'Rise: A Pop History of Asian America From the Nineties to Now'

Asian American history, movies, music, literature and so much more get their turn in this illustrated encyclopedia.

“Rise” is certainly, as its subtitle promises, “A Pop History of Asian America From the Nineties to Now.” But it includes so much more than pop history.

Take Filipino American history — October is, among other things, Filipino American History Month — which I never heard about in school.

Did you know that the first Asian American settlement in the U.S. was a fishing village founded in the 1760s by formerly enslaved Filipinos?

Did you know that Daly City, California, has the highest concentration of Filipino Americans? (Daly City is the setting for standup comic Jo Koy’s 2022 movie “Easter Sunday,” a fun and sweet homage to Filipino American families.)

Did you know that Filipino Americans who fought under the U.S. flag in World War II had to wait decades for the federal benefits that other veterans received? A federal law finally established the $198 million WWII Filipino Veterans Equity Fund in 2009.

That’s just the merest smidgen of what awaits readers in “Rise,” written by two of Asian America’s leading chroniclers, Jeff Yang and Phil Yu, and producer Philip Wang. It’s not really a book you read; for me, it was more the encyclopedia I hadn’t known I wanted. Within just a few pages, I knew I’d be returning to “Rise” again and again: to ponder its essays; to find movies and TV shows to watch, books to read, music to listen to, and people to learn about or follow; to affirm that I, too, am part of American society.

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I got to meet Yang and Yu during a July event in Los Angeles, where they signed copies of the book: “Keep rising!” (Yang) and “Stay angry” (Yu, whose online persona is Angry Asian Man). The attendees were mostly Asian American and wholly enthusiastic. While appetizer trays circulated, Yang and Yu posed for photos with a steady stream of admirers. I decided not to ask for a photo, but still felt a little thrill in their presence.

“Seen” has become a cliche, but it works well to describe how “Rise” makes me feel. The authors dedicated the book to “the ones who come next.” I like that, a lot. Yang and Yu are fellow Gen Xers, which means they know well what it was like to hunt for any sort of positive, nuanced representation of Asian Americans in pop culture.

As a kid, I watched “Barney Miller” not so much because it was a great sitcom (it was) but because its characters included a Japanese American detective, played by Jack Soo. I joined my parents in celebrating when “Gung Ho,” featuring Asian American actors, became a sitcom in the mid-1980s — it lasted just one season, and it wasn’t a good season, but here I am still talking about it — and when Connie Chung became an evening news anchor at CBS in 1993. When “The Joy Luck Club” was a hit first as a book and then as a movie about Chinese American mothers and daughters, I found it difficult to believe that people other than Asian Americans cared about it. I felt the exact same way 25 years later when “Crazy Rich Asians” blew up Hollywood’s box office and conventional wisdom.

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These days, it’s hard to keep up with all the Asian American actors, artists, athletes, authors, chefs, entrepreneurs, fashion designers, singers, scholars, scientists, television personalities — you get the idea. Where “Rise” truly succeeds is in shining a light on all the areas where Asian Americans are claiming space, such as with a chapter titled “How Filipino American DJs Turned the Tables on Hip-Hop.”

I’m not saying we’ve arrived. Far from it: A 2021 survey found that 42% of Americans, when asked to name a prominent Asian American, could not think of a single one, even while living under an administration whose vice president is Asian American.

But there’s hope. Among the media outlets that reported on said survey was NBC, which has invested in more coverage of Asian Americans under an NBC Asian America umbrella.

And then, of course, there’s “Rise,” brought to us not by a tiny niche press but by an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. We may not have arrived yet, but we are on our way.