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Asian American Odyssey
Highlighting the Asian Experience in America
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In May of 1990, President George Bush designated the month of May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. This month-long national recognition pays tribute to the significant contributions of Asian/Pacific Americans and the poignant and difficult times Asian/Pacific Americans have experienced in this country. Below are selected materials from the Morton Grove Public Library's collection that reflect these experiences and portray the odyssey of Asian/Pacific Americans in American society.
Fiction
- Lee, Don. Yellow: stories. 2001.
- Superb, unpredictable stories capture Asian-American lives with mordant wit and unsentimental sympathy.
- Lee, Gus. China Boy. 1991.
- Growing up American in a black San Francisco slum in the 1950s, the coddled
only son of an aristocratic Shanghai family attempts to realize his own
identity and humanity in a world of cultural differences.
- Lee, Marie G. If It Hadn't Been for Yoon Jun. 1993.
J LEE
- As she reluctantly becomes friends with Yoon Jun, a new student from
Korea, seventh-grader Alice Larsen becomes more interested in learning about
her own Korean background.
- Okimoto, Jean Davies. Molly by Any Other Name. 1990. TEEN OKIMOTO.
- A teenage Asian girl who has been adopted by non-Asian parents decides to
find out who her biological parents are in order to establish a link to her
cultural heritage.
- Perkins, Mitali. The Sunita Experiment. 1993.
TEEN PERKINS.
- When her grandparents come for a visit from India to California,
thirteen-year-old Sunita finds herself resenting her Indian heritage and
embarrassed by the differences she feels between herself and her friends.
- Pettit, Jayne. My Name is San Ho. 1992. J PETTIT.
- San Ho comes to the United States to live with his mother and American
Marine stepfather during the Vietnamese War.
- Roley, Brian Ascalon. American Son. 2001.
- A powerful novel about ethnically fluid California, "American Son" is the story of two Filipino brothers adrift in contemporary California.
- Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. 1988.
- Vignettes alternate between the lives of four Chinese women
in pre-1949 China and the lives of their American-born daughters in
California.
- Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God's Wife. 1990.
- Amidst the world of California's immigrant Chinese, Winnie Louie offers as
a gift to her daughter Pearl the absorbing narrative of her life.
Nonfiction
- Bautista, Veltisezar. The Filipino Americans: From 1763 to The Present: Their History, Culture, and Traditions.. 1998.
973.049921 BAU.
- This work provides a vista of the Filipino community that throws light on their values, beliefs, culture, traditions and characteristics. It also illustrates the contributions made by Filipinos to American culture, society, cuisine, economy, politics, sports and entertainment.
- Chai, May-Lee. Girl from Purple Mountain: Love, Honor, War, and One Family's Journey from China to America.. 2001. 973.04951 CHA.
- A first-born son and his daughter reconstruct his mother's extraordinary life, a true story of love, betrayal, and healing set against the shifting tides of 20th - century China.
- Crost, Lyn. Honor by Fire: Japanese Americans at War in Europe and the Pacific.. 1994. 940.5404 CRO.
- After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans faced prejudice and violence from a suspicious America. Yet even with their families incarcerated in internment camps, many Japanese American men fought for the right to join the US military. WWII war correspondant Lyn Crost offers an admiring history of Japanese Americans: a chronicle of their military service, the horrendous casualties they suffered, and the reputation they finally earned from many high-ranking officers as "America's secret weapon."
- Kessler, Lauren.Stubborn Twig: Three Generations In The Life of a Japanese American Family. 1993. 973.089956 KES.
- Moving social history of the Yasui family's century-long stuggle to endure
and make their mark in American society.
- Kingston, Maxine Hong. China Men. 1980. 973.04951 KIN.
- The experiences of the men in Maxine Hong Kingston's family as they discover America, claim it as their
own, and become American - even in the face of rejection and racial misunderstanding.
- Lee, Mary Paik. Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in
America. 1990. B LEE.
- Autobiography of one of the few "individual" voices of the early Asian
immigrants to America at the turn of the century. Lee's life followed the path of immigrant
women from other Asian countries who worked as farmers, produce sellers, cooks,
launderers, and common laborers.
- Morey, Janet Nomura and Dunn, Wendy. Famous Asian Americans.
1992. J 920.009295 MON.
- The lives of fourteen outstanding Asian Americans who have achieved
prominence in government, architecture, science, the arts, business, media, and
sports.
- Peterson, Michael. Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company. 1998. B TSUI.
- This heartwarming true story of the American Dream tells of an eleven-year-old Chinese boy adopted by the men of Love Company, 4th Marines, 1st Marine Division, and his eventual arrival--35 years after their first meeting--in the United States.
- Robinson, Katy. A Single Square Picture. 2002. B ROBINSON.
- One day she was Kim Ji-yun, growing up in Seoul, Korea. The next day she was Catherine Jeanne Robinson, living with her new American family in Salt Lake City, Utah. Twenty years later, Robinson returned to Seoul in search of her birth-mother--and found herself an American outsider in her native land.
- Stern, Jennifer. The Filipino Americans. 1989.
J 973.049921 STE.
- One volume in the Peoples of North America series which details the
history, culture, and religion of the Filipinos; factors encouraging their
emigration; and their acceptance as an ethnic group in North America.
- Takaki, Ronald T. Issei and Nisei: the Settling of Japanese America.
. 1994. J 973.04952 TAK.
- The story of two generations in conflict: the Issei, or first-generation Japanese Americans, who clung to their traditions for self-protection, and the Nisei, their American-born children, who demanded a place for themselves in their new country.
- Taylor, Sandra C. Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment
at Topaz. 1993. 940.5472 TAY.
- The author draws upon interviews with fifty former Topaz residents, the archives of the War Relocation Authority, and newspaper reports to show how relocation and its aftermath shaped the lives of these Japanese Americans.
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Uchida, Joshiko. The Invisible Thread. 1991. J B UCH.
- Children's author Uchida describes growing up in Berkeley, California, as a
Nisei, a second-generation Japanese-American, and her family's internment in a
Utah concentration camp during World War II.
- Wu, Frank. Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. 2002. 305.895 WU.
- A leading voice in the Asian-American community tackles what it means to be Asian-American in contemporary America.
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We are come to rest and push our roots more deeply by the year. But we
cannot push away the heritage of having been once all strangers in the land.
-- Oscar Handlin
Compiled by Eugenia Bryant, 5/1994. Updated by Jon Kadus, 3/2002. Updated 2/2006.
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