LibGuides: Asian American Studies: Books & eBooks

Library eBook Collections

These Library ebooks can be viewed 100% full-text and free to LaGuardia students & faculty. They can be viewed online by more than one person at a time and some can be downloaded, printed and saved as PDFs.

Subject Headings

When searching the Library Catalog to find books/e-books, try subject Heading searches.

UseLibrary of Congress headings such as:

Asian Americans

Asian Americans--History

Asian Americans in literature

American fiction--Asian American authors--history and criticism

Chinese Americans and film

Call Numbers

Books in the LaGuardia Community College Library are organized according to the Library of Congress Classification System. Each book has an assigned call number, sort of like an address of where it is located on the shelf. For a complete listing of how the books are arranged in our library, please click on the link below.

Library of Congress Classification System

Interlibrary Loan

Did you know that you can request books from other CUNY Libraries? If you find a "regular loan" book that is available on the shelf at another CUNY library, just click on "Request a copy" and it will be sent here to be picked up. Items can take up to 1-3 weeks to arrive, so plan ahead!

You can also request copies of articles not available in our library databases (full-text and free of charge!) from another library somewhere in the United States. Just set up an ILLIAD account here: http://lagcc.cuny.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/FirstTime.html

WorldCat Search

Google Books

Google Books is a good place to search within the pages of books. Remember that you can check the Library Catalog to see if we have full-text access via CUNY Libaries.

Books by Asian American Authors

Bone by Fae M. Ng
Call Number: Stacks PS3564 .G25 B6 2014
ISBN: 9781562829445
Publication Date: 1993-01-01
Set in San Francisco's Chinatown, a novel of family ties chronicles the Leongs--a Chinese-American family caught between the traditions of their ancestry and the realities of life in America.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Call Number: Stacks PS3569 .E3334 S66 2005b
ISBN: 9780812980356
Publication Date: 2009-05-26
"In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, an “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s written a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men. As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on the fan and compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments...The two find solace in their friendship, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their relationship suddenly threatens to tear apart." --Amazon
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Call Number: Click on link to view EBOOK
ISBN: 9780618485222
Publication Date: 2004-09-01
"Awkwardness is Gogol's birthright. He grows up a bright American boy, goes to Yale, has pretty girlfriends, becomes a successful architect, but like many second-generation immigrants, he can never quite find his place in the world... Lahiri documents these quiet rebellions and random longings with great sensitivity. There's no cleverness or showing-off in The Namesake, just beautifully confident storytelling. Gogol's story is neither comedy nor tragedy; it's simply that ordinary, hard-to-get-down-on-paper commodity: real life." --Amazon
Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee
Call Number: Stacks PS3562 .E3347 N38 1995
ISBN: 9781573225311
Publication Date: 1996-03-01
No-No Boy by John Okada; Frank Chin (Afterword by); Lawson Fusao Inada (Introduction by); Ruth Ozeki (Foreword by)
Call Number: PS 3565 .K33 N619 1979
ISBN: 9780295994048
Publication Date: 2014-06-01
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Call Number: CT 275 .K5764 A33 1986
ISBN: 0394723929
Publication Date: 1977-08-12
"A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity." -- From the Inside Flap

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Reference Books

Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature by Seiwoong Oh
Call Number: Reference - PS153 .A84 O37 2007
ISBN: 9780816060863
Publication Date: 2007-08-01
"Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature traces American writers whose roots are in all parts of Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. Emphasis is on works that are important in the high school and college literary canon, as well as the historically significant and the contemporary."-publisher
Encyclopedia of Asian History by Ainslie T. Embree (Editor)
Call Number: Click on link to view EBOOK
ISBN: 0684186195
Publication Date: 1905-06-01
Japanese American Internment During World War II by Wendy L. Ng
Call Number: D769.8 .A6 N4 2002
ISBN: 031331375X
Publication Date: 2001-12-30
"Six interpretive essays examine key aspects of the event and provide new interpretations based on the most recent scholarship. Essays include:
- A short narrative history of the Japanese in America before World War II; The evacuation; Life within barbed wire-the assembly and relocation centers; The question of loyalty-Japanese Americans in the military and draft resisters; Legal challenges to the evacuation and internment; After the war-resettlement and redress.
A chronology of events, 26 biographical profiles of important figures, the text of 10 key primary documents--from Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment camps, to first-person accounts of the internment experience--a glossary of terms, and an annotative bibliography of recommended print sources and web sites..."--Amazon

Books: Asian American Activism

Asian American Studies Now by Jean Yu-Wen Shen Wu (Editor); Thomas C. Chen (Editor)
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 9780813545745
Publication Date: 2010-04-01
"This comprehensive anthology, arranged in four parts and featuring a stellar group of contributors, summarizes and defines the current shape of this rapidly changing field, addressing topics such as transnationalism, U.S. imperialism, multiracial identity, racism, immigration, citizenship, social justice, and pedagogy."--Amazon
Chains of Babylon by Daryl J. Maeda
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 0816648913
Publication Date: 2009-10-20
"In Chains of Babylon, Daryl J. Maeda presents a cultural history of Asian American activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, showing how the movement created the category of "Asian American" to join Asians of many ethnicities in racial solidarity. Drawing on the Black Power and antiwar movements, Asian American radicals argued that all Asians in the United States should resist assimilation and band together to oppose racism within the country and imperialism abroad."--Amazon
Dragon Ladies: Asian American feminists breathe fire by Sonia Shah (Editor); Yuri Kochiyama (Preface by); Karin Aguilar-San Juan (Foreword by)
Call Number: HQ1426 .D845 1997
ISBN: 0896085759
Publication Date: 1999-07-01
Race, Rights and the Asian American Experience by Angelo N. Ancheta
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 0813539021
Publication Date: 2006-10-18
"Ancheta examines legal and social theories of racial discrimination, ethnic differences in the Asian American population, nativism, citizenship, language, school desegregation, and affirmative action. In the revised edition of this influential book, Ancheta also covers post-9/11 anti-Asian sentiment and racial profiling. He analyzes recent legal cases involving political empowerment, language rights, human trafficking, immigrant rights, and affirmative action in higher education-many of which move the country farther away from the ideals of racial justice. On a more positive note, he reports on the progress Asian Americans have made in the corporate sector, politics, the military, entertainment, and academia."--Amazon
Samurai among Panthers by Diane C. Fujino
Call Number: Click on link to view EBOOK
ISBN: 9780816677870
Publication Date: 2012-05-02
"An iconic figure of the Asian American movement, Richard Aoki (1938–2009) was also, as the most prominent non-Black member of the Black Panther Party, a key architect of Afro-Asian solidarity in the 1960s and ’70s. His life story exposes the personal side of political activism as it illuminates the history of ethnic nationalism and radical internationalism in America."--publisher

Books: Asian Stereotypes

Asian North American Identities by Eleanor Rose Ty (Editor); Donald C. Goellnicht (Editor, Editor); Eleanor Ty (Editor)
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 0253216613
Publication Date: 2004-04-29
Includes an essay from LaGuardia's Prof. Karlyn Koh. "The nine essays in Asian North American Identities explore how Asian North Americans are no longer caught between worlds of the old and the new, the east and the west, and the south and the north."--publisher
Betrayal and Other Acts of Subversion by Leslie Bow
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 0691070938
Publication Date: 2001-03-26
"Questions of ethnic belonging, sexuality, identification, and political allegiance are among the issues raised by such writers as Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Bharati Mukherjee, Jade Snow Wong, Amy Tan, Sky Lee, Le Ly Hayslip, Wendy Law-Yone, Fiona Cheong, and Nellie Wong. Beginning with the notion that feminist and Asian American identity are mutually exclusive, Bow analyzes how women serve as boundary markers between ethnic or national collectives in order to reveal the male-based nature of social cohesion."--Amazon
Race and Resistance by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 0195147006
Publication Date: 2002-03-28
"...Viet Nguyen argues that Asian American intellectuals have idealized Asian America, ignoring its saturation with capitalist practices...Making his case through the example of literature, which remains a critical arena of cultural production for Asian Americans, Nguyen demonstrates that literature embodies the complexities, conflicts, and potential future options of Asian American culture.--Amazon
Straitjacket Sexualities by Celine Parreñas Shimizu
Call Number: Click on link to view EBOOK
ISBN: 9780804773003
Publication Date: 2012-05-09
"Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian American Manhoods in the Movies looks to cinematic history to reveal the dynamic ways Asian American men, from Bruce Lee to Long Duk Dong, create and claim a variety of masculinities."--Amazon
The Deathly Embrace by Sheng-mei Ma
Call Number: E184 .O6 M22 2000
ISBN: 0816637113
Publication Date: 2000-09-27
"The Deathly Embrace probes into what makes Asian Americans so uncomfortable about themselves—as they are depicted and fetishized in comicstrips, kung-fu movies, and even by some of their best-known writers. Ma's book is another subversive step towards liberating our thinking from the ‘deathly embrace’ of American-born and -bred orientalism as it is perpetuated through popular culture and media." —Russell Leong, editor, Amerasia Journal, UCLA
Yell-Oh Girls! by Vickie Nam; Phoebe Eng (Foreword by)
Call Number: E184 .O6 Y45 2001
ISBN: 0060959444
Publication Date: 2001-07-31
Psychology, gender & sociology; "Promoted by a variety of pressing questions from editor Vickie Nam and culled from hundreds of submission from all over the country, these revelatory essays, poems, and stories tackle such complex issues as dual identities, culture clashes, family matters, body image, and the need to find one's voice."--Amazon
Thinking Orientals by Henry Yu
Call Number: Online ebook [click on title above]
ISBN: 9780195151275
Publication Date: 2002-03-14
"Thinking Orientals is a groundbreaking study of Asian Americans and the racial formation of twentieth-century American society. It reveals the influential role Asian Americans played in constructing the understandings of Asian American identity. It examines the unique role played by sociologists, particularly sociologists at the University of Chicago, in the study of the "Oriental Problem" before World War II and also analyzes the internment of Japanese Americans during the war and the subsequent "model minority" profile."--Amazon

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