Recollecting Early Asian America

As a book about cultural memory and retrieval, this collection of essays asks readers to reconsider who represents Asian America and what constitutes its history. Defining the early period as spanning the nineteenth century and the 1960s, the original essays here speak to the difficulty of recovering a past that was largely unrecorded as well as understanding the varied experiences of peoples of Asian descent. Interdisciplinary in approach, the essays address the Asian American individuals and communities that have been omitted from "official" histories; trace the roots of persistent racial stereotypes and myths; and retrieve artistic production that raises vexed questions of what counts as "art" or as Asian American. By reconsidering the political, cultural, and material history written in the last three decades, this volume contributes to a new understanding of Asian America's past and relationship to the present.