Asian American and Pacific Histories

Asian American and Pacific histories examines how migration, colonialism, and imperial expansion have shaped the lives, cultures, and identities of Asian and Pacific Islander communities across and beyond national borders. Rather than treating these communities as simply arriving into a preexisting American context, scholars trace the longer entanglements of U.S. empire in Asia and the Pacific — from territorial annexation to military occupation — that structured who moved where, under what conditions, and with what legal standing. Literary and cultural texts serve as especially rich sources here, revealing how people navigated racial categorization, belonging, and loss in ways that formal archives often obscure. Active debates in the field turn on how to hold "Asian American" and "Pacific Islander" together without flattening distinct colonial histories, and on how transnational frameworks can account for communities whose ties cross multiple empires simultaneously.

Works

160,970

Total citations

241,371

Keywords

Asian AmericanTransnationalRaceColonialismEmpirePacific