Book Description from the Front Cover Flap

Writing in the tradition of W.E.B. Du Bois, Cornel West, and others who confronted the "color line" of the twentieth century, journalist, scholar, and activist Frank H. Wu offers a unique perspective on how changing ideas of racial identity will affect race relations in the new century.

Wu's description of the alienation faced by Asian Americans tackles key milestones in history, such as the 1940s internment camps and the 1992 L.A. riots, as well as surprising statistics about the continuing prevalence of anti-Asian sentiment. In May 2001, a major national survey of highly educated individuals showed that almost half of all Americans believe that Chinese Americans are likely to pass secret information to China. About a third agree that Chinese Americans are probably more loyal to China than to the United States, and few distinguish between Chinese Americans and other Asians.

Yellow looks at the problems of racial diversity with a new focus, elevating the age-old debate from its formerly static terms. Wu examines affirmative action, globalization, immigration and other controversial contemporary issues through the lens of the Asian-American experience. Mixing personal anecdotes, legal cases, and journalistic reporting, Wu confronts damaging Asian-American stereotypes such as "the model minority" and "the per-petual foreigner." By offering new ways of thinking about race in American society, Wu's work dares us to make good on our great democratic experiment.

Comments from Back Cover

"Frank Wu's perceptive, provocative and highly readable book is a unique contribution to our understanding of the Asian-American experience."
-STANLEY KARNOW, author of In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines

"Frank Wu writes with power, intelligence and a keen wit. Whether he is dis-cussing the 'model minority myth,' the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, the recent 'Chinese Spy' case, affirmative action and Asian Americans, intermarriage and the mixed race movement---or answering the question 'Do Asians eat dogs?' --Wu is illuminating, insightful and knowledgeable."
-YALE KAMISAR, Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor, University of Michigan Law School

"Wu's sobering, astute, compelling investigation locates the particulars of Asian-American experience with racism in this country's spectrum of ethnic and cultural prejudice."
-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Background on Frank H. Wu