Asian American Studies

The interplay between individualist and collectivist orientations, ethnic identity, and beliefs about stereotypes was explored among Asian Americans. The authors proposed four components of Asian American Identity: feelings of interdependence with family, a sense of connectedness to heritage and tradition, a belief that achievement would reflect well on one's family and group generally, and an awareness of structural barriers and racism. A sample of 162 Asian American university students perceived stereotypes about Asian Americans as focusing primarily on school achievement and secondarily on social attributes. Although rarely engaging in strategies to avoid being academically labeled, students engaged in strategies to avoid labeling in other domains. Students varied in their valuation of the model minority label, with those high in Asian American Identity, collectivism, and work ethic more likely to view the label positively.

Archaeology of the Japanese diaspora has reached “critical mass” in its disciplinary development, and there is a need to document the current state of this burgeoning subfield of historical archaeology. In this introduction we present a summary of the history of the Japanese diaspora and an overview of scholarly literature in related disciplines. The papers in this special issue reflect both current trends in archaeological scholarship and point in new methodological and theoretical directions. A concluding forum by three historians of the Japanese diaspora offers a critical reflection on the assembled papers and places them within a wider academic context.

Investigations conducted at the Gila River Incarceration Camp are a recent addition to the body of Japanese diaspora archaeology, with initial surveys focusing on landscaping features constructed by incarcerees. However, there remain difficulties in associating most landscaping features with their constructors, with exceptions of the few that have names inscribed. Furthermore, taking a diasporic approach to the incarcerated community materials highlights the diversity of identities present. In this article I discuss some of these challenges and the ambiguities which remain by exploring the ambivalence surrounding inscriptions and the populations which remain silenced by the archive.

Trending social media has indicated that there are currently two pandemics: Covid-19 and racism. While this typology and terminology can be critiqued, it is rather clear that the virus and White supremacy are key concerns of social movements in various parts of the world, particularly in nation states that experienced European colonisation and imperialism. The wake of Covid-19 has perhaps brought greater attention and support to #BlackLivesMatter-oriented protest movements, including by those labelled people of colour (POC) or ‘minorities’ in the North American context, such as Latinx and Asian communities. But with the amplified protest movement have come deeper calls for systemic change, from policy to ideology to everyday practice. Some of these critiques have been directed at the privilege, positionality, and participation of Asian communities not only with #BLM-oriented activism, but also in education and general society. This paper seeks to contribute to this critical discourse through a brief discussion of historical solidarity between Black and Asian activists and social movements, and how these practices might help inform activism within North America as well as other protest movements. Going beyond one-dimensional ‘but we experience racism too’ discourse of Asian communities that has recently increased due to anti-Asian hate crimes and scapegoating regarding ‘The Chinese Flu’, this paper explores some of the ways that historical Black-Asian solidarity can inform more intersectional and transnational analyses and pedagogies of Asian students, educators, and activists.

"The Color of Success tells of the astonishing transformation of Asians in the United States from the “yellow peril” to “model minorities”—peoples distinct from the white majority but lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values--in the middle decades of the twentieth century. As Ellen Wu shows, liberals argued for the acceptance of these immigrant communities into the national fold, charging that the failure of America to live in accordance with its democratic ideals endangered the country¹s aspirations to world leadership.

Weaving together myriad perspectives, Wu provides an unprecedented view of racial reform and the contradictions of national belonging in the Civil Rights era. She highlights the contests for power and authority within Japanese and Chinese America alongside the designs of those external to these populations, including government officials, social scientists, journalists, and others. And she demonstrates that the invention of the model minority took place in multiple arenas, such as battles over zoot suiters leaving wartime internment camps, the juvenile delinquency panic of the 1950s, Hawai‘i statehood, and the African American freedom movement. Together, these illuminate the impact of foreign relations on the domestic racial order and how the nation accepted Asians as legitimate citizens while continuing to perceive them as indelible outsiders.

By charting the emergence of the model minority stereotype, The Color of Success reveals that this far-reaching, politically charged process continues to have profound implications for how Americans understand race, opportunity, and nationhood.
"

Purpose: Little research exists that examines the leadership experiences of Asian American women in public schools. This study sought to understand the meanings Asian American women school administrators have constructed out of their professional lives given the intersection of gender, race-ethnicity, and leadership.
Research Method/Approach: Data collection primarily relied on semistructured in-depth interviews and informal observations with 11 building-level administrators in two demographically contrasting states in the United States. Data were analyzed through constant comparative methods, using three iterations of initial codes/surface content analysis, pattern variables development, and application to data set.
Findings: The Asian American women’s paths to leadership were to a large degree emergent and personal. The women embraced a lifetime mission as to make a difference on their students’ lives and uplift the social groups embodied in their identities. They struggled with gender, racial-ethnic, and cultural discrimination. Critiques and resistance to racism were often tempered, particularly in their professional lives, as evident in their careful usage of agentic behavior and balanced communal practices. Their agency to fully assume leadership and fight against the oppressive system was a cooperant process of survival, the “I have to,” and resistance, the “I want to and can.”
Conclusion: By centering on the lived experiences of Asian American women, this study adds a new intersectionality, positionality, and voice to the established knowledge about women of color and educational leadership.

""Reviews
"... Engagingly and accessibly written... deserves wide readership among everyone interested in US religion, ethnicity, organizations and urban culture." -- Choice

"...fascinating...offers valuable insights...This book will be of great interest to scholars of religion in America..." -- Sociology of Religion Fall 2006

"...highly readable... easily used in an undergraduate course...engaging...useful for a graduate course...I look forward to reading Marti's future work." -- Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

"...of methodological value to students of new religious movements...will help observers of other groups as well." -- Novo Religio, 10, 3 Feb. 2007

"Marti's argument seems to be that such a complex project can succeed..." -- Contemporary Sociology, 36, 1 Jan. 2007

"Anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of American evangelical diversity, of the emergent church movement, and of intriguing congregational efforts to bridge ethnic divides, will want to read this book." --Christian Scholar's Review

Mosaic in Southern California is one of the largest multiethnic congregations in America, and also one of the most innovative. This book takes us inside this unusual church. It shows how the church has achieved multiethnicity, not by targeting ethnic groups, but by providing multiple havens of inclusion and commonality that render ethnic differences moot. These havens are arenas for multiethnic companionship, cooperation, and camaraderie that arise out of a union of creative volunteer resources and the ambitious global mission of the church. A Mosaic of Believers examines the structure of the church and the innovative aspects of its mission. It reveals a congregation aiming to reconstruct evangelical theology, personal identity, member involvement, and church governance in an attempt to create an institution with greater relevance to the social reality of a new generation. Based on interviews and participation with the congregation and grounded in contemporary sociological theory, the book presents a rich portrait of an emerging religious community.""

Keywords: Community engagement, Literacy, Language practices, Counter-narratives, Critical race theory, Sociocultural learning, multiethnic families

In this article, the author utilizes critical and sociocultural approaches to race, language
and culture to examine the intersectional experiences of a multiethnic and ‘mixed race’
cohort of students in an inner-city, working-class neighborhood between their elementary
and high school years. This article examines the students’ experiences in a nine-year
educational process focused on critical pedagogy, sociocultural learning, and community
engagement in and out of classrooms. More specifically, the article looks at interview, participant observation, and narrative data with a Latina/o and Asian American male student, and an Asian American female student, and how they made sense of their experiences over time with regards to issues of race, pedagogy, literacy, and agency.

Little archaeological research has focused on comparing the lives of Chinese migrants in North America with their non-Chinese neighbors, and only a modest amount of work of any sort has been done on Japanese sites. The following study compares archaeological and archival evidence of dining habits among Japanese and Chinese laborers at a turn-of-the-20thcentury salmon cannery in British Columbia. The objective is to explore the role of ethnic tradition and contextual factors in patterns of material consumption, using a theoretical perspective rooted in transnationalism and diaspora. Results indicate the Japanese cannery workers consumed a combination of Asian- and Western-style meals, while the Chinese relied largely on traditional meals. Data from these and other sites reveal considerable diversity, however, and demonstrate that labor organization and other contextual factors are at least equally as important as cultural tradition in producing distinctions between consumption patterns of Asian migrant groups.

This article builds on media use scholarship by focusing on an understudied population, second- generation Korean American adolescents and their use of transnational media. The primary findings are that second-generation Korean Americans use transnational media as cultural resources through which they construct “new ethnicities” that are situated at the borders of their identities as members of the Korean diaspora whose everyday experiences are rooted in their status as marginalized racialized ethnic minorities in the U.S. Second-generation Korean Americans build inter-ethnic boundaries to create a unique identity that separates themselves from the controlling gaze of dominant culture and to build intra-ethnic boundaries to differentiate between authentic and inauthentic Korean Americans. To do so, they draw on knowledge of Korean popular culture as it comes to be known through transnational Korean media. Finally, their use of Korean media is also influenced by their local views of gender and, in particular, masculinity.

This article reconceptualizes white teachers’ notion of their Asian-American students’ racial identity. Forty urban Southeast Asian-American (SEAA) students and seven of their White European American teachers were examined to determine how the students responded to the white teachers’ assumptions about their identity. This study provides an overview of the U.S. historical and political contexts that shapes the positionality of Southeast Asian-American youth in the black–white racial discourse. It found that despite the fact that the teachers lumped the SEAA students into one category, the students highlighted the salience of ethnicity in their lives. One implication of this study is for teacher education programs to train new teacher candidates to move beyond simple racial categorization or race-blind approaches. Instead, teachers should be taught to acknowledge the importance of ethnicity to their students; to examine their own positionalities; and to incorporate more culturally relevant pedagogies into their instructional practices.

The formation of queer psychology has been a critical intervention in breaking apart the psychological tendency of reifying categories of gender and sexuality. Nonetheless, latent Orientalism and white-centered epistemologies in psychology have continued to produce culturally essentialist depictions of a repressive "Chinese sexuality" and "backward Asian culture." In this article, I present three main problems in psychological representations of Sinophone queers: (a) "cultural colorblindness" resulting from the conflation of race and culture, (b) the problematic analytical category of "Chineseness," and (c) race and culture being theorized as a burden for Sinophone and Asian queers. In order for psychology and queer studies scholars to destabilize these epistemologically violent interpretations, this article argues that we must engage with Sinophone critique and shift away from a framework of culture to one of "concerns" in order to capture the heterogeneity of queer Sinophone subjectivities.

When African Americans, Southern and Eastern Europeans, and Chinese immigrants migrated to American cities in large numbers in the early twentieth century they encountered a xenophobic and often violent reception born out of a culture of fear. White, predominately Anglo, Protestant Americans, were anxious and afraid of the new arrivals. Their racist beliefs about these non-
Anglo “others” and their concerns about the economic competition of a new labor force morphed into discussions about the alleged threats posed by their new neighbors. They frequently pointed to the “superstitions” of these groups as evidence of the cultural and intellectual inferiority of non-Anglo races and the potential dangers they posed to a civilized, Christian society. Missionaries, teachers, settlement house workers, and doctors feared the varied folk beliefs and practices of these people and vigorously sought to stamp out these beliefs in order to uplift and protect the “less civilized civilized races.” Nevertheless magical practices persisted.
The new arrivals, facing a dangerous and unfamiliar environment, found comfort and power through magical beliefs, amulets and protective charms. Apotropaic practices, rather than disappearing through the processes of immigration, urbanization, and industrialization, thrived as a means of coping with the uncertainty that confronted individuals in the often hostile environs of American cities. Magical charms and amulets provided protection against old world threats of witchcraft, demons, and the evil eye and, in the new world, they provided supernatural protection against the very natural threats of poverty, disease, and infant mortality. Magical practices became a means of empowerment in a frightening and powerless situation and especially in protecting that which was most precious to urban families: their children. Over time and through the interaction of ethnic groups within the urban environment, apotropaic practices gained new meanings and sometimes merged with other cultural traditions to create new, cross-cultural
magical traditions.

The colonial mentality, a perception of Filipino cultural inferiority, results in many
Filipinos distancing themselves from their Filipino heritage. In Hawai‘i, the colonial
history of the Philippines is reinforced by the history of Hawai‘i’s plantation era and
the creation of a “local” identity, which marginalizes the Filipino community and
strengthens the colonial mentality. A content analysis of 105 essays written by
Filipino students enrolled in college level Filipino language and culture classes in
Hawai‘i was conducted to critically examine whether and how educational
curriculum is used to challenge the colonial mentality. Data analysis shows
students often entered classrooms with a colonial mentality that they learned
through familial socialization and experiences of ethnic discrimination outside of
the family. Although these language and culture courses helped students to
reconnect with their Filipino heritage, many students developed a positive and
essentialist construction of a Filipino identity, which reduced the individual’s
agency in constructing an identity and facilitated processes of othering.

This article explores efforts by San Francisco based Asian American youth organizers to build meaningful cross-racial coalitions. Based upon two years of ethnographic field work with Fist Up, I offer an analysis of how youth organizers carried out the unsettling work of practicing what Roseann Liu and Savannah Shange have described as thick solidarity. Interrogating the model minority myth required that Asian American youth organizers develop sophisticated understandings its relationship to anti-Black political projects.

This article situates the reception of Joy Kogawa’s Obasan within a comparative North American context, tracing the divergence and conver- gence of US and Canadian racial discourses in the canonization of Obasan in Asian American and Canadian literary studies. Through a consideration of how the novel both affirms the oppositional politics of Asian American literary studies and the fragmented nationalism of Canadian literary studies, this article argues that the politics of reception, appropriation and recogni- tion that underwrite the text’s cross-border canonization are prefigured by the text’s own engagement with passing and recognition. While Obasan’s blurring of Japanese Canadian and First Nations experiences can be read as a critique of Canadian racialization and the presumed universalization of US racial formations, such representational strategies are not immune to the colonizing gestures that inform the text’s inclusion in Asian American and Canadian literary studies.

This paper reflects on ways in which intergenerational familial experience of the Japanese American World War II mass incarceration may have differentially affected the ethnic and racial identity development of multiracial Sansei (third generation Japanese Americans). I begin with a brief review of the literature related to the effects of the camps on Nisei, integrating psychological understandings of racial and ethnic identity development, contextual history, and research on the psychological effects; I focus here on effects for Nisei that have been connected to their intergenerational interactions: distancing from Japanese American heritage and identity, silence about the camp experience, and the negotiation of racism and discrimination. I turn then to the primary focus of the paper: Using a combination of autoethnographical reflection, examples from qualitative interviews, and literature review, I engage in reflective exploration of two ways in which intergenerational effects of the camp experience influenced Sansei racial and ethnic identities that vary among monoracial and multiracial Sansei: familial transmission of Japanese American culture by Nisei to Sansei, and the intergenerational effects and transmission of racial discrimination and racial acceptance. I conclude with reflections on intergenerational healing within Japanese American families and communities, and reflections on the relation of these dynamics to current issues of racial justice more generally.

Where does internalized racism come from? How is it sustained and perpetuated within the Asian American com-munity? What is the role and consequence of internalized racism within the Asian American community? This article reviews the existing literature to map the origin, role, and consequences of internalized racism among Asian Ameri-cans. Research on internalized racism must examine more than individual behaviors, otherwise it falls victim to conceiving of individuals as "racial dupes" (i.e., an individual who has been deceived into supporting existing racial hierarchies and systems of racial inequalities). However, the research should also veer away from an over emphasis on individual agency and resistance because doing so ignores the larger structural systems of inequality that exist, via colonial mentality and racialization, which influence individual behaviors. Future research on internalized racism must engage both perspectives to hold accountable the connection between broader racialization processes and everyday interactions driven by internalized racism.

Using 11 high-grossing post-9/11 Hollywood films on terrorism and the Middle East, the author analyzes how films racialize Muslim identities in service to Islamophobia. This research brings together racialization theory with analysis of political ideologies that illustrate visualized racialized meanings on Muslim identities. The racialized portrayals of Muslim bodies inscribed in the political rhetoric of the War on Terror follow a systemic process of ethnoracial cultural othering that objectifies, vilifies, and dehumanizes Muslim identities. The author demonstrates how films engage in the political processes of racial construction of Muslim identities by criminalizing their gendered identity, dehumanizing their body, and devaluing their territorial and physical space in the context of the War on Terror.

This inquiry examines how district English Learner (EL) leaders negotiate and shape their linguistic and racial identities within the landscape of racially desegregated urban school districts. Girded by the theory of LangCrit, an intersection between critical language studies (CLS) and Critical Race Theory (CRT), this study illuminates how EL leaders position language and language learning as their primary leadership aim. This language-centered focus resists the institutional practices of their desegregated districts that are principally shaped by binary racial frameworks of Black and white. Resisting the racialization of language, EL leaders negotiate their leadership actions through colorblind, colormute and nativist lenses that are shaped by their respective linguistic and racial identities. Implications within this narrative study assert that inter and intra-racial and cross-linguistic dialogue is necessary among EL leaders with other leaders of color to deconstruct equitable opportunities for ELs by centering and intersecting the constructs of race and language.

In this chapter, I provide a critical interpretation of secular mindfulness in schools that situates the phenomenon within the broader context of
neoliberalism and the interwoven dynamics of race. In doing so, I argue that secular mindfulness requires an ideology of white conquest that makes invisible the enduring efforts of Asian and Asian American Buddhists in maintaining the legacy of mindfulness practices. I further argue that when secular mindfulness programs are applied in schools, they often unconsciously advance both the neoliberal marketization of public schools and a curriculum predicated on a system of white superiority. Such curricula then discipline students both through neoliberal self-regulation and through a racial conditioning of white superiority as common, and
calm, sense. Consequently, in the face of widespread economic and racial inequality, most secular mindfulness in education programs instructs a
sense of individual responsibility and uplift, rather than government accountability and structural change. This chapter is part of a larger exploration of race, power, neoliberalism, and secular mindfulness in schools. It serves as the initial foundation for a deeper investigation of these topics, which I undertake in a separate article.

Los Angeles Chinatown is one of the oldest North American urban Chinatowns and experiencing changes that are redefining the neighborhood. Yet, not all community leaders label these changes as gentrification that directly displaces the community. This article examines how community leaders representing business, residential, and cultural interests engage in the politics of placemaking through their narratives of a new development, Blossom Plaza. Community leaders do not always view gentrification as a primary direct displacement, and instead emphasize how a secondary and symbolic displacement is happening historically, physically, economically, and politically in Chinatown. However, they also vary in whether they see these changes as ultimately reshaping the neighborhood to maintain its unique identity, which is linked to how they envision Chinatown as an ethnic space. The findings highlight the importance of considering symbolic displacement in gentrification studies about historic ethnic enclaves.

This study attempts to determine whether 4 decades after the Kerner Commission, newspapers report more accurately on an increasingly diverse population. Specifically, it studied whether the size of the Asian American population covered by a newspaper influences the coverage of Asian Americans in newspaper articles. It appears that although newspapers situated within larger Asian American communities report more frequently, at more depth, and with more prominence on Asian Americans, the quality of that coverage is not influenced by the size of the Asian American community. In cities with larger Asian American populations, newspapers have responded with increased stories and length but not with increased quality of coverage. This is likely because of newspaper fears of alienating European American readers, leading to a “White flight” in circulation and because of news practices that lead to distorted reports of Asian Americans. These findings renew calls for the newspaper industry to more fairly represent the diverse range of its readership and not just its most favored demographic.

The episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt titled “Kimmy Goes to a Play” is widely understood as Tina Fey’s unapologetic response to anti-racist criticism of the show’s first season. By satirically vilifying Asian American protesters as intolerant of Titus, a Black queer man, for performing a one-person play about his former life as a geisha, the show hides problems of White American appropriation and advances the racial politics of the model minority stereotype. Using Titus as a stand-in for herself as a show creator, Fey argues for her right to unapologetically culturally appropriate in her racial humor. As such, the message of the episode is consistent with “White feminism,” which advances superficial, postracial anti- racism as an ideological shield while wielding it as a conservative rhetorical weapon to demand White women’s access to the benefits of White men’s privilege. This helps reveal the contradictions of White feminism that allows its adherents to believe themselves to be progressive while opting out of progressive anti-racism.

This essay interprets Chilean accounts of a loyalty oath by Chinese coolies to the Chilean army during the War of the Pacific against a broader social history of Chinese agrarian resistance in Peru and military experience in China. The essay argues that masculinity and labor were central to articulating divergent political agendas and defining national differences as racial differences. Chilean tales about emancipating Chinese slaves affirmed Chile's superiority over despotic Peruvians. Moreover, in stories about a Chinese oath, Chileans affirmed their civilizing mission by recognizing Chinese men as similar to themselves: brave warriors prepared to die for freedom and nation. For Chinese men, the oath was not about loyalty to Chile but loyalty to each other in an ongoing fight against bondage on Peruvian plantations. The ceremony enacted a Chinese fraternity of mutual protection and hierarchy that helped leverage Chile's invasion to replace coolie arrangements with Chinese-controlled subcontracting and free peonage.

ABSTRACT
In light of the United States' 2011 declaration of an economic and military policy refocus-ing on the Asia-Pacific region, Kuan-Hsing Chen's argument for Asia as method can be expanded in Asian American critique to consider Asia and the Pacific as method. A critical analysis of Asian American settler colonialism in Hawai‘l
and in the United States constitutes one such methodology that mobilizes a mode of self-reflexive inquiry in Asian American critique and conjoins it to a decolonizing and deimperializing movement in Asia and the Pacific, underscoring the need for Asian American settlers to challenge the US settler state and its assault on indigenous peoples and to enact a future beyond empires. On a global scale, US settler colonialism and its seizures of indigenous lands enable and are enabled by US imperialist practices in Asia and the Pacific. The Moana Nui 2011 conference in Honolulu countered the militarized capitalism of empires represented by APEC and the TPP, illustrating the ways that peoples of Asia and the Pacific can build on each other's struggles and enact economies that will sustain us beyond empires, economies premised not on the production of scarcity that drives capitalism but on the restoration of abundance.

Minorities and marginalized groups have increasingly become the target of discriminatory actions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Detailed information about the manifestation of COVID-related discrimination is required to develop preventive actions that are not stigmatizing for such groups. The present study investigates experiences of perceived discrimination related to COVID-19 and its socio-cultural correlates in a culturally diverse sample of adults in Quebec (Canada). An online survey was completed by 3273 Quebec residents (49% 18-39 years old; 57% female; 49% White). We used multivariate binomial logistic regression models to assess prevalence of COVID-related discrimination and to investigate socio-cultural correlates of reasons and contexts of discrimination. COVID-related discrimination was reported by 16.58% of participants. Non-white participants, health-care workers and younger participants were more likely to experience discrimination than White, unemployed and older participants, respectively. Discrimination was reported primarily in association with participants’ ethno-cultural group, age, occupation and physical health and in the context of public spaces. Participants of East-Asian descent and essential workers were more likely to report discrimination because of their ethnicity and occupation, respectively. Although young people experienced discrimination across more contexts, older participants were primarily discriminated in the context of grocery stores and because of their age. Our findings indicate that health communication actions informed by a social pedagogy approach should target public beliefs related to the association of COVID-19 with ethnicity, age and occupation, to minimize pandemic related discrimination. Visible minorities, health-care workers and seniors should be protected and supported, especially in public spaces.