Trespassers? Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia

James Zarsadiaz of the University of San Francisco reviews Trespassers? Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia by Willow Lung-Amam. In this book, Lung-Amam looks closely at the everyday life and politics inside Silicon Valley against a backdrop of rapid population growth, increased racial diversity, and an influx of immigration, especially among highly skilled and educated migrants from China, Taiwan, and India. At the broadest level, this book raises questions about the rights of diverse populations to their own piece of the suburban American Dream. It follows one community over several decades as it transforms from a sleepy rural town to a global gateway and one of the nation’s largest Asian American–majority cities. There, it highlights the passionate efforts of Asian Americans to make Silicon Valley their home by investing in local schools, neighborhoods, and shopping centers. It also provides a textured tale of the tensions that emerge over this suburb’s changing environment. With vivid storytelling, Trespassers? uncovers suburbia as an increasingly important place for immigrants and minorities to register their claims for equality and inclusion.

Read the book review at https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918319873307.