| Hapa Girl Contributor(s): Chai, May-Lee (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 159213615X ISBN-13: 9781592136155 Publisher: Temple University Press OUR PRICE: $63.18 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: March 2007 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - General - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - Asian American Studies - Social Science | Discrimination & Race Relations |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 2006032153 |
| Physical Information: 0.82" H x 5.76" W x 8.48" (0.82 lbs) 232 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - Chinese - Geographic Orientation - South Dakota - Cultural Region - Upper Midwest - Cultural Region - Midwest - Chronological Period - 1980's |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the mid-1960s, Winberg Chai, a young academic and the son of Chinese immigrants, married an Irish-American artist. In "Hapa Girl" (hapa is Hawaiian for mixed) their daughter tells the story of this loving family as they moved from Southern California to New York to a South Dakota farm by the 1980s. In their new Midwestern home, the family finds itself the object of unwelcome attention, which swiftly escalates to violence. The Chais are suddenly socially isolated and barely able to cope with the tension that arises from daily incidents of racial animosity, including random acts of cruelty. May-lee Chai's memoir ends in China, where she arrives just in time to witness a riot and demonstrations. Here she realizes that the rural Americans' "fears of change, of economic uncertainty, of racial anxiety, of the unknowable future compared to the known past were the same as China's. And I realized finally that it had not been my fault." |