Rise

A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now

By: Jeff Yang, Philip Wang, Phil Yu

Narrated by: Brittany Ishibashi, Fiona Rene, Nick Martineau, Rama Krishna Vallury, Matt Yang King, Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, Philip Wang

"Hip, entertaining...imaginative."—Kirkus, starred review *"Essential." —Min Jin Lee * "A Herculean effort."—Lisa Ling * "A must-read."—Ijeoma Oluo * "Get two copies."—Shea Serrano * "A book we've needed for ages." —Celeste Ng * "Accessible, informative, and fun." —Cathy Park Hong * "This book has serious substance...Also, I'm in it."—Ronny Chieng

RISE is a love letter to and for Asian Americans—a vivid scrapbook of voices, emotions, and memories from an era in which our culture was forged and transformed, and a way to preserve both the headlines and the intimate conversations that have shaped our community into who we are today.

When the Hart-Celler Act passed in 1965, opening up US immigration to non-Europeans, it ushered in a whole new era. But even to the first generation of Asian Americans born in the US after that milestone, it would have been impossible to imagine that sushi and boba would one day be beloved by all, that a Korean boy band named BTS would be the biggest musical act in the world, that one of the most acclaimed and popular movies of 2018 would be Crazy Rich Asians, or that we would have an Asian American Vice President. And that’s not even mentioning the creators, performers, entrepreneurs, execs and influencers who've been making all this happen, behind the scenes and on the screen; or the activists and representatives continuing to fight for equity, building coalitions and defiantly holding space for our voices and concerns. And still: Asian America is just getting started.

The timing could not be better for this intimate, eye-opening, and frequently hilarious guided tour through the pop-cultural touchstones and sociopolitical shifts of the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and beyond. Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang chronicle how we’ve arrived at today’s unprecedented diversity of Asian American cultural representation through engaging topics (including a step-by-step guide to a night out in K-Town, a note on historic Asian American landmarks, a handy “Appreciation or Appropriation?” discussion, and celebrations of both our "founding fathers and mothers" and the nostalgia-inducing personalities of each decade), plus essays from major AAPI artists, exclusive roundtables with Asian American cultural icons, and more, anchored by extended insider narratives of each decade by the three co-authors. Rise is an informative, lively, and inclusive celebration of both shared experiences and singular moments, and all the different ways in which we have chosen to come together.

©2021 by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, & Philip Wang (P)2021 by HarperCollins Publishers

Important book, but read the print version

The content of this book was eye opening for me in many ways and is important and interesting to know, since Asian Americans don’t generally see information about ourselves in mainstream books and media. I really want to finish reading this book for the content, but at about the fifth mispronunciation of Asian terms, I could no longer tolerate the audible version.

It seems ironic that the book is attempting to cast light on the artistic and creative achievements of Asian Americans and to have them be respected, but yet there is so little respect paid to pronouncing names and terms correctly. I did not even get halfway through and already the surnames Liu, Hwang, and Leung were mispronounced, as were the words Sikh and kalbi. These are in no way esoteric words- most Asian people would know how to pronounce all of these correctly. Some of the contributors to this and other books about Asian American identity have articulated how hurtful it is to constantly have their names and other words from their culture mispronounced, so to hear them mispronounced by the narrators of a book that is supposed to lift up and bring positive awareness to Asian Americans is completely unacceptable to me.

There is much in the book about all of the overt and casual racism Asian Americans have endured and still endure, and not bothering to get pronunciations correct in a book ABOUT Asian Americans seems like another added slight.

In addition, some parts of the book are in list format. Reading a list is very different from listening to someone read a list (or many lists) to you. Same with the conversations on the book, and especially the narration of the quotes from Asian American comedians- the narrations were painful to listen to and should have been recordings of the actual comedians. They made for very awkward listening and would be better read.

I will finish this book, but I will read the print version instead. Whoever oversaw the audio version of this book messed up pretty badly.

too woke

i bought the book because i like philip wang and wong fu, but this book is waaaay too woke for me. I learned somethings about asian american history, but the opinions in this book are not representitve of how i feel as an asian american at all. i guess everyone has an opinion.