cover image The Making of Asian America: A History

The Making of Asian America: A History

Erika Lee. Simon & Schuster, $29.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4767-3940-3

To honor the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, Lee (Angel Island), University of Minnesota historian and director of the Immigration History Research Center, tackles the sensitive subject of Asian-American assimilation in this ambitious, sweeping, and insightful survey. Charting the immigration story of individual nations rather than employing the “simplistic and monolithic ‘model minority’ lens,” Lee opens with 19th-century indentured servitude as Chinese “coolies” arrived in the Americas, and moves through the subsequent experiences of immigrants from Japan, Korea, and a range of South and Southeast Asian countries. Part two tracks each group’s struggle for acceptance, Part Three covers the impact of WWII, and Part Four addresses the 1.2 million displaced Southeast Asian refugees who settled in the U.S. after 1975. Lee brings her Chinese-American background into the mix, dating her roots to a great-great-great-grandfather who arrived during the California Gold Rush. As the rush wound down, the Chinese provided services such as laundries and restaurants—self-employment offering a solution to the harsh reality of workplace discrimination. Despite assimilation and socio-economic success, Lee reminds readers that “Asian Americans are seen as Asians, not Americans, and come to embody whatever threat the land of their ancestry allegedly poses to the United States.” Agent: Sandra Dijkstra, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. [em](Sept.) [/em]