Critical writings on the Yellow Experience in America

             This proposed anthology [rf. 4/17/16 entry] is simply my way of putting together in one volume everything that I’ve written or blabbed about over the years about Chinese Americans and Asian Pacific Islander America.  These are unpublished lectures, published essays and articles, reviews, conversations, and letters that trace back to the early 1970s. 

I just want to do this and be finally done with carrying this stuff around in my head and offices, wondering whether there might be a serious audience, of whatever size, that might give it a bit of critical attention.  Even though I taught Asian American Studies  for over twenty years at a number of California campuses, students and colleagues almost never engaged me in sustained dialogue about the recurrent themes in my work.  Which might “say” that those who have actually read my stuff are either too hesitant respond or too indifferent.  At any rate, it feels right to put this stuff out there and let it sprout legs and have its own life.

Taking a cue from one of my sociologist mentors, the late Bob Blauner (emeritus faculty, University of California at Berkeley), I have arranged these pieces in chronological order so as to see for myself the path that my perspective has taken as it evolved over a number of decades.  This organization of content will mean that repetition and overlapping of ideas will be inevitable so I will ask the reader’s indulgence in advance.