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The Second World War's role in bringing Chinese Americans into the mainstream of American society

Americans First

Chinese Americans and the Second World War

K. Scott Wong

"Wong's book on the experiences of Chinese Americans during World War II will not only go a long way to fill in the gaps but also challenge students to think critically about social change for Asian Americans during Word War II. He skillfully employs numerous quotes from newspaper sources and interviews to tell this complicated history of ethnic tensions and racial formation. Americans First is a terrific book for course use. By illuminating a little known area of Asian American history, the book provokes much discussion and debate."
—Mary Ting Yi Lui, Yale University

During the Second World War, Chinese Americans contributed to the war effort by joining the armed forces and working in the defense industries. In doing so, they improved their social status, often at the expense of Japanese Americans, and positioned themselves to become the “model minority” and the “good Asian in the good war.”

In Americans First, K. Scott Wong uses archival research and oral histories to provide the first detailed account of Chinese Americans in the American military. Wong traces the history of the 14th Air Service Group, a segregated outfit of Chinese Americans sent to China in support of the American Army Air Corps and the Chinese Air Force. His ethnic history of inclusion shows how this new generation of Chinese Americans was more socially accepted, moving from the margins of society into the American mainstream during a time of pervasive racism.

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Reviews

Praise for the previous edition:

"Americans First is an outstanding synthesis of firsthand accounts and nuanced historical analysis. At once soulful and impeccably researched, we can now recognize a generation of Americans missing from our history."
—John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York University

"Americans First breaks new ground by shifting our focus from Chinese immigration and exclusion in the nineteenth century to the beginnings of Chinese American inclusion during World War II."
—Judy Yung, author of Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco

"Americans First explores the impact of World War II on Chinese Americans. As one of the relatively few scholarly treatments of the Chinese American experience during this time period, it provides a welcome addition to Asian American history. The book, filled with lively oral histories, is informative."
—Journal of American History

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About the Author(s)

K. Scott Wong is James Phinney Baxter III Professor of History & Public Affairs at Williams College.

Subject Categories

Asian American Studies
American Studies
Race and Ethnicity

In the series

Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ.

The "standard" written histories of Asian immigrants to the United States have been imbued with Western cultural biases. As a critique and corrective to earlier work, Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ, aims to develop a history of Asian Americans that is compatible with their own experience, that treats Asian Americans as agents of historical change and as creators of a new culture. In addition, this series intends to focus on the groups that are flourishing in the contemporary U.S.—Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese—about whom little has been written as well as to add to the substantial work done on the Chinese and Japanese in this country.

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