LatinAsian Cartographies examines how Latina/o and Asian American writers provide important counter-narratives to the stories of racial encroachment that have come to characterize twenty-first century dominant discourses on race. Susan Thananopavarn contends that the Asian American and Latina/o presence in the United States, although often considered marginal in discourses of American history and nationhood, is in fact crucial to understanding how national identity has been constructed historically and continues to be constructed in the present day. 

Thananopavarn creates a new “LatinAsian” view of the United States that emphasizes previously suppressed aspects of national history, including imperialism, domestic racism during World War II, Cold War operations in Latin America and Asia, and the politics of borders in an age of globalization. LatinAsian Cartographies ultimately reimagines national narratives in a way that transforms dominant ideas of what it means to be American.   
 

SUSAN THANANOPAVARN is a lecturing fellow in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

"LatinAsian Cartographies intertwines readings of Asian American and Latina/o literature with fascinating historical accounts that often illuminate the urgency of cultural critique for current racial and national politics." 

"LatinAsian Cartographies is an excellent book that widens the scope of Asian American, Latin American, and American studies. Thananopavarn's comparative study allows us to engage with and learn about the complexities of globalization, transnational migration, citizenship, and belonging."

"Across the globe, various social movements
have started to question traditional historical narratives and figures. In this context, LatinAsian Cartographies is an interesting and relevant book."