The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History. Edited by David Yoo and Eiichiro Azuma

Extract

Yoo and Azuma have gathered an A-Team of contributors including Asian American history’s pathbreakers, mid-career luminaries, and new voices. Weighing in at a twenty-seven essays, the volume sprawls over topics under the headings like “Migration Flows,” and “Time Passages.” It is perhaps too advanced as a one-stop source for novices seeking an introduction to Asian American history, but it will be useful to scholars in the field, historians in cognate fields, and Asian Americanists of all disciplines. I predict I will return to it often.

An introductory essay maps the origins and major directions of the field. Mindful of the political context from which academic Asian American studies emerged (though research about Asians in America predated this time), the editors cite the “ethnic studies mode” of interpretation--which prioritizes systemic and institutional approaches to the study of racism--as a distinguishing element of post-1960s Asian American historical research. While the essays indicate that this consensus still holds, the volume is not uniform in its ideas about Asian American history, as they collectively embody different schools of thought and intellectual alignments that express themselves in contentious and enriching ways. These include political and ideological imperatives vs. empiricism, nation-based “Asian American” history vs. diasporic histories, and liberal vs. radical allegiances.