Book Reviews

Asian American Dreams:
The Emergence of an American People
By Helen Zia
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
About the Book | About the Author | Excerpt | Where to Order

About the Book
This groundbreaking book is about the transformation of Asian Americans from a few small, disconnected, and largely invisible ethnic groups into a self-identified racial group that is in every aspect of American society. Asian American Dreams also examines the rampant stereotypes of Asian Americans that have an impact on key issues concerning all Americas, from affirmative action and campaign finance to popular culture and national security.

 

About the Author
Helen Zia, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, grew up in the fifties when there were only 150,000 Chinese Americans in the entire country. An award-winning journalist, Zia has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for more than twenty years. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Excerpt
Copyright © 2000 Helen Zia

Little China doll, what's your name?"

This question always made me feel awkward. I knew there was something unwholesome in being seen as a doll, and a fragile china one at that. But, taught to respect my elders at all times, I would answer dutifully, mumbling my name

“Zia,” they would duck and nod. "It means 'aunt' in Italian, you know?"

To me, growing up in New Jersey, along the New York-Philadelphia axis, it seemed almost everyone was a little Italian, or at least had an Italian aunt.

One day in the early 1980s, the routine changed unexpectedly. I was introduced to a colleague, a newspaper editor. Making small talk, he said, "Your name is very interesting . . .” I noted his Euro-Anglo heritage and braced myself for yet another Italian lesson.

“Zia, hmm", he said. "Are you Pakistani?"

I nearly choked. For many people, Pakistan is not familiar geography. In those days it was inconceivable that a stranger might connect this South Asian, Pakistani name with my East Asian, Chinese face.

Through the unscientific process of converting Asian names into an alphabetic form, my romanized Chinese last name became identical to a common romanized Pakistani name. In fact, it was homonymous with a much despised ruler of Pakistan. Newspaper headlines about him read: "President Zia Hated by Masses" and "Pakistanis Cry, Zia Must Go.” I'd clip out the headlines and send them to my siblings in jest. When President Zia's plane mysteriously crashed, I grew wary. After years of being mistaken for Japanese and nearly every other East Asian ethnicity, I added Pakistani to my list.

I soon discovered this would be the first of many such incidents. Zia Maria began to give way to Mohammad Zia ul-Haq. A new awareness of Asian Americans was emerging.

The abrupt change in my name ritual signaled my personal awakening to a modern-day American revolution in progress. In 1965, an immigration policy that had given racial preferences to Europeans for nearly two hundred years officially came to an end. Millions of new immigrants to America were no longer the standard vanilla but Hispanic, African, Caribbean, and -- most dramatically for me -- Asian. Though I was intellectually aware of the explosive growth in my community, I hadn't yet adjusted my own sense of self, or the way I imagined other Americans viewed me.

Up until then, I was someone living in the shadows of American society, struggling to find some way into a portrait that was firmly etched in white and, occasionally, black. And there were plenty of reminders that I wasn't relevant. Like the voices of my 1960s high school friends Rose and Julie. Rose was black, and Julie was white. One day we stood in the school yard, talking about the civil rights movement swirling around us, about cities engulfed in flames and the dreams for justice and equality that burned in each of us.

As I offered my thoughts, Rose abruptly turned to me and said, "Helen, you've got to decide if you're black or white.” Stunned, I was unable to say that I was neither, that I had an identity of my own. I didn't know the words "Asian American." It was a concept yet to be articulated.

Somewhere between my school yard conversation and the confrontation with my Pakistani namesake, Asian Americans began to break through the shadows. By then we had already named ourselves "Asian American" and we were having raging debates and fantastic visions of an America we fit into. But few outside of Asian America cared about our shadow dreams.

Gradually we began to be visible, although not necessarily seen the way we wished. Then we had to discover what it meant to be in the light.

Where to Buy
Amazon.com

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