Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Immigrant Heritage of America Series) [Paperback]

Sucheng Chan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA-- The experiences of early Asian immigrants are examined through their domestic situations, the lives of women who were struggling to cope without the support of their families in their homeland, and the social organizations that became central to their being. These organizations met the new arrivals at the ship, arranged jobs, established credit, helped to arrange marriages, and even buried them if they died in this country. The final chapter looks at the current status of Asian-Americans and explores their contribution to American life through film, writing, and other areas. Anyone wishing to do research would do well to get their hands on this book. The density of detail on people from Asia is enormous, and the currency is taken into the '90s with reports on court decisions that have occurred within the last year. Included is a list of films about Asian-Americans. --Barbara Weathers, Duchesne Academy, Houston, TX
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Chan (history and Asian American studies, Univ. of California) has written an excellent introduction to the history of Asians in the United States from the 1840s to the present. Based upon existing scholarship, Chan portrays Asian-Americans not just as victims of racial discrimination, but as agents of change attempting to shape their own destinies. Thus, exclusionary laws and incidents of anti-Asian violence are countered by examples of legal or political action on the part of individuals or groups to improve their conditions. Despite their successes, Chan cautions against accepting the image of Asians as the "model minority," pointing out differences among Asian groups and continued discriminatory barriers. Including a chronology and filmography, this is an essential purchase for undergraduate collections, especially where issues of diversity have introduced a need for a concise overview of this subject.
- Kathleen Hirooka, Stanford Univ. Lib., Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Twayne Publishers; 1 edition (January 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805784373
• ISBN-13: 978-0805784374
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sucheng Chan is Professor Emerita of Asian American Studies and Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Though her Ph.D. is in political science, she retooled herself as a historian while teaching Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley because so many questions that students asked could only be answered through historical research. She is the author or editor of 18 books, 5 of which have received awards: This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860-1910; Asian Americans: An Interpretive History; Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America; Claiming America: Constructions of Chinese American Identities during the Exclusion Era; and Survivors: Cambodian Refugees in the United States. Her other books have likewise been influential in the field. She has also written dozens of articles and book chapters, some of which have won awards.
A dedicated teacher, she is the recipient of 2 Distinguished Teaching Awards (the first from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978 and the second from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1998), as well as awards for service to students, the campus community, and the profession. She was the first Asian American woman to be appointed as a provost in the 10-campus University of California system, becoming Provost of Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1984. She moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1988, where she transformed the Asian American Studies Program into a full-fledged department in 1994, chairing the program and then the department from 1988 to 1997. She is also a co-founder of the Global Studies Program on the same campus.
She retired at age 60 in 2001 because the post-polio syndrome from which she has suffered for many years made it impossible to continue teaching. She has continued to write and is presently working on three book manuscripts: Asian America in Global Perspective; Vietnamese Refuge-Seekers and the Politics of Resettlement; and The Japanese in California Agriculture: Land, Labor, Race, and the Law, 1900-1942.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent general resource, August 9, 2000

By 

"nancy1234567" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Immigrant Heritage of America Series) (Paperback)

Sucheng Chan offers a statistic-rich, informative history of Asian-Americans, from their first immigration to current issues of As-Ams as "model minorities". I definitely prefer Chan's style to Takaki's quote-heavy, anecdotal approach; she is both thorough and concise.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars difficult experiences for over a century, February 17, 2007

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Immigrant Heritage of America Series) (Paperback)

Not a casual read. Chan describes well over a hundred years of Asians emigrating to and growing up in the United States. Many of the pages describe years of backbreaking toil, especially in the California goldfields, and in the building of the transcontinental railroads. Exacerbated by periodic bouts of discrimination by the European settlers and immigrants.

In a relatively short book, the account cannot be comprehensive. Complexity is added, due to the different nationalities of Asians that came over. Chinese. Japanese. Filipinos. Koreans. There never was one unitary Asian bloc in the US. Thus descriptions of various benevolent social and cultural organisations that arose are often split by ethnicity or nationality.

The text also shows that the civil rights movement of the 1950-1970s, while primarily for Negroes, also benefited Asians. Something not necessarily widely known or appreciated today.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reference, March 1, 2006

By 

E Neel (Houston TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Immigrant Heritage of America Series) (Paperback)

This book give a little overview of a multitude of topics, nothing indepth, but rather a 'light read'.