Review copies & textbook discounts: Ming Tu at email: aascpress@aasc.
Editorial: Russell C. Leong rleong@ucla.
"Prof. L. Ling-chi Wang: First Collection of Essays Published by UCLA Asian American Studies Center"
Book Signing Events in New York and San Francisco
UCLA's Amerasia Journal announces a special April 2007 issue "L. Ling-chi Wang: Quintessential Scholar-Activist" on the writings of Prof. Wang. During the past 40 years, Prof. Wang's impact as a Chinese American scholar, activist, institution builder at UC Berkeley, policy advocate, and public speaker has been unparalleled within the
field of Asian American Studies and in the nation. The special issue is edited by Prof. Don Nakanishi, the Director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, and Amerasia's long-time editor, Prof. Russell Leong.
UCLA planned this issue both as a tribute to the recently retired U.C. Berkeley teacher and administrator, and also as a way to introduce Prof. Wang's writings to students, scholars, and local and global social activists in the U.S. and in Asia.
This international edition is the first collection of Prof. Wang's selected works in English, and contains a introduction in English and in Chinese written by Nakanishi and Leong. The individual essays are organized under the
following five sections: I. China, the U.S., and Chinese Americans; II. Model Minority, High-tech Coolies, and Foreign Spies? III. Paradoxes of Asian Americans in Higher Education; IV. Philosophy and Politics of Community Activism; V. Dual Domination and Asian Americans.
At Princeton Seminary, the University of Chicago, and U.C. Berkeley, L. Ling-chi Wang was a Near Eastern Studies major and studied Greek and Hebrew, among other languages. Rooted intellectually in thinkers as diverse as the Old Testament prophets, Soren Kierkegaard, W.E.B. DuBois, Saul Alinksy, Mao Tse-tung, Sun Tzu, Antonio Gramsci, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Prof. Wang encountered the Civil Rights, Black Power and Ethnic Studies Movements in the late 1960s.
As Prof. Wang states about his formal and informal education: "All the events at the University of Chicago, the black uprising, and what I was reading about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and the black protest movement had
been more or less abstract, but coming to San Francisco, everything became real. I realized the kind of analysis used to explain the black experience can be applied to the Chinese American experience."
From this point on, Wang became both an activist and a scholar. Since that time until today, Prof. Wang has fought for the rights and for the voices of Asian Americans in politics and education, including bilingual education,
admissions quotas, the 1996 presidential campaign finance scandal, Wen Ho Lee debacle, and U.S./China relations.
One of Prof. Wang's research interests is examining Chinese migration from the 19th century onwards. His own family is a good example of migration within the "Chinese diaspora," and includes many places where the Chinese settled, including Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and the U.S.
Prof. Wang's father was born in Kobe, Japan, and his mother spent early childhood in the Philippines and Fujian. Wang himself was born on the island of Gulangyu, off the coast of Xiamen, China. He remembers his childhood during World War II and the harsh conditions under which his family and others survived the Japanese invasion
and occupation.
This 200-page issue includes selected essays from the 1960s through 2006, together with an in-depth
interview by UCSB Prof. Emeritus Sucheng Chan. Prof. Wang has also provided rare family photographs of the Wang family in China and in the U.S.
On Friday, May 18, 2007, the Chinese Historical Society of America will honor Prof. Wang at an evening wine and refreshments reception and program where he also will be available to sign his book . Location: Chinese Historical Society of America, 965 Clay Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 (415) 391-1188
<http://www.chsa.org>www.chsa.org
"L. Ling-chi Wang: Quintessential Scholar-Activist" 33:1 (2007) can be ordered for $15.00 per copy through our website: www.aasc.ucla.edu, or email: aascpress@aasc.
