May 28, 2024

Hawai‘i’s Chinese and Cold War Politics

Nancy E. Riley

Hawai‘i has been in the orbit of the United States since at least the mid nineteenth century, but it was after World War II, as the United States engaged in Cold War with the USSR, that Hawai‘i became particularly important....

May 23, 2024

Rumi Yasutake on The Feminist Pacific

Rumi Yasutake’s book, The Feminist Pacific: International Women’s Networks in Hawai’i, 1820–1940, conceptualizes the emergence of pan-Pacific feminism in the process of interacting historical forces and women’s activism in Hawai‘i from 1820 through the 1930s. When a mounting tide of...

May 27, 2021

Asian and American/Asian or American: Predicament and Possibilities of Being an Asian American

By Vishakha N. Desai

The first time I personally identified with the term Asian American was in 1993, when I had the opportunity to organize the first major exhibition of Asian American art exploring the issues of multicultural identities at the Asia Society, Asia/America:...

May 13, 2021

Q&A: Minae Mizumura on An I-Novel

Minae Mizumura is one of Japan’s most respected novelists. Published in 1995, her An I-Novel— a semi-autobiographical work that takes place over the course of a single day in the 1980s—radically broke with Japanese literary tradition. In this Q&A, Mizumura...

May 1, 2021

Columbia University Press Honors Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month

Columbia University Press has published in the fields of Asian humanities and social sciences for many decades. Our list had its start in the late 1950s as part of a joint effort with Columbia University’s Department of East Asian Languages...

May 28, 2020

COVID-19: War or Virus?
by Sunny Xiang

“Tonal Intelligence is smart and theoretically sophisticated. The book marks a significant contribution to work in Asian American and Asian studies, studies of twentieth-century literature and culture, theories of form and affect, and transpacific studies of late twentieth-century Asia.” ~Denise...

May 27, 2020

Book Excerpt! Asian Place, Filipino Nation, by Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz (chapter 1)

“In restoring the intellectual history of the Philippine Revolution, at long last, to its pan-Asian context, Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz offers a startling new perspective not only on the history of the Philippines in that era but on the evolution of...

May 26, 2020

The Philippine Revolution Constructs ‘Asia’ and Civilization from the Periphery

By Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz

“In restoring the intellectual history of the Philippine Revolution, at long last, to its pan-Asian context, Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz offers a startling new perspective not only on the history of the Philippines in that era but on the evolution of...

May 22, 2020

Book Excerpt! Chow Chop Suey, By Anne Mendelson (introduction)

“Well-written and impeccably researched, Chow Chop Suey is a beautiful ode both to the history of Chinese Americans and the intriguing ways in which China’s rich food culture continues to take root here and flourish. Anne Mendelson’s section on Chinese...

May 21, 2020

Q&A: Anne Mendelson on Food and the Chinese American Journey

“Chow Chop Suey is an eye-opener, a book that will give everyone a deep appreciation of the exquisite skill required to produce authentic Chinese food and the sweep of history that brought Chinese cooking to America.” ~Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition,...

May 20, 2020

Book Excerpt! Sewing Women, by Margaret M. Chin (introduction)

“A new and illuminating perspective on New York’s garment industry and the dynamics of work among today’s immigrants through a carefully argued and insightful comparison of Chinese- and Korean-owned garment shops and their Chinese and Hispanic workers. This richly-textured account,...

May 19, 2020

Q&A: Margaret M. Chin on the New York City Garment Industry

“Sewing Women provides a new and illuminating perspective on New York’s garment industry and the dynamics of work among today’s immigrants through a carefully argued and insightful comparison of Chinese- and Korean-owned garment shops and their Chinese and Hispanic workers.”...