Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker’s Journal (Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies, 5) - Softcover

Lau, Alan Chong

9780824823238: Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker’s Journal (Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies, 5)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0824823230 ISBN 13: 9780824823238

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press, 2000

Alan Chong Lau’s poetic memoir of his days as a produce worker in Seattle’s Chinatown reveals a microcosm of grassroots, working-class Asian America―a world where customers, workers, and fruits and vegetables intersect in exchanges that crackle with energy and brim over with humor.

With the simple profundity of a Zen koan, the poems bear witness to people’s humanity. Lau portrays in words and pictures a community in constant flux as it moves to the push and pull of immigration. Blues and Greens has a lot to say about Asian Americans. What emerges is an acutely observed, nuanced critique of where Asian Americans―native-born, refugee, and migrant―are today.

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From the Inside Flap:

"In this sensuous, often witty book, one is struck from the first page onwards with how completely this poet lives a 'life considered.' No one I know writes with more sensitivity about the nature of life and work than Alan Lau, and few poets explore so honestly the nature of living in a community with others who have had to live complex and difficult lives."--Gail Tremblay

"Filled with startling images, subtle insights, and true-to-life profundities, this long-awaited volume by this widely known and highly regarded, multifaceted artist will undoubtedly prove to be an event. It will speak to people interested in poetry, Asia, Asian America, the visual arts, multiculturalism, food, produce, sociological issues, commerce, spirituality, and just plain life in general."--Lawson Fusao Inada

About the Author:

Alan Chong Lau was born in 1948 in Paradise, California. He received his B.A. in art from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is co-author with Garrett Hongo and Lawson Inada of Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99 (1976) and author of Songs for Jadina (1980). His writing has appeared in many publications and anthologies. His paintings have been exhibited in the U.S., England and Japan.

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