“A healing portrait drawn in epic ink strokes.”—Elle When Belle Yang was forced to take refuge in her parents’ home after an abusive boyfriend began stalking her, her father entertained her with stories of old China. The history she’d ignored while growing up became a source of comfort and inspiration, and narrowed the gap separating her—an independent, Chinese-American woman—from her Old World Chinese parents. In Forget Sorrow, Yang makes her debut into the graphic form with the story of her father’s family, reunited under the House of Yang in Manchuria during the Second World War and struggling—both together and individually—to weather poverty, famine, and, later, Communist oppression. The parallels between Belle Yang’s journey of self-discovery and the lives and choices of her grandfather, his brothers, and their father (the Patriarch) speak powerfully of the conflicts between generations—and of possibilities for reconciliation. Forget Sorrow demonstrates the power of storytelling and remembrance, as Belle—in telling this story—finds the strength to honor both her father and herself.

Since the 1990s, a new cohort of Asian American writers has garnered critical and popular attention. Many of its members are the children of Asians who came to the United States after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 lifted long-standing restrictions on immigration. This new generation encompasses writers as diverse as the graphic novelists Adrian Tomine and Gene Luen Yang, the short story writer Nam Le, and the poet Cathy Park Hong. Having scrutinized more than one hundred works by emerging Asian American authors and having interviewed several of these writers, Min Hyoung Song argues that collectively, these works push against existing ways of thinking about race, even as they demonstrate how race can facilitate creativity. Some of the writers eschew their identification as ethnic writers, while others embrace it as a means of tackling the uncertainty that many people feel about the near future. In the literature that they create, a number of the writers that Song discusses take on pressing contemporary matters such as demographic change, environmental catastrophe, and the widespread sense that the United States is in national decline.

A collection of the best graphic pieces published in 2010.

This book deals with the way historical genres are theorized and practiced in the twenty-first century. In the context of the freedoms inspired by postmodernism and enabled by the development of innovative textual and graphic platforms, new theories of history view genres as flexible living forms that inspire more creative and experimental representations of the past. New ways of articulating history compete with the traditional model of historical prose. Acknowledging the current diversity in theories and practices, and assuming the historicity of historical genres, this book engages the reality of historical genres today and explores new directions in historical practice by examining these new forms of representing the past. Thus, without denying the validity of traditional and conventional forms of history (and arguing that these forms remain valid), this book surveys the production of what might be considered new historical genres practiced today, in which the idea of "practical past" is put in practice. Preceded by the introduction and two theoretical articles on historical genres, some of the new forms of history analysed in this book are: historical re-enactments, gaming history, social media, graphic narratives and first-person narratives of, memoirs of trauma, and film-history. This book was originally published as a special issue of Rethinking History.

Asian Americans are a growing, minority population in the United States. After a 46 percent population growth between 2000 and 2010 according to the 2010 Census, there are 17.3 million Asian Americans today. Yet Asian Americans as a category are a diverse set of peoples from over 30 distinctive Asian-origin subgroups that defy simplistic descriptions or generalizations. They face a wide range of issues and problems within the larger American social universe despite the persistence of common stereotypes that label them as a “model minority” for the generalized attributes offered uncritically in many media depictions. Asian American Society: An Encyclopedia provides a thorough introduction to the wide–ranging and fast–developing field of Asian American studies. Published with the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), two volumes of the four-volume encyclopedia feature more than 300 A-to-Z articles authored by AAAS members and experts in the field who examine the social, cultural, psychological, economic, and political dimensions of the Asian American experience. The next two volumes of this work contain approximately 200 annotated primary documents, organized chronologically, that detail the impact American society has had on reshaping Asian American identities and social structures over time. Features: More than 300 articles authored by experts in the field, organized in A-to-Z format, help students understand Asian American influences on American life, as well as the impact of American society on reshaping Asian American identities and social structures over time. A core collection of primary documents and key demographic and social science data provide historical context and key information. A Reader's Guide groups related entries by broad topic areas and themes; a Glossary defines key terms; and a Resource Guide provides lists of books, academic journals, websites and cross references. The multimedia digital edition is enhanced with 75 video clips and features strong search-and-browse capabilities through the electronic Reader’s Guide, detailed index, and cross references. Available in both print and online formats, this collection of essays is a must-have resource for general and research libraries, Asian American/ethnic studies libraries, and social science libraries.

What counts as literacy has been redefined in today's classrooms. Teachers must address what it means to read and live in a multi-literate world that includes both print text and image text. Focused specifically on young adult graphic novels in the four primary content areas--math, language arts, social studies, and science--Using Content-Area Graphic Texts for Learning: A Guide for Middle-Level Educators by Dr. Meryl Jaffe and Dr. Katie Monnin empowers twenty-first-century, middle-school educators to not only better understand content-area graphic novels, but also teach them. Like their print counterparts, graphic texts reinforce traditional content-area thinking skills like memory, attention, cognition, language learning, and sequencing. Unlike print texts, however, comics and graphic novels reach out to diverse types of literacy learners and their particular reading strengths, making them the perfect, high-quality, literary-level texts for core content-area classrooms. Using Content-Area Graphic Texts for Learning begins with the building blocks of graphic novel terminology 101, moves into a detailed look at how graphic texts specifically help and empower different types of learners, and then branches off into specific chapters for each of four content areas: math, language arts, social studies, and science. Each of these content-area chapters includes: an overview of how graphic novels help students tackle, integrate, and enhance content-area material; two content-area lesson plans, each utilizing graphic novels in different ways; a demonstration of what that lesson plan is asking students to do, focusing on five learning skills--attention, memory, language, sequencing, and cognition--and how the lesson aligns with the appropriate content area's Common Core Standards; a discussion on how graphic novels help different types of learners succeed in the content-area classrooms; and a list of suggested graphic novels for each content-area classroom. Jaffe and Monnin more than make the case for using graphic novels as valid young adult literary texts that engage students and meet Common Core State Standards within the content-area classroom.

In a lost-and-found tale that soars far beyond just a happy ending, Taiwanese artist Yang pays affectionate homage to the city of Beijing. Full color.