LibGuides: Asian Studies: Diaspora Studies

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Selected Reference Books:

Asian American History and Culture
With overview essays and more than 400 A-Z entries, this exhaustive encyclopedia documents the history of Asians in America from earliest contact to the present day. Organized topically by group, with an in-depth overview essay on each group, the encyclopedia examines the myriad ethnic groups and histories that make up the Asian American population in the United States.
Asian American Society : An Encyclopedia
Asian American Society: An Encyclopedia provides a thorough introduction to the wide-ranging and fast-developing field of Asian American studies. Published with the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), two volumes of the four-volume encyclopedia feature more than 300 A-to-Z articles authored by AAAS members and experts in the field who examine the social, cultural, psychological, economic, and political dimensions of the Asian American experience
Canada's Diverse Peoples : A Reference Sourcebook
From profound racism in the 19th and early 20th centuries to a radical shift in immigration policy in the 1960s, this reference explores the past 1000 years of ethnicity in Canada. It features numerous primary documents from a host of archives and an annotated timeline.

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Selected Journals by Title:

BC Studies

Canadian Ethnic Studies

Diaspora Studies

South Asian Diaspora

The International Migration Review

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal: APMJ

Journal of International Migration and Integration

To find additional journals search the Journal Titles Database

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Search the Library Catalogue for books & videos:

Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia
Migration is at the heart of Asian history. For centuries migrants have tracked the routes and seas of their ancestors - merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, and sailors - along the Silk Road and across the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Over the last 150 years, however, migration within Asia and beyond has been greater than at any other time in history.
Asian Diasporas : Cultures, Identities, Representations
Asian diasporas are all too often seen in terms of settlement problems in a host nation, where the focus is on issues of crime, housing, employment, racism and related concerns. The essays in this volume view Asian diasporic movements in the context of globalization and global citizenship, in which multiple cultural allegiances, influences and claims together create complex negotiations of identity.

Search the Library Catalogue for additional items:

Asians -- Foreign countries.

Asian Diaspora

Multiculturalism -- British Columbia

Multiculturalism -- Canada

Canada -- Ethnic relations.

Cultural pluralism -- Canada.

British Columbia -- Race relations

Canada -- Race relations.

Canada -- Racism

Being Chinese in Canada : The Struggle for Identity, Redress and Belonging
Many in multicultural Canada feel the issues of cultural identity and the struggle for belonging. Although Being Chinese in Canada is a personal recollection and an exploration of the history and culture of Chinese Canadians, the themes of inclusion and kinship are timely and will resonate with Canadians of all backgrounds.
Blossoms in the Gold Mountains : Chinese Settlements in the Fraser Canyon and the Okanagan
In this long awaited third book, author Lily Chow further explores Chinese settlement in BC. In the nineteenth century, thousands of Chinese immigrants arrived in British Columbia to work as labourers. After the Fraser Gold Rush and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway ended, many Chinese could not afford to return to their home in China. Blossoms in the Gold Mounta ins is the story of those that stayed in BC and settled in the Fraser Canyon, Okanagan and the Spallumcheen Valley.
Coming Home in Gold Brocade : Chinese in Early Northwest America
Although most historians of Chinese immigration to the United States focus on California, Coming Home in Gold Brocade delves into the contributions, trials, and daily lives of the Chinese living in the Pacific Northwest and adjoining Canadian provinces between 1788 and 1911.

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Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet : BC's Japanese Canadian Fishermen
Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet is an intimate collection of stories of Japanese Canadians on the water, from the first Japanese immigrant's arrival in 1877 to the present day. The 130-year history of the Nikkei is full of drama, violence, epic struggles against injustice, failures and triumphs. Leaving Japan to escape a life of poverty, they arrived in Canada with dreams for a better future. Collectively, they brought old skills and made many innovations.
A tragedy of Democracy : Japanese Confinement in North America
The confinement of some 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, often called the Japanese American internment, has been described as the worst official civil rights violation of modern U. S. history. Greg Robinson not only offers a bold new understanding of these events but also studies them within a larger time frame and from a transnational perspective.
Redress : Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice
This passionate and important book-part memoir, part critical examination-explores the Japanese Canadian redress movement of the late 20th century, which sought compensation from the federal government for the internment of citizens of Japanese descent during World War II.

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The Punjabis in British Columbia : Location, Labour, First Nations, and Multiculturalism
In this richly detailed study, Kamala Nayar documents the social and cultural transformation of the Punjabi community in British Columbia. From their initial settlement in the rural Skeena region to the communities that later developed in larger urban centres, The Punjabis in British Columbia illustrates the complex and diverse experiences of an immigrant community that merits greater attention.
Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver : Three Generations Amid Tradition, Modernity and Multiculturalism
Canadian Sikhs have seen great changes in the lives of their communities, which are primarily concentrated in larger urban centres, especially Vancouver and the British Columbia lower mainland. In The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver , Kamala Elizabeth Nayar illustrates the complex and multifaceted transition of Sikh social culture as it moves from small Punjab villages to a Canadian metropolis.
The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora
The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora is the first comprehensive survey of Indian communities around the world. Over 30 contextual features show the initiatives taken by these communities and the contributions they have made both internationally and to their host societies, in areas as diverse as literature, cuisine, popular culture, sports and political life.
Global South Asians : Introducing the Modern Diaspora
By the end of the twentieth century some nine million people of South Asian descent had left India, Bangladesh or Pakistan and settled in different parts of the world, forming a diverse and significant modern diaspora. In the early nineteenth century, many left reluctantly to seek economic opportunities which were lacking at home. This is the story of their often painful experiences in the diaspora, how they constructed new social communities overseas and how they maintained connections with the countries and the families they had left behind.

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Transnational Migration
Increasing interconnections between nation-states across borders have rendered the transnational a key tool for understanding our world. It has made particularly strong contributions to immigration studies and holds great promise for deepening insights into international migration.
The Call of the Homeland : Diaspora Nationalisms, Past and Present
This book brings together an array of distinguished scholars to consider diaspora nationalism. Through theoretical, typological and case-specific essays that discuss the Jewish, Greek, Armenian, Irish, Turkish, Sikh, Ukrainian, Hindu, Pentecostal and Muslim diasporas, the book shows the varieties and qualities of attachment of diaspora communities to their ancestral homelands, and the role that hostlands as well as the immigrants play in the form and intensity of these attachments.
The Handbook of Globalization
The past 30 years are often depicted as an era of globalisation, and even more so with the recent rise of global giants such as Google and Amazon. This updated and revised edition of The Handbook of Globalization offers novel insights into the rapid changes our world is facing, and how best we can handle them.
Province-building and the Federalization of Immigration in Canada
This book argues that the process of federalization is largely the result of provincial mobilization. In each province, mobilization occurred through a modern iteration of province building, this time focused on immigrants as resources for provincial economies and societies. Advocating for a province-centred analysis of federalism, Province Building and the Federalization of Immigration in Canada provides key lessons to understanding the contemporary governance of immigration in Canada.

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Transnationalism

Globalization

Emigration and Immigration

Emigration and Immigration Canada

Emigration and Immigration United States

Selected Websites

Ethno-Cultural Groups - Library and Archives Canada

Library of Congress Digital Collection: South Asians

Digital Histories: Asian Voices

Asian Nation: Asian American History, Demographics & Issues

Chinese Historical Society of America -

U.S. National Archives: Chinese Heritage

Library & Archives Canada: Chinese Canadians

Chinese Times Newspaper - The Chinese Times newspaper was published in Vancouver daily from 1914 to 1992; it covered both local information and news about China and Asia generally.

Bachelors and China Dolls, Sex and Race in Postwar Toronto's Chinatown,1920-1970 - This collection consists of digitized materials concerning sex and race in Toronto between 1920 and 1970. It includes photographs from a private collection and newspaper articles about Chinese Canadians and white women (Chinadolls) in Toronto’s Chinatown, published in the Toronto Chinese press.

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project

U.S. National Archives: Japanese Americans

Japanese Canadian Oral History Collection

National Association of Japanese Canadians: Resources

Japanese Canadian National Museum

Library & Archives Canada: Japanese Canadians

Landscapes of Injustice - This Research Database provides access to thousands of records related to Japanese Canadian history and the dispossession of their property in the 1940s.

Indo-Canadian Oral History Collection

Komagata Maru - Continuing the Journey

Komagata Maru Passenger List

Canadian Sikh Heritage

Echoes of Freedom - South Asian Pioneers in California: UC Berkeley

South Asian American Digital Archive

Ugandan Asian Migration: Forced to Flee - a podcast on refugees past and present

KPU Library

Asian Studies

Liaison Librarian

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Selected Websites