance.... Ocean Passages is an important offering at the intersection of Asian American, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, diasporic, and transpacific studies."—The Journal of Asian Studies"Suzuki underscores the importance of engaging Native studies and Indigenous peoples—not as neglected areas and objects of study but as subjects of knowledge and invaluable kin.... Each chapter likewise is a remarkable weave of information and interpretation.... Ocean Passages deftly engages a complex issue: how to treat the Pacific, and passage more generally, as a distinct phenomenon but not an empirical positivity.... Reading across Asian American and Pacific Islander literatures is vital for this project. Suzuki shows us how to distill sustenance from their richness, making Ocean Passages a necessary wayfinder to Pacific futures."—The Journal of American Folklore"Ocean Passages break[s] new ground in the fields of Indigenous and Asian American studies. Moreover, by highlighting ways in which these fields are fundamentally connected...Suzuki make[s] a compelling case for the intellectual and ethical necessity of a comparative approach that takes stock of the various forms of expression, resistance, and cross-racial solidarity born from shared experiences of physical and discursive violence.... Suzuki reframe[s] our analysis of these conjoined histories to yield generative models for how we might pursue a decolonial future."—MELUS

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Book SynopsisIn her pathbreaking book, Ocean Passages, Erin Suzuki explores how movement through—and travel across—the ocean mediates the construction of Asian American and Indigenous Pacific subjectivities in the wake of the colonial conflicts that shaped the modern transpacific. Ocean Passages considers how Indigenous Pacific scholars have emphasized the importance of the ocean to Indigenous activism, art, and theories of globalization and how Asian American studies might engage in a deconstructive interrogation of race in conversation with this Indigenous-centered transnationalism.The ocean passages that Suzuki addresses include the U.S. occupation and militarization of ocean space; refugee passage and the history and experiences of peoples displaced from the Pacific Islands; migratory circuits and the labors required to cross the sea; and the different ways that oceans inform postcolonial and settler colonial nationalisms. She juxtaposes work by Indigenous PaTrade Review"Each chapter offers thoughtful and thorough analyses of literary texts by writers or artists respectively from Asian/settler-colonial America and Indigenous Pacific Islands.... Suzuki’s challenging and insightful work deserves much praise and will undoubtedly benefit a large readership across many fields of study."—American Literary History"Ocean Passages is a timely book that will be of interest to scholars and students of Indigeneity, race, and diaspora across the fields of ethnic, Native, Asian American, and Pacific studies. It is, in particular, essential reading for Asian Americanists. In addition to Suzuki's superb literary analyses, her book asks pointed questions about a field's relationship—or perhaps its obligations—to Oceanic peoples and places. This reckoning has been a long time coming (calls for the disaggregation of the AAPI acronym are now decades old and still unresolved)." —Native American and Indigenous Studies“Ocean Passages examines how movement within, through, and across the Pacific Ocean mediates the subjectivities of Asian American and Indigenous Pacific communities in the wake of colonial conflicts that have shaped the region. Through a sustained analysis of how various narratives of ‘ocean passages’ disrupt and revise hegemonic constructions of the Pacific, Suzuki demonstrates what new orientations, concepts, and openings can emerge by bringing Asian and Pacific Islander passages across the same sea into a critical analytic of relation…. Ocean Passages demonstrates how transpacific studies can evolve and continue to be a generative framing for counterhegemonic, decolonial research across disciplines.” —Lateral"Through her skillful handling of these passages, Suzuki provides routes that gives due value to both Indigenous Pacific and Asian diasporic perspectives. She does not seek to resolve their disjuncture but to revitalize their engagement. Her rigorous and grounded navigation of these literatures is an important exercise in expanding the critical purchase of the field and 'transpacific,' ensuring its contemporary relevance.... Ocean Passages is an important offering at the intersection of Asian American, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, diasporic, and transpacific studies."—The Journal of Asian Studies"Suzuki underscores the importance of engaging Native studies and Indigenous peoples—not as neglected areas and objects of study but as subjects of knowledge and invaluable kin.... Each chapter likewise is a remarkable weave of information and interpretation.... Ocean Passages deftly engages a complex issue: how to treat the Pacific, and passage more generally, as a distinct phenomenon but not an empirical positivity.... Reading across Asian American and Pacific Islander literatures is vital for this project. Suzuki shows us how to distill sustenance from their richness, making Ocean Passages a necessary wayfinder to Pacific futures."—The Journal of American Folklore"Ocean Passages break[s] new ground in the fields of Indigenous and Asian American studies. Moreover, by highlighting ways in which these fields are fundamentally connected...Suzuki make[s] a compelling case for the intellectual and ethical necessity of a comparative approach that takes stock of the various forms of expression, resistance, and cross-racial solidarity born from shared experiences of physical and discursive violence.... Suzuki reframe[s] our analysis of these conjoined histories to yield generative models for how we might pursue a decolonial future."—MELUS

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1998,Q & A: Queer in Asian America,edited by David L. Eng and Alice Y. Hom, became a canonical work in Asian American studies and queer studies. This new edition ofQ & Ais neither a sequel nor an update, but an entirely new work borne out of the progressive political and cultural advances of the queer experiences of Asian North American communities.The artists, activists, community organizers, creative writers, poets, scholars, and visual artists that contribute to this exciting new volume make visible the complicated intertwining of sexuality with race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Sections address activism, radicalism, and social justice; transformations in the meaning of Asian-ness and queerness in various mass media issues of queerness in relation to settler colonialism anddiaspora; and issues of bodies, health, disability, gender transitions, death, healing, and resilien

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair is classic Bill Cross, a brilliant jazz ensemble—part intellectual history, part memoir, part social and political history, and part critical science. Elegant and original, this book is both groundbreaking and backward-looking in ways that carve new and innovative intellectual paths. Cross re-views Frazier, Clark, Du Bois, and the works on Black racial identities. And he reflects thoughtfully on his own work, the relentless persistence of the deficit perspective, and where the field needs to go. This book is just stunning; Cross moves in and out of political and intellectual history with brilliance.”—Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York“An impressive synthesis of psychology and Black studies, Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair is an intellectually interesting journey through Black history by one of the most significant Black theorists of our time. Cross is an erudite and insightful thinker of the highest order, and this book provides context for the creation of Black psychology as a discipline. It is a fitting conclusion to his life’s work.”—Kevin Cokley, Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, and author of The Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism: A True Psychology of African American Students"This is a first-rate overview of Black identity by Cross, a leading psychologist and major developer of Nigrescence theory and the Cross Racial Identity Scale measuring Black self-identity. Here, he thoroughly analyzes his and other leading Black psychologists’ lifespan models of Black consciousness.... Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice"[This book] is part professional memoir, part introduction to Black Studies; part intellectual history, part introduction to psychology; part declaration of support for humanist psychology; and altogether insistent on the manifest diversity of Black ontology.... All in all, with its conservational tone, accessible writing, and didactic quality, Cross very much delivers on the 'educational narrative' he sets out to offer. I recommend this book highly."—Ethnic and Racial Studies"[T]his pointed book, which can be used as a casual read or as required academic reading, provides the sort of interrogation that we need to reengage, reimagine, and retell the stories of our Blackness in ways that uplift, empower, and advance us."—Teachers College Record"The strengths of this text are many.... [T]he major themes and concepts are illustrated for the reader through application to historical events and prominent figures in ways that will resonate with many audiences…. In all, Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair is a worthwhile and engaging read for anyone interested in Black humanity and experiences."—Contemporary Sociology

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Book SynopsisThroughout his esteemed career, William Cross has tried to reconcile how Black men he met in the barber shop seemed so normal, but the portrayal in college textbooks of Black people in generaland the Black working class in particularis self-hating and pathological. In Black Identity Viewed from a Barber's Chair, Cross revisits his ground-breaking model on Black identity awakening known as Nigrescence, connects W. E. B. DuBois's concept of double consciousness to an analysis of how Black identity is performed in everyday life, and traces the origins of the deficit perspective on Black culture to scholarship dating back to the 1930s. He follows with a critique showing such deficit and Black self-hatred tropes were always based on extremely weak evidence.Black Identity Viewed from a Barber's Chair ends with a new understanding of the psychology of slavery that helps explain why and how, during the first twelve years of emancipation, countless former slaves exhibited amazing psychological,Trade Review“Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair is classic Bill Cross, a brilliant jazz ensemble—part intellectual history, part memoir, part social and political history, and part critical science. Elegant and original, this book is both groundbreaking and backward-looking in ways that carve new and innovative intellectual paths. Cross re-views Frazier, Clark, Du Bois, and the works on Black racial identities. And he reflects thoughtfully on his own work, the relentless persistence of the deficit perspective, and where the field needs to go. This book is just stunning; Cross moves in and out of political and intellectual history with brilliance.”—Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York“An impressive synthesis of psychology and Black studies, Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair is an intellectually interesting journey through Black history by one of the most significant Black theorists of our time. Cross is an erudite and insightful thinker of the highest order, and this book provides context for the creation of Black psychology as a discipline. It is a fitting conclusion to his life’s work.”—Kevin Cokley, Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, and author of The Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism: A True Psychology of African American Students"This is a first-rate overview of Black identity by Cross, a leading psychologist and major developer of Nigrescence theory and the Cross Racial Identity Scale measuring Black self-identity. Here, he thoroughly analyzes his and other leading Black psychologists’ lifespan models of Black consciousness.... Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice"[This book] is part professional memoir, part introduction to Black Studies; part intellectual history, part introduction to psychology; part declaration of support for humanist psychology; and altogether insistent on the manifest diversity of Black ontology.... All in all, with its conservational tone, accessible writing, and didactic quality, Cross very much delivers on the 'educational narrative' he sets out to offer. I recommend this book highly."—Ethnic and Racial Studies"[T]his pointed book, which can be used as a casual read or as required academic reading, provides the sort of interrogation that we need to reengage, reimagine, and retell the stories of our Blackness in ways that uplift, empower, and advance us."—Teachers College Record"The strengths of this text are many.... [T]he major themes and concepts are illustrated for the reader through application to historical events and prominent figures in ways that will resonate with many audiences…. In all, Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair is a worthwhile and engaging read for anyone interested in Black humanity and experiences."—Contemporary Sociology

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Steele, a sports journalist, connects recent efforts by Black athletes to effect social change, initiated by Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem, to the history of Black athletes using their platform to draw attention to racial injustice.... In particular, Steele draws a direct line from the famous protest by John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. He contrasts this with the period from the 1980s to the early 2000s, when Black athletes mostly tried to stay out of larger social justice debates.... [A]s Steele demonstrates, given recent high-profile incidents of police violence against Black people and the demagoguery of now former President Donald Trump and his supporters, the need for protest and social justice campaigns remains as great as ever.... Summing Up: Recommended."—Choice"Steele takes on the task of positioning recent sports activism in the United States within the longer history of athletes in that country taking a stand against racial injustice.... Steele writes in an engaging and impassioned style that will certainly attract a broad readership.... It Was Always a Choice is a book with a clear argument – that athletes cannot and should not stand above the fray when it comes to civil rights activism – and anyone who is looking to understand recent events in US sporting history would benefit from reading it."—Sport in History"David Steele’s authoritative and engaging account uses historical reflection and up-to-date analysis to locate the key issues firmly in the present; but also, encouragingly, it turns its gaze to the future, and considers what, and who, might come next. Within the broader realm of sporting activism, Steele’s book focuses specifically on race and racism, and explores the actions undertaken largely but not exclusively by African American athletes in the United States. Through a comprehensive and thoughtful delineation of their actions, bodily gestures and spoken words, Steele outlines how Black sportspeople are inseparable from the communities which they emerge from and represent.... It Was Always a Choice is an important and insightful text."—Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Book SynopsisWhat happens when illness betrays Asian Americanfantasies of indefinite progressTrade Review"Lee’s book makes important contributions to ongoing and much needed conversations about illness, disability, racism, ableism, and the importance of storytelling and memoir."—Wordgathering“Lee provides an engaging bridge between Asian American and disability studies, draws skillfully from both fields, and demonstrates the compelling significance of Asian American medical and illness memoirs for the general public.”—American Literary History

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Book SynopsisWhat happens when illness betrays Asian Americanfantasies of indefinite progressTrade Review"Lee’s book makes important contributions to ongoing and much needed conversations about illness, disability, racism, ableism, and the importance of storytelling and memoir."—Wordgathering“Lee provides an engaging bridge between Asian American and disability studies, draws skillfully from both fields, and demonstrates the compelling significance of Asian American medical and illness memoirs for the general public.”—American Literary History

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Book SynopsisDiverse perspectives on Manila that suggest the city's exhilarating sights and sounds broaden how Philippine histories are defined and understoodTrade Review“Beauty and Brutality is a carefully curated, original, and sophisticated collection of essays that explores Manila in all of its complexity, possibility, and potential. Readers will engage with Manila through multiple senses—from the snarl of traffic and the density of the city’s air to its stunning display of cultural forms of resistance and persistence amid national and transnational violence. Beauty and Brutality provides key historical and contextual information, serving as an invaluable orientation to the city, what it represents, and its significance both within the Philippines and abroad.”—Denise Cruz, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and author of Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina“Metro Manila has long served as one of the world’s poster cities for uneven and unequal development. These exhaustive studies in Beauty and Brutality explore the vast complexity and manifold contradictions of Manila as a space of dense inhabitation and a place of conflicting affections. The editors and contributors attend, with criticality and care, to the irrepressible desires and hopes of its citizens, inveterate survivors of Manila’s long history of beautification and brutalization by capitalists and colonizers. To such ‘beauty’ and ‘brutality,’ contributor Ferdinand Lopez adds ‘blood,’ with its paradoxical connotations of vitality, vigor, and violence. Bloody, not just beautiful and brutal, this incomparable city is, indeed!”—Oscar V. Campomanes, Professor of English at Ateneo de Manila University"An essential anthology of 15 essays curated by Manalansan, Diaz, and Tolentino, the book takes beauty as a point of departure to explore diverse spatio-temporal practices of city-making through Manila.... [A] unique contribution to both urban studies and Manila studies.... Beauty and Brutality presents an indispensable addition to the growing body of contemporary and historical works that seek to creatively document the fascinating shifts and spaces in a rapidly changing Manila."—Journal of Urban Affairs

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Book SynopsisDiverse perspectives on Manila that suggest the city's exhilarating sights and sounds broaden how Philippine histories are defined and understoodTrade Review“Beauty and Brutality is a carefully curated, original, and sophisticated collection of essays that explores Manila in all of its complexity, possibility, and potential. Readers will engage with Manila through multiple senses—from the snarl of traffic and the density of the city’s air to its stunning display of cultural forms of resistance and persistence amid national and transnational violence. Beauty and Brutality provides key historical and contextual information, serving as an invaluable orientation to the city, what it represents, and its significance both within the Philippines and abroad.”—Denise Cruz, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and author of Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina“Metro Manila has long served as one of the world’s poster cities for uneven and unequal development. These exhaustive studies in Beauty and Brutality explore the vast complexity and manifold contradictions of Manila as a space of dense inhabitation and a place of conflicting affections. The editors and contributors attend, with criticality and care, to the irrepressible desires and hopes of its citizens, inveterate survivors of Manila’s long history of beautification and brutalization by capitalists and colonizers. To such ‘beauty’ and ‘brutality,’ contributor Ferdinand Lopez adds ‘blood,’ with its paradoxical connotations of vitality, vigor, and violence. Bloody, not just beautiful and brutal, this incomparable city is, indeed!”—Oscar V. Campomanes, Professor of English at Ateneo de Manila University"An essential anthology of 15 essays curated by Manalansan, Diaz, and Tolentino, the book takes beauty as a point of departure to explore diverse spatio-temporal practices of city-making through Manila.... [A] unique contribution to both urban studies and Manila studies.... Beauty and Brutality presents an indispensable addition to the growing body of contemporary and historical works that seek to creatively document the fascinating shifts and spaces in a rapidly changing Manila."—Journal of Urban Affairs

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Book SynopsisAt the end of the twentieth century, many twenty-something Japanese women migrated to places like Southern California with few skills and an overall lack of human capital. These women, members of the shin Issei community, sought economic opportunities unavailable to them in their homeland. In Intimate Strangers, shin Issei women tell stories of precarity, inequality, and continuing marginality, first in Japan, where they were restricted by gendered social structures, and later in the United States, where their experiences were compounded by issues such as citizenship.Intimate Strangers charts the experiences of shin Issei lives: their existence in Japan prior to migration, their motivations for moving to the United States, their settlement, and their growing awareness of their place in American society. Toyota chronicles how these resilient young women became active agents in circumventing social restrictions to fashion new lives of meaning. The Nikkei

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Book SynopsisAt the end of the twentieth century, many twenty-something Japanese women migrated to places like Southern California with few skills and an overall lack of human capital. These women, members of the shin Issei community, sought economic opportunities unavailable to them in their homeland. In Intimate Strangers, shin Issei women tell stories of precarity, inequality, and continuing marginality, first in Japan, where they were restricted by gendered social structures, and later in the United States, where their experiences were compounded by issues such as citizenship.Intimate Strangers charts the experiences of shin Issei lives: their existence in Japan prior to migration, their motivations for moving to the United States, their settlement, and their growing awareness of their place in American society. Toyota chronicles how these resilient young women became active agents in circumventing social restrictions to fashion new lives of meaning. The Nikkei

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Book SynopsisBrothersis Nico Slate's poignant memoir about Peter Slate, akaXL, aBlack rapper and screenwriter whose life was tragically cut short. Nico and Peter shared the same White American mother but had different fathers. Nico's was White; Peter's was Black. Growing up in California in the 1980s and 1990s, Nico often forgot about their racial differences until one night in March 1994 when Peter was attacked by a White man in a nightclub in Los Angeles. Nico began writingBrotherswith the hope that investigating the attack would bring him closer to Peter. He could not understand that night, however, without grappling with the many ways race had long separated him from his brother. This is a memoir of lossthe loss of a life and the loss at the heart of our racial dividebut it is also a memoir of love.The love between Nico and Peter permeates every page ofBrothers.This achingly beautiful memoir presents one family's resilience on the fault lines of race in contemporary America.Trade Review"A searing, hauntingly poignant memoir."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)“Let’s be clear. Brothers is a love story. A tragic, beautiful, riveting, soulshaking love story. It is a love story between boys, men, mothers and sons, fathers and sons, and brothers. It is a love story that doesn’t so much cross the color line as study it and reveal its elusive nature, its shape-shifting form as border, wall, bludgeon, rope, threshold, even a lifeline. Nico Slate writes with clarity, disarming honesty, rawness, and beauty matched only by his brother’s extraordinary life and character. Brothers is a journey of discovery and recovery, an unfinished struggle to piece together the fragments of a man who, in the midst of wrestling with his own demons and disappointments, managed to make those he loved whole. Concealed in the many lives of Peter Slate, there is more here than meets the eye.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original“A gripping and pertinent account, Brothers explores the bonds of race, family, and love with disarming honesty and probing insight.”—Jasmin Darznik, author of the New York Times bestselling memoir The Good Daughter“This captivating memoir, written by acclaimed historian Nico Slate, recounts the remarkable, yet tragically short, life of Slate’s older brother as he navigated the complex terrain of race in the United States. In lively and compelling prose, Slate offers an honest and moving story that illuminates the power of family and the true meaning of brotherhood. This memoir challenges and inspires, leaving readers with a treasure trove of rich insights on race, history, and family.”—Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom“Slate’s memoir Brothers circles the question of race’s meaningingfulness [sic] and meaninglessness as a social construct as seen through the relationship of two siblings: one Black and one white. Brothers is a memento mori for Slate’s older brother Peter, a prolific scriptwriter and DJ also known as XL the 1I…. A gentle elegy, Brothers also goes beyond grief and childhood memories to comment on culture’s intimate ramifications while resurrecting the complexity of Peter as a person: creative, dreamer, brother, father figure, and Black man.”—Foreword

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