He thoroughly enjoyed your book and overlooked all the swear words.

LOL well I’m glad he liked it. I pictured this book as a way to mentor people in their 20′s and 30′s, but to have an 89 year old grandfather, who’s been there and done that, say that he liked my book is good to hear.

Thanks for relating that story, American Girl. I really appreciate hearing that. BTW the first month of sales for the Alpha Asian Mindset has been sent to AALDEF for their work on South Philly High. Until I come up with another poll with new causes, all profits will go to them.

@ BigWoWo, Larry and Jenn

I know I was going to in touch with you guys about a book collaboration, but the baby is due any day now. I have a feeling that I won’t have any time or energy to do a book collaboration

Nonetheless, it showed up at my grandparents house and my grandfather thought I bought it for him for Christmas and he read it. Alpha, my 89-year-old grandfather said, ” this guy James Chan, hit the nail on the head.” He thoroughly enjoyed your book and overlooked all the swear words. Now I have to buy another one.

Mixed race Asians would definitely be part of the Diaspora, because they are the end result of Asians immigrating to different lands and intermarrying with the general population. here’s one interesting example:

The Island of Seven Cities: Where the Chinese Settled When They Discovered America

Just wondering if mixed race Asians would fit into the definition of Diaspora?

ok.

but each chapter would be different enough, because each Asian community would have its own unique history.

I hear what you’re saying though, that Asians nowadays don’t care for history and would rather read stuff about pop culture. THAT would be all over the place, especially if you’re talking about 108 figures throughout history and recently. I’m already aggregating these figures at the Alpha Asian blog with all the videos. A book featuring these guys would be a lot of work, because you’d have to do in-depth interviews with each and every one of them.

But if you feel passionately about creating such a book, then I say go for it, Anna.

It might be better if we focus the book on one or just a few key areas, otherwise it would become a hodpodge or everything with no clear direction or focus. Dont you agree? If you have Asians in Asia,thats a whole different situation than Asians in the West, and Asians in the spanish speaking west is different to Asians in the english speaking west. Then Asians in multilingual Europe is different too. Its too many strands going in too different directions.

Maybe the few key areas of common ground unifying the chapters could be

-Geography
-Social/political historical background ~~achievements and discrimination
-Current socio-political issues facing community

so for example

-Anglosphere,US,UK,CAN,NZ,AUS
-1700s+ figures, history
-Media representation,Education , etc

Hey Alpha, these ideas just came to me while i was typing, what about a book about:

- Azn pop culture, Asian diaspora pop culture in the Anglosphere from the 1700s onwards. It could look at Azn pop culture history in entertainment and media, and Azn pop cultural icons in movies, films, publishing, distribution ,eg Anna Mae Wong, Sessue Hayakawa, Carman Chang, etc

-Azn leaders, movers and shakers. The title of this book could be called AZN HEROES or maybe 108 HEROES or maybe GOLDEN HEROES, 200 YEARS OF HEROES, or THE 108.
It would look at the pioneers and heroes of Azns in the Anglosphere in different key areas such as politics, economics/business, entertainmen/pop culture, civil rights, and law.

If we called the AZN hero book, “”THE 108″” we could look at 108 inspirational AZNS in the anglosphere in 5 different areas of Politics, Law, Business, Pop Culture, Civil rights. Each area could have 20-30(or less or more) people(men and women say 50-50 split) each stating their lifestory, what they did, how they did it, what they faced, how they overcame, their eventual victory/success, and its impact on the situation and the future generations(up to modern day). A unifying tone/theme could be something like “its a struggle, but if you work hard you can achieve anything against the odds”" and “”theres such a thing as real AZN heroes in the Anglosphere”"

What do you think? whereas a book about AZN pop culture would look at overall sociopolitical trends about Azns in pop culture, the AZN heroes book would just cover individuals, and their effects on society.

The salepoint of the two later ideas i just suggested as compared to the the first one is that young people these days might be more interested in AZN HEROES, and AZN POP CULTURE more rather than if it was just a straight up history book. Also, these two books would be more focused on specific issues, rather than being everywhere, about everything. Plus dont you reckon its more cool to have a book called “THE 108″ with the pictures of Richard Aoki, Anna Mae Wong, Yuri Kochiyama, Sessue Hayakawa, Mei Quong Tart etc, all superimposed onto each other on the front cover? lol, just the visual effects would be awesome!

It’d be a historical overview of each community as well as current issues facing those communities.

Tough to collaborate on such an endeavor, considering there are very few amateur historians who can write in English who have knowledge of each of these communities. We don’t have to cover every community, just enough chapters to constitute a book.

would that mean East Asian Diaspora? In the Anglosphere/in english speaking+white dominant countries?(such as AUS, CAN,US,UK)

What topics would that include? would it be the social/political/cultural history? Yellow civil rights leaders?