Endorsements:
“Monica Chiu has gathered essays brimming with a wealth of new scholarship on significant but little-known human and cultural connections between New England and Asia. Remarkably readable, this book is a model of transnational theory, solid research, and good storytelling at work in harmony.”—Floyd Cheung, Department of English Language and Literature and American Studies Program, Smith College
“This large and eclectic collection of fascinating essays on the Asian presence in New England deals another crushing but healthy blow to the West Coast-centric Asian American Studies paradigm, all but assuring the continuing growth of this vibrant field in race and ethnic studies. As ethnically diverse as the subjects they explore—Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and white—many contributors expertly demonstrate insider-outsider research methods. Moreover, by showcasing Asian students, lecturers, travelers, artists, and performers, as well as white consumers of Asian cultures, the book’s contributors challenge the dominant historical images of Asians in America as manual laborers, shopkeepers, and victims of crude nativism, without minimizing the impact of racialization and orientalism on community and identity formations. Asian American Studies courses anywhere would benefit from including this volume as required reading.”—Evelyn Hu-DeHart, professor of history and director, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Brown University
