Essays, excerpts, and short stories written by Asian Americans about growing up in the United States.

First memories."Pat and Pan" / Sui Sin Far -- "From Gee Sook to Beatty" from Sweet bamboo : saga of a Chinese American family / Louise Leung Larson -- "Frontier home" from Sushi and sourdough / Tooru J. Kanazawa -- "Through anger and love" / Toshio Mori -- "And the soul shall dance" / Wakako Yamauchi -- "Fourth grade ukus (1952)" / Marie Hara -- "Toussaint" from China boy / Gus Lee -- "Transformation" from Talking to high monks in the snow : an Asian American odyssey / Lydia Minatoya -- from Cebu / Peter Bacho -- "The monkeyman" / Zia Jaffrey. The beginnings of identity. Tragic transition : the internment of Japanese Americans (1942-1945) -- from Farewell to Manzanar / Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, James D. Houston -- from In search of Hiroshi / Gene Oishi -- from Quiet odyssey : a pioneer Korean woman in America / Mary Paik Lee ; edited with an introduction by Sucheng Chan -- "Father cures a presidential fever" from Father and glorious descendant / Pardee Lowe -- "The taste of independence" from Fifth Chinese daughter / Jade Snow Wong -- "Railroad standard time" / Frank Chin -- "Kubota" / Garrett Hongo -- from The Joy Luck Club / Amy Tan -- from Turning Japanese : memoirs of a sansei / David Mura -- "What means switch" / Gish Jen -- from The floating world / Cynthia Kadohata -- "Whatever happened to Harry?" / Susan Ito. Growing up. "The parrot's beak" / Kartar Dhillon -- "Seventeen syllables" / Hisaye Yamamoto -- from Clay walls / Kim Ronyoung -- from The woman warrior : memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts / Maxine Hong Kingston -- from Homebase / Shawn Wong -- "Carnival queen" / Mavis Hara -- "Paint" / Darrell H.Y. Lum -- "Chang" / Sigrid Nunez -- "First love" / R.A. Sasaki -- from The journey / Indira Ganesan.