Keywords for Asian American Studies

Introduces key terms, research frameworks, debates, and histories for Asian American Studies

Born out of the Civil Rights and Third World Liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s, Asian American Studies has grown significantly over the past four decades, both as a distinct field of inquiry and as a potent site of critique. Characterized by transnational, trans-Pacific, and trans-hemispheric considerations of race, ethnicity, migration, immigration, gender, sexuality, and class, this multidisciplinary field engages with a set of concepts profoundly shaped by past and present histories of racialization and social formation.

The keywords included in this collection are central to social sciences, humanities, and cultural studies and reflect the ways in which Asian American Studies has transformed scholarly discourses, research agendas, and pedagogical frameworks. Spanning multiple histories, numerous migrations, and diverse populations, Keywords for Asian American Studies reconsiders and recalibrates the ever-shifting borders of Asian American studies as a distinctly interdisciplinary field.

Visit keywords.nyupress.org for online essays, teaching resources, and more.

Cathy J. Schlund-Vials is an Associate Professor in English and Asian/Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut (Storrs).Wong K. Scott :

K. Scott Wong is the James Phinney Baxter III Professor of History and Public Affairs at Williams College.Võ Linda Trinh :

Linda Trinh Võ is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

George Lipsitz,author of How Racism Takes Place:
Keywords for Asian American Studiesis an extraordinary volume, one positioned to make indispensable contributions to Asian American Studies specifically and to interdisciplinary scholarship more generally. With contributions from a diverse and distinguished group of scholars, this book illuminates the field with new clarity when viewed as the cumulative creation of people of diverse national, generational, and social identities, further demonstrating how and why Asian American Studies has become a generative site of new knowledge.