War, Race and Culture: Journeys in Trans-Pacific and Asian American Histories by historian Gordon H. Chang is a memoir built from Chang’s wide-ranging explorations as a pioneering academic and researcher. His curiosity about how race shapes policy, culture and conflict is closely linked to his identity as an Asian American and is guided by his moral compass. Like any good scholar, Chang asks probing questions about how the past influences the present, but his personal investment in the answers and firsthand understanding of how war, race and culture impact the lives of individuals and communities lend an urgency to his exploration. I’m especially moved by this book because beyond reflecting on the past, Chang is “seeking a more humane world” through his writing.
Reading this book in the context of a second Trump administration amidst a new war with Iran, the forced removal of Venezuela’s president, military action against fishing boats, and the daily raids on students, families and workers by federal immigration officials is both upsetting and oddly comforting. Throughout this book I found myself saying, “oh, we’ve done this before.” There’s nothing new about fear, racism and American exceptionalism as the guiding forces behind how we engage with other countries and our own citizens if they don’t fit a certain mold. I say it’s oddly comforting because if we’ve done this before, then maybe the past has roadmaps for how we work our way out of the geopolitical and domestic tensions (and atrocities) we’re currently engaged in.
War is the theme of the first section of the book and Chang examines how one’s personal and familial beliefs about a group of people have a direct influence on that person’s attitudes toward entire governments and cultures. This type of bias is especially alarming when held by political and military leaders whose decisions have life and death consequences. In the chapter, “Whose ‘Barbarism’? Whose ‘Treachery’?: Race and Civilization in the Unknown United States – Korea
War of 1871,” Chang explores the opening of Korea to the Western world, which culminates in a little-known war fueled by attitudes about what makes one culture more civilized than another.
The chapter is frightening. The men involved knew little about Korea or Asian culture and history beyond racist tropes, but their rigid understanding of civilization based on Christian values and Western protocols gave them the confidence to forcefully engage with Korea for the sake of “national interests.”
What I appreciate about Chang’s retelling of this period in history is his ability to switch back and forth between the American and the Korean versions of the events. So much of the history I was taught in school was firmly grounded in the American side of things. Even as history books evolved and a wider range of voices was allowed to tell the stories of our past, those voices were still coming from the American perspective. As our current administration insists on being fiercely one-sided to the point that considering an event from another perspective can be framed as disloyal and un-American, it feels especially powerful to look at history from beyond the American experience.
In the second section of the book, “Race,” Chang’s essays center the way race has been used as a tool to justify atrocities and bury narratives that don’t align with a certain kind of American fairy tale. By highlighting these narratives, Chang reveals the undeniable achievements and influence Asians and Asian Americans have had in this country despite concerted efforts to deny them the power, freedoms and appreciation they deserve.
The section on race takes us from how a Superman comic about the man of steel visiting a Japanese incarceration camp during WWII revealed the flimsy advocacy of left-leaning leaders to the vital role of Chinese railway workers in advancing America as a global superpower to the lasting influence of Asian Americans in politics. Again, I found myself disturbed and comforted by this section. To be Asian American in America requires endurance and a willingness to defy the forces actively working against us. This narrative also defies the model minority myth. We didn’t get here by playing nice.
The third section of the book, “Culture,” is the most personal of the three parts. Gordon Chang’s father was a prominent visual artist in China and the United States and he instilled a deep
appreciation for art not only as a form of expression, but as a tool for diplomacy and connection across difference. This section continues the tone of celebration and elevation.
In the chapter “The Many Sides of Happy Lim,” we see all of the pieces of this book come together in the influence of war and America’s special brand of racism, the creative and cultural contributions of Asians in America and the way Chang manages to blend the deeply personal with broader political and historical contexts.
This book reminds me to reexamine my long-held beliefs and think about how the “truths” I hold look entirely different from another perspective. I am inspired by Chang’s curiosity and the ways it is grounded in his own identity and community. This is a heavy book that doesn’t let me shy away from the upsetting answers to my questions; but, it also gives me context for my current dread about the state of America and the direction we’ve been heading for the past decade. There are ways through. There are people who resist and create change. There are artists and poets and activists who use creativity as a tool for shaping a different future no matter the current political climate. And there are historians like Gordon Chang who will not let us forget.
Happy Lim captures the spirit of this book and the stories of Asians in America at the end of his poem, “Am I so Easy to Forget,”
Whether I am remembered or forgotten,
I am still as active as before.
My heart is filled with struggles
against this ugly world,
Even though I still have plenty
of memories to recall.
In front of our eyes lies reality,
not illusions,
I give my whole life
to the liberation of humanity.
