GROWING UP ASIAN AMERICAN edited by...

GROWING UP ASIAN AMERICAN edited by Maria Jong (416 pp.); GROWING UP CHICANA/O edited by Tiffany Ana Lopez (272 pp.) and GROWING UP NATIVE AMERICAN edited by Patricia Riley (336 pp.) (Avon: $11; each). The autobiographical essays and fiction in these anthologies focus on individual themes. The writers in the Asian-American volume describe clashes between powerful cultures. In an excerpt from “Father and Glorious Descendant,” Chinese-American essayist Pardee Lowe muses, “For me, at least, it was difficult to be a filial Chinese son and a good American citizen at one and the same time. . . . Father was pioneering with Americanism--and so was I. And more often than not, we were blazing entirely different trails.” The Native-American writers seek to recapture their identity after centuries of physical and cultural dislocation. Recalling his discovery of his vocation, poet Simon Ortiz (Acoma) explains, “My desire was to write about the integrity of and dignity of an Indian identity, and at the same time, I wanted to look at what this was within the context of an America that had too often denied its Indian heritage.” The Chicana/o authors recount their efforts to reconcile European and Native American traditions. The boy who narrates Gerald Haslam’s “The Horned Toad” is puzzled by the conflicting attitudes of his Mexican grandmother and his Americanized parents. In “The Circuit” by Francisco Jimenez, a migrant laborer’s son struggles to get an American education as his family moves from place to place. Although intended for high school students, all three books offer interesting reading for adults. The fourth volume in the series, “Growing up Black” edited by Jay David, was not available for review.