SPACIOUS DREAMS

This first in a new YA series, The Asian American Experience, is adapted from the author's 500-plus-page Strangers from a Different Shore (1989); it chronicles Asian immigration to the US and Canada between 1849 and the Immigration Act of 1924, which prohibited it. Takaki, a professor of ethnic studies at Berkeley, makes good use of oral histories and immigrants' writings as well as numerous b&w photos (not always clearly reproduced) to vivify the period, presenting experiences of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Asian Indians and explaining the reasons compelling them to leave their homelands and the strong demands from abroad for labor, especially from the US. Of particular interest are differences in Asian experiences in Hawaii compared to those on the mainland; Takaki also contrasts the experiences of women. A final chapter describes the time at sea en route and the Asians' reception on arrival. The Asian perspective, including examples from the author's family, make this well-written title particularly valuable, although it's (of necessity) somewhat repetitive. Map; chronology; bibliography (including some children's books); index. (Nonfiction. 12+)