![]() 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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