Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang

★★★★★

As fun as it is informative!

This book is about the rise of Asian America, a self-defined community (separate from the idea of "Asians in America") that broke through stereotypes and bamboo ceilings. The growth of Asian America's visibility was spurred by the coming of age of kids born to a wave of Asian immigrants who first arrived in the U.S. when exclusionary immigration laws were lifted in the late 1960s. 

I am one of those kids! This book, more than any other, resonated with me in an unprecedented way. It absolutely made me feel seen. Everything, literally everything, down to the list of songs in "Original Synth: The Anthems of Young Asian America" (p. 26-27) rang true for me. In "Finding Our Religion" (p. 279), I actually burst out laughing at #27: "People singing hymns in an Asian language and English at the same time, creating cacophony" (p. 281) - a hilarious truth I witnessed in my youth and had totally forgotten.

Rise is a collection of essays, illustrations, graphic novel content, photos, timelines, lists, infographics, quotes, commentary - all of it raising up Asian American people, culture, accomplishments, and issues. The three authors - whose work I've followed online for years! - wrote most of the content, but plenty of other prominent Asian Americans have bylines or were interviewed. (If you aren't familiar with a particular contributor, there's a handy list with biographical blurbs at the back of the book.) It's very much a coffee table book - printed on heavy,  photo quality paper with content organized in colorful, eye-catching, easy-to-digest chunks - but I read it from start to finish, cover-to-cover, every word, every caption. I just could not get enough of it.

The vast majority of the book upliftingly covers "the good", e.g., Asian American representation in entertainment, sports, arts, politics, etc. Sufficient space is also given to "the bad", e.g., yellowface and cultural appropriation, and "the ugly", e.g., controversial topics like tiger parenting.

Though the book's subtitle focuses attention on the 1990s and later, there's actually a very enlightening "Before" section that presents a brief but thorough overview of Asian American history through the 1980s. I was in high school and college during the 1990s, so that section felt personally nostalgic for me. And with much of the 2010s still fresh in my mind, I really enjoyed getting a behind-the-scenes look at Fresh Off the Boat, Crazy Rich Asians, Linsanity, and #StarringJohnCho.