New Books in Asian American Studies

Jan 12 2025 283 ep. 57 mins 618
New Books in Asian American Studies Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Asian America about their New Books

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

Jan 12 2025 59 mins  
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 learn

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

Jan 11 2025 75 mins  
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 c

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

Jan 08 2025 26 mins  
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 generatio

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

Jan 06 2025 78 mins  
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

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

Dec 22 2024 74 mins  
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 Marshalle

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

Dec 18 2024 95 mins  
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 predo

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

Dec 11 2024 37 mins  
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

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

Nov 02 2024 38 mins  
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 alo

Jackie Wang, "Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun: An Almanac of Extreme Girlhood" (Semiotext(e), 2023)

Oct 14 2024 78 mins  
Jackie Wang is a poet, scholar, multimedia artist, and Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She is the author of the poetry collection The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void (2021), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; the critical essay collection Carceral Capitalism (Semiotext(e), 2018); and the

Brianna Nofil, "The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Oct 02 2024 39 mins  
Today, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains an average of 37,000 migrants each night. To do so, they rely on, and pay for, the use of hundreds of local jails. But this is nothing new: the federal government has been detaining migrants in city and county jails for more than 100 years. In The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration (Princeton UP, 20