Eiichiro Azuma Receives Asian American Studies Book Award
March 2007
Eiichiro Azuma, an assistant professor of history and Asian American studies, received the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award for his book Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America. The association bestowed various awards for “titles of merit” published in 2006. Azuma received the history award for his study of the Japanese immigrant communities or Issei in the American West before World War II. Examining rarely consulted personal papers, vernacular newspapers, immigrant publications and government reports, Azuma stresses the tight grip of the Japanese and American states as well as the clashing influences they exercised over the Issei, and how these immigrants and their descendants created identities that diverged from both national narratives.
Between Two Empires has been widely recognized for its excellence with a number of prizes: the Hiroshi Shimizu Book Award from the Japanese Association for American Studies, the Theodore Saloutos Award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, and an honorable mention in the Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians.