Citizens of Asian America: Democracy and Race during the Cold War
Cindy I-Fen Cheng
Winner, 2013-2014 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, Adult Non-Fiction presented by the Asian Pacific American Librarian Association
During the Cold War, Soviet propaganda highlighted U.S. racism in order to undermine the credibility of U.S. democracy. In response, incorporating racial and ethnic minorities in order to affirm that America worked to ensure the rights of all and was superior to communist countries became a national imperative. In Citizens of Asian America, Cindy I-Fen Cheng explores how Asian Americans figured in this effort to shape the credibility of American democracy, even while the perceived “foreignness” of Asian Americans cast them as likely alien subversives whose activities needed monitoring following the communist revolution in China and the outbreak of the Korean War.
While histories of international politics and U.S. race relations during the Cold War have largely overlooked the significance of Asian Americans, Cheng challenges the black-white focus of the existing historiography. She highlights how Asian Americans made use of the government’s desire to be leader of the “free world” by advocating for civil rights reforms, such as housing integration, increased professional opportunities, and freedom from political persecution. Further, Cheng examines the liberalization of immigration policies, which worked not only to increase the civil rights of Asian Americans but also to improve the nation’s ties with Asian countries, providing an opportunity for the U.S. government to broadcast, on a global scale, the freedom and opportunity that American society could offer.
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About Cindy I-Fen Cheng
Reviews for Citizens of Asian America: Democracy and Race during the Cold War
Pacific Historical Review
"Citizens of Asian America offers a significant contribution to the scholarship on Cold War racial politics by highlighting the significance of political discourse about and by Asians, particularly those of Chinese and Korean ancestry in the U.S. from World War II to 1965. Cheng deftly analyzes how various political actors provided competing cultural narratives about race, nation, and identity. Her interpretation of government reports, sociological studies, court cases, and other sources related to housing integration, alien sedition, and immigration rights, will be of interest to scholars of the Cold War, U.S. race relations, U.S.-Asia relations, and immigration."
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu,Associate Professor of History and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Ohio State University "In these chapters, Cheng offers a number of new insights into an understudied period. In her discussion of 'firsts,' she presents the lives of her subjects with a rare warmth and complexity; she also persuasively shows that such people developed their own understanding of race, democracy, and Americanness distinct from media portrayals of the mas symbols of American superiority and freedom. Juxtaposing celebrations of Asian Americans' loyalty with probes into their alleged subversion, Cheng astutely observes that these apparently conflicting ideas were in fact not so contradictory after all."
Charlotte Brooks
Political Science Quarterly
"Through Cheng's work, Cold War civil rights become much more capacious than previously thought."
Melissa Phruksachart
Journal of Asian American Studies
"A marvelous and greatly-needed book, Chengs chronicle of Asian American battles against restrictive covenants, housing discrimination, and politically-inspired deportations as well as her accounts of battles for professional positions and honors, immigration reform, and civil rights adds important new ideas, evidence, and arguments to the social history of the U.S. by revealing the crucial role played by Asian American racial formation in shaping the broader racial imagination of the nation."
George Lipsitz,author of How Racism Takes Place "Cheng casts her net widely to effectively prove the centrality of Asian Americans in Cold War politics and race relations. . . . Chengs greatly needed study demonstrates how Asian Americans were not only conscious of their political position but were also active participants who staked a claim to their place in the United States and, in so doing, shaped broader cultural imaginings of race and nation."
Susie Woo,The Journal of American History "Accessible and well-structured,Citizens of Asian Americacould be generatively incorporated into graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on Asian American history, the Cold War, and post-1945 U.S. political and diplomatic history."
American Historical Review
"While many other works have focused on Asian Americans as the & foreigners within the dominant order, this book breaks new ground by demonstrating the centrality of conflicts over the political status of Asian Americans during the Cold War itself."
American Historical Review
"Citizens of Asian Americais a welcome addition to the scholarship on race and the Cold War. . . . Cheng certainly shows that there us a story to tell about the impact of Asian American civil rights on U.S. foreign relations during the Cold War."
American Politics
"Cheng (history and Asian American studies, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison) illuminates matters of race during the Cold War that scholars often have overlooked as they focused on the plight of African American efforts to achieve civil rights during the era."
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