The Making of Asian America

A History

By: Erika Lee

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

In the past 50 years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day.

An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States. From the sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s to the Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States, only to face massive racial discrimination, and from the Asian exclusion laws of the 19th century to Japanese American incarceration during World War II, this is a comprehensive history.

Over the past 50 years, a new Asian America has emerged out of community activism and the arrival of new immigrants and refugees. No longer a "despised minority", Asian Americans are now held up as America's "model minorities" in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States.

Published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passage of the United States' Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which has remade our "nation of immigrants", this is a new and definitive history of Asian Americans. But more than that, it is a new way of understanding America itself, its complicated histories of race and immigration, and its place in the world today.

©2015 Erika Lee (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"An impressive work that details how this diverse population has both swayed and been affected by the United States." ( Library Journal)

A remarkable chronicle with a brilliant mind

This is a non-novel book that you expected to learn a lot after reading, while you may not want to get a textbook with too much rigor. And this book does exactly that, and even more. With the clear storyline and context in each period, I learned a very clear picture in my mind about Asian American, mainly the immigrants in the past 150 years.

Heartbreaking

Our history at times is so disappointing but we need to know the truth and learn each other’s journey so that we can come together for understanding and healing.

Great comprehensive overview of Asian American History... so far

As a "student" of Asian history I've been looking for a book like this for a while and it didn't disappoint. It gives insight in to the struggles, social injustices, challenges as well as successes experienced by Americans with roots in East, South, and Southeast Asia. Will have a second listen soon.

Good content and good narration by Emily

I like to hear the voice of Emily. Lovely. Narrator voice is very important for audiobooks.

Excellent content. Terrible narration.

This book is very well organized as it addressed how individuals from many Asian nationalities helped shape Asian America. I found the stories helpful in understanding the full picture.

The narration made getting through this important content brutal. The monotone vocal quality and poor inflection ability made the book drag. My son happened to hear about 10 seconds of it and reacted saying how boring it sounded.

The untold stories of immigrants from the east

Great history of most groups of Asians migrating to the US. Learned a lot. I’m surprised and amazed by the pronunciation of the various Asian names or languages. Great job reading! A nice general Asian American history course.

A Necessary Survey of American History

With sophistication and exhaustive research author Erika Lee introduces the reader to the shrouded histories of an entire swath of Americans. A vital read for descendants. A heartening song to fellow immigrants of different lands. A critical necessity for those whose image of prototypical American skews towards Northern Europe.

The reader will be introduced to cultures with long and cruel histories in North America, in geographic areas surprising not for being illogical or strange, but for how exploited and intentionally buried they were by the American government. Shock will register against the stunning turns and often violent manipulations against entire ethnic groups, first invited and then hunted for expulsion, all to the benefit for petty changes to socio-economic winds.

That pettiness betrays a oppressively heavy truth further into the text when, compared to the high-minded rhetoric of human rights and freedom drubbing from pulpits and podiums throughout American history books, the epidemic nature of abuse and inequality becomes clear. There is nowhere for a thinking person shelter from the centuries-long brutality of American politics and government geared towards power and ambition alone.

To read this work, performed by Emily Woo Zeller with knowing temperance, is to be confronted by the painful reality that, yes, Americans are sold a fable of their righteousness, but beyond that tired, common trope, the truth is so much worse.

And through it all, immigrants and their children still struggle to rise above.

An Informative Historical Perspective

This is valuable for Asians who want to understand their history in the United States. Did you know that the first Asian colony was in Louisiana? This is a fascinating account of where we came from or more accurately how the perception of Asians evolved over time.

The last chapter was, for me, the most interesting, because it discussed how Asians are meeting the challenges of contemporary society.

A Brief Narrative of the Undertold in Monotone

The making of Asian America is as about as broad as you'd expect for something attempting to focus on 'Asian American' and the 'making of America' - this book attempts to highlight the journey of the Asian American from hundreds of years ago to the modern. Each historical era is unique as well as each Asian American - a theme that is emphasized by the book having dedicated chapters to each Asian American ethnicity and serves well to combating the Asian American antagonist that is the unfair clustering together of all Asian American ethnicities into a homogenous, other group. The book addresses why many American students haven't heard of the Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian, South Asian story in history class, and how Asian America fits into the America students are familiar with, including the still-prevalent model minority myth. The book doesn't attempt to solve the issues facing Asian Americans but briefly illuminates the struggles and successes of those who have mostly been ignored in mainstream U.S history courses. The narration's monotone means a pretty even-handed listening but the inflections for the quotes and impersonations really stick out.

Good book, grateful for narration!

I had this book in print for over a year but needed narration to finish.