Kent A. Ono is Professor of Asian American Studies and Communications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he is also Director of the Asian American Studies Program. He is co-author, with John Sloop, of Shifting Borders (2002), and co-editor of Enterprise Zones (1996).

A Companion to Asian American Studies provides a snapshot of early debates within the field, as well as more contemporary essays that have helped transform the field's intellectual terrain. Ranging from essays on class and sexuality to those focusing on literature, transnationality, and identity, this volume exemplifies the changing intellectual shape of Asian American Studies from its early periods to a more contemporary one.

The anthology comprises 20 previously published essays that have played an important historical role in the conceptualization of Asian American studies as a field. Divided into sections covering psychology, history, literature, feminism, and more current work in the field, this volume is a summation of an important and increasingly vibrant field of study. It can be used in conjunction with Asian American Studies After Critical Mass, also edited by Kent A. Ono.