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Subject Area: Asian American Studies

19th Century Chinese and Japanese Settlements in California: America's Pacific Founding Fathers
 Métraux, Daniel A.
2024 1-4955-1193-6 236 pages
"This book follows Asian-American history in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in northeastern California. When one thinks of ethnic Chinese communities throughout North America today, one may consider urban locations such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Vancouver. One would not ordinarily think of Chinese communities in remote rural areas. But during the late 1800s and early 1900s , many small towns and cities throughout northern California had their own well-established Chinese communities. ...This book offers the reader an opportunity to learn about the many small rural Chinatowns that proliferated across northern California in the late 1800s and early 1900s as well the first Japanese settlement near Coloma in 1869. There were at least thirty of these rural Chinese settlements; I have chosen to write about ten of these as representative samples of their great variety and legacies." -from The Author's "Introduction"

American's Studying the Traditional Japanese Art of the Tea Ceremony: The Internationalizing of a Traditional Art
 Mori, Barbara Lynne Rowland
1992 0-7734-9853-2 216 pages
Recent interests in learning from Japanese business practice and other aspects of social life are being viewed in a global context. The Urasenke school of chado (the Japanese tea ceremony) has been exporting its practice since the early 1950s. This study provides an opportunity to study the ability of a Japanese art to teach its practice and social structure to non-Japanese. This work contributes to our understanding of Japanese culture and its adaptability to outsiders, and the process by which non-Japanese learn to behave as Japanese in the setting of the tea room through the learning of cultural symbols and ritual behavior.

Anti-Asian Exclusion in the United States During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The History Leading to the Immigration Act of 1924
 LePore, Herbert P.
2013 0-7734-4471-8 320 pages
A most thorough examination of the political, cultural, economic, psychological, and racial discrimination issues, including physical violence that brought about the implementation of ignominious, unwarranted, and unprecedented state and federal exclusionary legislation against Chinese and Japanese immigrants living in California and adjoining states during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Asian Writings of Jack London: Essays, Letters, Newspaper Dispatches, and Short Fiction by Jack London
 Métraux, Daniel A.
2009 0-7734-3812-2 344 pages
Examines American writer Jack London’s journalistic and literary contributions about Asia, his insights into Asian ethnic and political complexities, and his vision for pan-Asian / American cooperation. The book includes an anthology of London’s major writings on Asia.

Buddhist Churches of America Jodo Shinshu
 Tuck, Donald R.
1987 0-88946-672-6 350 pages
A history of the American school of Japanese Buddhism called the True Pure Land (Jodo Shinshu), which also styles itself Buddhist Churches of America, from its earliest 19th-century exponents to the present.

Challenge of Cross Cultural Competency in Social Work. Experiences of Southeast Asian Refugees in the United States
 Schuldberg, Jean
2005 0-7734-6086-1 216 pages
This study evaluates the cultural competency needs in social work education from the perspective of eight social service workers from the Iu-Mien community. The National Association of Social Worker’s (NASW) Code of Ethics views the acquisition of cultural competency as an ethical standard. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) mandates the teaching of cultural competency in their guidelines. Lack of cultural competency may hinder social workers’ ability to advocate, help broker resources, and support the strengths of individuals and communities.

The perspective of social workers’ cultural competency from recipients of service or workers from non-dominant groups in the United States has not been researched. Participatory research, which involves collaborative dialogues between the researcher and participant(s), is the methodology for this study. Most Iu-Mien adults, primarily refugees from Laos, have experienced contact with social workers in the United States. Social service workers from the Iu-Mien community have the unique position of having received services and, now, providing them.

This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the social-historical aspects of the Iu-Mien people, cultural competency needs and recommendations for social work education and practice, and the presentation of the development of a qualitative research study.

China Cupboard and the Coal Furnace
 Chin, David
2000 0-7734-2796-1 108 pages
These are personal, post-confessional poems that explore childhood, career changes, love and family life. The work’s themes are drawn from urban and rural working class life, the world of science, notions about the reparative function of art, object relations psychology, and, at times, Chinese-American experience.

Chinese-Canadians, Canadian-Chinese Coping and Adapting in North America
 Tian, Guang
1999 0-7734-2253-6 348 pages
This work examines how Mainland Chinese Refugees (MCRs), under diaspora conditions, identify themselves and adapt to their new environment in Canada. It probes how MCRs draw upon and reflect transnational social fields or imagined communities. As a study of ethnicity and coping strategies, it describes the MCRs in terms of who they are and where they come from in China; why these individuals became MCRs; why they chose Canada, and many other variables.

Hawaii, America’s Sugar Territory 1898-1959
 Melendy, H. Brett
1999 0-7734-7998-8 360 pages
This study is a definitive text on Hawaii's territorial period, relying primarily on archival materials. It stresses the Territory's importance to West Coast defense and the islands' unique sugar and pineapple economy dependence upon support by the federal government. It also examines how local problems such as land ownership and racial diversity, often created bitter dissension.

Historical Development and Contemporary Perspective of the Japanese Urasenke Way of Tea as Practiced in California
 Morris, Kent H.
2003 0-7734-6807-2 144 pages


Immigration and Settlement of Asian Indians in Phoenix, Arizona 1965-2011: Ethnic Pride Vs. Racial Discrimination in the Suburbs
 Skop, Emily
2012 0-7734-2632-9 376 pages
A sociological examination of the immigration patterns of Asian Indians to the suburbs Phoenix, Arizona from 1965 to the present. It explores their housing patterns, as well as methods of overcoming racial, ethnic, and class barriers to their acceptance as American citizens, while also trying to hold onto their native born heritage. There is a lengthy discussion of the sociology of space, human geography, community formation, and native customs being transformed or even lost.

Japanese Female Professors in the United States: A Comparative Study in Conflict Resolution and Intercultural Communication
 Hamada, Masako
2005 0-7734-5937-5 292 pages
Over the last quarter century, as interest in Japan has increased and Japanese language classes have proliferated all over the world, Japanese professors (of whom about 80% are female) have become an increasingly significant presence on U.S. college campuses. However, when Japanese professors teach American students, they face various issues caused by differences in cultural backgrounds, communication styles and expectations about the education process.

This study focuses on Japanese women, especially professors, working in institutions of higher education in the U.S. Then, using concrete examples, it explores their styles of handling classroom conflict, the effectiveness of different styles, and how their methods change with the length of time they have lived and worked in the U.S.

The book discusses the factors that contribute to the problems and conflicts, and gives professionals some suggestions and recommendations on how to face and resolve conflicts both in the classroom and in multicultural situations in “the real world.”

This study will appeal to scholars in Asian studies, women’s studies, intercultural communication, and conflict resolution management programs, and also professionals in global organizations and will help them to resolve culturally-based communication style differences and interpersonal conflicts more effectively.

Lived Experience of South Asian Immigrant Women in Atlantic Canada
 Ralston, Helen
1996 0-7734-8761-1 184 pages
This study made use of historical records, census data, and in-depth interviews with 126 first-generation women to generate a detailed portrayal of the demographics of South Asian women immigrants and their lived experiences. It begins with a discussion of the major theoretical issues in studying South Asian women in Canada and the impact of Canadian immigration policy on this group of women. It then provides a profile of these women and the socio-demographic context of their everyday lives in three domains: work in the home, work outside the home, and participation in community organizations, notably religious and cultural organizations.

Mongols in Western/American Consciousness
 Stuart, Kevin
1998 0-7734-8443-4 268 pages
Examines the influence of medieval conceptions of the Mongols as monsters, how these impressions affected the creation of a 'Mongol' racial category for mankind, what travelers observed and reported while in Mongol domains, the realm of fiction and film, and the field of Mongolian Studies.

Mormon and Asian American Model Minority Discourses in News and Popular Magazines
 Chen, Chiung Hwang
2004 0-7734-6375-5 305 pages
Manuscript situates news and popular magazines’ coverage of Asian Americans and Mormons within model minority discourse, explains the discourse’s problematic nature, and points out how the two discourses shape power relations between majorities and minorities in American society. The book employs critical discourse analysis, a powerful tool to uncover ideology within dominant discourses and challenge unequal power structures in society. By so doing, it aims to improve society for minority groups. The book also explores journalistic narrative. By following conventional narrative forms and shared cultural meanings, journalists often adopt established cultural norms and reinforce status quo ideologies. Chen’s goal is not simply to analyze the model minority discourse in news and popular magazines or merely to provide a critique of journalists’ conventional narrative forms. She also uses her analysis of journalistic discourse as a means of consciousness-raising—for both minority groups and journalists—and to further encourage alternative approaches to writing about minority groups.

Portrayal of Southeast Asian Refugees in Recent American Children’s Books
 Levy, Michael
2000 0-7734-7753-5 116 pages
Little has been published on this subject to date, so this work provides scholars and teachers of children’s literature with useful information on the children’s books that discuss Southeast Asians, including Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Lao, Hmong, and Mien. The works fall into three categories with most overlapping to some extent: historical fiction or non-fiction portraying the lives of a specific ethnic group before the advent of the war that is to disrupt the culture; the transition from traditional life to refugee status, usually told from the child’s perspective; life as a refugee in the US (or elsewhere), concentrating on the need to adjust to a strange culture, various forms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and the often bittersweet nostalgia for home.

Schooling of Japanese American Children at Relocation Centers During World War II: Miss Mabel Jamison and Her Teaching of Art at Rohwer, Arkansas
 Ziegler, Jan Fielder
2005 0-7734-6149-3 340 pages
The general story of education of Japanese Americans imprisoned in camps in this country during World War II has long been known. Little has been written, however, about the individual teachers who agreed to live and work with the students in the camps during the period of incarceration. The story of “Miss Jamison” and the education program in the prison camps at Rohwer and Jerome in Arkansas provides a fresh new view of a Caucasian teacher who came to work with a “strange” group of students, but who was herself educated in the process. Through evidence from Jamison’s papers, contemporary documents, historical accounts, interviews with survivors and even from the students’ art work Miss Jamison preserved, Ziegler creates a perceptive account of the wartime ordeal of the more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them American citizens, from a unique point of view. This book is a moving and significant expansion of our knowledge of the human dimensions of a wartime tragedy.

Skin Color as a Post-Colonial Issue Among Asian-Americans
 Hall, Ronald E.
2004 0-7734-6554-5 308 pages
Local schools of thought dominated by the Black/White dichotomy have failed to take notice of the growing Asian presence in American life. The study of Asian-Americans in the post-colonial era can be neither understood nor assessed without a universal frame of reference. This study gives insight into the implications of skin color for Asian-Americans, characterizing the taboo concept of hierarchy as manifested on the basis of skin color.

The Case of Japanese Americans During World War II: Suppression of Civil Liberties
 Kiyota, Minoru
2004 0-7734-6450-6 167 pages


Walter Francis Dillingham, 1875-1963. Hawaiian Entrepreneur and Statesman
 Melendy, H. Brett
1996 0-7734-8793-X 356 pages
This biography describes the career of a key figure during the years of the Territory of Hawaii, adding significantly to the incomplete history of Hawaii in the first half of the 20th century. Dillingham's accomplishments had a profound effect upon the development and growth of the territory. He and his Hawaiian Dredging Company changed greatly the shoreline of Honolulu, and helped shape the character of the city. Dillingham played a key role in the creation of Pearl Harbor as the Navy's major mid-Pacific naval base. His company was in integral factor in building naval airbases throughout the Pacific prior to and during WWII. He inherited the presidency of the Oahu Railway and Land Company from his father, and the railroad remained central to the island's transportation system for 30 years, furthering the expansion of sugar and pineapple plantations on Oahu. Given their major position in island society, he was able to entertain key national figures, helping influence mainland decisions affecting the future of the islands. Both Honolulu and Washington political leaders listened to him regarding important policy matters. In his later years, he stood against communism, the growing influence of labor unions in the islands, and opposed the idea of statehood. This biography depicts in particular his leading role in island and national affairs over a span of forty years.

Work Roles, Gender Roles, and Asian Indian Immigrant Women in the United States
 Sircar, Arpana
2000 0-7734-7848-5 288 pages
This study addresses the way gender mediates the lives of employed immigrant women in an ethnic minority community. It sheds light on the interplay of race-ethnicity, social class, and history generates multiple contexts within which individual and collective gender attitudes and norms are situated. This empirical study has tapped firsthand into the isolated behind-closed-doors subplots of how individuals negotiate old and new gender concepts in contested social and familial terrains.