Unassimilable

De: Bianca Mabute-Louie

Narrado por: Natalie Naudus

A scholar and activist’s brilliant socio-political examination of Asian Americans who refuse to assimilate and instead build their own belonging on their own terms outside of mainstream American institutions.

In this hard-hitting and deeply personal book, a combination of manifesto and memoir, scholar, sociologist, and activist Bianca Mabute-Louie transforms the ways we understand race, class, citizenship, and the concept of assimilation and its impact on Asian American communities from the nineteenth century to present day.

UNASSIMILABLE opens with a focus on the San Gabriel Valley (SGV), the first Asian ethnoburb in Los Angeles County and in the nation, where she grew up. A suburban neighborhood with a conspicuous Asian immigrant population, SGV thrives not because of its assimilation into Whiteness, but because of its unapologetic catering to its immigrant community.

Mabute-Louie then examines “Predominantly White Institutions With A lot of Asians” and how these institutions shape the racial politics of Asian Americans and Asian internationals, including the fight against affirmative action and the fight for ethnic studies. She moves on to interrogate the role of the religion, showing how the immigrant church is a sanctuary even as it is an extension of colonialism and the American Empire. In the book’s conclusion, Bianca looks to the future, boldly proposing a reconsideration of the term Asian American for a new label that better clarifies who Asians in America are today.

UNASSIMILABLE offers a radical vision of Asian American political identity informed by a refusal of Whiteness and collective care for each other. It is a forthright declaration against assimilation and in service of cross-racial, anti-imperialist solidarity and revolutionary politics. Scholarly yet accessible, informative and informed, this book is a major addition to Ethnic Studies and American Studies.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2025 Bianca Mabute-Louie (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers

Must read for Asian Americans today, a real spiritual experience

Despite having such distinct, differing backgrounds, there were so many moments where I was brought back to re-living past experiences of overlap with being the child of an (Japanese) immigrant, navigating an evangelical identity, living near/around various ethnoburbs (SF Bay Area) and then not…

Having someone articulate so clearly and concisely feelings I’ve been unpacking more and more for over a decade has been so timely, breathing life into my heart. A real spiritual experience. Thank you, Bianca!

"Whiteness" as Fascist Dogwhistle

Unassimilable is an emotionally powerful book. I sensed the author’s deep pain and her sincere attempt to process generational trauma through personal story and political theory. Her vivid portraits of San Gabriel Valley (SGV) life—its storefronts, families, and networks—met my need for cultural texture and historical visibility. The timeline of anti-Asian exclusion laws and overlooked economic structures added further value.

Yet as I listened, I began to feel a mounting discomfort. My need for intellectual honesty and contextual integrity wasn’t met. The narrative repeatedly identifies “whiteness” as the root of all harm, but the term is used in ways that resemble an anthropomorphized villain—totalizing, omnipresent, and causally responsible for every injustice discussed. This use is not grounded in systemic analysis, but in a rhetorical style that draws its force from repetition and moral absolutism.

I also noticed an absence of historical contradictions that might have complicated the book’s thesis. For example, atrocities like the Rape of Nanking or the Great Leap Forward—acts of genocide and mass suffering within Asian contexts—are never mentioned. This omission made it difficult for me to trust the universality of the author’s conclusions. My need for balanced truth-telling went unmet.

Instead, the book appears to frame “whiteness” as a kind of racialized essence, used not only to explain harm but also to silence dissent. Readers or Asian-Americans who diverge from the author’s political path are described as collaborators or agents of oppression. Disagreement itself is labeled “white violence,” collapsing speech into harm. These rhetorical moves—scapegoating, purity logic, loyalty policing, and silencing opposition—mirror the mechanics of fascist discourse.

This is why I view the use of “whiteness” in this book not just as a critical term, but as a fascist dogwhistle: a coded moral signal that assigns guilt by identity, bypasses debate, and builds ideological unity through exclusion. Its emotional charge is real. But its structure—moral essentialism tied to a racialized target—is functionally indistinct from the very authoritarian models it seeks to resist.

I do not believe the author intends this effect. I believe she is writing from the heart, not from hatred. But in elevating personal pain above contradictory history and framing a single group as inherently corrupt, the book trades connection for control. It felt more like a manifesto forged in anguish than a generative critique of systems.

I do not believe the author intends this effect. I believe she is writing from the heart, not from hatred. In Chapter 6, she even acknowledges that her own “militarism” has alienated some of her left-liberal allies. Yet, rather than using this moment to reflect critically on the foundations of her approach, she doubles down—adopting the same tactics she condemns: ideological purging, essentialist blame, and territorial control. In doing so, the book elevates personal pain above historical contradiction and frames an entire group as inherently corrupt. It trades connection for control, and empathy for absolutism. The result feels less like a generative critique of systems and more like a manifesto forged in anguish.

I was left wishing the author had trusted her audience with complexity—especially the complexity that SGV’s thriving model emerged within American pluralism and capitalist markets, not in opposition to them.