In Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier, David Palumbo-Liu uses "Asian America" to, "designate certain historical reformulations of modern America, both as it has modified itself with regard to Asia and as Asians in America have variously affected its refiguration." Pulling together representations of Asian America, this collection considers how understandings of America change in relationship to Asia.
The resources in the collection explore art from the turn-of-the-20th century when trade between Japan and the West reopened, art produced through the Works Progress Administration depicting Asian labor in America, art about Japanese internment and Hiroshima, and art about the Vietnam-American War. The art in the collection spans the 20th century and explores themes of Asian/American identity, experience, historical amnesia/memory, and diaspora.
