Using the experiences of Asian Americans, this work reconfigures the ways in which American history and people can be understood. In doing so, it provides a provocative response to debates over immigration and race, multiculturalism and globalization.

Okihiro analyzes how groups of people and numerous major events in American history have generally been depicted, and then offers alternative representations from an Asian-American viewpoint - one that reveals the ways in which binaries have contributed toward simplifying, excluding, and denying differences and convergences. Drawing on a rich variety of sources, from the Chicago Exposition of 1898 to The Wizard of Oz, this book is a provocative response to current debates over immigration and race, multiculturalism and globalization, and questions concerning the nature of America and its peoples. The ideal foil to conventional surveys of American history, Common Ground asks its readers to reimagine our past free of binaries and open to diversity and social justice.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
PREFACE xi
CHAPTER 1 West and East 3
CHAPTER 2 White and Black 28
CHAPTER 3 Man and Woman 55
CHAPTER 4 Heterosexual and Homosexual 87
CHAPTER 5 American History 114
NOTES 139
INDEX 153<
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