Subtitle: The Asian Ethnic Experience Today
Author: Mia Tuan
Subject: Asian-American Studies
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-2623-X
Paperback ISBN 0-8135-2624-8
Pages: 192 pp.
Description: The first in-depth qualitative study of what ethnicity and race mean for third and later generation Asian-Americans.

What does it mean to be an Asian-American in the United States today? Are Asian-Americans considered "honorary whites" or forever thought of as "foreigners?"

Mia Tuan examines the salience and meaning of ethnicity for later generation Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, and asks how their concepts of ethnicity differ from that of white ethnic Americans. She interviewed 95 middle-class Chinese and Japanese Californians and analyzes the importance of ethnic identities and the concept of becoming a "real" American for both Asian and white ethnics. She asks her subjects about their:

- early memories and experiences with Chinese/Japanese culture;

- current lifestyle and emerging cultural practices;

- experiences with racism and discrimination;

- attitudes toward current Asian immigration.

Mia Tuan is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Oregon.

"A compelling account of the ongoing acculturation of West Coast Asian-Americans and their continuing experience of racism. Mia Tuan uses her sociological skills to paint a disturbing portrait of the hidden and not-so-hidden injuries of race suffered by Californians who have been here for many generations, as well as an early warning of what the future might hold for some of our newest immigrants."---Herbert Gans, Roberts S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

"This well-written book advances our understanding of the changing and situational construction of American and ethnic identities by exploring the ways in which multigenerational Asian Americans constitute, express, and transform their identities."---Yen Le Espiritu, author of Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Laws, and Love