Asian-American Reviews

India Wins Freedom: The Complete Version

Published in Paperback by Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division (1989-10)

Author: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

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An Honest and Unbiased Account of the Freedom Movement

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-03

This book is one of the most honest and unbiased account of the Indian freedom movement. A must read for all Indians/Pakistanis who otherwise have a biased view of the events, based on the history books available in their countries.

In this book, Maulana Azad describes the political events between 1939-1947 and explains his views on the political blunders that lead to partition. While Maulana is severely critical of Jinnah and the Muslim League for playing the communal card, he does not shy away from blaming Nehru for the failure of the Cabinet Mission plan, and Sardar Patel for his indifference towards the loss of muslim life in the aftermath of partition. It is the sad story of a truly secular and nationalist man, whose dream of independance was tainted by the partition of a nation he loved so dearly. Truly honest and thought provoking.

A Bias less Insight into the Indian Freedom Movement

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2005-05-10

The book creates a clear picture of the development of freedom movement in India. It brings out weaknesses which brought up the divided minds which ultimately lead to partition. The reader experiences much pain while going through the outcomes of division which were realized by few. Today's IndoPak presents the testimony of the truthful observations and predictions of Maulana Azad. I think it is the "BOOK OF FUTURE". Very few, especially among Muslims, were able to realize what they were doing by favoring partition. I hope they would surely realize one day what they did and quickly so if they read this book. It would be useful for a Pakistani to read this book.

Truth prevails... but at the cost of precious lives

Helpful Votes: 2 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 1999-09-22

The book is an excellent compilation of the events that shaped the partition of India. Our own flesh worked hard to part with our body. Issues that transpired between our much respected and awed leaders have been brought to the fore. The communal hatred was so deep rooted that imagination only is sufficient to experience the horror. Anyone with a quest for knowing the inside story of those days should read this book. Historical facts may have been twisted by the media then and issues forgotten over time but an autobiography such as this will put straight the facts that happened during the dark ages of turmoil. Many of us will admit that partition, after knowing the facts, was not necessary. We could have lived as one family.

A true portrait of political scenario before independence.

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 1999-04-28

The book by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is a true picture of the Political situation before independence.Depicts politics within politics.

Into the Storm: A U.S. Marine in the Persian Gulf War

Published in Paperback by McFarland & Company (2001-06)

Author: Phillip Thompson

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A gritty, personal look at Desert Shield/Storm

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-17

War may be hell, but waiting for it in a sweltering dockside warehouse or in the mosquito-infested desert is its own form of infernal torment. Thompson, who was among the first U.S. troops sent to protect the Saudi border after Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, vividly describes the confusion, ennui, anger, fear, and occasional satisfactions of a Marine artillery captain caught up in the biggest military campaign since Vietnam. Mixing extensive quotes from his field journals with passages written with a decade's hindsight, Thompson puts the reader into the world of a combat soldier, a universe that shrinks at times to what can be seen with the eyes, heard through the rumor mill, or evoked by letters from home. Here, too, are tales of the fog of war: orders made and countermanded, improvisations brilliant and foolhardy. No one with a historical interest in the Marine Corps' Persian Gulf operations or a personal one in its troops should miss this book.

A gritty, personal look at Desert Shield/Storm

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-17

War may be hell, but waiting for it in a sweltering dockside warehouse or in the mosquito-infested desert is its own form of infernal torment. Thompson, who was among the first U.S. troops sent to protect the Saudi border after Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, vividly describes the confusion, ennui, anger, fear, and occasional satisfactions of a Marine artillery captain caught up in the biggest military campaign since Vietnam. Mixing extensive quotes from his field journals with passages written with a decade's hindsight, Thompson puts the reader into the world of a combat soldier, a universe that shrinks at times to what can be seen with the eyes, heard through the rumor mill, or evoked by letters from home. Here, too, are tales of the fog of war: orders made and countermanded, improvisations brilliant and foolhardy. No one with a historical interest in the Marine Corps' Persian Gulf operations or a personal one in its troops should miss this book.

Thompson pulls no punches.

Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2002-12-20

Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm were a blend of frustration, depression, anxiety and adrenaline rushes. Phillip Thompson captures, with stellar accuracy, the build-up to and conduct of the Persian Gulf War. The reader sees through his eyes how a company grade Marine Corps officer faced family separation, debated the "politicalness" of this conflict, and ultimately served with distinction and courage on the frontlines. The reader can feel the heat of the 120-degree desert, smell the smoke of the burning oil fires and sense the frustration of waiting interminably for the war to begin. This book captured the essence of "my" war better than any other that I've read.

A gritty, personal look at Desert Shield/Storm

Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-17

War may be hell, but waiting for it in a sweltering dockside warehouse or in the mosquito-infested desert is its own form of infernal torment. Thompson, who was among the first U.S. troops sent to protect the Saudi border after Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, vividly describes the confusion, ennui, anger, fear, and occasional satisfactions of a Marine artillery captain caught up in the biggest military campaign since Vietnam. Mixing extensive quotes from his field journals with passages written with a decade's hindsight, Thompson puts the reader into the world of a combat soldier, a universe that shrinks at times to what can be seen with the eyes, heard through the rumor mill, or evoked by letters from home. Here, too, are tales of the fog of war: orders made and countermanded, improvisations brilliant and foolhardy. No one with a historical interest in the Marine Corps' Persian Gulf operations or a personal one in its troops should miss this book.

Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law (Modern Classics in Near Eastern Studies)

Published in Paperback by Princeton University Press (1981-04-01)

Author: Ignaz Goldziher

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A Classic in the field

Helpful Votes: 10 out of 16 total.
Review Date: 1999-10-06

Ignaz Goldziher is a pioneer Islamicists whose views have still not yet been outdated despite new discoveries. An essential read for those who want to have an outsider's opinion on the beliefs and jurisprudence of the religion of Islam.

Islamic Theology

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2005-07-10

By Ignaz Goldziher; translated by Andras and Ruth Hamori; edited by Bernard Lewis. From the back cover: "Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921), a Hungarian scholar, was recognized as one of the outstanding European Islamicists of his time. Presented here for the first time in a scholarly and accurate English translation are six lectures he originally had planned to deliver in America in 1906. Though the lectures were never given, they were published in the original German in 1910 and were translated into many European languages. Since then, this classic work has served as an essential guide for serious students and scholars of Islam." "Based almost entirely on primary sources, the lectures are devoted to the following aspects of Muslim religion and culture: Mohammed and Qur'an; the holy law of Islam; the principles of Muslim theology; asceticism and Sufism; Islamic sects; and developments in modern times." "...Bernard Lewis is Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies, and Andras Hamori is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies, both at Princeton University. Ruth Hamori holds a master's degree in Near Eastern Studies from Harvard University."

classic work of scholarship

Helpful Votes: 6 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2003-04-25

Even though his scholarship is over one hundred years old, Goldziher's scholarship still remains relevant and in use. A parallel could be drawn between the continued importance of Albert Schweitzer's work on NT studies and the continued legacy of Goldziher. This edition of the work is nicely translated and well edited and belongs in the library of anyone interested in Islamic Studies. Along with Muslim Studies, this work remains as an historical monument marking the beginning of modern historical skepticism and critical scholarship towards the Muslim jurisprudential literature.

The Gold Standard for Islamic Studies

Helpful Votes: 9 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 2006-03-30

Having just read the Qur'an, I wanted to learn more about Islam. A study of available literature on the subject revealed that modern writing falls into three basic categories: 1. anti-Islamic polemic; 2. pro-Islamic apologetic; 3. "Impartial" studies overly concerned about political correctness and hyper-careful not to touch off the "Danish cartoonist effect."

What to do? Find something written before all the modern craziness began. Goldziher, a Jew writing at the turn of the 20th Century, prepared this book as a series of lectures to be given on an American tour that never came to fruition. He displays an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of Islamic thought, and presents that knowledge in a sympathetic, even-handed way. He is unstinting in his praise for those things he finds praiseworthy and unflinching in his criticism of those things he finds blameworthy. And there is plenty of both.

As a student of the history of Christianity, I could not help but be struck by the many theological parallels between various schools of Islamic thought and various schools of Christian theology. Goldziher elucidates the influence of Roman Law, Neoplatonism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism upon the formation and growth of Islamic theology. He discusses the differences among Shi'ite, Sunni, and Sufi, and writes on other splinter sects, some of which have died out and some of which still exist.

Of particular interest was Goldziher's treatment of Hadith, and how the Islamic world views the words of the Prophet and his Companions. At its best, there is much to admire about Islam, but there are disturbing currents of thought: the two most dangerous being intolerance and belligerence. At several times in history certain portions of Islamic culture eschewed both to the betterment of contemporary culture. Of course, there are undercurrents of intolerance and belligerence in the Dar al Harb also.

Goldziher opined that the less attractive aspects of Islam were due less to Islam itself than to the culture in which it grew. [Page 16]. Although he did not use the following datum as an example of his point, I think it supports it. Goldziher writes that the earliest Moslems were friendly with their Christian neighbors, and it was only later that they became increasingly hostile to Christianity. It seems that their immediate Christian neighbors were Arab Christians who were considered heretics by the Byzantine Church. In the spirit of brotherly love the Byzantine Christians hated the Arab Christians and vice versa. As Arab Christianity was assimilated into Islam, hatred for Byzantine Christianity (and by extension Christianity in general) was assimilated into Islam also. [Page 33, footnote 3]. It seems the irony of this was lost on Goldziher, else he would not have buried the datum in a footnote.

Japan 1945: A U.S. Marine's Photographs From Ground Zero

Published in Hardcover by Vanderbilt University Press (2005-02-28)

Author: Joe ODonnell

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Revealing Photographic History

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2006-09-15

Joe O'Donnell captured the aftermath of World War II with his photographic record of the Japanese rubble. As a 23 year-old US Marine, O'Donnell served as a photographer, and a sample of the photographs he took are included in his book, JAPAN 1945: A US MARINE'S PHOTOGRAPHS FROM GROUND ZERO. The collection is a visual snapshot of the Japanese landscape of the cities and towns, Sasebo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, almost a month after the atomic bombings and air raids.

Indeed, JAPAN 1945 includes poignant and moving exposures of remnants of the worn torn landscape. The book is a composition of photographs of O'Donnell's seventh month long tour of the Japanese cities in which he documented what was left of the cities -- pure destruction without a living thing in sight. There are numerous shots worth mentioning, such as the boy and his young brother on the cover of the book, the boy served as O'Donnell's guide through the streets of Hiroshima, as well a man severely burned, "Victim with Rope" who is covered with an immense amount of clothing in order to protect his skin. However, there are also photographs depicting reconstruction, such as the shot where a teacher leads a class with the classroom still intact despite the outside view of the devastating rubble that lurks in the background.

JAPAN 1945 is an excellent photographic record of the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. O'Donnell's account of what he had seen has been best described not with words, but with the photographs he presents. The book may further provide a better understanding of World War II history as well as how photographs provide a template to how history is interpreted.

A Striking, Yet Poignant View of the Atomic Bombings

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2005-08-18

Photographer Joe O'Donnell, a 23-year-old Marine assigned to the occupation of Japan, has released many of his photographs that he took while on station. Locked away for some 45 years, these vivid, graphic, and moving photos show what life was like immediately after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

O'Donnell's photo archive begins with images from his arrival in Japan. A prayer service offered aboard a landing ship, and the unloading of equipment are shown in this section. The harbor at Sasebo is photographed with many American ships filling its waters, but it is in this section where the reader gets their first glimpse of the level of destruction wrought by American planes; most of the surrounding city is literally flattened. Many displaced Japanese citizens are shown wandering the streets of what has become a barren wasteland.

O'Donnell has also included images of American soldiers giving candy to Japanese children, and Japanese geishas performing dances. Images of children with babies strapped to their backs cleaning rubble and elderly displaced civilians with few or no possessions really touch the reader.

The most eye-catching part of the book for me was the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both cities were literally wiped off the face of the earth; only massive piles of rubble remained. O'Donnell had to travel by horse to navigate through the massive piles of debris. Images of people wandering about aimlessly, smashed factories, and burn victims dominate this part of the book.

The most piognant pictures I saw in the book are the one of the three brothers in Nagasaki; the eldest pushing his brothers in a make-shift cart, and the most heartbreaking one, the photo of the child who has come to the cremation site in Nagasaki with his dead baby brother strapped to his back, all the while struggling to keep from crying. I can't remember seeing a more moving photograph.

This is a tremendous book. Each photograph tells its own story, and O'Donnell has provided excellent narrative above each photo. I highly recommend this fine book. Open it up and take a photographic journey through a defeated Japan. Some photos will inspire awe; others pity, and you'll get a true sense of what it was like in Japan immediately after the war ended.

Very moving

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2005-04-24

Could it be that we see a photo of an 8 or 9 year old boy bringing the body of his dead baby brother to a site in Nagasaki for cremation? Could it be that this photo was taken by a 23 year old American Marine? Would it be possible that the Marine was mistaken, perhaps he misunderstood? Perhaps the baby is only sleeping. Alas, the older brother's face belies the truth as the baby's body hangs lifeless. Marine photographer Joe O'Donnell was obviously moved by many of the photos he took during his time in Japan, just after the war ended.

But it's not just bombed out cities that he shares with us. There are happier times when American GI's were talking to children, geisha and hotel maids and other slices of Japanese life that would interest most any foreigner (or perhaps today's Japanese even). We can only wonder how many other photos he has that are have not been published.

I think Japanese history is at its most interesting when it interacts (or collides) with other countries. O'Donnell shares with us images of a Japan that no longer is. Perhaps Japan never has publicly atoned for its war time actions sufficiently; but this book shows clearly that it certainly was punished sufficiently.

Striking Photos of the Aftermath of War

Helpful Votes: 9 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2005-03-12

We've all seen the pictures of Hiroshima where everything but the shells of a few building is flattened. Here are seventy-four pictures from several cities, fire-bombed with conventional munitions, not atomic bombs, that look just as devastated, just as destroyed.

But more than that are pictures of the people. There's a picture of the crowd at an Athletic Day - women, children, and old men - the young men are gone, probably never to return. There's a picture of a young boy, perhaps eight years old. To his back is strapped his little brother, perhaps one year old. The little brother is dead and the boy is delivering him to the cremation site.

Yes the pictures from other wars, the child at the railway station after the rape of Nanking, those from the camps in Germany are equally tragic. Even the pictures showing Charleston after Sherman's army went through show this kind of destruction.

But there is a special feeling I get from these pictures. Perhaps it comes as a residual of the racial hatred this country felt towards Japan. I hope not, but the fact is that these striking photographs make me feel terrible.

The King and the Corpse

Published in Paperback by Princeton University Press (1971-11-01)

Author: Heinrich Robert Zimmer

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the tales that teach

Helpful Votes: 10 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2002-05-15

I just love this book. The story from which the book takes its title profoundly affected me the first time I read it: it is the story of an Indian king who has to take part in a quest.This turns out to be an unexpected and thoroughly comprehensive lesson in life and the king emerges from it as a new and wiser person. You will also feel different after reading it. All the stories related in this book are incredibly old but can still connect with the deepest part of our souls. A book to reread.

Shimmering Zimmer

Helpful Votes: 10 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 1999-11-23

In the tradition of Johann Jacob Bachhofen and in league with those such as Joseph Campbell, Heinrich Zimmer"s "The King and The Corpse" gets about as good as you will find with respect to comparative mythology. I highly recommend any Jung readers to visit Zimmer's brilliant pages. I also find the melding of Western and Eastern myth systems to be superb. Here is an adventurous path to follow.

Shimmering Zimmer

Helpful Votes: 15 out of 17 total.
Review Date: 1999-11-24

In the tradition of Johann Jacob Bachhofen and in league with those such as Joseph Campbell, Heinrich Zimmer"s "The King and The Corpse" gets about as good as you will find with respect to comparative mythology. I highly recommend any Jung readers to visit Zimmer's brilliant pages. I also find the melding of Western and Eastern myth systems to be superb. Here is an adventurous path to follow.

A must have for the chela on any esoteric path!

Helpful Votes: 16 out of 21 total.
Review Date: 1998-01-04

Indologist Heinrich Zimmer provides an easy to comprehend text taking four time-out-of-mind-myths and relating them to the esoteric "grail" path! It makes an excellent study for the seeker/student who would wish to follow Wolfgang Von Eckenback's "I learned my ABC's without the use of black magic".

In this writers opinion very few scholars have been suited to blend eastern thought processess into western concepts. Zimmer adeptly crosses this void as if stepping over a puddle of water, making "The King and The Corpse" highly informative and a joy of the heart to ponder.

If you are a seeker on any esoteric path you will find yourself and your 'map' within it's cover.

Shri Rajeshwari Pujari Maharaja

Liquid Life

Published in Paperback by Princeton University Press (1994-10-17)

Author: William R. LaFleur

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An excellent read for the student of modern day Japan.

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 1998-12-21

Liquid Life is an intriging look at abortion in modern day Japan. The argument is well formulated and the publication is well researched. Liquid Life is an excellent read. Those attempting to understand Japan MUST comprehend the abortion issue in the country today. *****

An Excellent Book, Well Written and Well Researched

Helpful Votes: 14 out of 17 total.
Review Date: 2000-11-22

I can heartily recommend this book. I once took a course taught by LaFleur which was one of the best courses on understanding Japanese Buddhism and the practice of abortion. This book matches his good lecturing style.

What is interesting is that in the West abortion is viewed in primarily negative terms, as is infanticide. LaFleur's initial attitude was: How can Japanese engage in this kind of activity on such a large scale? What role does belief in reincarnation (according to Buddhism) play?

Rather than bringing in Western moral preconceptions that might prejudge his discussion, LaFleur treats this sensitive topic with great insight and sensitivity. This book will be a very interesting read for those interested in Japanese society and Buddhism.

Brilliant and Necessary

Helpful Votes: 8 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-15

This is, of course, a book about Japan and Japanese attitudes
toward birth, death and the fragility of life. Because it is
also a book about abortion, it also touches on an issue that
is incredibly hot in America even as abortion has become
an uncontroversial fact of life in most of the rest of the
world.
So it is a tribute to the author's scholarship as well as to
the scope of his world view that he stays true to the business
of explaining a Japanese Buddhist take on the world without
overtly indulging in taking sides in the American controversy.
It' a tribute to his depth of understanding that in spite of
this lack of partisanship, this splendid book has something to
teach us all and some light to shed on the American debate.

It would oversimplify LaFleur's arguement to sum it up, but one
thread is something like this. The Japanese view of a newborn
is that it is a potential life. This view is even more emphatic
in the case of an unborn-a foetus. People become people in
this view by a gradual process of socialization.
Rather than being heartless, this way of looking at things has
a great deal to recommend it-especially in days when infant
mortality was high. Parents who lost a new-born or an unborn
child could pray for the return of that child in a subsequent
pregnancy. The ritual system, which provided no funeral for
one who died so young, affirmed the tentative nature of the
dead one's membership in the human community.
If it takes socialization to make a human and a family to make
socialization, then it is also up to the community and the
family to decide if that's going to happen at all. In this
view, life in infancy is a liquid that hardens into indiv-
iduality with time.
So infant death and miscarriage are sad, but not final. The
unborn child gets to come around again, maybe with better karma.
This, of course, removes abortion from the realm of murder/
choice. It also forces all of us to see our various positons
in the American debate as products of our social and religious
assumptions just as the Japanese view is the product of theirs.

Again, this is not a book about the American abortion wars.
It is instead, a splendid book about Japanese religious beliefs
across a swath of history and how they affect attitudes. By
staying true to his topic, LaFleur teaches us a great deal.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN
9781601640005

Not just a book about Japan...

Helpful Votes: 9 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2002-07-02

William R. LaFleur gives us a book which is well made. Piece by piece Mr. LaFleur goes over the history of abortion, buddhism, family planning, sexuality attitudes and even woman's lib in Japan. By the time he reaches his conclusion, you can't help but feel like you, yourself, have also researched and processed all the information.

Near the end, when he compares the Japanese ideas to American ideas on the issue, you can't help but feel that maybe it was all a well placed trap, to get you to look at the whole mess from a different point of view, not just the pro-life/pro-choice, good/bad, yes/no, on/off American way (where every issue only has two sides and the winner gets total victory, so no mercy!)

You might not like some of the points made, but it will sure force you to think.

Locating Filipino Americans (Asian American History & Cultu)

Published in Hardcover by Temple University Press (2000-08-31)

Author: Rick Bonus

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Power in Everyday Life

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-05

This review was published in the fall 2001 issue of _The Pacific Reader: An Asian Pacific North American Review of Books(..) Central to Bonus’ argument is that although Filipino Americans are the second largest Asian American group in the nation, and the largest in California, there is a common complaint that they are mostly invisible from mainstream history, scholarship, media and positions of power. (...)

Self-reflexivity in a world of possibility.

Helpful Votes: 26 out of 27 total.
Review Date: 2004-01-16

Locating Filipino Americans by Rick Bonus is by definition an ethnographic study. Having said that, ethnographic studies carry with them the benefits and risks of undertaking such a project. As most ethnographic studies of this nature are concerned one is able to push forward an agenda without really stating one's agenda up front. In this case, however, bonus is clear that his agenda is plainly descriptive. He deftly moves to describe the Filipino American communities in both Los Angeles and San Diego. Bonus is also clear that he is working within a multi-disciplinary framework and he is examining the connection between identity and space. Bonus posits that particular spaces allow Filipino Americans to react to and oppose the ways in which the dominant discourse has throughout history and via hegemonic institutions have removed this group of agency, hence voice. Bonus zeroes in on three particular "spaces." [1] "Oriental" stores, [2] the community centers (where the pinoys practice "palengke" politics), and [3] through the media via the local newspapers.

Identifying the spaces and articulating our mechanisms of resistance Bonus does us a big favor. First, he allows to see what it is we are doing. In this sense he makes us more self-reflective. Second, through this articulation we can now be self-reflective of how we use these mechanisms of resistance to our advantage. Self-reflexivity then allows us to move forward more aware of our actions and move towards some form of positive change. Bonus is also good at showing us how we "invent" ourselves (although the fetish for liminality does not really allow us to pin stuff down in any definite way) and through a reverse sense of "Orientalism" (see his references to Edward Said) in that we tend to appropriate what is needed and exclude what is not useful in an effort to cope with the situation at hand. On the other hand, it seems like Bonus is flirting with the idea that migration becomes a homogenizing experience - which the next generation is losing touch with their roots and becoming more "american" or what they perceive "american" to be. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing but that it is part of an ever-changing landscape of self-identity. Bonus alludes to several really key things that he does not really follow through with. What is missing is the complexity within the community itself. Bonus begins to write about the 150+ sub-groupings under COPAO in San Diego and another 200+ sub-groupings in San Diego. He alludes to a historical development in terms of migration (with a link to colonialism) and intra-ethnic division and loyalty that undermines social as well as political unity. Consider this work then a seed to even further complexity and exploration. Locating Filipino Americans is unique in that Bonus is grounded in a theoretical framework that allows us to get a better understanding of the state of affairs.

As much as labels allude to a sense of clear-cut definitions, Filipino Americans are the second largest Asian-American group in America just behind the Chinese. The Filipino-American community should be grateful and use this book in an effort to get a better understanding and potential that is clearly self-evident. Bonus has done an important piece that is as informative and thought provoking as it is inspiring.

Miguel Llora

Power in Everyday Life

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-05

This review was published in the fall 2001 issue of _The Pacific Reader: An Asian Pacific North American Review of Books_.

Why do I feel such a deep sense of comfort when I am rummaging through dried fish, canned sardines and Spam at one of the many corner groceries along Jackson Street and Beacon Hill? What social function could "Filipino Time" (i.e., being perpetually late for meetings) serve for Filipino Americans? Or why is it that many times community meetings proceed like chaotic and politically-heated yelling matches?

Perhaps one of the more auspicious experiences of a reader is the time when something, whether a written or visual work, empowers one to see the everyday world freshly and with new eyes. Moreover, for someone like myself, who was a student of Asian American Studies, it is additionally gratifying to witness a new generation of Filipino American scholars making significant contributions to academia in such an original manner. Rick Bonus is currently an assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, and he obtained his Ph.D. in Communications at the University of California, San Diego. His first book, Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity & the Cultural Politics of Space, is a highly accessible ethnographic study that analyzes the seemingly mundane worlds of Filipino "Oriental" stores and strip malls, community newspapers and beauty pageants in Southern California, and uncovers a powerfully rich and complex network of community building and resistance to racialization by Filipino American women and men.

Central to Bonus' argument is that although Filipino Americans are the second largest Asian American group in the nation, and the largest in California, there is a common complaint that they are mostly invisible from mainstream history, scholarship, media and positions of power. This systematic form of exclusion on the basis of race and ethnicity has encouraged Filipino Americans "to respond to and resist invisibility, exploitation, silencing, and racial constructing, by history and by institutions, as well as a desire to claim a `space' within the rubric `American' on their own terms."

His analysis of these "spaces" in stores, community centers, newspapers and pageants shows Filipino Americans attempting to construct an identity that is both Filipino and American while interrogating it at the same time. This dynamic of resistance and interrogation is something that has historical roots in the Philippines' colonial history and a people's cultural attempts to flourish and define themselves despite oppression, categorization, and tremendous regional diversity. Bonus argues that these particular cultural practices directly challenge these forms of exclusion and invisibility while also reflecting an effort to claim a self-determined space in America.

In his study of these commercial establishments, Bonus combines oral interviews, multi-disciplinary theories, history and ethnographic fieldwork and provides sophisticated and thorough analyses of his findings. What is refreshing is not only the telling Taglish (i.e., a combination of Tagalog and English) responses by interviewees to his questions, but his scholarly commitment to the interviewees of the study. One can see that he understands the art of the interview because he is successful in having their rich voices and concerns speak for themselves. He preserves the excruciating details of the interviews so well that I can imagine them taking place before me - facial expressions, hand gestures and all.

Furthermore, I appreciated his conscious admission of his own location as an ethnographer in relation to the interviewees, and how his facility in Tagalog, his education and generational status opened certain doors to him that perhaps would not be open for other ethnographers. Bonus' scholarly eye roamed in these spaces being very much aware of his position as both a critical observer and a Filipino American, absorbing the meaningful details in his encounters with great openness, depth and reflection. Throughout the book, there are numerous instances where he lyrically describes the bustling in a community center before a big pageant, the cramped quarters of a small newspaper's offices and a reporter's passion to cover a story, or the noise and pungent smells of the market. Such descriptions capture a particular cultural spirit, setting the foreground for the poetic and political voices of the community members and their own views of what these spaces mean to them as individuals and as a collective.

Bonus' first book is an important contribution to interdisciplinary studies on the politics of race and space, and how identity is constructed and communities are enlivened on a daily basis. I don't think I will approach an Oriental store or participate in a meeting in the same manner anymore because this book has provided a sophisticated articulation of what such individual activities mean on a local, national and international scale. Now that this promising scholar is currently teaching at the University of Washington, I am very eager to see his research relate to Filipino Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

Power in Everyday Life

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-05