Chinese pioneers in the Sacramento River Delta were the vital factor in reclaiming land and made significant contributions to California�s agricultural industry from farming to canning. Since the 1860s, Chinese were already settled in the delta and created Chinatowns in and between the two towns of Freeport in the north and Rio Vista in the south. One of the towns, Locke, was unique in that it was built by the Chinese and was inhabited almost exclusively by the Chinese during the first hal...

"A stirring tale of survival, thanks to man's best friend." —Seattle TimesWhen a deadly diphtheria epidemic swept through Nome, Alaska, in 1925, the local doctor knew that without a fresh batch of antitoxin, his patients would die. The lifesaving serum was a thousand miles away, the port was icebound, and planes couldn't fly in blizzard conditions—only the dogs could make it. The heroic dash of dog teams across the Alaskan wilderness to Nome inspired the a...

Vietnamese Americans have transformed the social, cultural, economic, and political life of Orange County, California. Previously, there were Vietnamese international students, international or war brides, or military personnel living in the United States, but the majority arrived as refugees and immigrants after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Although they are lumped together as "refugees," Vietnamese Americans are diverse in terms of their class, ethnic, regional, religious, linguis...

A View from the Bottom offers a major critical reassessment of male effeminacy and its racialization in visual culture. Examining portrayals of Asian and Asian American men in Hollywood cinema, European art film, gay pornography, and experimental documentary, Nguyen Tan Hoang explores the cultural meanings that accrue to sexual positions. He shows how cultural fantasies around the position of the sexual "bottom" overdetermine and refract the meanings of race, gender, sexuality, an...

This compelling study of a previously overlooked vice industry explores the larger structural forces that led to the growth of prostitution in Japan, the Pacific region, and the North American West at the turn of the twentieth century. Combining very personal accounts with never before examined Japanese sources, historian Kazuhiro Oharazeki traces these women’s transnational journeys from their origins in Japan to their arrival in Pacific Coast cities. He analyzes their responses to the op...

Los Angeles is home to the largest Thai population outside of Thailand. With a relatively recent history of immigration to the United States dating to 1965, reports estimate that 80,000 Thais make their home in Southern California. In spite of its brief history in the United States, the Thai community in Los Angeles has already left its mark on the city. While the proliferation of Thai-owned businesses and shops has converted East Hollywood and some San Fernando Valley neighborhoods to des...

In 1884, a Japanese sailor named Hamanosuke Shigeta made his way to the eastern section of downtown Los Angeles and opened Little Tokyo�s first business, an American-style caf�. By the early 20th century, this neighborhood on the banks of the Los Angeles River had developed into a vibrant community serving the burgeoning Japanese American population of Southern California. When Japanese Americans were forcibly removed to internment camps in 1942 following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the...

Tens of thousands of Filipinos who have lived, worked, and raised families for over five generations in this unique city stake their rightful claim to more than a century of shared history in San Francisco. The photographs herein attest to the early arrivals, who came as merchant mariners, businesspeople, scholars, and musicians, as well as agricultural and domestic workers. But their story has often been ignored, told incompletely by others, and edited too selectively by many. The Filipin...

After the Spanish-American War in 1898, many Filipinos immigrated to New York City, mostly as students, enrolling at local institutions like Columbia University and New York University. Some arrived via Ellis Island as early as 1915, while Filipino military servicemen and Navy seafarers settled in New York after both World Wars I and II. After the Asian Immigration Act of 1965, many Filipinos came as professionals (e.g., nurses, physicians, and engineers) and formed settlements in various ...

Revealing the untold stories of a pioneer generation of young Chinese Americans, this book places the children and families of early Chinatown in the middle of efforts to combat American policies of exclusion and segregation.Wendy Jorae challenges long-held notions of early Chinatown as a bachelor community by showing that families — and particularly children — played important roles in its daily life. She explores the wide-ranging images of Chinatown’s youth created by competing i...

A 1.48-square-mile piece of unincorporated Los Angeles County when it was annexed by the City of Los Angeles in 1922, tiny Sawtelle has lived very large in the hearts and minds of Japanese Americans. Their homes, livelihoods, religions, businesses, language, and other ethnocentric and social involvements are rooted in the area, with the Japanese Institute of Sawtelle as the cultural nexus. Bisected by Sawtelle Boulevard, this particular Japantown flourished through a close-knit network of ...

On January 27, 1951, the first atomic weapon was detonated over a section of desert known as Frenchman Flat in southern Nevada, providing dramatic evidence of the Nevada Test Site's beginnings. Fifty years later, author A. Costandina Titus reviews contemporary nuclear policy issues concerning the continued viability of that site for weapons testing. Titus has updated her now-classic study of atomic testing with fifteen years of political and cultural history, from the mid-1980s Reagan-Gorb...