A scholar and activist's brilliant socio-political examination of Asians Americans who refuse to assimilate and instead build their own belonging on their own terms outside of mainstream American institutions, transforming the ways we understand race, class, and citizenship in America.
In this hard-hitting and deeply personal book, a combination of manifesto and memoir, scholar, sociologist, and activist Bianca Mabute-Louie examines and transforms the ways we understand race, class, American respectability, and the concept of assimilation and its impact on Asian American communities from the nineteenth century to present day.
Divided into four parts, Unassimilable opens with a focus on the San Gabriel Valley (SGV), the first Asian ethnoburb in Los Angeles County and in the nation, where she grew up. A suburban residential and commercial area with a conspicuous cluster of Asian immigrants, SGV thrives not because of its assimilation into Whiteness, but because of its unapologetic catering to its immigrant community.
In part two, Mabute-Louie examines “Predominantly White Institutions with a lot of Asians” and how these institutions shape the contentious racial politics of Asian Americans and Asian internationals, including the fight against affirmative action and the fight for ethnic studies. She moves on to interrogate the role of the immigrant church and religion in part three, showing how, for many immigrants, the church is a sanctuary even as it is an extension of Whiteness, colonialism, and the American Empire. In part four, Bianca looks to the future, boldly proposing a reconsideration of the term Asian American for a new label that better clarifies who Asians in America are today.
Unassimilable offers a radical vision of Asian American political identity informed by a refusal of Whiteness and collective care for each other. It is a forthright and accessible declaration against assimilation and in service of cross-racial, anti-imperialist solidarity and revolutionary politics. Scholarly yet accessible, informative and informed, this important book is a major addition to Ethnic Studies and American Studies.
