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The author sets out to construct an analytical framework
for understanding immigration in general, and then provides for case studies
pertaining to Asian immigrants to the United States. By way of linear
progressing, she makes efforts to delineate how the process of immigration
can be aptly comprehended in terms of (1) background conditions in the home
country and the immigrant’s personal status and experience, (2) push and
pull factors for immigration, (3) characteristics of emigration and
immigration, (4) responses of the receiving country, (5) the immigrant’s
adjustments to the receiving country, and (6) policy implications from the
perspective of human services. After succinctly and yet comprehensively
describing historical development of Asian immigration waves into the United
States, she embarks on investigating these facets of immigration in rich
details. Through out the book, she takes a keen gender consciousness to
ensure that the female dimension immigration is not left out. Except for
policy recommendations (chapters 6, 7, 9), the author’s narrative of her
personal experience in immigration is most fascinating (epilogue).
While not neglecting non-economic elements such as
political turmoil and social repression at home, the author seems to equate
the immigrant’s educational and vocational capabilities and economic,
social, and political status with the opportunity for immigration (pp.
5-11). Nevertheless, as these background conditions can only account for
ease shifting gears for prospective immigrants, the traditional dichotomy of
push and pull factors appears more fruitful (chapters 2-3). By tracing the
history of China, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Korea back to the
second half of the 19th century, she elucidates the patterns of
immigration in these countries, and then fleshes out those in the post-1965
era, when American immigration policies became relatively less restrictive.
She is keen to point out that professionals/students and refugees are
replacing labor immigrants. It would be stimulating to further probe into
how the condition of the sending country is coterminous with the
capabilities of would-be immigrants. In other words, those immigrants had
obtained English proficiency in addition to professional skills with a hope
to secure freedom along with economic affluence. A famous saying in Taiwan
during the Cold War era would testify to this causal calculation: “Come the
National Taiwan University and go to the United States.”
The strongest parts are thee chapter on immigrants’
adjustment after successful emigration and those on human services
policies. By drawing a continuum of adjustment from acculturation,
assimilation, integration, accommodation, separation, marginalization, and
rejection, the author looks into how Asian Americans have achieved
professional excellence, and modified their cultural norms (chapter 5). The
chapter devoted to the second-generation USAsians is particularly valuable
in the light of biculturalism and interracial marriage (chapter 8).
It is
unfortunate that Taiwanese Americans are not treated detached from China as
the two countries have separately political routes for the past century and
thus share different national identities. Furthermore, the native Taiwanese
elites had in the past chosen to study in the United States in order to
escape the authoritarian alien Nationalist regime (KMT) until the later
1980s, as the author has rightly pointed out (p. 85),
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