Manette Trogani Snow always wondered why her father, Martin “Pop” Trogani punished his children by forcing them to kneel on raw rice, arms outstretched, with a stack of books piled high on their hands. In a quest to understand why Pop treated Manette and her eleven siblings so horribly, she unearthed not only her own family’s hidden histories, but also a previously unknown chapter in US history about racism, immigration, and war. In a fascinating memoir created from a twenty-five-year mission to excavate information from archives, articles, books, and interviews, Manette chronicles her journey through a childhood darkened by fear, brutality, secrets, and lies while detailing the story of her father’s family’s experiences as the only known survivors—despite being starved and tortured during the Japanese occupation of World War II—of an orchestrated campaign to expel them from the United States under the Filipino Repatriation Act of 1935. Included throughout are a treasure trove of personal and historic images, as well as additional insights obtained after the completion of Manette’s extensive research. American Aswang intertwines the true story of a Filipino-American girl’s challenging coming-of-age journey with the often horrific experiences of her father’s family as they were repatriated to the Philippines.

The Philippine Aswang is a mythic, monstrous creature which has, since colonial times, been associated with female transgression, scapegoating, and social shaming, known in Tagalog as hiya. In the 21st century, and in diaspora, she manages to endure.Barbara Jane Reyes's To Love as Aswang, the poet and a circle of Filipino american women grapple with what it means to live as a Filipina, Pinay,in a world that has silenced, dehumanized, and broken the Pinay body. These poems of PInay tragedy and perseverance, of reappropriating monstrosity and hiya, sung in polyphony and hissed with forked tongues.

Rachelle Cruz's debut collection is beyond ready to burst itself open, and bleed. Savor these poems, suck the marrow from their bones. These are lovely, complex poems, "sweet and bitter as a plum," a braised heart, blood-warmed and wet. -Barbara Jane Reyes

Providing comprehensive coverage of a variety of Asian American cultural forms, including folk tradition, literature, religion, education, politics, sports, and popular culture, this two-volume work is an ideal resource for students and general readers that reveals the historical, regional, and ethnic diversity within specific traditions. An invaluable reference for school and public libraries as well as academic libraries at colleges and universities, this two-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of a variety of Asian American cultural forms that enables readers to understand the history, complexity, and contemporary practices in Asian American culture. The contributed entries address the diversity of a group comprising people with geographically discrete origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, identifying the rich variations across the category of Asian American culture that are key to understanding specific cultural expressions while also pointing out some commonalities. Entries are organized alphabetically and cover topics in the arts; education and politics; family and community; gender and sexuality; history and immigration; holidays, festivals, and folk tradition; literature and culture; media, sports, and popular culture; and religion, belief, and spirituality. Entries also broadly cover Asian American origins and history, regional practices and traditions, contemporary culture, and art and other forms of shared expression. Accompanying sidebars throughout serve to highlight key individuals, major events, and significant artifacts and allow readers to better appreciate the Asian American experience.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- Cultural Hybridity -- Linguistic Hybridity -- Narrative Hybridity -- Formal Hybridity -- Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Interviews -- Index.

Asian American literature dates back to the close of the 19th century, and during the years following World War II it significantly expanded in volume and diversity. Monumental in scope, this encyclopedia surveys Asian American literature from its origins through 2007. Included are more than 270 alphabetically arranged entries on writers, major works, significant historical events, and important terms and concepts. Thus the encyclopedia gives special attention to the historical, social, cultural, and legal contexts surrounding Asian American literature and central to the Asian American experience. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and cites works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography of essential print and electronic resources. While literature students will value this encyclopedia as a guide to writings by Asian Americans, the encyclopedia also supports the social studies curriculum by helping students use literature to learn about Asian American history and culture, as it pertains to writers from a host of Asian ethnic and cultural backgrounds, including Afghans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Iranians, Indians, Vietnamese, Hawaiians, and other Asian Pacific Islanders. The encyclopedia supports the literature curriculum by helping students learn more about Asian American literature. In addition, it supports the social studies curriculum by helping students learn about the Asian American historical and cultural experience.

This comprehensive compilation of entries documents the origins, transmissions, and transformations of Asian American folklore and folklife. Equally instructive and intriguing, the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife provides an illuminating overview of Asian American folklore as a way of life. Surveying the histories, peoples, and cultures of numerous Asian American ethnic and cultural groups, the work covers everything from ancient Asian folklore, folktales, and folk practices that have been transmitted and transformed in America to new expressions of Asian American folklore and folktales unique to the Asian American historical and contemporary experiences. The encyclopedia's three comprehensive volumes cover an extraordinarily wide range of Asian American cultural and ethnic groups, as well as mixed-race and mixed-heritage Asian Americans. Each group section is introduced by a historical overview essay followed by short entries on topics such as ghosts and spirits, clothes and jewelry, arts and crafts, home decorations, family and community, religious practices, rituals, holidays, music, foodways, literature, traditional healing and medicine, and much, much more. Topics and theories are examined from crosscultural and interdisciplinary perspectives to add to the value of the work.