May - Asian Pacific Heritage Month - Diversity Readings - Hekman Library at Calvin University

Celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! Explore the resources on this page to learn and read more about Asian/Pacific history, important figures, literature, and more!

*Check out this dedicated site to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month site, which includes extensive lists of fascinating exhibits from the The Library of Congress, National Archives, National Park Service, and other government institutions.*

New Books

Important Asian Pacific Biographies

Maya Lin: Thinking With Her Hands by Susan Goldman Rubin
Call Number: NA737.L48 R83 2017
ISBN: 9781452108377
Publication Date: 2017-11-07
"The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. is one of the most famous memorials in the world. But most people are not as familiar with the college student who won the design competition to build it. This carefully researched volume chronicles Maya Lin's childhood, her battle to create the memorial as she envisioned it, and the incredible body of work she has produced since then"

History - Asian American and Pacific Islander Stories
Click here to explore the History channel's collection of stories from AAPI history-making events and people

Biography Reference Center (EBSCO)
Find more biographies on important figures of Asian American Pacific Islander history through the Biography Reference Center, an excellent scholarly database with short summaries on famous figures
This resource provides coverage for several of the most popular and heavily-researched biographies and genres, including those contained within Biography Today and Biography (both dating back to the first issue published).

In addition to keyword searching, Biography Reference Center users can locate biographies of interest by browsing key categories, including occupation, nationality, publication and more than 30 genre categories including actors, artists, athletes, authors, current world leaders, explorers, scientists and many others. Results can also be limited by reading level indicators (Lexiles) and source types that include concise and detailed biographies, interviews, obituaries and related articles. Users can also limit results according to any combination of subject occupation, activity, gender, birth place, birthday, lifespan, nationality and more.

Special Topics

The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee
Call Number: E184.A75 L43 2015
ISBN: 9781476739403
Publication Date: 2015-09-01
The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day
Asian Americans in Michigan by Victor Jew (Contribution by, Editor); Sook Wilkinson (Contribution by, Editor); and others
Call Number: F575.A75 A74 2015
ISBN: 9780814332818
Publication Date: 2015-03-16
Collection of 41 diverse contributors from Michigan's Asian American communities
The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History by David K. Yoo (Editor); Eiichiro Azuma (Editor)
Call Number: E184.A75 O94 2016
ISBN: 9780199860463
Publication Date: 2016-02-01
"In this volume, thirty leading scholars offer original essays on... Asian American history from the beginning of the migration flows toward the Pacific Islands and the American continent to Japanese American incarceration and Asian American participation in World War II, from the experience of exclusion, violence, and racism to the social and political activism of the late twentieth century."
Pacific Worlds: a history of seas, peoples, and cultures by Matt K. Matsuda
Call Number: DU28.3 .M34 2012
ISBN: 9780521887632
Publication Date: 2012-01-19
Asia, the Pacific Islands and the coasts of the Americas have long been studied separately. This history of the Pacific traces the global interactions and remarkable peoples that have connected these regions with each other and with Europe and the Indian Ocean, for millennia.

Consuming Japan: popular culture and the globalizing of 1980s America by Andrew C. McKevitt
Call Number: E169.12 .M39 2017 (EBOOK)
ISBN: 9781469634487
Publication Date: 2017-08-31
Cultural, economic, and intellectual history of U.S.-Japan relations from roughly the mid-1970s to the early 1990s
From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express by Haiming Liu
Call Number: TX945.4 .L58 2015 (EBOOK)
ISBN: 9780813574776
Publication Date: 2015-09-09
"The story of Chinese Americans through the lens of food. From Canton Restaurant in 1849 to Panda Express today, Chinese food history in America spans over 150 years"
The Korean Wave: Korean media go global by Youna Kim (Editor)
Call Number: P92.K6 K67 2013
ISBN: 9780415712781
Publication Date: 2013-12-05
Since the late 1990s South Korea has emerged as a new center for the production of transnational popular culture - the first instance of a major global circulation of Korean popular culture in history. Why popular (or not)? Why now? What does it mean socially, culturally and politically in a global context?
Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and Theater by Wenying Xu
Call Number: PS153.A84 X814 2012
ISBN: 9780810855779
Publication Date: 2012-04-12

Leading Wisdom: Asian and Asian North American women leaders by Su Yon Pak; Jung Ha Kim
Call Number: BV4415 .L43 2017
ISBN: 9780664263324
Publication Date: 2017-11-17
Reflections from women leaders of the church on Asian/Asian American Christianity
Finding Our Voice: a vision for Asian North American preaching by Matthew D. Kim; Daniel L. Wong
Call Number: BV4235.A83 K566 2020
ISBN: 1683593782
Publication Date: 2020-06-17
Exploring the Asian North American experience, hermeneutics and theologies, preaching today and the future
Virtual Orientalism: Asian religions and American popular culture by Jane Iwamura
Call Number: BL2525 .I92 2011
ISBN: 9780199738601
Publication Date: 2011-01-14
Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs in America by Jenna Weissman Joselit; Gurinder Singh Mann; Paul Numrich; Raymond Williams
Call Number: EBOOK
ISBN: 9780198044246
Publication Date: 2007-11-01
Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs in America explores the challenges that Asian immigrants face when their religion--and consequently culture--is "remade in the U.S.A." Peppered with stories of individual people and how they actually live their religion, this informative book gives an overview of each religion's beliefs, a short history of immigration--and discrimination--for each group, and how immigrants have adapted their religious beliefs since they arrived

Global Families: a history of Asian international adoption in America by Catherine Ceniza Choy
Call Number: HV875.5 .C47 2013
ISBN: 9780814717226
Publication Date: 2013-10-11
In Global Families, Catherine Ceniza Choy unearths the little-known historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United States
Patriot Number One: American dreams in Chinatown by Lauren Hilgers
Call Number: E184.C5 H55 2018
ISBN: 9780451496133
Publication Date: 2018-03-20
A deeply reported look at the Chinese immigrant community in the United States, casting a new light on what it means to seek the American dream
The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority by Ellen D. Wu
Call Number: EBOOK
ISBN: 9780691168029
Publication Date: 2015-12-29
The Color of Success tells of the astonishing transformation of Asians in the United States from the “yellow peril” to “model minorities”—peoples distinct from the white majority but lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values—in the middle decades of the twentieth century
Grace after Genocide: Cambodians in the United States by Carol A. Mortland
Call Number: E184.K45 M67 2017
ISBN: 9781785334702
Publication Date: 2017-05-01
...the first comprehensive ethnography of Cambodian refugees, charting their struggle to transition from life in agrarian Cambodia to survival in post-industrial America, while maintaining their identities as Cambodians

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
Call Number: PZ7.1.K418 WHE 2020
ISBN: 9781524715700
Publication Date: 2020-01-28
When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history.
Front Desk by Kelly Yang
Call Number: PS3625.A54 F76 2018
ISBN: 9781338157796
Publication Date: 2018-05-29
Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. Number 1: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, ten-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Number 2: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed. Number 3: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language? It will take all of Mia's courage, kindness, and hard work to get through this year. Will she be able to hold on to her job, help the immigrants and guests, escape Mr. Yao, and go for her dreams?
The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang; Sonny Liew (Illustrator)
Call Number: PN6728.S4565 Y36 2014
ISBN: 9781596436978
Publication Date: 2014-07-15
In the comics boom of the 1940s, a legend was born: the Green Turtle. He solved crimes and fought injustice just like the other comics characters. But this mysterious masked crusader was hiding something more than your run-of-the-mill secret identity: the Green Turtle was the first Asian American super hero. The comic had a short run before lapsing into obscurity, but Gene Luen Yang has revived this character in Shadow Hero, a new graphic novel that creates an origin story for the Green Turtle
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei; Justin Eisinger; Steven Scott; Harmony Becker (Illustrator)
Call Number: D769.8.A6 T355 2019
ISBN: 9781603094504
Publication Date: 2019-07-16
"A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love."

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Call Number: PS3570.A48 J6 1989
ISBN: 0399134204
Publication Date: 1989-03-22
"Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who’s “saying” the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club."
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
Call Number: PS3612.E346 F74 2018
ISBN: 9781538714850
Publication Date: 2018-06-05
The daughter of Korean immigrants, Casey Han has refined diction, a closeted passion for reading the Bible, a popular white boyfriend, and a magna cum laude degree in economics from Princeton, but no job and an addiction to the things she cannot afford in the glittering world of Manhattan. In this critically-acclaimed debut, Min Jin Lee tells not only Casey's story, but also those of her sheltered mother, scarred father, and friends both Korean and Caucasian, exposing the astonishing layers of a community clinging to its old ways and a city packed with struggling haves and have-nots.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Call Number: PS3622.U96 O52 2019
ISBN: 9780525562023
Publication Date: 2019-06-04
A letter from a son to a mother who cannot read... written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born -- a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam -- and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation
You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins
Call Number: PZ7.P4315 YOU 2017
ISBN: 9780374304904
Publication Date: 2017-09-12
National Book Award Nominee for Young People's Literature, 2017 - the story of 5 girls, 3 generations of an Indian immigrant family

Crazy Rich Asians by Jon M. Chu (director)
Call Number: PN1997 .C77839 2013
Publication Date: 2013
Based on the novels by Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians is a fun romantic comedy about New Yorker Rachel Chu who discovers her her longtime boyfriend, Nick Young, belongs to one of Singapore's wealthiest families
Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki
Call Number: PN1997 .S6557644289 2003
ISBN: 078884461X
Publication Date: 2001
Award-winning classic from Studio Ghibli, the tale of a young girl who gets trapped in a strange new world of spirits and must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and rescue her parents
Bride and Prejudice by Deepak Nayar
Call Number: PN1997.B74264 2005
ISBN: 0788858467
Publication Date: 2004
Based on Jane Austen's classic novel, Pride and Prejudice, with a Bollywood twist. In Ammritsar, the determined Mrs. Bakshi sets out to find matches for her four daughters. Second sister, Lalita, meets American Will Darcy - is it love?
Factory complex = Eui-ro-gong-dan by Im, Hŭng-sun (director)
Call Number: HD6059.S68 F33 2015
Publication Date: 2015
"This film paints the details of the grueling, dangerous, and often abusive and humiliating conditions under which some "unskilled" female laborers in South Korea worked in recent decades during the country's economic modernization, while invoking hierarchical and patriarchial social dynamics"