Lee’s comprehensive history traces the experiences of myriad Asian-American communities, from Chinese laborers in 1850s California to Hmong refugees in 1980s Minnesota. In doing all of this “work,” Lee argues, Asian-Americans have redefined not only immigration politics and racial categories but also “the very essence of what it means to be American.” The capricious ease with which those labels get swapped highlights how our precarious social position rests on our perceived utility: as cheap labor, as anti-Communist soldiers, as overachievers meant to success-shame other communities of color. We were a “despised minority” when Asian immigrants threatened 19th- and early-20th-century white labor, yet since the Cold War we’ve been described as a “model minority,” valorizing the promise of American meritocracy. Early in Erika lee’s sweeping “The Making of Asian America: A History” she suggests that Asian-Americans constantly cycle between being labeled “good Asians” versus “bad Asians,” depending on the shifting and often contradictory politics behind their immigration and settlement.
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