May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. It’s a time of celebration of the lives and legacies of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Every month on Lake Effect, we partner with the Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) for our Book of the Month Series to bring you new reading recommendations.
Dan Lee, a local history librarian at the Milwaukee Public Library, shares Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy. Choy's book shares the nearly 200-year history of Asian migration, labor and community formation in the U.S.
Lee emphasizes that Choy's book focuses on the histories of all Asian Americans with a timeline starting with the current COVID-19 pandemic. "[Choy] takes more of a conversational approach than what you see with traditional linear history books," Lee says. "She actually starts off with COVID-19 in the rise of anti-Asian hate, and then she works her way backward in time."
To learn more about local AAPI history, Lee recommends Chinese Milwaukee by David B. Holmes and Wenbin Yuan. Milwaukee's Chinese community is the oldest Asian American community that dates back to the 1880s, Lee describes.
"You'll see photos of restaurants and laundries and, you know, residents, the First Baptist Church that used to stand on Ogden Avenue. It gives you a sense that the Chinese have been in Milwaukee for almost a century and a half."
Lee also recommends reading Hmong in Wisconsin by Mai Zong Vue to learn more about Milwaukee's largest Asian ethnic group.
"There are as many ethnicities in Asia as there are in Europe or in Africa and elsewhere around the world, but a lot of times you hear people say they all look alike, but we know that's not true," says Lee.
More reads can be found on MPL's AAPI booklist.
MPL's events in May include a book club discussion of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko at the Zablocki Library on May 8 at 6:00 p.m. More resources are available at the MPL ABC-CLIO American Mosaic as well.
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