<p>Through multi-site, multi-media, and multi-language ethnographic and historical research, the author demonstrates that during the twentieth century, as the mainstream definition of Americanness changed from &quot;whiteness&quot; to &quot;assimilation&quot; and to &quot;ethnic diversity,&quot; the meaning of being Chinese evolved. Jinzhao Li demonstrates the shifts that occurred from non-assimilation in the 1910s and Americanization in the 1930s to exoticization in the 1950s–1960s, pan-ethnicization in the 1970s, and localization in the 1990s and 2000s. She focuses on the transformation and self-representation of the Chinese American community through its biggest annual events. Different from many contemporary studies of U.S. ethnic festivals and beauty contests that adopt a white/non-white analytical binary, this book proposes a colonial settler-indigenous triangular model in understanding U.S. racial relations and ethnic self-representation.</p>