A comprehensive and complex look at multiethnic Asian American identitiesPosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Book/Video Reviews, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2013-02-07 23:10Z by Steven |
A comprehensive and complex look at multiethnic Asian American identities
Nichi Bei: A mixed plate of Japanese American News & Culture
2013-01-01
Ben Hamamoto, Nichi Bei Weekly Contributor
When Half is Whole: Multiethnic Asian American Identities, by Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012, 248 pp., $21.95, paperback)
The whole spectrum of the mixed race, multiethnic Asian American experience could never be contained in a single book. That said, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu’s new book, “When Half is Whole,” comes pretty close (without ever setting out to do so). The book is a series of profiles of mixed race and multiethnic Asian and Asian American people, tied together by the author’s personal reflections and explanations of how these people both shape and are shaped by their larger cultural contexts. The people featured in the book have ancestries that include Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Filipino, Mexican, black and white. They come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, grew up in different countries, and have different sexual orientations. Some have Asian mothers, others Asian fathers. Yet each person’s experience is portrayed with nuance and sensitivity…
Read the entire article here.