Asian-American influence has affected the U.S. for far longer than the typical American thinks. In fact, Asian-Americans are in a very similar position as the African-Americans we learn about in our U.S. history classes, having been brought to the Americas originally as slaves, only to be denied citizenship upon gaining their freedom.
After reading “Asian-American History: A Very Short Introduction”, I have very much been “enlightened” about the treatment of Asian-Americans by white people throughout the history of our country. I put “enlightened” in quotations due to the positive vibe that comes from the word; I am happy to learn about this but am also disgusted by how they were treated like they were heathens and practically monsters, like they were coming over for the sole purpose of “taking over the country”. The author, Madeline Yuan-yin Hsu, does a fantastic job of describing all of this briefly yet in-detail, while also balancing it out with many Asian-Americans of the past who overcame these obstacles and made a life for themselves in their prejudiced home country.
In our seminars, we discussed most of what is written above, as well as a few other topics, such as how Hsu brings up examples of popular movies and books near the end to help the reader relate to the text and understand the background of those forms of entertainment. If the reader didn’t know what they were, they would watch it for another time, an example being one student in the seminar who had written down the sources to watch/read them himself. This was also the same for the main Asian/Pacific Island countries that were mentioned throughout the book. One student mentioned how countries like Laos were mentioned very briefly, while countries like China, Japan, Philippines, etc. had much more of a focus for this book. There was a map in the book that showed where the Asian ban applied to, and it included countries from China to the western part of India, including places like Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Since this was only a short introduction, Hsu chose countries that the reader would most likely be familiar with, to help them relate more with the book and continue to be interested. In my opinion, that was a fine decision on her part.
In all, this was definitely a very interesting read; I am not much of a fan of American history, but since I have an interest with Asian countries, reading about their struggle in America definitely had me glued to my book.
