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By focusing on how the idea of heroism on the battlefield helped
construct, perpetuate, and challenge racial and gender hierarchies
in the United States between World War I and the present, Warring
over Valor provides fresh perspectives on the history of American
military heroism. The book offers two major insights into the
history of military heroism. First, it reveals a precarious
ambiguity in the efforts of minorities such as African Americans,
Asian Americans, Native Americans, women, and gay men to be
recognized as heroic soldiers. Paradoxically, America's heroism
discourse allowed them to press their case for full membership in
the nation, but doing so simultaneously validated the dichotomous
interpretations of race and gender they repudiated. The ambiguous
role of marginalized groups in war-related hero-making processes
also testifies to this volume's second general insight: the
durability and tenacity of the masculine warrior hero in U.S.
society and culture. Warring over Valor bridges a gap in the
historiography of heroism and military affairs.
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. As
Ellen Wu shows, liberals argued for the acceptance of these
immigrant communities into the national fold, charging that the
failure of America to live in accordance with its democratic ideals
endangered the country's aspirations to world leadership. Weaving
together myriad perspectives, Wu provides an unprecedented view of
racial reform and the contradictions of national belonging in the
civil rights era. She highlights the contests for power and
authority within Japanese and Chinese America alongside the designs
of those external to these populations, including government
officials, social scientists, journalists, and others. And she
demonstrates that the invention of the model minority took place in
multiple arenas, such as battles over zoot suiters leaving wartime
internment camps, the juvenile delinquency panic of the 1950s,
Hawaii statehood, and the African American freedom movement.
Together, these illuminate the impact of foreign relations on the
domestic racial order and how the nation accepted Asians as
legitimate citizens while continuing to perceive them as indelible
outsiders. By charting the emergence of the model minority
stereotype, The Color of Success reveals that this far-reaching,
politically charged process continues to have profound implications
for how Americans understand race, opportunity, and nationhood.
Asian Americans have made countless distinguished contributions to
American society. Like other American racial minorities who have
historically been denied opportunities within the American
electoral system, Asian Americans have worked steadily to
participate in U.S. politics and its judicial system. Asian
Americans have a long history of seeking social justice and equal
treatment by challenging discriminatory laws and practices in
education, employment, housing, land ownership, immigration, and
other significant public-policy- issue areas. Distinguished Asian
American Political and Governmental Leaders is the first-ever
compilation of biographies of Asian American elected officials,
major political appointees, judges, and activists. It provides
information on the life histories and political accomplishments of
96 Asian Americans, who have participated in political, judicial,
and civil rights arenas of this nation from 1950 to the present.
Most of the distinguished Americans profiled in this important
resource were trailblazers, being the first Asian American or the
first of a particular Asian ethnic community, for example,
Vietnamese Americans, to be elected or appointed to a leadership
position. The late Dalip Singh Saund, for example, became the first
Asian American and the first Indo-American ever elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives when voters in Imperial and Riverside
counties in Southern California elected him in 1957. Elaine Chao
was the first Asian American and Chinese American woman appointed
to a presidential cabinet post when President George W. Bush
nominated her to be the U.S. Secretary of Labor in 2001. And the
late John Aiso became the first Japanese American, as well as Asian
American, judge in California when he was appointed in 1953. In
selecting the leaders for this book, the authors have provided a
glimpse of the diversity of electoral and nonelectoral forms of
political participation and representation that Asian Americans
have pursued. Included are biographies on each Asian American who
has served or is serving as a state governor (Ariyoshi, Cayetano,
Locke, Waihee); other statewide elected office (Eu, Fong, Hirono,
Kealoha, King, Lau, Woo); the U.S. Senate (Akaka, Fong, Hayakawa,
Inouye, Matsunaga); the U.S. House of Representatives
(Faleomavaega, Kim, Matsui, Mineta, Mink, Saiki, Saund, Wu); and as
a presidential cabinet member (Chao, Mineta). The authors have also
provided a cross-section of 45 Asian American elected officials at
the municipal and state levels for 12 states from Alaska to
Massachusetts and from Minnesota to Texas. Among them are the first
Cambodian, Hmong, and Vietnamese American elected officials, as
well as some of the longest-serving Asian Americans, such as Harry
Lee, who has been continuously re-elected as Sheriff of Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana, since 1979. Also profiled are Asian Americans
who have played major leadership roles in nonelectoral political
pursuits, such as Yuri Kochiyama, Philip Vera Cruz, and Angela Oh,
who have made significant contributions in the areas of human
rights, union organizing, and race relations.
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