Balancing Two Worlds: Asian American College Students Tell Their Life Stories. Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny, eds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. Pp. 288. $19.95, paper. ISBN: 978-0-8014-7384-5. TEL: 607-277-2338, x252 • FAX: 607-277-2397
Today, due to immigration and refugee resettlement, more than 10 million Asians and Pacific Islanders live in the United States. In 1990, this group represented 2.8 percent of the U.S. population. In March 2002, they were 4.4 percent of the population, and that figure is expected to double by 2020.
This book highlights themes surrounding the creation of Asian- American identity. It contains 14 first-person narratives by Asian- American college students, most of whom graduated during the first five years of the twenty-first century. The contributors to the book are of Indian, Pakistani, Burmese, Vietnamese, South Korean, Chi-nese, Japanese, and Malaysian heritage.
The personal stories here are essentially memoirs in which the autobiographers—all students between the ages of 18 and 22 who attended Dartmouth College—reflect on formative relationships and influences, life-changing events, and other factors that helped shape their values and their sense of personal identity.
Their accounts detail the students’ very personal struggles with issues of assimilation, gender, religion, sexuality, family conflicts, educational stereotypes, and being labeled the “model minority.” Some of the students relate stories drawn from their childhood and adolescent experiences, while others focus more on their college experiences at Dartmouth.
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