Modeling Citizenship Jewish and Asian American Writing

"The work's success lies in Schlund-Vials's comparative study of analogous yet divergent texts of Jewish and Asian American literatures regarding 'model minorities,' migration, relocation, and citizenship, thoughtfully interpreted in terms of law, public sentiment, and immigrant attitudes of belonging and alienation... Summing Up: Recommended" CHOICE "[Schlund-Vials] read[s] Jewish and Asian American texts side-by-side to investigate how both ethnic groups have participated in and been shaped by model-minority discourse... [Her] book is organized historically around a number of couplings between Jewish and Asian American writing that prove particularly fruitful for analyzing how shifting attitudes toward naturalization and immigration policy have determined whether or not, and to what degree, these two minority groups can obtain the status of model citizens... [She] provid[es] nuanced, historically contextualized readings of literary works... [and] yield[s] strong insights into how cross-ethnic relations have bearing on the meanings of whiteness, transnationalism, model-minority identity, and citizenship."--MELUS, Spring 2013