War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art just published

Front cover of War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art

Front and back cover of the book.

My advance copy of War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art (University of Washington Press, 2013), which I co-edited with Wei Ming Dariotis, just arrived! It will be available in bookstores and online shortly.

Learn more at: http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/KINWAR.html

War Baby / Love Child examines hybrid Asian American identity through a collection of essays, artworks, and interviews at the intersection of critical mixed race studies and contemporary art. The book pairs artwork and interviews with nineteen emerging, mid-career, and established mixed race/mixed heritage Asian American artists, including Li-lan and Kip Fulbeck, with scholarly essays exploring such topics as Vietnamese Amerasians, Korean transracial adoptions, and multiethnic Hawai'i. As an increasingly ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation is coming of age in an era of "optional identity," this collection brings together first-person perspectives and a wider scholarly context to shed light on changing Asian American cultures. 

This multiauthor volume features a foreward by Kent A. Ono, a co-authored preface and introductory essay by the editors, 19 original artist interviews conducted by the editors, and original essays from Wei Ming Dariotis and the contributing authors: Camilla Fojas, Stuart Gaffney, Rudy Guevarra, Jr., Eleana J. Kim, Richard Lou, Margo Machida, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Lori Pierce, Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Ken Tanabe, and Wendy Thompson-Taiwo. Major funding for the publication has been awarded through the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, DePaul University and San Francisco State University.

Featured artists: Mequitta Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jin Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Richard Lou, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Laurel Nakadate, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Jenifer Wofford, Debra Yepa-Pappan.

Laura Kina is associate professor of art, media, and design at DePaul University. Wei Ming Dariotis is associate professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University.

"War Baby / Love Child is an interesting, original, and innovative project that expands the field of Asian American studies by using visual art as a point of entry and analysis for the discipline." - Mark Johnson, editor of Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970

"One of the strengths of this original volume is its holistic combination of interviews with premier fine artists along with the textual, historical, and scholarly context provided by established and emerging scholars in Asian American Studies." - Nitasha Sharma, author of Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans, Blackness, and Global Race Consciousness

Watch the trailer: