A Feeling of Belonging

by Lim, Shirley Jennifer

• ISBN13: 9780814751930
• ISBN10: 0814751938
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-01
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

Summary

When we imagine the activities of Asian American women in the mid-twentieth century, our first thoughts are not of skiing, beauty pageants, magazine reading, and sororities. Yet, Shirley Jennifer Lim argues, these are precisely the sorts of leisure practices many second generation Chinese, Filipina, and Japanese American women engaged in during this time.InA Feeling of Belonging, Lim highlights the cultural activities of young, predominantly unmarried Asian American women from 1930 to 1960. This period marks a crucial generation--the first in which American-born Asians formed a critical mass and began to make their presence felt in the United States. Though they were distinguished from previous generations by their American citizenship, it was only through these seemingly mundane "American" activities that they were able to overcome two-dimensional stereotypes of themselves as kimono-clad "Orientals."Lim traces the diverse ways in which these young women sought claim to cultural citizenship, exploring such topics as the nation's first Asian American sorority, Chi Alpha Delta; the cultural work of Chinese American actress Anna May Wong; Asian American youth culture and beauty pageants; and the achievement of fame of three foreign-born Asian women in the late 1950s. By wearing poodle skirts, going to the beach, and producing magazines, she argues, they asserted not just their American-ness, but their humanity: a feeling of belonging.

Author Biography

Shirley Jennifer Lim is Assistant Professor of History at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(10)
1 "A Feeling of Belonging": Chi Alpha Delta, 1928-1941	11	(36)
2 "I Protest": Anna May Wong and the Performance of Modernity	47	(40)
3 Shortcut to Glamour: Popular Culture in a Consumer Society	87	(34)
4 Contested Beauty: Asian American Beauty Culture during the Cold War	121	(34)
5 Riding the Crest of an Oriental Wave: Foreign-Born Asian "Beauty"	155	(34)
Conclusion	189	(2)
Notes	191	(40)
Index	231	(10)
About the Author	241