Books published by University of Washington Press

Read about the movie, Americanese, based on Shawn Wong's book, at: http://www.americanesethemovie.com

Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese Communisim illuminates the real and imagined lives of Ton Duc Thang (18881980), a celebrated revolutionary activist and Vietnamese communist icon, but it is much more than a conventional biography. This multifaceted study constitutes the first detailed re-evaluation of the official history of the Vietnamese Communist Party and is a critical analysis of the inner workings of Vietnamese historiography never before undertaken in its scope.In prominence and public visibility second only to Ho Chi Minh, whom he succeeded in the presidency, Ton Duc Thang in fact lacked any real power. Author Christoph Giebel reconciles this seeming contradiction by showing that it was only Ton Duc Thang who could personify for the Party crucial legitimizing ancestries: those that linked Vietnamese communism with the Russian October Revolution, highlighted proletarian internationalism among its ranks, and rooted the Party in Viet Nams south. The study traces the decades-long, complex processes in which famous heroic episodes in Ton Duc Thangs life were manipulated or simply fabricated anddepending on prevailing historical and political necessitiesutilized as propaganda by the Communist Party. Over time, narrative control over these tales switched hands, however, and since the late 1950s the stories came to be used in factional disputes by competing ideological and regional interests within the revolutionary camp.Based on innovative archival research in Viet Nam and France and on analyses of biographical writings, propaganda, and museum representations, the study challenges core assumptions about the history of the Vietnamese Communist Part and sheds light on divisions within the revolutionary movement along regional, class, and ideological lines. Giebel uses the fictions and contested facts of Tons life to demonstrate that history-writing and the constructions of memories and identities are always political acts.

Building a World Community: Globalisation and the Common Good

Drawing on her observations, interviews, and Chinese sources, the author examines four generations of Chinese ambassadors, who served from 1949 to 1994, charts the evolution of the Chinese diplomatic corps from its early military orientation to the emergence of career professionals, and assesses the impact of ambassadors on Chinese foreign policy.

This collection of 41 Alaskan Indian tales includes wood engravings by Alaska artist Dale DeArmond. It features the exploits of the roguish Crow and the intrepid "Man Who Traveled Among All the Animals and People" and range from serious myths to slyly humorous misadventures.

In the mid-1990s, the international community pronounced prenatal sex selection via abortion an act of violence against women and unethical. At the same time, new developments in reproductive technology in the United States led to a method of sex selection before conception; its US inventor marketed the practice as family balancing and defended it with the rhetoric of freedom of choice. In Gender before Birth, Rajani Bhatia takes on the hypocrisy of how similar practices in the first and third worlds are divergently named and framed.Bhatias extensive fieldwork includes interviews with clinicians, scientists, biomedical service providers, feminist activists, and international tech advocates, and her resulting analysis extends both feminist theory on reproduction and feminist science and technology studies. She argues that we are at the beginning of a changing transnational terrain that presents new challenges to theorized inequality in reproduction, demonstrating how the technosciences often get embroiled in colonial gender and racial politics.

Myths and theories of the American melting pot, of assimilation, and of pluralistic society were shattered as racial violence during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising vividly exposed the inadequacy of our prior assumptions. The uprising revealed that radical approaches are needed to address structural issues of economic and political inequality, and issues of race and representation. Los Angeles has emerged as a focal point for social scientists as they develop new ideas about race relations.This volume, based on a special issue of Amerasia Journal, focuses o race and ethnic relations in Los Angeles as they emerged out of the uprising and within the broader national picture. Latino and Asian and African American scholars, journalists, and writers have contributed two dozen essays, commentaries, and literary works.Among the scholarly essays are "Jewish and Korean Merchants in African American Neighborhoods" by Edward Chang, "Communication between African Americans and Korean Americans before and after the Los Angeles Riots" by Ella Stewart, "Asian Americans and Latinos in San Gabriel Valley, California" by Leland T. Saito, "The South Central Los Angeles Eruption: A Latino Perspective" by Armando Navarro, and "Race, Class, Conflict and Empowerment: On Ice Cube's 'Black Korea'" by Jeff Chang.Commentaries by Asian and African American writers feature Larry Aubry, Angela E. Oh, Sharon Park, Amy Uyematsu, Erich Nakano, Walter Lew, and Miriam Ching Louie.A selection of literary writings features Mari Sunaida, Ko Won, Wanda Coleman, Mellonee R. Houston, Sae Lee, Nat Jones, Arjuna, Chungmi Kim, and Lynn Manning.

Mary S. Zurbuchen is director for Asia and Russia programs with the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program. The contributors include Andi F. Bakti, Daniel S. Lev, Hendrik Maier, Kate McGregor, Goenawan Mohamad, Nancy L. Peluso, Tristuti Rachmadi, Anthony Reid, Geoffrey Robinson, Klaus H. Schreiner, Laurie J. Sears, Karen Strassler, Fadjar I. Thufail, Gerry van Klinken, and Paul van Zyl.

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295804125Two very different ethnic minority communities--the Naxi of the Lijiang area in northern Yunnan and the Tai (Dai) of Sipsong Panna (Xishuangbanna), along Yunnan's border with Burma and Laos--are featured in this comparative study of the implementation and reception of state minority education policy in the People's Republic of China. Based on field research and historical sources, Lessons in Being Chinese argues that state policy, which is intended to be applied uniformly across all minority regions, in fact is much more successful in some than in others.In Lijiang, elite members of the Naxi ethnic group (minzu) have a centuries-old connection with Chinese state educational systems as avenues to social mobility, and have continued this tradition under Communist rule. They participate enthusiastically in the present system, using education to gain official and professional positions. In contrast to the Lijiang area, Sipsong Panna functioned in many ways as a separate kingdom until 1950, with its own script and a separate educational system centered in Theravada Buddhist monasteries. Today, many Tai in that area still prefer monastic education for their sons, and most parents are indifferent to state education.This study finds that standardized, homogenizing state education is in itself incapable of instilling in students an identification with the Chinese state, ironically often increasing ethnic identity. Lessons in Being Chinese enhances our understanding of how state policy toward minorities works in many areas of life, and its conclusions can be extended well beyond the sphere of education. It will be of interest to both anthropologists and educators.

What happens when we speak about violence? Ramu Nagappan joins contemporary discussions of the ethics of representing suffering through an examination of literary and cinematic texts that bear witness to social violence in South Asia. The book focuses on literary works by Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Saadat Hasan Manto, Salman Rushdie, and the "Spectacular" Bollywood films of director Maniratnam.

April Schueths is assistant professor of sociology at Georgia Southern University and a licensed social worker. Jodie Lawston is associate professor of women's studies at California State University, San Marcos. She is the author of Sisters Outside: Radical Activists Working for Women Prisoners and coeditor of Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars and Artists.

Roberta Stringham Brown is professor of French emertia at Pacific Lutheran University. Patricia O'Connell Killen is professor of religious studies and academic vice president at Gonzaga University.

Chinookan peoples have lived on the Lower Columbia River for millennia. Today they are one of the most significant Native groups in the Pacific Northwest, although the Chinook Tribe is still unrecognized by the United States government. In Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia River, scholars provide a deep and wide-ranging picture of the landscape and resources of the Chinookan homeland and the history and culture of a people over time, from 10,000 years ago to the present. They draw on research by archaeologists, ethnologists, scientists, and historians, inspired in part by the discovery of several Chinookan village sites, particularly Cathlapotle, a village on the Columbia River floodplain near the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area. Their accumulated scholarship, along with contributions by members of the Chinook and related tribes, provides an introduction to Chinookan culture and research and is a foundation for future work.

Silver Award Winner, 2016 Nautilus Book Award in Young Adult (YA) Non-FictionMoving beyond the familiar accounts of politics and the achievements of celebrity engineers and designers, Building the Golden Gate Bridge is the first book to primarily feature the voices of the workers themselves. This is the story of survivors who vividly recall the hardships, hazards, and victories of constructing the landmark span during the Great Depression.Labor historian Harvey Schwartz has compiled oral histories of nine workers who helped build the celebrated bridge. Their powerful recollections chronicle the technical details of construction, the grueling physical conditions they endured, the small pleasures they enjoyed, and the gruesome accidents some workers suffered. The result is an evocation of working-class life and culture in a bygone era.Most of the bridge builders were men of European descent, many of them the sons of immigrants. Schwartz also interviewed women: two nurses who cared for the injured and tolerated their antics, the wife of one 1930s builder, and an African American ironworker who toiled on the bridge in later years. These powerful stories are accompanied by stunning photographs of the bridge under construction. An homage to both the American worker and the quintessential San Francisco landmark, Building the Golden Gate Bridge expands our understanding of Depression-era labor and California history and makes a unique contribution to the literature of this iconic span.

Sergei Kan is professor of anthropology and Native American studies at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries and A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska, and editor of Sharing Our Knowledge: The Tlingit and Their Coastal Neighbors.

In 1962 John Goldmark, cattle rancher, Harvard Law School graduate, and distinguished three-term state legislator for a lightly populated area in north central Washington, was overwhelmingly defeated in his attempt for reelection. He and his wife, Sally, had been accused of being communists by a small group of right-wing extremists.

From tenements to alleyways to latrines, twentieth-century American cities created spaces where pests flourished and people struggled for healthy living conditions. In Pests in the City, Dawn Day Biehler argues that the urban ecologies that supported pests were shaped not only by the physical features of cities but also by social inequalities, housing policies, and ideas about domestic space.Community activists and social reformers strived to control pests in cities such as Washington, DC, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Milwaukee, but such efforts fell short when authorities blamed families and neighborhood culture for infestations rather than attacking racial segregation or urban disinvestment. Pest-control campaigns tended to target public or private spaces, but pests and pesticides moved readily across the porous boundaries between homes and neighborhoods.This story of flies, bedbugs, cockroaches, and rats reveals that such creatures thrived on lax code enforcement and the marginalization of the poor, immigrants, and people of color. As Biehler shows, urban pests have remained a persistent problem at the intersection of public health, politics, and environmental justice, even amid promises of modernity and sustainability in American cities.Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9PFxLY7K4&feature=c4-overview&list=UUge4MONgLFncQ1w1C_BnHcw

T. V. Reed is Buchanan Distinguished Professor at Washington State University. He is also the author of The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle.

When he was seventeen, Sam Kelly met Paul Robeson, who asked him a question that inspired a life of helping others: "What are you doing for the race?" Kelly went on to help desegregate the US Army, in which he served as a training and operations officer.

With contributions by Derrick Adams, Sandy Alexandre, Rachel Allen, Austen Barron Bailly, Lonnie G. Bunch III, Elgin Cleckley, Bethany Collins, Spencer Crew, Philip J. Deloria, Andrea Douglas, David C. Driskell, Walter O. Evans, Kimberli Gant, Elyse Gerstenecker, Erin C. Golightly, Lydia Gordon, Kerri Greenidge, Randall Griffey, Leslie King Hammond, Patricia Hills, Kevin Jennings, Erich Kessel, Steve Locke, Deborah McDowell, Masud Olufani, Harvey Ross, Jacquelyn Days Serwer, Elsa Smithgall, Barbara Earl Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, Salamishah Tillet, Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Monique Verdin, Chloe Downe Wells, Tamir Williams, and Sylvia Yount.

David B. Williams is a freelance writer focused on the intersection of people and the natural world. He is the author or coauthor of six books, including Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle¿s Topography and Cairns: Messengers in Stone. He lives in Seattle.

In The Jewish Bible: A Material History, David Stern explores the Jewish Bible as a material objectthe Bibles that Jews have actually held in their handsfrom its beginnings in the Ancient Near Eastern world through to the Middle Ages to the present moment. Drawing on the most recent scholarship on the history of the book, Stern shows how the Bible has been not only a medium for transmitting its textthe word of Godbut a physical object with a meaning of its own. That meaning has changed, as the material shape of the Bible has changed, from scroll to codex, and from manuscript to printed book. By tracing the material form of the Torah, Stern demonstrates how the process of these transformations echo the cultural, political, intellectual, religious, and geographic changes of the Jewish community. With tremendous historical range and breadth, this book offers a fresh approach to understanding the Bibles place and significance in Jewish culture.

On April 18, 1906, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook the San Francisco region, igniting fires that burned half the city. The disaster in all its elements earthquake, fires, and recovery profoundly disrupted the urban order and challenged San Franciscos perceived permanence.The crisis temporarily broke down spatial divisions of class and race and highlighted the contested terrain of urban nature in an era of widespread class conflict, simmering ethnic tensions, and controversial reform efforts. From a proposal to expel Chinatown from the city center to a vision of San Francisco paved with concrete in the name of sanitation, the process of reconstruction involved reenvisioning the places of both people and nature. In their zeal to restore their city, San Franciscans downplayed the role of the earthquake and persisted in choosing patterns of development that exacerbated risk.In this close study of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Joanna L. Dyl examines the decades leading up to the catastrophic event and the citys recovery from it. Combining urban environmental history and disaster studies, Seismic City demonstrates how the crisis and subsequent rebuilding reflect the dynamic interplay of natural and human influences that have shaped San Francisco.

In this lively history and celebration of the Pacific razor clam, David Berger shares with us his love affair with the glossy, gold-colored Siliqua patula and gets into the nitty-gritty of how to dig, clean, and cook them using his favorite recipes. In the course of his investigation, Berger brings to light the long history of razor clamming as a subsistence, commercial, and recreational activity, and shows the ways it has helped shape both the identity and the psyche of the Pacific Northwest.Towing his wife along to the Long Beach razor clam festival, Berger quizzes local experts on the pressing question: tube or gun? He illuminates the science behind the perplexing rules and restrictions that seek to keep the razor clam population healthy and the biomechanics that make these delicious bivalves so challenging to catch. And he joyfully takes part in the sometimes freezing cold pursuit that nonetheless attracts tens of thousands of participants each year for an iconic beach-to-table experience.

The Sin Aikst are now known as the Lakes tribe, absorbed into the Colville Confederated Tribes of eastern Washington. The author uses personal and family history to explore the larger forces that have confronted various Native Americans: displacement, acculturation, and the potent force of self-renewal.

Wilt L. Idema is professor emeritus of Chinese literature at Harvard University. He is the author of Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period, coauthor of The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China, and translator of Two Centuries of Manchu Women Poets: An Anthology and other works of traditional Chinese literature. Haiyan Lee is professor of East Asian languages and cultures and of comparative literature at Stanford University. She is the author of Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China, 1900¿1950, and The Stranger and the Chinese Moral Imagination.