Originally published: 2001. Includes bibliographical references (pages 349-353) and index.

East is East, East is West : Asians as Americans -- The model minority : Asian American "success" as a race relations failure -- The perpetual foreigner : yellow peril in the pacific century -- Neither black nor white : affirmative action and Asian Americans -- True but wrong : new arguments against new discrimination -- The best "chink" food : dog-eating and the dilemma of diversity -- The changing face of America : intermarriage and the mixed race movement -- The power of coalitions : why I teach at Howard -- Epilogue : deep springs. Writing in the tradition of W.E.B. Du Bois, Cornel West, and others who confronted the "color line" of the twentieth century, journalist, scholar, and activist Frank H. Wu offers a unique perspective on how changing ideas of racial identity will affect race relations in the twenty-first century. Wu examines affirmative action, globalization, immigration, and other controversial contemporary issues through the lens of the Asian-American experience. Mixing personal anecdotes, legal cases, and journalistic reporting, Wu confronts damaging Asian-American stereotypes such as "the model minority" and "the perpetual foreigner." By offering new ways of thinking about race in American society, Wu's work dares us to make good on our great democratic experiment.