I was much more interested in the moments where Lowe used literary analysis to support her otherwise very politically-motivated arguments - it helped me understand what she was actually trying to see, specifically because I'd actually read most of the novels she discussed.

4.5 stars, probably. I think the writing was a bit difficult to understand, but that may a) just be me and b) a consequence of academic writing. Lots of think about and take in. Definitely a book that I'd return to, and contributes a lot to the conversation of Asian-American identity in regards to immigration and how immigration contributes to American capitalism.

Also for dissertation research. Also very useful. I like how she talked about LA and race relations there and some weirdo "multicultural" festival thing.

dense but highly important

A must-read.

The introduction comes out with an unsustainable amount of heat, but that's not a knock. I like the engagement with Marxist and nationalist thought in the context of Asian Americans and specifically Asian American women. The discussion of citizenship is probably the strongest given Asian Americans particularly fraught relationship with that. The book is probably at its weakest with the discussion of Marxism which tends to either be not particularly fresh (Cedric Robinson does a better job of talking about race and did it earlier) or not particularly fair about Marx's engagement with race (Marx isn't a race theorist but he does have some worthwhile thoughts about it).

A very important book in the AAS canon, but really hard to get through--I haven't touched lit theory in a really long time. I'll probably reread it when I get to the proposal stage.

Take Care - SASAMI

Chapter 1 and 4. AMAZING

This is a book I will be "reading" for the rest of my life, it feels like. I need to write a proper precis for each chapter, eventually, but here I will say that Lowe has been invaluable to me in understanding not only Asian American cultural production, but also just the imperialist nation state and its evil machinations overall. Processing her argument -- detailing the contradiction inherent in Asian Americans' path to citizenship along the economic axis, but the ways in which they are barred from the terrain of national culture and therefore are perennial "exotic" others (amongst many other things she argues) -- has been incredibly important work for me. Though Asian Americans are arguably the most privileged under global capitalism (though a statement such as that kind of glosses over the vast heterogeneity of Asian America), their displacement from national culture is not considered crisis. But to ignore the history of their inclusion would be remiss, as its legacy is still deeply felt today and has great implications on the current state of the nation. Though the racist rhetoric levied against Asians is a distinct from the violence African Americans suffer from, they are certainly interrelated. This book is required reading not just for scholars of Asian America, but anyone who is interested in Western imperialism, immigration, race relations, capitalist exploitation, and coalition building.