In the author’s note of Just Like Honey I say that writing outside my own experience puts the burden on me to be mindful and respectful of the real life experiences of who I choose to write about. This is an incomplete list of research materials I read trying to understand enough of the Japanese-American experience to be able to believably write a 30-something, queer, yonsei man in the 1990s. I’ve included links where possible, mostly Amazon links, but I encourage you to make use of your libraries too. (Library Extension is a great Chrome add-on to find books in your library.) I’ve listed these by type and then alphabetically. Not ideal, but it’s a lot of info and sometimes the basic ways are best.
I also mention in my author’s note a group curated list, for self-teaching Asian American studies. Here is that link again. It was an excellent jumping off point for me, and includes other mediums (like film) that I don’t include here (though I did watch many of those movies as ‘research’).
Websites, Blogs, and Articles:
100 Must-Read Books by Asian Authors
27 Asian Leading Men Who Deserve More Airtime
A Chronicle of Lesbian and Gay Magazines A Timeline: 1897 – 2008
After Internment Japanese American’s Right to Return
America’s Concentration Camps Resources
Ansel Adams’ internment camp photos
Art History Resources: Japanese Art
Asian American Voices in Poetry
Asian in America with Jon Tsuei
Asian-American Men Are Sexy in Magic Mike Parody
At Home with Themselves: Sage Sohier’s Moving Portraits of Same-Sex Couples in the 1980s
BuzzFeed’s Eugene Lee Yang On Authenticity and Embracing Your Asian-ness
Children of the 90s: Fashion Fads
CHS Re:Take | The 10 on Pine and other forgotten buses of Capitol Hill
Claiming Space, Seattle’s Lesbian & Gay Historical Geography, 2004 :: Seattle Maps and Atlases
Documentaries about Japanese American Incarceration you can Watch Online for Free Right Now
Hidden gay photo archive surfaces in new exhibit
History of Japanese Americans – Wikipedia
History of the Japanese in Seattle – Wikipedia
HistoryLink.org- the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History
How Asian-Americans Became Democrats
How Diversity Shapes Multiracial Experiences
How the Model Minority Myth Hurts Asian-American Elders
I always find the topic of Asian American culture fascinating when speaking to other AsAms.
I Used to Reject My Chinese Heritage, What Do I Do Now?
Isn’t it time we thought beyond monogamy as the ideal, and normalised open relationships?
LGBTQ Seattle Activism Project
NJAHS – National Japanese American Historical Society
November 24, 1985: The Colman School Occupation
Should I Open Up My Relationship?
The Best of Liquid Television Part 1
The Challenges and Joys of a Three-Way Relationship
The Gay Rights Movement and the City of Seattle during the 1970s
The Girls’ Bathroom in Honor of Codie Leone and the Art School Girls of Doom
The Immigrant’s Fate Is Everyone’s
The Lost Generation: From ‘The Joy Luck Club’ To ‘Crazy Rich Asians’
The Not-Quite-American Feeling of Being a 1.5 Generation Immigrant
Top Ten Asian Pacific American Comics Characters
Vloggers Discuss What It’s Like To Be An Asian Man On Grindr
When Asian America was a Movement
Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience
Books and Journals:
A History of Japanese Art: From Prehistory to the Taisho Period, Tsuda, Noritake; Ph.D, Patricia Graham, North Clarendon, VT, Tuttle Publishing, 2009.
A view from the bottom: Asian American masculinity and sexual representation, Nguyen, Tan Hoang, Durham, Duke University Press, 2014.
American Born Chinese, Yang, Gene Luen, New York, Square Fish, 2008.
Asian American Artists in the Northwest, International Examiner, No. 18 (Sept 17, 1997).
Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, Zia, Helen, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
Beacon Hill Boys, Mochizuki, Ken, New York, Scholastic Paperbacks, 2004.
Being Japanese American: A JA Sourcebook for Nikkei, Hapa & Their Friends, Asakawa, Gil, New York, United States, Stone Bridge Press, 2015.
But I Don’t See You as Asian: Curating Conversations about Race, Reyes-Chow, Bruce; Kemp-Pappan, Ryan , BRC Publications, 2013.
Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: at Home in the World, Kim, Elaine, New York, Penguin Books, 2004.
Claiming the Oriental Gateway: Prewar Seattle and Japanese America, Lee, Shelley Sang-Hee, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2012.
Creators on Creating: Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind, Barron, Frank; Montuori, Alfonso; Barron, Anthea, New York, TarcherPerigee, 1997.
Cruising the Movies: A Sexual Guide to Oldies on TV, McDonald, Boyd; Jones, William E., South Pasadena, CA, Semiotext, 2015.
Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility, Bronski, Michael, Boston, MA, South End Press, 1999.
Divided Destiny: A History of Japanese Americans in Seattle, Takami, David A., Seattle, Univ of Washington Pr, 1999.
Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide To Starting and Completing Your Work of Art, Maisel, Eric, New York, TarcherPerigee, 1995.
From Our Side of the Fence: Growing Up in America’s Concentration Camps, California, Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern, San Francisco, CA, Kearney St Workshop Pr, 2001.
Gay Seattle, Atkins, Gary, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2003.
Geisha of a Different Kind: Race and Sexuality In Gaysian America, Han, C. Winter, New York, New York University Press, 2015.
Hal Fischer: Gay Semiotics: A Photographic Study of Visual Coding Among Homosexual Men, Fischer, Hal, Los Angeles, Cherry and Martin, 2015.
How to Look At Japanese Art, Addiss, Stephen, New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
‘I’m American, not Japanese!’: the struggle for racial citizenship among later-generation Japanese Americans, Tsuda, Takeyuki , Ethnic and Racial Studies, February 2014, Vol.37(3), pp.405-424 .
Invisible Asian Americans: the intersection of sexuality, race, and education among gay Asian Americans, Ocampo, Anthony C.; Soodjinda, Daniel , Race Ethnicity and Education Volume 19, 2016 – Issue 3, 2016.
Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese American Internment Camps, Gruenewald, Mary Matsuda, Troutdale, Or, NewSage Press, 2005.
Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds, Sakamoto, Pamela Rotner , Harper, 2016.
Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes, + Pranks, Chin, Justin , St. Martin’s Griffin, 2011.
Monstress Vol. 1, Liu, Marjorie; Takeda, Sana , Image, 2016.
Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2005.
Nisei Sansei, Takahashi, Jere , Temple University Press, 1998.
No-No Boy, Okada, John; Inada, Lawson Fusao; Ozeki, Ruth, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2014.
Q & A: queer in Asian America, Eng , David L.; Hom, Alice Y., Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1998.
Queering contemporary Asian American art, Kina, Laura; Bernabe, Jan Christian; Min, Susette; Lee, Kyoo, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2017.
Same Difference, Kim, Derek Kirk, New York, First Second, 2011.
Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties, Ishizuka, Karen; Chang, Jeff, London, Verso, 2016.
Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology, Yang, Jeff; Shen, Parry; Chow, Keith; Ma, Jerry, New York, The New Press, 2012.
Skim, Tamaki, Mariko; Tamaki, Jillian, Toronto ; Berkeley, Groundwood Books, 2010.
Social Solidarity Among the Japanese in Seattle, Miyamoto, Shotaro Frank, Seattle, Univ of Washington Pr, 1984.
Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family, Kessler, Lauren, Portland : Seattle, Oregon Historical Society Press, 2006.
Stuck Rubber Baby, Cruse, Howard, New York, DC Comics, 2000.
Take out: queer writing from Asian Pacific America, Bao, Quang, New York, NY, Asian American Writers’ Workshop : Distributed by Temple University Press, 2000.
The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker, Liu, Eric, New York, Vintage, 1999.
The great unknown: Japanese American sketches, Robinson, Greg, Boulder, University Press of Colorado, 2016.
The Making of Asian America: A History, Lee, Erika, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2015.
The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting: A Facsimile of the 1887-1888 Shanghai Edition, Hiscox, Michael J. , Princeton University Press, 2015.
The Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQ Activism, Brooks, Adrian; Katz, Jonathan , Cleis Press, 2015.
The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, Harris, Daniel, New York, Ballantine Books, 1999.
Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, Wu, Frank, Princeton, N.J., Basic Books, 2003.
AJAX BELL 