New Books in Asian American Studies

Marshall Poe
New Books in Asian American Studies

Interviews with Scholars of Asian America about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

  1. 3 DAYS AGO

    Jami Nakamura Lin, "The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir" (Mariner Books, 2023)

    Jami Nakamura Lin spent much of her life feeling monstrous for reasons outside of her control. As a young woman with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, much of her adolescence was marked by periods of extreme rage and an array of psychiatric treatments, and her relationships suffered as a result, especially as her father's cancer grasped hold of their family. As she grew older and learned to better manage her episodes, Lin grew frustrated with the familiar pattern she found in mental illness and grief narratives, and their focus on recovery. She sought comfort in the stories she'd loved as a child -- tales of ghostly creatures known to terrify in the night. Through the lens of the yokai and other figures from Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan legend, she set out to interrogate the very notion of recovery and the myriad ways fear of difference shapes who we are as a people.  Featuring stunning illustrations by her sister, Cori Nakamura Lin, and divided into the four acts of a traditional Japanese narrative structure, The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir (Mariner Books, 2023) is a genre-bending and deeply emotional memoir that mirrors the sensation of being caught between realms. Braiding her experience of mental illness, the death of her father, the grieving process, and other haunted topics with storytelling tradition, Jami Nakamura Lin shines a light into dark corners, driven by a question: How do we learn to live with the things that haunt us? Below, please find links to more information about specific sources Jami and Cori mention in the interview: 1) Risako Sakai on Okinawan corals and marine conservation 2) The Ichiriba Choodee Podcast of Okinawan voices and stories, created by Mariko Middleton, Erica Kunihisa, and Tori Toguchi 3)  Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    59 min

  2. 4 DAYS AGO

    Adrian de Leon, "Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America" (UNC Press, 2023)

    In a book that pulls together both sides of the Pacific, Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America (UNC Press, 2023) asks the question: what if we look at Filipino history not from the cities or the imperial metropoles, but from the mountains and the countryside? Or put another way, from the "bundok," the Tagalog word for "mountain" which American soliders in the late 19th century would come to use as a catachall for the places they found themselves fighting imperial wars. In Bundok, NYU history and FIlipino Studies professor Adrian De Leon tracks both the movement of European and American colonizers into the archipeligo, as well as how people and images moved beyond the islands and into the wider Pacific world, and how these pictures and these emigres shaped ideas about civilization, savagery, and the nature of Filipine identity itself. In a book that traces pathways from the mountains of Luzon to the mountains of South Dakota, De Leon demonstrates how the American West has always been a transnational space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    1h 16m

  3. 8 JAN

    Stacey Diane Arañez Litam, "Patterns that Remain: A Guide to Healing for Asian Children of Immigrants" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    This empowering book blends history, storytelling, and culturally grounded techniques to equip readers with the tools needed to promote self-reflection, personal growth, and diasporic healing. Asian Americans represent the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, yet few books capture how historical events, immigration experiences, cultural values, and unhelpful generational patterns contribute to this group's thoughts, attitudes, and actions in ways that impact relationships, well-being, and psychological health. In Patterns That Remain: A Guide to Healing for Asian Children of Immigrants (Oxford University Press, 2025), Dr. Stacey Diane Arañez Litam empowers readers to heal from diasporic wounds and become people, partners, and parents who embody abundance mentalities grounded in joy, balance, and gratitude. This unique book combines complex and nuanced facets of Asian American history, research, and therapeutic modalities in ways that validate Asian American worldviews and promote a deep sense of universality and community. Each chapter addresses culturally relevant topics among Asian Americans and children of Asian immigrants and is informed by academic research in addition to author-conducted interviews with diverse Asian American community members and thought leaders. The book effortlessly blends history, storytelling, and culturally grounded perspectives to provide an inspirational, validating, and practical framework toward healing. Informed by Litam's lived experiences as a Filipina and Chinese immigrant as well as by her professional identities as a professor, researcher, and mental health clinician, Patterns That Remain provides the foundation for timely conversations and centers the importance of healing, personal growth, and unlocking the power behind our stories. Dr. Stacey Diane Leetam is an Associate Professor of Counselor Education, a licensed professional clinical counselor and supervisor, as well as a diplomate and clinical sexologist with the American Board of Sexology. Dr. Litam is a member of the Forbes Health Advisory Board, an Advisory Council Chair for the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) Minority Fellowship Program, and was named one of Crain’s Cleveland 40 Under 40 in 2023. Dr. Litam has published over 50 academic peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and facilitated hundreds of workshops and trainings. Her work has resulted in a total of 15 national and 12 regional/state awards. She is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on the impact of COVID-19 related discrimination on the mental health and wellbeing of disaggregated AAPI communities and communities of color with 17 publications archived in the World Health Organization’s Global Database on COVID-19 literature. Dr. Litam is a keynote speaker, racial equity strategist, and content expert on topics related to mental health, sexual wellbeing, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), as well as Asian American and Pacific Islander concerns. She regularly serves as a content expert on platforms such as Forbes Health, National Public Radio (NPR), and media outlets. Additionally, she has been featured in the White House, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Forbes Health, National Public Radio (NPR), Discovery Magazine, Dutch BBC, Psychology Today, National Institutes of Health, Mental Health Academy, The Daily Mail, The Filipino Channel, as well as in podcasts, documentaries, and news outlets. Her past partners include Fortune 500 Companies, professional sports teams, and federal level politicians. Dr. Litam is an immigrant and identifies as a Chinese and Filipina American woman. Visit Dr. Litam's website here and find information on her upcoming book tour here Follow her on Instagram @drstaceyalitam Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is Assistant Editor at the New Books Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    27 min

  4. 6 JAN

    Dean Itsuji Saranillio, "Unsustainable Empire: Alternative Histories of Hawai‘i Statehood" (Duke UP, 2018)

    In Unsustainable Empire: Alternative Histories of Hawai‘i Statehood (Duke University Press, 2018), Dean Itsuji Saranillio offers a bold challenge to conventional understandings of Hawai‘i’s admission as a U.S. state. Hawai‘i statehood is popularly remembered as a civil rights victory against racist claims that Hawai‘i was undeserving of statehood because it was a largely non-white territory. Yet Native Hawaiian opposition to statehood has been all but forgotten. Saranillio tracks these disparate stories by marshaling a variety of unexpected genres and archives: exhibits at world's fairs, political cartoons, propaganda films, a multimillion-dollar hoax on Hawai‘i’s tourism industry, water struggles, and stories of hauntings, among others. Saranillio shows that statehood was neither the expansion of U.S. democracy nor a strong nation swallowing a weak and feeble island nation, but the result of a U.S. nation whose economy was unsustainable without enacting a more aggressive policy of imperialism. With clarity and persuasive force about historically and ethically complex issues, Unsustainable Empire provides a more complicated understanding of Hawai‘i’s admission as the fiftieth state and why Native Hawaiian place-based alternatives to U.S. empire are urgently needed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    1h 19m

  5. 22/12/2024

    Emily Mitchell-Eaton, "New Destinations of Empire: Mobilities, Racial Geographies, and Citizenship in the Transpacific United States" (U Georgia Press, 2024)

    In 1986 the Compact of Free Association marked the formal end of U.S. colonialism in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, while simultaneously re-entrenching imperial power dynamics between the two countries. The U.S.-RMI Compact at once enshrined exclusive U.S. military access to the islands and established the right of “visa-free” migration to the United States for Marshallese citizens, leading to a Marshallese diaspora whose largest population resettled in the seemingly unlikely destination of Springdale, Arkansas. An “all-white town” by design for much of the twentieth century, Springdale, having nearly quadrupled in population since 1980, has been remade by Marshallese as well as Latinx immigration. Through ethnographic, policy-based, and archival research in Guåhan, Saipan, Hawai’i, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., New Destinations of Empire: Mobilities, Racial Geographies, and Citizenship in the Transpacific United States (University of Georgia Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Mitchell-Eaton tells the story of these place-based transformations, revealing how U.S. empire both causes and constrains mobility for its subjects, shaping migrants’ experiences of racialization, citizenship, and belonging in new destinations of empire. In examining two spatial processes—imperialism and migration—together, Dr. Mitchell-Eaton reveals connections and flows between presumably distant, “remote” sites like Arkansas and the Marshall Islands, showing them to be central to the United States’ most urgent political issues: immigration, racial justice, militarization, and decolonization. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    1h 15m

  6. 18/12/2024

    Justin Tse, "Sheets of Scattered Sand: Cantonese Protestants and the Secular Dream of the Pacific Rim" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

    Justin K.H. Tse captures the voices of Cantonese Protestant Christians from the San Francisco, Vancouver, and Hong Kong metropolitan areas as they reflect on their efforts to adapt to secular communities while retaining their identity and beliefs. In the context of the transpacific region between Asia and the Americas, the “Pacific Rim” refers to a window of time in which predominant narratives emphasized skilled migration and the rise of multicultural societies—the era before the rise of Chinese nationalism in 2012 and the Hong Kong protests. Diasporic Cantonese Protestant Christians of this time were frequently portrayed as a homogenous people bringing their Chinese culture and Christian communities from Hong Kong to cities such as Vancouver and San Francisco—sometimes contesting liberal developments like same-sex marriage but also offering new democratic awareness. Sheets of Scattered Sand: Cantonese Protestants and the Secular Dream of the Pacific Rim (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) challenges that depiction of Cantonese Protestants with authentic voices from the community. Based on research done in the San Francisco Bay area, Vancouver, and Hong Kong, author Justin K.H. Tse finds that Cantonese Protestants consider themselves “sheets of scattered sand”—politically disparate and ideologically fragmented, but united in a sense of tension with the secular world. Tse’s work serves as an illuminating prequel to contemporary stories of the Hong Kong protests and a newly emergent Asian American politics, underscoring the importance of incorporating these voices in wider reflections on Christianity and secularity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    1h 35m

  7. 11/12/2024

    Wayne Ng, "Johnny Delivers" (Guernica Editions, 2024)

    Set in 1977, Johnny Delivers (Guernica Editions, 2024) tells the absorbing story of 18-year-old Johnny Wong—the son of Chinese immigrants to Canada—who calls on the spirit of Bruce Lee to help him navigate the still relevant challenges of racism and how it permeates our interiority, our institutions, our relationships, and our livelihood. Toxic masculinity, homophobia, and the struggle for belonging. With the 100th Anniversary of the Enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act in Canada barely behind us, the themes explored in this book are particularly salient. An exciting and heart-wrenching story combined with the distinctly Canadian setting and universal themes make this book a wonderful book to read. Wayne Ng was born in downtown Toronto to Chinese immigrants who fed him a steady diet of bitter melon and kung fu movies. Ng is a social worker who lives to write, travel, eat, and play, preferably all at the same time. He is an award-winning author and traveler who continues to push his boundaries from the Arctic to the Antarctic. He lives in Ottawa with his wife and goldfish. Ng is the author of The Family Code, shortlisted for the Guernica Prize; Letters From Johnny, winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Crime Novella and a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award; Johnny Delivers; and Finding the Way: A Novel of Lao Tzu. Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, is due out with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is the host of the 105.5 FM Bookclub, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Regional Chair of the League of Canadian Poets and a co-chair of the League’s BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    37 min

  8. 02/11/2024

    Phuc Tran, "Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In" (Flatiron Books, 2020)

    For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In (Flatiron Books, 2020) shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents. Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ‘80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes―and ultimately saves―him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

    38 min
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Interviews with Scholars of Asian America about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

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