Asian American Youth

by Jennifer Lee (Editor)

Asian American Youth covers topics such as Asian immigration, acculturation, assimilation, intermarriage, socialization, sexuality, and ethnic identification. The distinguished contributors show how Asian American youth have created an identity and space for themselves historically and in contemporary multicultural America.

Genres: Nonfiction

359 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Jennifer Lee is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine.

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Asian American Youth is an academic compilation of perspectives from a variety of graduate students and professors. Some chapters do read like dissertations, you are fairly warned. I appreciated that Cambodian, Filipino, and Vietnamese academics had chapters also, as most of the AsAm reading I've done so far is from either a Chinese, Korean, or Japanese perspective.

The first two chapters were helpful but tortuous, as they were mostly statistical analysis of census data.

Major mind expansions from reading this:
- Immigrant culture and mindset
- Stereotypes (in Hollywood and also in daily living) and being lumped into a large and ambiguous 'Asian-American' category
- LGBT culture is dominantly white. AsAm LGBT people have to choose which culture they participate in.
- Struggling to choose between identifying with class vs. ethnicity
- Feminization of the AsAm male
- AsAm groups that have chosen to acculturate vs. maintain homeland culture

As a white woman, I found this book extremely helpful for gathering a wider base of knowledge so I can empathize more with my AsAm friends of a variety of backgrounds. However, I also am capable of slogging through a lot of academic reading, so if that's not your style, you won't like this book. I walk away from this book realizing I have so, so much more to learn, and even then I'll still be an outsider.

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for my dissertation research. It was very helpful in talking about needs of Asian American youth, demographics, and stuff.

[Erendira]

Main E184.A75 A84264 2004