Description
Labor, laws, and love. Espiritu explores how racist and gendered labor conditions and immigration laws have affected relations between and among Asian American women and men.
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Espiritu (ethnic studies, U. of California, San Diego) examines how labor conditions and immigration laws, many of which are based upon racism and gender bias, have affected relations between and among Asian American men and women. She describes theories behind race, gender and class and how they have been applied to the material and cultural lives of Asian Americans, from periods when relatively few Asian women were allowed into the country and workforce. She details the effects of internment during World War II, the changes in postwar years for those of Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian descent, contemporary immigration and diversity, ideological racism and cultural resistance in efforts to construct self-image, and perceptions about Asians as being neither black nor white, woman nor man. She finds that race, gender and also class do not parallel each other but intersect and confirm each other as categories of difference. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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