Historical Novels

Finished The Known World by Edward P. Jones. A brilliant book. Beautiful prose and the fascinating subject of black slaveholders in the American south. This book should be taught everywhere and tells the reader more about American history and the complexities of the American multicultural society better than most.

Am now reading I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita. A zippy great read of the Asian American movement from the 1960s. The political movement of Asian Americans is quite unique and created a radically different environment for Asian Americans in the US as compared to most other Western countries.

The Chinese diaspora has been making its way to the West, and the Japanese, for that matter since the mid 19th century, but the 1960s created a platform of academic study about the community that widely influenced how Asian Americans perceive themselves and negotiate American society.

They expect full participation in American society and have contributed on that level moving beyond the confines of their own community and much of the Confucian baggage of obligation to the immediate circle instead of societal that can often plague Asian communities overseas. While the East Coast of the US now has as many Americans of Asian descent as the West, the communities are entrenched differently and have not defined the local wider culture in the same way as Asian Americans have on the West Coast.

West Coast Asian American signing off...