Struggles to become 'Americans': Historical and contemporary experiences of Asian Pacific American immigrants in children's and young adult fiction, 1945--1999

The purposes of the study are (1) to document the body of literature for youth about Asian Pacific Americans, (2) to identify publishing trends in children's and young adult fiction books about Asian Pacific Americans that were published between 1945 and 1999, (3) to examine the artistic and literary quality and perspectives from which the books were written, and (4) to investigate the kinds of Asian Pacific American experiences that writers reconstruct for young readers about the post War World II and contemporary eras.; The research techniques employed are both quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative approach was used to record descriptive data of publishing trends and perspectives from which the books were written. The qualitative approach was employed to obtain narrative data about literary quality and Asian Pacific American experiences reflected in the texts' themes. A theoretical framework was adopted in which three categories of books, "Social Conscience" books, "Melting Pot" books, and "Culturally Conscious" books, were identified for qualitative data analysis.; Two hundred and seventy titles of children's fiction books were identified as books about Asian Pacific Americans that were published between 1945 and 1999. Although the publishing trends demonstrate an increase in quantity and improvement in quality, the number of books published is extremely insignificant as compared to the several thousands of children's books published each year in the United States. Further, stereotypic and culturally inauthentic portrayals were major problems in the past and they persist in the recent publications as well. Other trends include few authors of Asian Pacific American background, emergence of pan-Asian-Pacific-American books, the emergence of interracial family and transracial adoption stories, and so forth. The investigation of perspectives revealed that books with a social conscience are message-laden and the majority of them suffer from flawed characterization and mediocre writing. Most of the melting pot books are mediocre creations as well and contain stereotypical images. One third of the 270 books are culturally conscious books that have Asian Pacific American as main characters and detail the richness of growing up simultaneously Asian Pacific American and American. They illuminate the distinctiveness and diversity of the Asian Pacific American experiences.