For centuries, Asian immigrants have been making vital contributions to the cultures of North and South America. Yet in many of these countries, Asians are commonly viewed as undifferentiated racial “others,” lumped together as chinos regardless of whether they have Chinese ancestry. How might this struggle for recognition in their adopted homelands affect the ways that Asians in the Americas imagine community and cultural identity?
The essays in Imagining Asia in the Americas investigate the myriad ways that Asians throughout the Americas use language, literature, religion, commerce, and other cultural practices to establish a sense of community, commemorate their countries of origin, and anticipate the possibilities presented by life in a new land. Focusing on a variety of locations across South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and the United States, the book’s contributors reveal the rich diversity of Asian Ameri
Trade Review
"Imagining Asia in the Americas brings fresh ideas and scholarship to the field. Using oral histories and personal experience, the essays in this volume convey a level of intimacy missing from other collections on the Asian diaspora." -- Jerry García * author of Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and U.S. Hegemony *
"This excellent volume is a welcome addition to the research on Asians in the Americas. The essays break new ground in this scant area of research, building on the currently small number of voices of Asians coming out of these regions." -- Karen Kuo * author of East is West and West is East *
"From Coolitude to Sinalidad, Imagining Asia in the Americas boldly charts intersecting diasporas, borders, languages and continents to remap the complex history of Asian descent peoples in the New World." -- Allan Punzalan Isaac * author of American Tropics: Articulating Filipino America *
Table of Contents
ContentsAcknowledgments
IntroductionDebbie Lee-DiStefano
Part I: Encounters: Moving Past Encounters: People of Asian Descent in the AmericasKathleen López
Chapter 1: Yellow Blindness in a Black-and-White Ethnoscape: Chinese Influence and Heritage in Afro-Cuban ReligiosityMartin A. Tsang
Chapter 2: Disrupting the “White Myth”: Korean Immigration to Buenos Aires and National ImaginariesJunyoung Verónica Kim
Chapter 3: Harnessing the Dragon: Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs in Mexico and CubaAdrian H. Hearn
Part II: Historicities: InterludeKathleen López
Chapter 4: Caught between Crime and Disease: Chinese Exclusion and Immigration Restrictions in Early Twentieth-Century CubaJosé Amador
Chapter 5: The Politics of the Pipe: Opium Regulation and Protocolonial Governance in Nineteenth-Century Hawai’iJulia Katz
Part III: Lives / Representations: InterludeKathleen López
Chapter 6: Musings on Identity and Transgenerational ExperiencesAnn Kaneko
Chapter 7: Intersecting Words: Haiku in GujaratiRoshni Rustomji-Kerns
Chapter 8: Cultural Celebration, Historical Memory, and Claim to Place in Júlio Miyazawa’s Yawara! A Travessia Nihondin-Brasil and Uma Rosa para YumiIgnacio López-Calvo
BibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex
