Displacements and Diasporas explores the transnational Asian American experience - one that crosses the Pacific and traverses the Americas from Canada to Brazil, from New York to the Caribbean. With an emphasis on anthropological and historical contexts, the essays show how the experiences of Asians have been shaped.

Asian American displacements / Wanni W. Anderson and Robert G. Lee
Diaspora, transnationalism, and Asian American studies : positions and debates / Christopher Lee
Diasporas, displacements, and the construction of transnational identities / K. Scott Wong
Images of the Chinese in West Indian history / Walton Look Lai
On coolies and shopkeepers : the Chinese as Huagong (laborers) and Huashang (merchants) in Latin America/Caribbean / Evelyn Hu-DeHart
From Japanese to Nikkei and back : integration strategies of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Brazil / Jeffrey Lesser
In the Black Pacific : testimonies of Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian displacements / Bernard Scott Lucious
Lived simultaneity and discourses of diasporic difference / Nina Glick Schiller
From refugees to transmigrants: the Vietnamese in Canada / Louis-Jacques Dorais
Between necessity and choice: Rhode Island Lao American women / Wanni W. Anderson
Mixed desires : second-generation Indian Americans and the politics of youth culture / Sunaina Maira
Crossing borders of disciplines and departments / Robert G. Lee
Anthropology, Asian studies, Asian American studies : open systems, closed minds / Nancy Abelmann
The ordeal of ethnic studies in the age of globalization / E. San Juan Jr

Wanni W. Anderson is an adjunct associate professor in the department of anthropology and ethnic studies concentration at Brown University.

Robert G. Lee is an associate professor in the department of American civilization at Brown University.