New Books In Asian American Studies

To begin the celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, this episode features a conversation with Dr. Catherine Ceniza Choy about her book Asian American Histories of the United States (Beacon Press, 2022). Choy’s study identifies pivotal years in Asian American history as the focus of her eight chapters, which includes the beginning of Asian exclusionary policy with the Page Law in 1875, the rapid changes of 1965 and 1969, which saw a growing Asian America in understanding and demographics, to 2020 and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. In just 175 pages, Choy weaves together the layered histories of exclusion, violence, and resistance to rectify the generalizations that come from a “misunderstanding of Asian Americans and their histories” (Preface, ix).  Catherine Ceniza Choy is an award-winning Asian American historian and professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America and Empire of C