This May, we're celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month in collaboration with the Fletcher Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Initially celebrated for a week to coincide with the arrival of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, the month acknowledges the struggles, successes, and contributions of Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders to the fabric of American Society. According to 2017 estimates from the U.S. Census, 22.2 million people of Asian descent and 1.6 million Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders call the United States home.
Our staff has recommended some resources from Tufts Libraries (and beyond) that explore the history and culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Follow @GinnLibrary on Instagram and let us know what you're reading, listening to, and watching to celebrate and reflect on Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
BOOKS
Hardly War by Don Mee Choi
Seattle: Wave Books 2016
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
New York: Penguin Press 2014
From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States by Haiming Liu
New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press 2015
Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader edited by Robert Ji-Song Ku, Martin F. Manalansan, and Anit, Mannur
New York: New York University Press 2013
Inscrutable Belongings: Queer Asian North American Fiction by Stephen Hong Sohn
Stanford, California: Stanford University Press 2018
Q&A: Queer in Asian America edited by David L. Eng and Alice Y. Hom
Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1998
Ghostlife of Third Cinema: Asian American Film and Video by Glen M. Mimura
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2009
Queering Contemporary Asian American Art edited by Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe
Seattle: University of Washington Press 2017
The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History edited by David Yoo and Eiichiro Azuma
New York, NY: Oxford University Press 2016
Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture by Jennifer Ann Ho
New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press 2015
Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures: Sport and Asian Pacific American Cultural Citizenship by Joel S. Franks
Lanham: University Press of America 2000
American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods by Bonnie Tsui
New York: Free Press 2009
Asian Pacific Americans and Baseball: A History by Joel S. Franks
Jefferson, N.C.: McGarland & Co. 2008
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
New York: Abrams ComicArts, an imprint of ABRAMS 2017
Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey by Anne Mendelson
New York: Columbia University Press 2016
The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee
New York: Simon & Schuster 2015
Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang.
Illustrated by Julia Kuo
Boston: Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 2022
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
New York: Penguin Books 2014
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
New York: Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC 2014
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
New York: Berkley 2021
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Random House Publishing Group 2020
Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South by Adrienne Berard
Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press 2016
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: a novel by Ocean Vuong
New York: Penguin Press 2019
Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa by Marilyn Chase
San Francisco: Chronicle Books 2020
Fresh Talk, Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian American Art by Elaine H. Kim, Margo Machida, and Sharon Mizota
Berkeley: University of California Press 2003
FILMS
The Wedding Banquet (1993), directed by Ang Lee
Baby Steps (2015), directed by Barney Cheng
The Namesake (2006), directed by Mira Nair
Gook (2017), directed by Justin Chon
Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), directed by Justin Lin
Minari (2020), directed by Lee Isaac Chung
The Farewell (2019), directed by Lulu Wang
To Be Takei (2014), directed by Jennifer M. Kroot
Searching (2018), directed by Aneesh Chaganty
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The database Kanopy has an Asian American film maker collection.
And an entire AAPI Heritage Month collection on Kanopy.
And…APA documentaries on Kanopy.
Our PBS collection contains this video series.
