Asian Americans and Poitics: Perspectives, Experiences, Prospects

Rating:
Summary: A great, but not perfect, book on Asian American politics
Review: This is an anthology of articles discussing the demographic attributes, voting behavior, and political aspirations of Asian Americans, based upon a recent conference. After book upon book about Asian-American cultural studies or Asian-American history, finally a book has been compiled that deals with Asian-Ams from a political science perspective. This book would be a wonderful edition to the bookshelves of all Asian-American/ethnic studies majors. Despite the thickness of the book, it is actually a quick read. I did learn some facts that I did not know before. Unfortunately, on the one hand, this book is a fresh, new idea, but on the other it repeats things that many already know (the Wen Ho Lee case revealed the country's anti-Asian sentiment; Asians have problems forming voting blocs outside of Hawaii, Asian Americans are stereotyped as apolitical, etc.). Also, the book gets bogged down in statistical jargon. Still, it covers a wide range of issues and it is an important first effort.