AANHPI Heritage Month

This text reinterprets a misunderstood and overlooked epoch of the Asian American experience, the Asian American Movement (AAM). The authors argue that, contrary to the common view of the movement as a passing phase limited to college youth, the Asian American Movement spanned diverse political viewpoints and became increasingly sophisticated and effective. Using the lens of social movement theory, it analyzes the AAM's rise and ebb and possible resurgence. The authors argue that the AAM constituted a distinct, identifiable, and relatively stable social movement that dramatically impacted the direction of Asian American political and social activity

Yasutaro Soga's Life behind Barbed Wire (Tessaku selkatsu) is a firsthand account of the incarceration of a Hawai'i Japanese during World War II. On the evening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Soga, the editor of a Japanese-language newspaper, was arrested along with several hundred other prominent Issei (Japanese immigrants) in Hawai'i. After being held for six months on Sand Island, Soga was transferred to an army camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico, and later to a Justice Department camp in Santa Fe. He would spend just under four years in custody before returning to Hawai'i in the months following the end of the war.

As a leading dissident in the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans, the controversial figure Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara stands out as an icon of Japanese American resistance. In emotional, often inflammatory speeches, Kurihara attacked the US government for its treatment of innocent citizens and immigrants. Because he articulated what other inmates dared not voice openly, he became a spokesperson for camp inmates. In this biography, Kurihara's life provides a window into the history of Japanese Americans during the first half of the twentieth century.

There were two battles for Hawaii's sovereignty led by Queen Liliuokalani. This book, The Rights of My People, revisits these battles, the 1893 coup detat and the annexation in 1898 from a new perspective, against the backdrop of the harsh remnants of the Civil War, the missionarys disquieting view of race, and the emerging role of Hawaiian women. The Rights of My People explores the fate of the Crown lands, a quarter of the Hawaii islands, taken in the 1893 coup detat and contested aggressively by Liliuokalani through 1910

In this exposé, Sydney L. Iaukea ties personal memories to newly procured political information about Hawai`i's crucial Territorial era. As Iaukea charts her ancestor's efforts to defend a culture under siege, she reveals astonishing legal and legislative maneuvers that show us how capitalism reshaped cultural relationships. She finds resonant parallels and connections between her own upbringing in Maui's housing projects, her family's penchant for hiding property, and the Hawaiian peoples' loss of their country and lands.

Asian American Political Participation is the most comprehensive study to date of Asian American political behavior, including such key measures as voting, political donations, community organizing, and political protests. The book examines why some groups participate while others do not, why certain civic activities are deemed preferable to others, and why Asian socioeconomic advantage has so far not led to increased political clout. Asian American Political Participation is based on data from the authors’ groundbreaking 2008 National Asian American Survey of more than 5,000 Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, and Japanese Americans. The book shows that the motivations for and impediments to political participation are as diverse as the Asian American population.