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Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties
The political ferment of the 1960s produced not only the Civil Rights Movement but others in its wake: women’s liberation, gay rights, Chicano power, and the Asian American Movement. Here is a definitive history of the social and cultural movement that knit a hugely disparate and isolated set of communities into a political identity—and along the way created a racial group out of marginalized people who had been uncomfortably lumped together as Orientals.
The Asian American Movement was an unabashedly radical social movement, sprung from campuses and city ghettoes and allied with Third World freedom struggles and the anti-Vietnam War movement, seen as a racist intervention in Asia. It also introduced to mainstream America a generation of now internationally famous artists, writers, and musicians, like novelist Maxine Hong Kingston.
Karen Ishizuka’s definitive history is based on years of research and more than 120 extensive interviews with movement leaders and participants. It’s written in a vivid narrative style and illustrated with many striking images from guerrilla movement publications. Making Asian America is a book that fills out the full story of the Long Sixties.
The Asian American Movement was an unabashedly radical social movement, sprung from campuses and city ghettoes and allied with Third World freedom struggles and the anti-Vietnam War movement, seen as a racist intervention in Asia. It also introduced to mainstream America a generation of now internationally famous artists, writers, and musicians, like novelist Maxine Hong Kingston.
Karen Ishizuka’s definitive history is based on years of research and more than 120 extensive interviews with movement leaders and participants. It’s written in a vivid narrative style and illustrated with many striking images from guerrilla movement publications. Making Asian America is a book that fills out the full story of the Long Sixties.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published May 12, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
December 25, 2016
fairly good survey but felt like it was lacking some important things (like a critique of frank chin's masculinity) and at times, sought a kind of problematic sense of idealism or resolution? in particular, the idea that the asian american movement was about asians in the u.s. creating for themselves a new homeland. not going to deny the very real affective connection to settlement and home but the language of a new homeland has some very Yikes nationalist / settler colonial implications in this context, i think! same discomfort for me from the conflation of pacific islander / hawai'ian sovereignty movements with asian or api hmm
November 21, 2017
'Serve the People' is written by Karen Ishizuka, a film maker and activist who played an integral role in founding the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. In this book, she provides a spotlight on a number of events in Asian American history and on Asian American activists during the 1960s, a socially tumultuous time in the United States. Through her extensive research and interviews, she talks about the Asian experience of the first Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos and Koreans who arrived to the U.S. as early as the 19th century and describes the blatantly racist and discriminatory tactics imposed by the American government through laws and acts that limited their rights.
Ishizuka writes about the various futile movements that took place over decades after their arrival and the refusal to consider these people 'Americans'. Not until the 1960s, propelled by the Civil Rights Movement, did these American citizens— who started to identify themselves as Asian Americans— began to be noticed in their communities for their relentless activism and role in the Asian, Chicano and Black American movements.
Prior to reading this book, I had known of one Asian American activist (Grace Lee Boggs) who played a large role in New York City, then Detroit, during the Civil Rights Movement. I vaguely remembered hearing that another Asian American activist was with Malcolm X when he was assassinated. In high school, I learned of the Chinese Exclusion Acts and how Chinese immigrants were responsible for building the transcontinental railroad with the Irish immigrants in the 19th century. I also learned in school about Japanese American internment camps during World War II.
However, I had not learned about the roles that numerous other Asian Americans had played in U.S. history, how local and federal governments treated them like second (or third) class citizens, stripping away their rights and allowing them to live and work under inhumane conditions— even though they were U.S. citizens. I was shocked at how fierce Asian American activists fought for representation and rights— all of these narratives largely missing from school textbooks. This book drastically shifted my thinking about Asian Americans and the stereotype that they have been passive, docile members of American society.
Reading this book created a variety of emotions: frustration, anger, melancholy, pride and hope. So many issues in this book still exist in American society today: gentrification, racism, discrimination, patriarchal meritocracy, poverty, privilege and xenophobia. Admittedly, it was difficult to plow through this book as one cannot help but notice the similarities of the minority experience then to how people of color are treated today. However, there is also a sense of hope and pride in the roles these activists played in planting seeds of resistance in the '60s and how today, thanks to social media, we can follow the movements of so many movers and shakers of color all over the country who fight to 'stay woke' and demand equality.
This book should not be just required reading for Asian American history classes— it should be necessary reading in any U.S. history class. These stories are part of the fabric of U.S. history. To intentionally deprive students of the Asian American narrative is to promote historical erasure.
Ishizuka writes about the various futile movements that took place over decades after their arrival and the refusal to consider these people 'Americans'. Not until the 1960s, propelled by the Civil Rights Movement, did these American citizens— who started to identify themselves as Asian Americans— began to be noticed in their communities for their relentless activism and role in the Asian, Chicano and Black American movements.
Prior to reading this book, I had known of one Asian American activist (Grace Lee Boggs) who played a large role in New York City, then Detroit, during the Civil Rights Movement. I vaguely remembered hearing that another Asian American activist was with Malcolm X when he was assassinated. In high school, I learned of the Chinese Exclusion Acts and how Chinese immigrants were responsible for building the transcontinental railroad with the Irish immigrants in the 19th century. I also learned in school about Japanese American internment camps during World War II.
However, I had not learned about the roles that numerous other Asian Americans had played in U.S. history, how local and federal governments treated them like second (or third) class citizens, stripping away their rights and allowing them to live and work under inhumane conditions— even though they were U.S. citizens. I was shocked at how fierce Asian American activists fought for representation and rights— all of these narratives largely missing from school textbooks. This book drastically shifted my thinking about Asian Americans and the stereotype that they have been passive, docile members of American society.
Reading this book created a variety of emotions: frustration, anger, melancholy, pride and hope. So many issues in this book still exist in American society today: gentrification, racism, discrimination, patriarchal meritocracy, poverty, privilege and xenophobia. Admittedly, it was difficult to plow through this book as one cannot help but notice the similarities of the minority experience then to how people of color are treated today. However, there is also a sense of hope and pride in the roles these activists played in planting seeds of resistance in the '60s and how today, thanks to social media, we can follow the movements of so many movers and shakers of color all over the country who fight to 'stay woke' and demand equality.
This book should not be just required reading for Asian American history classes— it should be necessary reading in any U.S. history class. These stories are part of the fabric of U.S. history. To intentionally deprive students of the Asian American narrative is to promote historical erasure.
April 20, 2016
Every now and then someone gets pissed enough to poke the model minority myth of Asian American passivity in the eye. Karen Ishizuka’s new book does that with the thick fingers of leaders and foot soldiers of the Asian Pacific Islanders movement of the Long Sixties. The book combines firsthand accounts from activists with analysis by intellectuals from many traditions and ethnicities. Chapters capture the rage, adrenaline, and crazy creativity necessary to create a shared, radical sense of community. Projects, artworks, and groups organizing burgeoning populations are recounted by activists from Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area, as well as Hawaii.
The writer is a seasoned insider with connections and entrée into the kitchens and hangouts of many veterans. Disclosure: my partner was one of those interviewed; unbeknownst to him and other rebel teenagers at the time, what was then getting a picket line through the day without arrests would become, in retrospect, a single inhale-exhale in the life of a movement. Indeed, like a monk emerging from meditation, Ishizuka also reflects on the movement’s errors, demise, and lingering impacts. That said, this reader can’t help but smile at the audacity of all those who leapt into the abyss, risking everything to serve the communities they loved.
The writer is a seasoned insider with connections and entrée into the kitchens and hangouts of many veterans. Disclosure: my partner was one of those interviewed; unbeknownst to him and other rebel teenagers at the time, what was then getting a picket line through the day without arrests would become, in retrospect, a single inhale-exhale in the life of a movement. Indeed, like a monk emerging from meditation, Ishizuka also reflects on the movement’s errors, demise, and lingering impacts. That said, this reader can’t help but smile at the audacity of all those who leapt into the abyss, risking everything to serve the communities they loved.
May 7, 2020
The chapters covering the effect of the Vietnam war on Asian American activism and the different types of groups (students, community, and seasoned activists) that made up the movement really stood out to me and I appreciated the opportunity to learn more. However, the first two chapters offered very basic, overused stories and analyses of what it means to be Asian in America, and the blatant homophobia and misogyny within the movement did not even warrant its own chapter, only a subsection in the reflections chapter. It also heavily focused on Japanese and Chinese Americans, and almost completely ignored South Asians, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders, including settler colonialism in Hawaii. As much as I appreciated deeper insights into the movement, most of the book read like an overview of facts mixed with personal accounts instead of the insightful commentary I expected.
November 25, 2016
A necessary read for Asian Americans wanting to learn about their activist history and gain insight on the goals of the movement in the 1960s.
April 23, 2022
The book represents a major effort by the author to capture an important story, a slice of life, from the 60s and early 70s, thus the long 60s. That story highlights the work of Americans whose parents were Asian or Asian descendants, and their efforts to become recognized during this turbulent period of American history. The book focuses primarily on three Asian American groups: Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos.
Challenges faced at the time included:
• Shame and silence about Japanese internment during World War II, only twenty years earlier.
• Not knowing how to approach places, e.g., swimming pools, that had signs “Whites Only.”
• How to be seen as American when, during the Vietnam war, they looked like Vietnamese, i.e., the enemy.
• How to address the claim of being the “model minority,” since it was a divisive statement separating Asians from others, and it reflects the ignorance of the white population of the heterogeneity of the Asian community.
The author also gave examples of how the Asian American community developed:
• Even in terms of name, there were different attempts to move away from “oriental” (a rug) to “yellow”, Amerasia, Asian Nation, to finally Asian American.
• On college campuses, Asian Studies was not an option at the beginning of the 60s.
• From campus programs, many community engagement activities followed. The author documents several of these, in San Francisco, LA, and Seattle. These helped start other arts activities in those communities.
• Also, there were several newspapers to appeal to this community of growing awareness.
As Asian Americans emerged to articulate needs, there were challenges. The author has a section, “Half Sky and Most of the Room,” on the differences in needs between white feminists and Asian American feminists. Part of the issue is that white feminists were still white, and complicit with white privilege. There was even a debate about the use of “ms” and “miss,” with a sharp retort (see poem below, page 201).
Note: The section title came from a statement by Steve Louie, “… if you’re going to put women down, you’re cutting out half the sky and most of the room.”
The final chapter, “Generations to Come,” is a reflection on the changes brought about by the generation who lived through and shaped the long sixties for the Asian American Community. During this review, the author stated what I had felt when reading the book. While progress has been made, there is still an entrenched white prejudice against Asian Americans, or more generally people of color. Advancement only comes with struggle and asserting one’s rights. It is a long road, and the struggle can never end.
Alas, when reading the book, the challenges described in the 60s and 70s are still here today. Yes, there has been change, but the underlying racism and fear and hatred of others is deeply entrenched in many US citizens.
While the book is valuable to people wanting to understand the time, it is at times full of many details (great for later generations) that make the reading dry.
FB: A valuable collection of stories and incidents in the era of the sixties into the early seventies when some in the Asian American community pushed for rights under the law. It portrays their challenges, their accomplishment, and an assessment of the impact. Much is left to be done, and many of the problems faced fifty years ago persist.
“Ms” by Janice Mirikitani, in Third World Woman (San Francisco: Third World Communications, 1972), p. 166
I said,
White lace and satin was not soiled by sexism,
sheltered as you were by mansions built on Indian land
your diamonds shipped with slaves from Africa
your underwear washed by Chinese laundries
your house cleaned by my grandmother
so do not push me any further.
And when you quit
killing us for democracy
and stop calling ME gook,
I will call you
whatever you like.
Challenges faced at the time included:
• Shame and silence about Japanese internment during World War II, only twenty years earlier.
• Not knowing how to approach places, e.g., swimming pools, that had signs “Whites Only.”
• How to be seen as American when, during the Vietnam war, they looked like Vietnamese, i.e., the enemy.
• How to address the claim of being the “model minority,” since it was a divisive statement separating Asians from others, and it reflects the ignorance of the white population of the heterogeneity of the Asian community.
The author also gave examples of how the Asian American community developed:
• Even in terms of name, there were different attempts to move away from “oriental” (a rug) to “yellow”, Amerasia, Asian Nation, to finally Asian American.
• On college campuses, Asian Studies was not an option at the beginning of the 60s.
• From campus programs, many community engagement activities followed. The author documents several of these, in San Francisco, LA, and Seattle. These helped start other arts activities in those communities.
• Also, there were several newspapers to appeal to this community of growing awareness.
As Asian Americans emerged to articulate needs, there were challenges. The author has a section, “Half Sky and Most of the Room,” on the differences in needs between white feminists and Asian American feminists. Part of the issue is that white feminists were still white, and complicit with white privilege. There was even a debate about the use of “ms” and “miss,” with a sharp retort (see poem below, page 201).
Note: The section title came from a statement by Steve Louie, “… if you’re going to put women down, you’re cutting out half the sky and most of the room.”
The final chapter, “Generations to Come,” is a reflection on the changes brought about by the generation who lived through and shaped the long sixties for the Asian American Community. During this review, the author stated what I had felt when reading the book. While progress has been made, there is still an entrenched white prejudice against Asian Americans, or more generally people of color. Advancement only comes with struggle and asserting one’s rights. It is a long road, and the struggle can never end.
Alas, when reading the book, the challenges described in the 60s and 70s are still here today. Yes, there has been change, but the underlying racism and fear and hatred of others is deeply entrenched in many US citizens.
While the book is valuable to people wanting to understand the time, it is at times full of many details (great for later generations) that make the reading dry.
FB: A valuable collection of stories and incidents in the era of the sixties into the early seventies when some in the Asian American community pushed for rights under the law. It portrays their challenges, their accomplishment, and an assessment of the impact. Much is left to be done, and many of the problems faced fifty years ago persist.
“Ms” by Janice Mirikitani, in Third World Woman (San Francisco: Third World Communications, 1972), p. 166
I said,
White lace and satin was not soiled by sexism,
sheltered as you were by mansions built on Indian land
your diamonds shipped with slaves from Africa
your underwear washed by Chinese laundries
your house cleaned by my grandmother
so do not push me any further.
And when you quit
killing us for democracy
and stop calling ME gook,
I will call you
whatever you like.
August 11, 2018
This book covers the history of Asian American activism, primarily from the 1960s onwards, demonstrating how activists formed 'Asian American' as an identity and challenged stereotypes around passivity. It's a useful overview covering a topic not much discussed, and contains a lot of material (anecdotes, pictures, poems) which might be worth looking at further.
However, it is much less strong when it comes to analysis - the author is a community film-maker and participant in the activism which she describes, which is not a flaw in itself but contributes to quite a descriptive account that perhaps lays a little too much emphasis on repeating her narrators word-for-word. There isn't much effort to take sides, perhaps understandably, but there is more to learning lessons than reading about what happened - and the book doesn't go much deeper than 'sectarianism is bad' to explain how and why groups had different positions which they held to be irreconcilable. By avoiding taking a stance on the various splits, the book leans towards the 'mainstream', united position and is implicitly critical of dissenters - but the position which Ishizuka starts to lament (the professionalisation of activism, etc) was exactly that which the 'sectarians' had indicated was going to become a problem. What little analysis is found is quite simplistic, with a lot of quotes from a truly wild range of writers (including, for some reason, Malcolm Gladwell) - the reliance on short quotes from various Black activists is less useful than the author seems to think, and has the effect of making the Asian Americans who should be the book's focus seem less worthy by comparison.
Finally, and this is perhaps because I was reading from a British perspective, but I was surprised by the inattention to the term 'Asian' - taken in this book to refer to Japanese, Chinese and Filipino Americans. One of the major arguments of the book is about the significance of the Vietnam War - but the Vietnamese American community (which presumably would regard itself as Asian American?) is completely ignored. And there is no discussion of how 'Asian Americans' oriented towards people of South Asian heritage - or how these people responded to this seemingly quite exclusive use of the term 'Asian'. One quotation refers to 'Ceylonese and East Indian' - but that's about all they get. I thought that was a shame, especially as Ishizuka does make the point that many Asian American activists drew connections between their experiences and the treatment of Muslims after 9/11 - I think this could have been explored in greater depth.
However, it is much less strong when it comes to analysis - the author is a community film-maker and participant in the activism which she describes, which is not a flaw in itself but contributes to quite a descriptive account that perhaps lays a little too much emphasis on repeating her narrators word-for-word. There isn't much effort to take sides, perhaps understandably, but there is more to learning lessons than reading about what happened - and the book doesn't go much deeper than 'sectarianism is bad' to explain how and why groups had different positions which they held to be irreconcilable. By avoiding taking a stance on the various splits, the book leans towards the 'mainstream', united position and is implicitly critical of dissenters - but the position which Ishizuka starts to lament (the professionalisation of activism, etc) was exactly that which the 'sectarians' had indicated was going to become a problem. What little analysis is found is quite simplistic, with a lot of quotes from a truly wild range of writers (including, for some reason, Malcolm Gladwell) - the reliance on short quotes from various Black activists is less useful than the author seems to think, and has the effect of making the Asian Americans who should be the book's focus seem less worthy by comparison.
Finally, and this is perhaps because I was reading from a British perspective, but I was surprised by the inattention to the term 'Asian' - taken in this book to refer to Japanese, Chinese and Filipino Americans. One of the major arguments of the book is about the significance of the Vietnam War - but the Vietnamese American community (which presumably would regard itself as Asian American?) is completely ignored. And there is no discussion of how 'Asian Americans' oriented towards people of South Asian heritage - or how these people responded to this seemingly quite exclusive use of the term 'Asian'. One quotation refers to 'Ceylonese and East Indian' - but that's about all they get. I thought that was a shame, especially as Ishizuka does make the point that many Asian American activists drew connections between their experiences and the treatment of Muslims after 9/11 - I think this could have been explored in greater depth.
May 23, 2018
An overview of the rise of "Asia America" and the movement that spawned from the 1960's. From the origins of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States to their changing role and the identity that developed from it, we get a history and the role of these peoples today.
I knew a little about the Civil Rights Movement but given it's AAPI Heritage Month it seemed like it would be a good pickup. The rise of Asian Americans as a movement was a specific section that I felt was weak in another book 'The Making of Asian America' by Erika Lee (which is overall a good book) so I thought this might be a good book to fill the gap.
As noted, it's an overview. I actually found the book really difficult to read, as rather disjointed and giving us snippets but not really a cohesive narrative. I realize that something like this probably doesn't serve well to have a "story" of sorts but I kept feeling like I was getting snapshots of aspects of the movement but not something with some sort of storyline or history.
There was a lot here I didn't know about but overall thought the writing was really terrible. Glad I could borrow this from the library instead of having to buy it. Wouldn't be surprised if it shows up in a class about civil movements, AAPI studies, etc. I would also recommend Lee's book as mentioned above for a general overview.
I knew a little about the Civil Rights Movement but given it's AAPI Heritage Month it seemed like it would be a good pickup. The rise of Asian Americans as a movement was a specific section that I felt was weak in another book 'The Making of Asian America' by Erika Lee (which is overall a good book) so I thought this might be a good book to fill the gap.
As noted, it's an overview. I actually found the book really difficult to read, as rather disjointed and giving us snippets but not really a cohesive narrative. I realize that something like this probably doesn't serve well to have a "story" of sorts but I kept feeling like I was getting snapshots of aspects of the movement but not something with some sort of storyline or history.
There was a lot here I didn't know about but overall thought the writing was really terrible. Glad I could borrow this from the library instead of having to buy it. Wouldn't be surprised if it shows up in a class about civil movements, AAPI studies, etc. I would also recommend Lee's book as mentioned above for a general overview.
May 19, 2019
This was a really effective overview of Asian American Activism in the 60s. The author worked hard to place the works of folk like Yuri Kochiyama and Richard Aoki in the proper context, right next to Black Liberation & the Vietnam War. Using quotes, interviews & summaries, the author shows the vast array of Asian Americans who got the movement to where it is today. It’s recounting legacies upon legacies upon legacies & should be read more by “activists” and “woke people” today.
One of my favorite parts was reading about how UCLA students connected to Japanese gang members & helped them navigate the legal system because it felt like education living up to its promise.
At the same time, it felt like some parts could have been explored more and the author was hesitant about critiquing. Why did they leave out Soon Ja Doo and the struggle between Korean Americans & Black Americans in the 1970s? What did the author make of the way Asian Americans have been suppressing indigenous people in Hawaii? Why was there a lack of South Asian Americans in the third world movement? Why is there still a disconnect between fractions of the Asian American population? If the Asian American movement is primarily a student movement as proposed here, then what does it need to do to amplify the voices of the unheard?
One of my favorite parts was reading about how UCLA students connected to Japanese gang members & helped them navigate the legal system because it felt like education living up to its promise.
At the same time, it felt like some parts could have been explored more and the author was hesitant about critiquing. Why did they leave out Soon Ja Doo and the struggle between Korean Americans & Black Americans in the 1970s? What did the author make of the way Asian Americans have been suppressing indigenous people in Hawaii? Why was there a lack of South Asian Americans in the third world movement? Why is there still a disconnect between fractions of the Asian American population? If the Asian American movement is primarily a student movement as proposed here, then what does it need to do to amplify the voices of the unheard?
June 2, 2022
alas! Asian America!
Amongst other things, when we insist that Asian American children are not “taught their history”, we mean this: that the vast majority of them believe (as I used to) that “Asian American” was a term white people forced on us as a kind of ridiculous racist catch-all for the census that erased our particular histories. No, we did it ourselves, organizing around several common experiences (not simply race) to forge a new solidarity that would stand amongst the other oppressed in America, as well as with our cousins abroad. Well, it was a nice idea, anyway. This book is entirely in love with the early founders of the movement, and it’s lovely to read in that sense. Inspiring. On the other hand, 5 years on from its publishing, you can see why it didn’t catch on with the next generation—-no links to what’s happening now, no clear trajectory. Practically hagiography—-no, that’s too cruel. But if I didn’t find it useful in a practical sense when it came out, I find it frustratingly limited in scope now. But then, it was meant to be a text opening up a new and exciting batch of research into the movement, it’s literature and accomplishments!…and we’ve all been busy the past half decade, I suppose. Can’t blame it too much.
As always, reading about Japanese internment reminds me how flippantly we talk about it in the broader culture. Shit was wild.
Amongst other things, when we insist that Asian American children are not “taught their history”, we mean this: that the vast majority of them believe (as I used to) that “Asian American” was a term white people forced on us as a kind of ridiculous racist catch-all for the census that erased our particular histories. No, we did it ourselves, organizing around several common experiences (not simply race) to forge a new solidarity that would stand amongst the other oppressed in America, as well as with our cousins abroad. Well, it was a nice idea, anyway. This book is entirely in love with the early founders of the movement, and it’s lovely to read in that sense. Inspiring. On the other hand, 5 years on from its publishing, you can see why it didn’t catch on with the next generation—-no links to what’s happening now, no clear trajectory. Practically hagiography—-no, that’s too cruel. But if I didn’t find it useful in a practical sense when it came out, I find it frustratingly limited in scope now. But then, it was meant to be a text opening up a new and exciting batch of research into the movement, it’s literature and accomplishments!…and we’ve all been busy the past half decade, I suppose. Can’t blame it too much.
As always, reading about Japanese internment reminds me how flippantly we talk about it in the broader culture. Shit was wild.
July 11, 2018
When I saw my old professor from my undergrad years, I mentioned this book in passing, and she called it boring. I get it. It doesn't go too deep and it doesn't make any hard-hitting claims, or offer up a strong analysis. This book is more of an overview or cataloging of Asian American movements in the long sixties, and if you've lived through it, it must be like looking through an old photo album and listening to someone tell you about your own life. But I'm pretty sure I'm the target audience for this book, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was heartening to know just how radical API movements used to be, where they were borne out of, and what shape they took (especially in art and literature). It actually makes me view movements among APIs today with some frustration, as I notice how many of them have been defanged, how they diminished from their formerly global scope, and how they went from seeking liberation to representation, all issues that Ishizuka speaks on.
August 20, 2019
A general survey of the Asian American left in the late '60s and through the '70s. This is a relatively simple book; not much analysis, and mostly focused on laying out the various events and campaigns that happened, plus a sprinkling of brief comments from key figures who lived through the era. It does a good job of showing the breadth of the movement, and how it involved Asian Americans coming from all sorts of backgrounds, ranging from street gangs to farm worker unions to colleges. Overall a decent introductory text on the origins of Asian American left politics, accessible to people who are not familiar with the subject.
May 21, 2021
Ishizuka dispels the model minority myth of the compliant, law abiding Asian by sharing the story of Asian American activists in the 60's. Modeled after the Black power movement, Asian Americans developed consciousness and advocacy for issues that impacted our community. This was a time that colleges and universities were exhorted to begin Asian Studies programs and activists began to align our struggles with other people of color.
November 14, 2018
Familiar with the Black Power movement and the Alcatraz occupation but less so with the trials of Asian Americans during the same period. Overshadowed by more dramatic cultural responses? People trained to restrain and contain? Photos, notes, index.
To be honest, on first glance, thought the book was about food...
To be honest, on first glance, thought the book was about food...
April 1, 2020
If you know the basics of the Asian American movement during the late Sixties and Seventies, there's not much here that will surprise you, but it's a good read based on interviews with dozens of the participants. At many points, I wanted more detail, but I kept reading happily and anything that spreads the word on a near invisible part of the Sixties is doing its job.
May 19, 2020
4.5 A must read for any Asian American - we need to be more connected to our history to defend against the discontinuation of intergenerational knowledge. That said, this book focuses on Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinx - SE Asia didn't feel visible at all and I know we must have been somewhere. Read this.
February 4, 2018
Not really sure what to say. I generally feel so disconnected from Asian American history but I am always inspired reading the radical history of Asians in the country.
April 1, 2018
3.5 stars.
August 24, 2021
it's good but just took a while to get through (1.75 years to be in fact :') )
October 10, 2021
Well written account of the history of the Asian American movement, mostly from the Japanese American, Chinese American, and Filipino American perspective (in that order).
March 8, 2022
Really enjoyed the ending of this book. Gave me a lot to think about in terms of my Asian American identity and finding a home in ethnic studies. tldr we stand on the shoulders of giants
March 12, 2016
Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties is a history of the formation of Asian American identity and movement-building written by one of the participants. Karen L. Ishizuka not only was part of the movement, so were her husband and her extended family. This not only gives her history immediacy, it also gives her access and credibility to interview many of the participants who could be more candid with a fellow traveler than with an outsider.
That access is revealed with discussion of some of the fraught internal struggles within organizations and coalitions. Social change is not easy and there are many competing theories of how to achieve it. There are even disagreements in the diagnosis of the problem and its causes. Reading about the conflicts between different activist organizations over whether it was a class struggle only or a class and liberation struggle has an immediacy because those same conflicts continue today.
Ishizuka focuses on the Long Sixties - the era from the mid-fifties to the early-seventies when activism was very much on a rising tide, but she also goes back into the past to show that Asian Americans have a long history of activism from labor strikes in the 1880's and in 1905 to community organizing in the thirties and beyond. Far from the stereotype of passive model immigrants, there is a long history of activism that she wants people to remember and incorporate, to recover this erasure of their past agency.
She begins with considering the position of Asian Americans relative to the dominant duality of White and Black. She points out how Asian Americans are used to discredit Black denunciations of racism, how the model minority myth is promoted in order to discredit claims that the United States is racist. In organizing, though, Asian Americans often allied with Blacks, Native Americans and Latinos and vice-versa.
She covers the struggle to coalesce as a united Asian America, rather than as Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and other hyphen-Americans. There were debates over whether Asian American should be hyphenated, whether it should be Amerasian or other construct and it was some time before they settled on Asian American. They were united, though, in opposition to Oriental which described a rug, something you walked on.
Ishizuka does not focus solely on one aspect of activism. She considers the arts and culture activism as important as the anti-eviction, anti-war, affordable housing, anti-discrimination and other issue specific struggles. Focusing mainly on movements in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Seattle, she describes the formation of many organizations, alternative press and the several campaigns they worked on. It is a fascinating history, though on occasion perhaps over-detailed for someone to whom the organizations can become a jumble of acronyms. I have to appreciate, though, her thoughtfulness for the reader in spelling out the organizations' full names in new sections, not expects us to recall the acronyms from fifty pages earlier.
She also evaluates the movement and shares the evaluations of others who are disappointed to see their past work rewritten. For example, she argues that Asian American civil right activism was rooted more in the work of Malcolm X than Martin Luther King. Huey P. Newton and Stokeley Carmichael were important allies and influencers. She makes clear, too, that the movement was about liberation, imperialism and community struggles for housing, jobs, and education and not solely about cultural and racial identity.
I highly recommend this book for several reasons. It is written with passion and integrity. Sometimes the integrity results in long lists to share credit fairly and that can stall the narrative, but the passion more than makes up for it. I also think it is a necessary history, a corrective history to the de-politicized narrative of model minority chambers of commerce that are highlighted as a reproach to other races. It corrects the false narrative and sheds light on the real and very radical history. It is also a useful example of how the energy and passion of activism can be eroded by doctrinaire infighting and not acknowledging the intersectionality of multiple oppressions—leading to sexist disregard for women in the movement and homophobic marginalization of homosexuality as bourgeois decadence. There is so much to this book it is hard to capture it in a short review. So read it for yourself.
I received this book in a Giveaway drawing from Goodreads.
That access is revealed with discussion of some of the fraught internal struggles within organizations and coalitions. Social change is not easy and there are many competing theories of how to achieve it. There are even disagreements in the diagnosis of the problem and its causes. Reading about the conflicts between different activist organizations over whether it was a class struggle only or a class and liberation struggle has an immediacy because those same conflicts continue today.
Ishizuka focuses on the Long Sixties - the era from the mid-fifties to the early-seventies when activism was very much on a rising tide, but she also goes back into the past to show that Asian Americans have a long history of activism from labor strikes in the 1880's and in 1905 to community organizing in the thirties and beyond. Far from the stereotype of passive model immigrants, there is a long history of activism that she wants people to remember and incorporate, to recover this erasure of their past agency.
She begins with considering the position of Asian Americans relative to the dominant duality of White and Black. She points out how Asian Americans are used to discredit Black denunciations of racism, how the model minority myth is promoted in order to discredit claims that the United States is racist. In organizing, though, Asian Americans often allied with Blacks, Native Americans and Latinos and vice-versa.
She covers the struggle to coalesce as a united Asian America, rather than as Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and other hyphen-Americans. There were debates over whether Asian American should be hyphenated, whether it should be Amerasian or other construct and it was some time before they settled on Asian American. They were united, though, in opposition to Oriental which described a rug, something you walked on.
Ishizuka does not focus solely on one aspect of activism. She considers the arts and culture activism as important as the anti-eviction, anti-war, affordable housing, anti-discrimination and other issue specific struggles. Focusing mainly on movements in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Seattle, she describes the formation of many organizations, alternative press and the several campaigns they worked on. It is a fascinating history, though on occasion perhaps over-detailed for someone to whom the organizations can become a jumble of acronyms. I have to appreciate, though, her thoughtfulness for the reader in spelling out the organizations' full names in new sections, not expects us to recall the acronyms from fifty pages earlier.
She also evaluates the movement and shares the evaluations of others who are disappointed to see their past work rewritten. For example, she argues that Asian American civil right activism was rooted more in the work of Malcolm X than Martin Luther King. Huey P. Newton and Stokeley Carmichael were important allies and influencers. She makes clear, too, that the movement was about liberation, imperialism and community struggles for housing, jobs, and education and not solely about cultural and racial identity.
I highly recommend this book for several reasons. It is written with passion and integrity. Sometimes the integrity results in long lists to share credit fairly and that can stall the narrative, but the passion more than makes up for it. I also think it is a necessary history, a corrective history to the de-politicized narrative of model minority chambers of commerce that are highlighted as a reproach to other races. It corrects the false narrative and sheds light on the real and very radical history. It is also a useful example of how the energy and passion of activism can be eroded by doctrinaire infighting and not acknowledging the intersectionality of multiple oppressions—leading to sexist disregard for women in the movement and homophobic marginalization of homosexuality as bourgeois decadence. There is so much to this book it is hard to capture it in a short review. So read it for yourself.
I received this book in a Giveaway drawing from Goodreads.
May 26, 2021
If I had to describe Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties in one word, it’d be “nostalgic.” Though it’s a nonfiction history of the social and cultural movement of the late 50s to mid-70s that gave rise to the identity of “Asian American,” Ishizuka writes fondly, wistfully even.
Much of the book is direct quotes and accounts from the leaders, activists, organizers, and revolutionaries who gave birth to Asian America. So, reading it feels like listening to an auntie or uncle tell stories of their glory days around the dinner table. It made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced, and it’s inspired me to be a more active part of our moment now.
This notion is something Ishizuka explores too: the politics of nostalgia. She argues that nostalgia is a condition that led to the making of Asian America as well as a tool for change. First-generation immigrants were homesick for their homelands while their American-born descendants yearned for a place to belong, creating this pain (algo) for homecoming (nostos). In her final call to action, she incorporates Jim Hougan’s “radical nostalgia,” which doesn’t just mourn the loss of old values and ways but tries to preserve or reinstate them, as well as Maureen McKnight’s “critical nostalgia,” which uses past inequities as fuel for present and future pursuits of justice.
“Seeking an understanding of how the political project of Asian America came into being does not imply a desire to resurrect it, but rather to build upon it. Every generation must create its own nostalgia worth remembering.”
Much of the book is direct quotes and accounts from the leaders, activists, organizers, and revolutionaries who gave birth to Asian America. So, reading it feels like listening to an auntie or uncle tell stories of their glory days around the dinner table. It made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced, and it’s inspired me to be a more active part of our moment now.
This notion is something Ishizuka explores too: the politics of nostalgia. She argues that nostalgia is a condition that led to the making of Asian America as well as a tool for change. First-generation immigrants were homesick for their homelands while their American-born descendants yearned for a place to belong, creating this pain (algo) for homecoming (nostos). In her final call to action, she incorporates Jim Hougan’s “radical nostalgia,” which doesn’t just mourn the loss of old values and ways but tries to preserve or reinstate them, as well as Maureen McKnight’s “critical nostalgia,” which uses past inequities as fuel for present and future pursuits of justice.
“Seeking an understanding of how the political project of Asian America came into being does not imply a desire to resurrect it, but rather to build upon it. Every generation must create its own nostalgia worth remembering.”
April 11, 2016
This was a GoodReads giveaway win.
Not my usual preferred reading material.
Enlightenment. It was a term I recall from my younger days. This book provided Enlightenment.
As an Asian American, I found this book to be insightful of events in US history that have made me the person that I am. I was unfortunately just a little too young during the "Long Sixties" to have participated in these events. (I do recall the Stockton Yellow Seed group.) The book does provide me some insight into just how much I have to thank the various ethic groups of the Sixties for the accomplishments they made to make my world just a little easier for myself and others. It gives me reason to reflect back on my youth and re-examine my relationships with those that I grew up with.
This was a GoodReads. If you want to better understand the USA we live in (and the future you want it to become), you should include this book in your readings.
Not my usual preferred reading material.
Enlightenment. It was a term I recall from my younger days. This book provided Enlightenment.
As an Asian American, I found this book to be insightful of events in US history that have made me the person that I am. I was unfortunately just a little too young during the "Long Sixties" to have participated in these events. (I do recall the Stockton Yellow Seed group.) The book does provide me some insight into just how much I have to thank the various ethic groups of the Sixties for the accomplishments they made to make my world just a little easier for myself and others. It gives me reason to reflect back on my youth and re-examine my relationships with those that I grew up with.
This was a GoodReads. If you want to better understand the USA we live in (and the future you want it to become), you should include this book in your readings.
June 15, 2022
A gem! Well-researched and deftly written book on a significant movement that’s been central to US history (and my personal history) but largely ignored in the education canon and scarcely acknowledged even by Asian-Americans. I doubt even my Chinese parents are aware of this history. I had no idea that the word “Asian American” isn’t simply a category/demographic, but a hard-earned identity forged in the struggle of social and political work in the 60s and 70s. Lots of fascinating interviews and anecdotes in here, as well as collected cartoons/artwork of that time.
June 29, 2016
Thought-provoking. I found myself put off and in disagreement with some of the liberal commentary, but that's why this book deserves a good rating. It challenged my personal view of experiences as an Asian American who grew up in Kansas. I also had my father (who attended UC Berkeley in the 60s) and brother read it as well so that we could discuss our own experiences.
May 8, 2016
I won this book on Goodreads. It is a very informative books worth reading. It is well-written, and easy to read. I really enjoyed the first part of the book "American Chop Suey" and the last one "Finding our Truth".
December 30, 2023
i read this for a research project and it was incredibly interesting!
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