Fall 2021 – Spring 2022 – Page 2 – Asian American / Asian Research Institute

Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other Model Minorities

April 4, 2022March 18, 2022 By erin Khuê Ninh

In her engaging study, Passing for Perfect, erin Khuê Ninh considers the factors that drove college imposters such as Azia Kim—who pretended to be a Stanford freshman—and Jennifer Pan—who hired a hitman to kill her parents before they found out she had never received her high school diploma—to extreme lengths to appear successful. Why would someone make such an illogical choice? And how do they stage these lies so convincingly, and for so long?

American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

March 21, 2022March 4, 2022 By Naoko Wake

American Survivors is a fresh and moving historical account of U.S. survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, breaking new ground not only in the study of World War II but also in the public understanding of nuclear weaponry.

Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora

March 7, 2022February 25, 2022 By Theodore S. Gonzalves and Mary Talusan Lacanlale

Co-produced by Theodore S. Gonzalves and Mary Talusan Lacanlale, Kulintang Kultura, from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, pays homage to the late Danongan “Danny” Kalanduyan, a talented musician and generous teacher who championed traditional Filipino kulintang gong music in the United States, helping to keep the memory and practice alive.

Refusing Death: Asian and Latina Immigrant Women Activists on Race, Class, and Morality

February 25, 2022December 3, 2021 By Nadia Y. Kim

Prof. Nadia Kim in her new book, ‘Refusing Death,’ chronicles how Asian and Latina immigrant women activists for environmental justice in Los Angeles—namely cleaner, more breathable air—redefine racism and classism as a result of their struggles with environmental racism and classism, and their specific social positionings under neoliberal capitalism and white supremacy.

Uncle Rico’s Encore: Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle

December 3, 2021November 19, 2021 By Peter Bacho

From the 1950s through the 1970s, blue-collar Filipino Americans, or Pinoys, lived a hardscrabble existence. In this collection of autobiographical essays, acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Peter Bacho centers the experiences of the Pinoy generation that grew up in Seattle’s multiethnic neighborhoods, from the Central Area to Beacon Hill to Rainier Valley.

Dougla in the Twenty-First Century: Adding to the Mix

November 22, 2021November 12, 2021 By Sue Ann Barratt and Aleah N. Ranjitsingh

Identity is often fraught for multiracial Douglas, people of both South Asian and African descent in the Caribbean. In this groundbreaking volume, Sue Ann Barratt and Aleah N. Ranjitsingh explore the particular meanings of a Dougla identity and examine Dougla maneuverability both at home and in the diaspora.