The Color of success : Asian Americans and the origins of the model minority

Author

• Wu, Ellen D.

Additional Author(s)

-

Publisher

Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014

Language

English

ISBN

9780691168029

Series

Politics and society in twentieth-century America

Subject(s)

• ASIAN AMERICANS-CULTURAL ASSIMILATION
• ASIAN AMERICANS-ETHNIC IDENTITY
• ASIAN AMERICANS-HISTORY-20TH CENTURY
• ASIAN AMERICANS-PUBLIC OPINION
• UNITED STATES-ETHNIC RELATIONS-HISTORY-20TH CENTURY
• UNITED STATES-POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT-1945-1989
• UNITED STATES-RACE RELATIONS-HISTORY-20TH CENTURY

Notes

. . Index: p. 341-354

Abstract

The Color of Success tells of the astonishing transformation of Asians in the United States from the "yellow peril" to "model minorities"--peoples distinct from the white majority but lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values--in the middle decades of the twentieth century. As Ellen Wu shows, liberals argued for the acceptance of these immigrant communities into the national fold, charging that the failure of America to live in accordance with its democratic ideals endangered the country's aspirations to world leadership.
Weaving together myriad perspectives, Wu provides an unprecedented view of racial reform and the contradictions of national belonging in the civil rights era. She highlights the contests for power and authority within Japanese and Chinese America alongside the designs of those external to these populations, including government officials, social scientists, journalists, and others. And she demonstrates that the invention of the model minority took place in multiple arenas, such as battles over zoot suiters leaving wartime internment camps, the juvenile delinquency panic of the 1950s, Hawaii statehood, and the African American freedom movement. Together, these illuminate the impact of foreign relations on the domestic racial order and how the nation accepted Asians as legitimate citizens while continuing to perceive them as indelible outsiders.
By charting the emergence of the model minority stereotype, The Color of Success reveals that this far-reaching, politically charged process continues to have profound implications for how Americans understand race, opportunity, and nationhood.

Physical Dimension

Number of Page(s)

xv, 354 p.

Dimension

24 cm.

Other Desc.

ill.

Summary / Review / Table of Content

Acknowledgments xi
Introduction Imperatives of Asian American Citizenship 1
Part I War and the Assimilating Other 11
Chapter 1 Leave Your Zoot Suits Behind 16
Chapter 2 How American Are We? 43
Chapter 3 Nisei in Uniform 72
Chapter 4 America's Chinese 111
Part II Definitively Not-Black 145
Chapter 5 Success Story, Japanese American Style 150
Chapter 6 Chinatown Offers Us a Lesson 181
Chapter 7 The Melting Pot of the Pacific 210
Epilogue Model Minority/Asian American 242
Notes 259
Archival, Primary, and Unpublished Sources 333
Index 341

Exemplar(s)

#	Accession No.	Call Number	Location	Status
1.	00822/17	305.895073 WuE C	Library - 7th Floor	Available