Strangers from a Different Shore

Takaki asserts that the history of Asian Americans has been understudied and underappreciated as American history curriculums have favored Eurocentric perspectives. He refers to the popular American history book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know by E. D. Hirsch as an example of this bias. The book teaches readers about Ellis Island, where thousands of European immigrants landed in America, but fails to mention Angel Island, in San Francisco, where Asian immigrants entered the US. Takaki posits that many scholars have shared an ethnocentric interpretation of American culture and history by emphasizing European Americans’ stories and contributions, but failing to adequately address other groups’ histories.

Takaki accuses historians such as Arthur Schlesinger of renouncing multiculturalism and discouraging historical scholarship of the different ethnic groups that make up the US. The author critiques Schlesinger’s belief that studying different ethnic groups’ histories will have a divisive effect on American culture or encourage mindsets of victimization. He also refutes the notion that the United States’ legal framework, which bestows representation and equality to each citizen, was a uniquely European ideal, pointing out that the founding fathers only intended to include white men in full citizenship and that the government had legally limited citizenship to whites.