A|P|A Histories
Welcome to the A|P|A Histories web site!
This site is a public site for and about Asian Pacific American history. Produced by the Asian Pacific American History Collective, the site presents Asian Pacific American history as it is currently conceived and understood by scholars and others working on the subject. It contains many materials including interpretative essays, historical episodes, original documents and objects (in electronic form), and supplemental resources such as chronologies, bibliographies, teaching lessons, and links to other web sites.
There is no single way to approach the information and knowledge presented here since the purpose is to allow visitors to explore the site in their own fashion and at their own pace. However, the site is organized into different sections that reflect the kinds of historical information presented: histories, episodes, materials, resources, and comments (with a
final section for credits). For visitors who prefer the broad sweep of history and arguments that stimulate, we suggest one of four interpretative histories on: Empire, the Body, Culture, and Borders/Boundaries.
And for those visitors who prefer suggestions, here is the beginning of one of our historical episodes . . .
Asian/Pacific Islander American Women in U.S. History
In the current attention to differences among Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans (A/PIAs), their commonalities are often overlooked. A/PIA women can differ in their social, economic, political and cultural characteristics and in their historical and contemporary experiences, yet they share being misrepresented in history. In this essay, I briefly discuss different historical perspectives of A/PIA women. Long-standing perceptions diminish their significance and distort their historic role and contributions, while new scholarship of the past fifteen years, in particular, seeks to recover and redefine A/PIA womenís participation and activities largely through the perspectives of the women themselves and using womenís voices and writings. Such a shift in the study of A/PIA women contests established historiography (the theory and practice of writing history) about Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans specifically, and about U.S. history and women in U.S. history in general.
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