Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans

The migrants were unique in a felicitous way: they were dreamers. They could imagine what they could do in an unformed America, and their dreams inspired them to take risks. They wondered what they could become, unfurled before the winds of change and challenge . . . . Ah, but the world is big, others warned them: Do you know the meaning of immensity? And they answered: We will tell you someday when we get back. The migrants felt their hearts tugging them toward an alluring America as they separated themselves from the graves of their ancestors and from a world where there were common points of reference and where people looked like them and spoke their languages. They reached for "what persisted."

Ellis Island, yes, but what of Oahu or Angel Island, the immigration stations where immigrants from Asia first entered the United States? And what of their history, a history going back to the mid-nineteenth century and accounting for roughly 7% of the current U.S. population?

Professor Takaki seeks to tell this story in his history of Asian Americans: it has the familiar elements of immigrant stories: racism, exploitation, resilience, strength. Professor Takaki describes two waves of immigration.

The first wave describes immigration from China, Japan, Korean, the Philippines, and India from the 1850s until the start of World War II. For each group, the story is similar: the poverty of their home country coupled with the promise of the United States spurred the immigrants to leave. Many found themselves working in farms in Hawaii. There, plantation owners used ethnic divisions between each group of immigrants to prevent them from organizing together and demanding better working conditions. Nonetheless, Professor Takaki explains, the groups of immigrants and the native Hawaiian population still constituted a majority of the population of Hawaii. A fact that matters because racism against immigrants in Hawaii was, compared to the mainland, tame.

The immigrants who found their way to the mainland--whether from California or directly from their home countries--encountered virulent, and often violent, racism. Asian immigrants were perceived as a threat to white manual labor. This financial anxiety helped fuel racial fears of an Asian invasion of the West Coast, leading to the series of exclusion acts that eventually prohibited immigration from each of the Asian countries.

Although I've generalized each group's story for this summary, Professor Takaki describes each separately, providing explanations for how differences in each group's immigration and culture caused differences in how they settled (mainland v. Hawaii; which groups immigrated with women v. not; why some groups created enclaves of their own economic development; etc. etc. etc.). For me one of the highlights (there were many) was answering a longstanding question I've had about film noir: What's up with all the references to Chinatown (see, e.g., here, here, and here)?  By the 1920s, Chinatowns had become a tourist destination:

Tourists were shown a fantasy land, a strange place they had read about in Bret Harte's stories and had seen in Hollywood movies about Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan. Guided through the narrow allies of this "wicked Orient," tourists were warned by white guides to stick together and not to stray from the group lest a hatchet man get them. The visitors peered into the dark shadows of the dimly lighted alleys "lit by flickering gas jets, which increased the sense of mystery" and saw "evil looking Chinaman, in the employ of the guides, slink back and forth, carrying knives and hatchets and providing atmosphere and local color." The tourists were told about dark, underground tunnels filled with opium dens, gambling joints, and brothels where slave girls were imprisoned. They were even taken to fake opium dens, led down ladders to a strange subterranean world where smokers were "sunk" in the bestial lethargy or the ecstatic dreams inspired by the drug." They were also shown "false lepers," and as they toured the markets of Chinatown, they were told that certain cuts of meat in the Chinese butcher shops were "carcasses of rats."

This all a show, of course, and much objected to by the Chinese community that was powerless to stop what the tourist industry was forcing upon them.

World War II was a watershed for Asian immigration. For all but Japanese immigrants, World War II motivated many Asians in the United States to start thinking of themselves as American. The war also caused the United States to rethink its immigration policies: Japanese propaganda criticized the exclusion acts and acts of racism against Asian immigrants; U.S. policy makers realized the criticisms were a little too accurate, and so repealed most the exclusion acts. For the Japanese population in the United States, World War II was more complicated. Internment was unjust, but how to overcome? Some reacted by trying to fight the internment (a la Korematsu), while others reacted by trying to prove their patriotism.

Following World War II, and the United States's self-perception as a world leader of democracy, civil rights and treatment of Asian Americans improved, leading to a second wave of immigration of Asian Americans. This second wave, Professor Takaki notes, differed from the first wave of immigration. Where the first wave of immigrants were mostly laborers in their home country, the second wave included large numbers of professionals. This second wave also included large numbers of Vietnamese refugees fleeing fall out from the end of the U.S. presence in Vietnam.

Professor Takaki covers much more in his 500+ page book (e.g., what's up with the model minority myth; why is affirmative action a difficult issue for Asian Americans). But, this review is already too long.

In his introduction, Professor Takaki explores how must students learn about East Coast immigration, but West Coast immigration is usually unmentioned. This was the case for me. Although, if asked, I would have said, "Yes, obviously Asian immigration is part of the American story," I never thought about it or the stories behind it. This book fills this gap in an important way. I would not say that everyone needs to read it, but at least parts of this history should be included in how U.S. history is taught. Not only is this book important for its substance, it's also beautifully written. Professor Takaki fills it with poems and excerpts of letters written by Asian Americans; he also includes personal notes about himself or his family. The fact that this is so well written is part of why Orientalism, which I started long before starting Strangers, is sitting untouched on my nightstand while this book is now finished.

One final point, by way of conclusion: I started reading this book about four months ago. The debate over the border wall was not in its current high fever state. But, as I was wrapping up this book, it struck me how little progress we have made. The fears of yesteryear are the fears of today: they'll take our jobs; they'll bring crime; they will ruin us. These fears were groundless then, and with hindsight easy to dismiss as ignorant.

But, alas, history repeats.