Jeff Yang

4.5 rounded up to 5. Far denser than I expected, while still feeling like a broad intro survey to Asian American pop history. I recommend the syllabus sections for further exploration because each topic is deserving of their own deep dives. Despite the title, the Before section does a decent job at describing from the earliest waves of immigration through the 1980s, historically and in pop culture. The authors' reasoning for nineties onward is because that's when the children of post-1965 show more Hart-Cellar Act immigration waves started making art (which isn't to say previous waves existed! In sheer terms of numbers there's more post-65 Asian Americans than prior waves like my own family).

The authors are all notables in Asian American pop culture: Philip Wang is part of the trio who founded Wong Fu Productions, an early mainstay on Youtube; Jeff Yang is a journalist with decades of experience and father of Hudson Yang, star of Fresh Off the Boat; and Phil Yu runs Angry Asian Man, a longrunning blog connecting Asian America (and for me growing up from enclaves, a life line into the diaspora). Highly recommend all their work, especially Jeff & Phil's podcast They Call Us Bruce.

I have the physical version of the book, which has some lovely foldout sections for Spaces in Asian America- the Asian grocery store, university culture night, a night through K-Town, etc. My only criticism is that any time there was a numbered map or foldout, some numbers were missing or not labeled properly. My biggest problem was with the map of Asian American history in the Before section, with some numbers not even in the right states. show less

Loved the nods to comics of old and the running threads through stories by different authors. Was both clever and poignant in the metaphor of secret identities for Asian Americans. Appreciated that it gave space specifically to women's stories as well. Would recommend.

Although I enjoy manga and comics, I'm not a big superhero story fan. Still, this book is a great way to highlight the many Asian-American talents in the graphic-novel/comic world. The fave for me was "You Are What You Eat."

Just an aesthetic complaint, and a minor one--it's so heavy it's a little awkward to read. It's especially tricky to examine the fold-outs because of the weight of the entire book (but you should spend lots of time with the fold-outs--they're funny!).