1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910823450303321

Autore

Wu Ellen D.

Titolo

The color of success : Asian Americans and the origins of the model minority / / Ellen D. Wu

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, NJ : , : Princeton University Press, , [2014]

©2013

ISBN

0-691-16802-4

1-4008-4887-3

Edizione

[Course Book]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (376 p.)

Collana

Politics and Society in Modern America ; ; 100

Classificazione

HIS036060SOC031000POL004000SOC043000

Disciplina

305.895073

Soggetti

Asian Americans - Public opinion

Asian Americans - Ethnic identity

Asian Americans - Cultural assimilation

Asian Americans - History - 20th century

United States Politics and government 1945-1989

United States Race relations History 20th century

United States Ethnic relations History 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Imperatives of Asian American Citizenship -- Part I. War and the Assimilating Other -- Chapter 1. Leave Your Zoot Suits Behind -- Chapter 2. How American Are We? -- Chapter 3. Nisei in Uniform -- Chapter 4. America's Chinese -- Part II. Definitively Not-Black -- Chapter 5. Success Story, Japanese American Style -- Chapter 6. Chinatown Offers Us a Lesson -- Chapter 7. The Melting Pot of the Pacific -- Epilogue. Model Minority/Asian American -- Notes -- Archival, Primary, and Unpublished Sources -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

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 1950's, 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.