This scholarly examination specifically focuses on Korean-American identity, particularly in regards to Korean-American youth, after 9/11. The text represents an important contribution to Korean-American studies.

This in-depth examination: debunks the simplistic "culture of poverty" argument that is often used to explain the success of Asian Americans and the failure of other minorities; illustrates how Asian Americans, in different social and economic contexts, negotiate ties to their families and ethnic communities, construct ethnic and racial identities, and gain access to good schooling and institutional support; offers specific recommendations on how to involve first-generation immigrant parents and ethnic community members in schools to foster academic success; and looks at implications for developing educational policies that more fully address the needs of second-generation children."--BOOK JACKET.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This unique book explores the role smartphones play in the lives of Korean American youths as they explore their identities and navigate between fitting into their host society and their Korean heritage. Employing multiple methodologies, it gives voice to the youths' personal experiences, identity struggles, and creative digital media practices.

A “provocative and sweeping” (Time) blend of family history and original reportage that explores—and reimagines—Asian American identity in a Black and white world “[Kang’s] exploration of class and identity among Asian Americans will be talked about for years to come.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, Mother Jones In 1965, a new immigration law lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigrants to the United States. Nobody, including the lawmakers who passed the bill, expected it to transform the country’s demographics. But over the next four decades, millions arrived, including Jay Caspian Kang’s parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They came with almost no understanding of their new home, much less the history of “Asian America” that was supposed to define them. The Loneliest Americans is the unforgettable story of Kang and his family as they move from a housing project in Cambridge to an idyllic college town in the South and eventually to the West Coast. Their story unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Asian America, as millions more immigrants, many of them working-class or undocumented, stream into the country. At the same time, upwardly mobile urban professionals have struggled to reconcile their parents’ assimilationist goals with membership in a multicultural elite—all while trying to carve out a new kind of belonging for their own children, who are neither white nor truly “people of color.” Kang recognizes this existential loneliness in himself and in other Asian Americans who try to locate themselves in the country’s racial binary. There are the businessmen turning Flushing into a center of immigrant wealth; the casualties of the Los Angeles riots; the impoverished parents in New York City who believe that admission to the city’s exam schools is the only way out; the men’s right’s activists on Reddit ranting about intermarriage; and the handful of protesters who show up at Black Lives Matter rallies holding “Yellow Peril Supports Black Power” signs. Kang’s exquisitely crafted book brings these lonely parallel climbers together and calls for a new immigrant solidarity—one rooted not in bubble tea and elite college admissions but in the struggles of refugees and the working class.