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Resisting the Nuclear

Art and Activism across the Pacific

By Elyssa Faison, Alison Fields

From uranium mines on the Navajo Nation to craters caused by nuclear testing on the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, the production and deployment of nuclear weapon technologies have disproportionately harmed Indigenous lands. Sustained exposure to...

The Unknown Great

Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History

By Greg Robinson. With Jonathan van Harmelen

Through stories of remarkable people in Japanese American history, The Unknown Great illuminates the diversity of the Nikkei experience from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day. Acclaimed historian and journalist Greg...

Island X

Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism

By Wendy Cheng

Island X delves into the compelling political lives of Taiwanese migrants who came to the United States as students from the 1960s through the 1980s. Often depicted as compliant model minorities, many were in fact...

Dancer Dawkins and the California Kid

By Willyce Kim. Foreword by Eunsong Kim

Dancer Dawkins is a swift-footed, weed-smoking football stud. Her lover, Jessica, left their place in Los Angeles to join a Napa Valley cult, where she believes she has found salvation. Willie Gutherie, the cigar-smoking, self-proclaimed...

Surviving the Sanctuary City

Asylum-Seeking Work in Nepali New York

By Tina Shrestha

Over the past several decades, the vibrant, multiethnic borough of Queens has seen growth in the community of Nepali migrants, many of whom are navigating the challenging bureaucratic process of asylum legalization. Surviving the Sanctuary...

Seattle from the Margins

Exclusion, Erasure, and the Making of a Pacific Coast City

By Megan Asaka

From the origins of the city in the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of World War II, Seattle's urban workforce consisted overwhelmingly of migrant laborers who powered the seasonal, extractive economy of the Pacific Northwest....

George Tsutakawa

Early Works on Paper

By David F. Martin

One of the leading Northwest artists of his generation, George Tsutakawa (1910–97) is internationally known for his sculpture and fountain designs. However, a lesser-known aspect of his career was the production of blockprints, watercolors, and...

Picture Bride

A Novel

By Yoshiko Uchida. Foreword by Elena Tajima Creef

Seeking an escape from life in her small village in Japan, Hana Omiya arrives in California in 1917, one of thousands of Japanese “picture brides" whose arranged marriages brought them to the United States. When...

New Women of Empire

Gendered Politics and Racial Uplift in Interwar Japanese America

By Chrissy Yee Lau

Strong, bold, and vivacious—Japanese American young women were leaders and heroines of the Roaring Twenties. Controversial to the male immigrant elite for their rebellion against gender norms, these women made indelible changes in the community,...

Uncle Rico's Encore

Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle

By Peter Bacho

From the 1950s through the 1970s, blue-collar Filipino Americans, or Pinoys, lived a hardscrabble existence. Immigrant parents endured blatant racism, sporadic violence, and poverty while their US-born children faced more subtle forms of racism, such...

Contemporary Asian American Activism

Building Movements for Liberation

By Diane C. Fujino, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez

In the struggles for prison abolition, global anti-imperialism, immigrant rights, affordable housing, environmental justice, fair labor, and more, twenty-first-century Asian American activists are speaking out and standing up to systems of oppression. Creating emancipatory futures...

Awake in the River and Shedding Silence

By Janice Mirikitani. Foreword by Juliana Chang

Fierce, raw, and unapologetic, Janice Mirikitani’s poetry and prose are as vibrant and resonant today as when these two collections were first published in 1978 and 1987. Now back in print in one volume, Awake...

Love Your Asian Body

AIDS Activism in Los Angeles

By Eric C. Wat

The AIDS crisis reshaped life in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s and radicalized a new generation of queer Asian Americans with a broad vision of health equity and sexual freedom. Even amid the...

Dancing Transnational Feminisms

Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice

By Ananya Chatterjea, Hui Niu Wilcox, Alessandra Lebea Williams, D. Soyini Madison

Through empowered movement that centers the lives, stories, and dreams of marginalized women, Ananya Dance Theatre has revealed how the practice of and commitment to artistic excellence can catalyze social justice. With each performance, this...

Kenjiro Nomura, American Modernist

An Issei Artist’s Journey

By Barbara Johns. Foreword by Gail M. Nomura. Contribution by David F. Martin

Born in Japan, acclaimed Seattle artist Kenjiro Nomura (1896–1956) came to the United States as a child of ten, received artistic recognition by age twenty, and in the 1930s became the best-known artist of Japanese...

Signs of Home

The Paintings and Wartime Diary of Kamekichi Tokita

By Barbara Johns. Foreword by Stephen H. Sumida

This beautiful and poignant biography of Issei artist Kamekichi Tokita uses his paintings and wartime diary to vividly illustrate the experiences, uncertainties, joys, and anxieties of Japanese Americans during the World War II internment and...

Racial Erotics

Gay Men of Color, Sexual Racism, and the Politics of Desire

By C. Winter Han

Sexual desire, often understood as personal erotic preference, is frequently seen as neutral, natural, or inevitable. Countering these commonplace assumptions, Racial Erotics shows how sexual partnering within communities of gay men is deeply embedded within...

Reppin'

Pacific Islander Youth and Native Justice

By Keith L. Camacho

From hip-hop artists in the Marshall Islands to innovative multimedia producers in Vanuatu to racial justice writers in Utah, Pacific Islander youth are using radical expression to transform their communities. Exploring multiple perspectives about Pacific...

Pure Land in the Making

Vietnamese Buddhism in the US Gulf South

By Allison J. Truitt

Since the 1970s, tens of thousands of Vietnamese immigrants have settled in Louisiana, Florida, and other Gulf Coast states, rebuilding lives that were upended by the wars in Indochina. For many, their faith has been...

Knowledge for Justice

An Ethnic Studies Reader

By David K. Yoo, Pamela Grieman, Charlene Villaseñor Black, Danielle Dupuy, Arnold Ling-Chuang Pan

Knowledge for Justice is a joint publication of UCLA’s four ethnic studies research centers: American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicana/o Studies, and African American Studies. The book addresses the intersectional intellectual, social, and political...