APAP intern visit to the Library of Congress with librarian/curator of the Asian American Pacific Islander collection, Reme Grefalda.
During the same week that the House of Representatives joined the Senate in unanimously passing a resolution expressing regret for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which until its repeal in 1943, prevented the immigration and naturalization of people of Chinese origin; the same week that the Pew Research Center released a much debated study on the growing role and relevance of Asian Americans in the U.S.; the same week that Asian Pacific Americans across the country participated in nationwide town hall revisiting the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of Vincent Chin, the young man who became a victim of violence when he appeared to be “Japanese”; and the same week that America celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, a resolution named after the first Asian American woman to serve in Congress, Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink, and widely known as Title IX – the Library of Congress (LOC) released its list of “Books That Shaped America,” a list of 88 books that the LOC recommended as a starting point for a conversation about books written by Americans that shaped our lives.
With help from our BookDragon blogger, Terry Hong, we decided to join the conversation and offer a list of 53 influential authors from Asian Pacific America. She created two lists for us—pioneers and contemporary writers—the list of pioneers is below. Who do you think should be on the list, contemporary, pioneer or otherwise? Discuss your thoughts on our BookDragon Facebook page. Finally, we know that our list is far from comprehensive nor is it a register of the “best” writers. The list is a humble starting point. It is intended to join a national conversation about books that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list, or not.
Pioneering Writers
| Carlos | Bulosan |
| Theresa Hak-Kyung | Cha |
| Jeffery Paul | Chan |
| Diana | Chang |
| Iris | Chang |
| Nien | Cheng |
| Frank | Chin |
| Louis | Chu |
| Anita | Desai |
| Momoko | Iko |
| Suyin | Han |
| Le Ly | Hayslip |
| Maxine | Hong Kingston |
| Jeanne Wakatsuki | Houston |
| Younghill | Kang |
| Richard E. | Kim |
| Joy | Kogawa |
| Him Mark | Lai |
| C.Y. | Lee |
| Li-Young | Lee |
| Mary Paik | Lee |
| Genny | Lim |
| Shirley Geok-Lin | Lim |
| Bette Bao | Lord |
| Ruthanne Lum | McCunn |
| Toshio | Mori |
| Dhan Gopal | Mukerji |
| Bharati | Mukherjee |
| Franklin | Odo |
| John | Okada |
| Mine | Okubo |
| Gary | Pak |
| Bienvenido | Santos |
| Monica | Sone |
| Cathy | Song |
| Sin Far | Sui |
| Stephen | Sumida |
| Ron | Takaki |
| Amy | Tan |
| Eleanor Wong | Telemaque |
| Yoshiko | Uchida |
| Jade Snow | Wong |
| Nellie | Wong |
| Shawn | Wong |
| Merle | Woo |
| Mitsuye | Yamada |
| Hisaye | Yamamoto |
| Wakako | Yamauchi |
| Taro | Yashima |
| John | Yau |
| Connie Young | Yu |
| Judy | Yung |
| Helen | Zia |
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Bino Realuyo, Jessica Hagedorn, Alberto Florentino, Eileen Tabsio, Barbara Jean Pulmano-Reyes
Karen Tei Yamashita, David Henry Hwang, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chang Rae-Lee. This list is ridiculous.
Laurence Yep has won the Newbery Honor for his historical fiction chronicling Chinese Americans in the US. His books are incredibly well written. Yoshiko Uchida should also be on this list – her books were some of the first to expose young readers to Japanese Interment from a Japanese American family’s perspective.
Sui Sin Far, Onoto Watanna, and H. T. Tsiang.
So, after nearly half a century in the United States, Southeast Asian writers, especially from the Hmong, Lao, Khmer, and Vietnamese communities, even the award-winning ones, don’t even get one token nod on this list even with over 2,506,303 of us? That’s pretty telling.
While there is the exception of Le Ly Hayslip, where are Vietnamese American writers like Monique Truong, Bao Phi, Linh Dinh, Barbara Tran, etc?
The list is definitely incomplete. An author who must be on the list is the late great Michi Nishiura Weglyn who is the author of “Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps” (University of Washington Press).
David Henry Hwang, Gish Jen, Chang-rae Lee, Andrew Lam.
David Henry Hwang, Gish Jen, Chang-rae Lee, Andrew Lam
Laurence Yep needs to be on that list, as well as Allen Say.
Laurence Yep?
What about Lawrence Yep (award winning children’s author)? Or even David Henry Hwang, Cynthia Katohada ?
Can you add Jessica Hagedorn, Tao Lin and David Henry Hwang to the list?
Lois-Ann Yamanaka definitely needs to be on here!
Neil Gotanda should be on this list.
Where is Garrett Hongo?