A collection of ten immigrant stories from 1773 to 1986 by men and women from European, Latin American, and Asian countries which are based on letters, diaries, and oral histories.

An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature When the first volume of this collection of Asian American literature appeared in 1974, it showed readers the roots and the richness of Chinese American and Japanese American writing. The authors called their anthology Aiiieeeee! because that was the shout, the scream, often the only sound coming from the yellow man or woman in American movies, television, or comic books. But as that work demonstrated, the Asian American writer, long ignored and excluded from participating in American culture, has an articulate and creative voice. The Big Aiiieeeee!--an entirely new and truly comprehensive collection--brings together the earliest writings to appear in America, such as the revealing An English-Chinese Phrase Book used by the first generation of Chinese immigrants, and recent stories and essays, such as "Come All Ye Asian American Writers" by Frank Chin, about the importance of Chinese and Japanese heroic tradition. Here we all can now learn of the pain, the dreams, the betrayals, and the indelible sense of "otherness" of Americans of Chinese and Japanese descent, in a seminal collection of poetry, prose, and drama--writings filled with rage and beauty, memory and vision. "Here is a Gold Mountain of voices. In the telling and retelling of our stories, we create a community of memory. This huge collection invites all of us to become listeners and to claim America."--Ronald Takai, author of Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans

In their studies of social Christianity, scholars of American religion have devoted critical attention to a group of theologically liberal pastors, primarily in the Northeast. Gary Scott Smith attempts to paint a more complete picture of the movement. Smith's ambitious and thorough study amply demonstrates how social Christianity--which included blacks, women, Southerners, and Westerners--worked to solve industrial, political, and urban problems; reduce racial discrimination; increase the status of women; curb drunkenness and prostitution; strengthen the family; upgrade public schools; and raise the quality of public health. In his analysis of the available scholarship and case studies of individuals, organizations, and campaigns central to the movement, Smith makes a convincing case that social Christianity was the most widespread, long-lasting, and influential religious social reform movement in American history.

The twentieth-century reality in the Unites States was harsh for Japanese immigrants who attempted to settle down and follow their dreams in the new land. Prejudice and discrimination against the newcomers, rife among Americans, were exacerbated by the ramifications of World War II events, including the Pearl Harbor attack, which irrevocably changed the pattern of immigrant lives. In the aftermath, internment camps that ensued became an inexorable part of their already miserable existence. The book delves not only into the painful past of the Japanese immigrants and their immediate descendants but also illustrates a wide array of Japanese customs that the immigrants brought with them as their rich cultural legacy. It also engages in discourse on acculturation and acculturation strategies adopted by the two generations. Japanese-American authors, in their fictional and non-fictional literary accounts, reveal the search for their ethnic identity and resulting tensions between their American and Japanese selves. An examination tool employed for the purpose of the study has been developed by John Widdup Berry, a cross-cultural psychologist, who has formulated acculturation theory with its strategies of assimilation, integration, separation and marginalisation. The book attempts to examine cultural attitudes (preferences) of Japanese immigrants and their offspring, and their cultural practices (reflected in acculturation strategies). It also presents the reader with a wide array of cultural aspects of life in the United States that—through the lens of acculturation strategies—reflect a rich literary matrix of intersecting sociocultural, historical and political factors inscribed in the twentieth-century reality of Japanese immigrants and their Japanese-American offspring. Engaging not only for academic professionals but also for those curious readers who long to inspect the past and its cultural interrelations through the memories of witnesses and their literary heritage they have left.