Contemporary asian america a multidisciplinary reader pdf

CONTEMPORARY ASIAN AMERICA

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Contemporary Asian America A Multidisciplinary Reader

THIRD EDITION

Edited by Min Zhou and Anthony C. Ocampo

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York and London

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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org

© 2016 by New York University All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Zhou, Min, 1956– editor. | Ocampo, Anthony Christian, 1981– editor. Title: Contemporary Asian America : a multidisciplinary reader / edited by Min Zhou and Anthony C. Ocampo. Description: Third edition. | New York : New York University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015043568| ISBN 9781479829231 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479826223 (pb : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Asian Americans. | Asian Americans—Study and teaching. Classification: LCC E184.O6 C66 2016 | DDC 973/.0495—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043568

e-ISBN: 978-1-4798-4999-4

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http://www.nyupress.org
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043568
From Min Zhou: For Philip Jia Guo and Lisa Phuong Mai, the children of Asian immigrants

From Anthony C. Ocampo: For my parents Myrtle and Chito Ocampo, immigrants from the Philippines

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CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures Preface to the Third Edition Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition Introduction: Revisiting Contemporary Asian America

Min Zhou, Anthony C. Ocampo, and J. V. Gatewood

PART I. CLAIMING VISIBILITY: THE ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT

1. “On Strike!” San Francisco State College Strike, 1968–1969: The Role of Asian American Students

Karen Umemoto

2. The “Four Prisons” and the Movements of Liberation: Asian American Activism from the 1960s to the 1990s

Glenn Omatsu Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART II. TRAVERSING BORDERS: CONTEMPORARY ASIAN IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

3. Contemporary Asian America: Immigration, Demographic Transformation, and Ethnic Formation

Min Zhou, Anthony C. Ocampo, and J. V. Gatewood

4. The Waves of War: Refugees, Immigrants, and New Americans from Southeast Asia

Carl L. Bankston III and Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo

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Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART III. TIES THAT BIND: THE IMMIGRANT FAMILY AND THE ETHNIC COMMUNITY

5. New Household Forms, Old Family Values: The Formation and Reproduction of the Filipino Transnational Family in Los Angeles

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas

6. The Reorganization of Hmong American Families in Response to Poverty Yang Sao Xiong

7. Enclaves, Ethnoburbs, and New Patterns of Settlement among Asian Immigrants

Wei Li, Emily Skop, and Wan Yu Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART IV. STRUGGLING TO GET AHEAD: ECONOMY AND WORK

8. Just Getting a Job Is Not Enough: How Indian Americans Navigate the Workplace

Pawan Dhingra

9. Gender, Migration, and Work: Filipina Health Care Professionals to the United States

Yen Le Espiritu

10. The Making and Transnationalization of an Ethnic Niche: Vietnamese Manicurists

Susan Eckstein and Thanh-Nghi Nguyen Study Questions Suggested Readings

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Films

PART V. SEXUALITY IN ASIAN AMERICA

11. “Tomboys” and “Baklas”: Experiences of Lesbian and Gay Filipino Americans

Kevin L. Nadal and Melissa J. H. Corpus

12. No Fats, Femmes, or Asians: The Utility of Critical Race Theory in Examining the Role of Gay Stock Stories in the Marginalization of Gay Asian Men

C. Winter Han Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART VI. RACE AND ASIAN AMERICAN IDENTITY

13. Are Asians Black? The Asian American Civil Rights Agenda and the Contemporary Significance of the Paradigm

Janine Young Kim

14. Are Second-Generation Filipinos “Becoming” Asian American or Latino? Historical Colonialism, Culture, and Panethnicity

Anthony C. Ocampo

15. Are Asian Americans Becoming White? Min Zhou

Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART VII. INTERMARRIAGES AND MULTIRACIAL ETHNICITY

16. Are We “Postracial”? Intermarriage, Multiracial Identification, and Changing Color Lines

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Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean

17. Mapping Multiple Histories of Korean American Transnational Adoption Kim Park Nelson

Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART VIII. CONFRONTING ADVERSITY: RACISM, STEREOTYPING, AND EXCLUSION

18. A Letter to My Sister and a Twenty-Five-Year Anniversary Lisa Park

19. “Racial Profiling” in the War on Terror: Cultural Citizenship and South Asian Muslim Youth in the United States

Sunaina Maira

20. Racial Microaggressions and the Asian American Experience Derald Wing Sue, Jennifer Bucceri, Annie I. Lin, Kevin L. Nadal, and Gina C. Torino

Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART IX. BEHIND THE MODEL MINORITY

21. Jeremy Lin’s Model Minority Problem Maxwell Leung

22. Continuing Significance of the Model Minority Myth: The Second Generation

Lisa Sun-Hee Park

23. Racial Anxieties, Uncertainties, and Misinformation: A Complex Picture of Asian Americans and Selective College Admissions

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OiYan Poon and Ester Sihite Study Questions Suggested Readings Films

PART X. MULTIPLICITY AND INTERRACIAL POLITICS

24. Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian American Differences

Lisa Lowe

25. Critical Thoughts on Asian American Assimilation in the Whitening Literature

Nadia Y. Kim

26. Beyond the Perpetual Foreigner and Model Minority Stereotypes: A Critical Examination of How Asian Americans Are Framed

Jennifer Ng, Yoon Pak, and Xavier Hernandez

27. Race-Based Considerations and the Obama Vote: Evidence from the 2008 National Asian American Survey

S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, Janelle Wong, Taeku Lee, and Jane Junn Study Questions Suggested Readings Films About the Contributors Index

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List of Tables and Figures

TABLES

Table 3.1. Asian American Population, 1980–2000 (Thousands)

Table 3.2. Top Ten Metro Areas with Largest Asian American Population, 2010

Table 3.3. Largest Asian American Population Growth, by Region and State, 2000–2010

Table 4.1. Socioeconomic and Family Characteristics of the US Population and of Major Southeast Asian Groups in the United States, 2010–2012

Table 6.1. Poverty Rate of Select Racial/Ethnic Categories, 1989–1999

Table 6.2. Population of Hmong Alone by Select US States, 1990–2010

Table 6.3. Average Household and Family Size by US General and US Hmong Populations

Table 6.4. Proportion in Poverty by US and Hmong Family Type, 2005–2010

Table 7.1. Asian Americans in the United States and Top Ten States, 1990– 2010

Table 7.2. Metropolitan Areas with Largest Asian American Populations, 2010

Table 7.3. Metropolitan Areas with Asian American Population at Least One Percent of National Total

Table 10.1. Top Ten Countries of Origin of Foreign-Born Hairdresser and Grooming Service Workers in the United States in 2000

Table 10.2. Percentage of Nail Technicians in the United States of Diverse Ethnicities, 1999–2009

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Table 10.3. Vietnamese Manicurists by Year of Arrival (%), in 2007

Table 11.1. Domains and Themes

Table 14.1. Everyday Words in English, Spanish, and Tagalog

Table 14.2. Panethnic Identification of Respondents (N = 50)

Table 14.3. Panethnic Identification by Ethnicity, Second-Generation Asians (N = 1,617)

Table 14.4. Panethnic Identification by Ethnicity, Second-Generation Asians (N = 921)

Table 16.1. Rates of Exogamy among Marriages Containing at Least One Member of the Racial/Ethnic Group

Table 16.2. Multiracial Identification by Census Racial Categories

Table 16.3. Most and Least Multiracial States

Table 27.1. Asian American Vote Choice in the 2008 Primaries, among Registered Voters

Table 27.2. Asian American Vote Choice in the 2008 General Election, among Registered Voters, by Month of Interview

Table 27.3. Asian American Vote Choice in the 2008 General Election, among Registered Voters, by Primary Vote Choice

Table 27.4. Group Distance and the Black-Latino Divide among Asian American Registered Voters

Table 27.A.1. Asian American Vote Choice in the 2008 General Election, among Registered Voters, by Ethnicity

Table 27.A.2. Logit Regressions of Vote Choice in the 2008 Primary and General Election

Table 27.A.3. Ordered Logit Regression of Intended Vote Choice in the 2008 General Election

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FIGURES

Figure 3.1. Percentage Distribution of Asian American Population, 1900–2010

Figure 3.2. Asian American Population: Percentage Foreign-Born, 1900–2010

Figure 4.1. Major Southeast Asian Populations in the United States, 1920– 2013

Figure 7.1. Detailed Asian Groups by Foreign-Born, Second Generation, and Third and Later Generations

Figure 7.2. Chinatown in San Francisco

Figure 10.1. Number of Nail Salons in the United States, 1991–2008

Figure 10.2. Nail and Beauty Salon Share of Total Revenue in the Beauty Sector, 1999–2007

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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

There was a time, not too long ago, when race in America was synonymous with the black-white dichotomy. But since the United States reformed its immigration policy and reopened its borders to newcomers, immigrants and their children have transformed the racial landscape of this country. In the past decade or so alone, the immigrant population has grown tremendously, from thirty million at the turn of the twenty-first century to over forty million today. The Pew Research Center’s comprehensive study of Asian Americans, titled “The Rise of Asian Americans,” surprised many by pointing out that Asian Americans, not Latinos, constituted the fastest growing racial group, and much of the growth is due to international migration. More than a third (36 percent) of the new immigrants who came to this country in 2010 were of Asian American or Pacific Islander descent, compared to 31 percent of Latino origin.

Over the past half century, Asian Americans grew from fewer than one million (or 0.6 percent of the total US population) in 1960 to more than nineteen million (or 6 percent of the US population) in 2013.1 Although Asian Americans compose a tiny proportion of the US population, they form an increasingly visible racial minority group. Many Americans assume that Asian Americans congregate along the coastal states of the Pacific West, but in fact their numbers have increased most rapidly in new destinations of the US South, a region considered to be the “geographic center of black-white relations.”2 Asian Americans have now complicated Americans’ notions of race. By virtue of their presence all over the country, it is now impossible for nineteen million people of Asian origins to remain unseen.

As the contributors of the following chapters demonstrate, Asian Americans have carved out niches and made themselves visible within many arenas of American life—schools and colleges, community-based organizations, suburbs and ethnoburbs, neighborhoods and “gayborhoods,” political movements, and even professional sports leagues. Asian American immigrants and their children work in every echelon of the mainstream and ethnic labor markets—professional occupations, service sectors, hospitality industries, and health care and medicine—and have achieved measureable positive socioeconomic outcomes. Unlike the

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European and Asian immigrants of yesteryear, they excel in the education arena and fare well in American society on economic terms. They also have more resources and technology to intimately and economically tether themselves to the home countries they left behind. The emerging popularity of social media has helped democratize American pop culture, and Asian Americans have used the Internet to raise social consciousness (e.g., 18millionrising.org, Hyphen magazine), blog about Asian American racial injustices (e.g., Angry Asian Man), and build a fan base for their music and comedy (e.g., The Fung Brothers of Monterey Park, CA). Historically touted as “forever foreigners,” Asian Americans throughout the United States are weaving themselves into the tapestry of American society and continue to be lauded as “the model minority.”

Yet despite significant advances in social mobility, Asian Americans have yet to achieve a social status in the United States that is on par with that of their European counterparts of yesteryear. In spite of the widespread popularity of the “model minority” trope, there are Asian Americans who are poor and struggle to make ends meet, who barely make it into community colleges because of both academic and financial challenges, who live in the shadows because of their legal status, and who continue to be subject to overt and covert forms of racial discrimination on a daily basis. No matter what their levels of cultural and economic assimilation, they are still considered the racial other because of their phenotype, even those who are adopted by and raised in white families and communities for their entire lives. They continue to face a bamboo ceiling that blocks their mobility to leadership positions. Their representation in upper-level management in corporations, college and university administrations, Hollywood televisions and films, and even the US Congress remains negligible. Despite the fact that American society is more open than ever before, and an Asian American basketball player in the NBA has evolved into a national news sensation, Asian America is still on the margin of mainstream America. As French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr famously declared, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Even the Pew Research Center report about the “rise” of Asian Americans was rife with controversy. To the credit of the organization, they consulted with several of the leading Asian American social scientists in the country; however, it was their reporting of the data that brought tremendous angst to Asian American leaders around the country. At its heart, the report seemed celebratory in nature—in total congruence with the model minority stereotype. In opting to highlight the successes, the

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http://www.18millionrising.org
report marginalized the segments of the community that were most in need. For every Asian American success story, there are many more Asian American families and communities who continue to suffer through the indignant effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, violence, and poverty. Given the scarcity of think tanks that address Asian American issues, the Pew Research Center report was a missed opportunity. In the eyes of many Asian American activists, scholars, and policymakers, they were “blindsided” by a one-dimensional depiction of what they know—and have proven with their life’s work—to be a culturally and socioeconomically heterogeneous population.3

Like the Asian American population in the United States, Contemporary Asian America continues to evolve. We have enlisted an interdisciplinary group of sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, and ethnic studies scholars to contribute to this third edition new chapters that underscore the growing complexity of Asian American communities and social issues. Some of the chapters tackle new frontiers in Asian American studies. How is Latino immigration reshaping how Asian Americans think about race? How have gay Asian Americans carved out their agency in a time when LGBT individuals have reached unprecedented levels of acceptance? How has the age of Obama reshaped the political behaviors of Asian Americans? Other chapters address issues that Asian Americans continue to endure. How does race affect the everyday experiences of Asian American students and workers? What strategies do Asian Americans use to maintain their cultural and social ties to their home country? How do the historical, economic, and political relations of the United States across the Pacific affect Asian Americans’ experiences in this country today? These are complicated questions, to which our book does not propose to provide a solution. Nonetheless, this third edition does hope to inspire a new generation of students—Asian American or not—to critically consider these issues, rather than reduce a population of nineteen million rising to mere Orientalist stereotypes.

As the coeditors, we are incredibly thankful to New York University Press (NYUP), who not only provided the initial spark to develop this reader into the new edition, but, as a publisher, has also made itself an important ally to the growing field of Asian American studies. We are grateful for their continued willingness to provide an important space for contemporary Asian American issues to be debated in a critical fashion. NYUP editor Jennifer Hammer has offered her unending support and enthusiasm for this project, as she did in the previous editions. We thank Eric Zinner for playing a key role in providing this important scholarly

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space for Asian American studies. We also thank Constance Grady and Dorothea Stillman Halliday, who have patiently guided us through the necessary steps in the publishing process, and Joseph Dahm, who is our meticulous copy editor.

We are grateful for our contributors, both old and new, who have not only helped make Contemporary Asian America a repository of the multifaceted experiences of Asian Americans, but also given us an important set of tools for understanding the current state and the future of this ever-evolving community. Their brilliant chapters shed new light on the history and current state of Asian America and inspire scholars and students of Asian American studies. When it comes to this extraordinary group of passionate scholars, “the past isn’t dead; it’s not even past,” to invoke the words of the American writer William Faulkner.

This volume would not have been possible without the support of our past and present home institutions. We would like to express our gratitude for the institutional and funding support we have received from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore; the Department of Sociology, Asian American Studies Department, Asian American Studies Center, and the fund from Walter and Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in US-China Relations and Communications at the University of California, Los Angeles; the Department of Psychology and Sociology at Cal Poly Pomona. We thank our home institutions for continuing to believe in the field of Asian American studies.

Finally, we would like to thank our wonderful colleagues, research assistants, students, friends, and family. Min would like to thank her colleagues and students in the Department of Asian American Studies at UCLA who have helped nurture her Asian American sensitivity and inspire her research in the field. Anthony would like to thank his colleagues at Cal Poly Pomona, the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, the Association of Asian American Studies, and the community of immigration, race, and gender scholars within the American Sociological Association, for their support. We thank our incredibly hardworking research assistants—Jin Lou, Jingyi Wen, and Hao Zhou from NTU and Audrey E. Aday, Sarine Aratoon, Irisa Charles, Joseph Cipriano, Jessica Galvan, and Milio Medina from Cal Poly Pomona. We appreciate the help from Antonio Ocampo for proofreading the manuscript. Min dedicates this book to her son Philip Jia Guo and daughter-in-law Lisa Phuong Mai. Anthony thanks his brothers and sisters from the UCLA sociology PhD program; his dearest friends both in and

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out of academia (especially Daniel Soodjinda and Elmer Manlongat); and his partner Joseph Cipriano. He dedicates this book to his mother and father, Maria Myrtle and Antonio “Chito” Ocampo, whose own migration story inspired him to pursue this profession. Min Zhou, Singapore Anthony C. Ocampo, Los Angeles May 23, 2015

NOTES 1 Pew Research Center, “U.S. Hispanic and Asian Populations Growing, but for

Different Reasons,” http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/26/u-s- hispanic-and-asian-populations-growing-but-for-different-reasons/ (accessed May 23, 2015).

2 Monica McDermott, Working Class White: The Making and Unmaking of Race Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 1.

3 Karthick Ramakrishnan, “When Words Fail: Careful Framing Needed in Research on Asian Americans,” Hyphen Magazine, June 27, 2012, http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2012/06/when-words-fail- careful-framing-needed-research-asian-americans (accessed January 31, 2015).

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http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/26/u-s-hispanic-and-asian-populations-growing-but-for-different-reasons/
http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2012/06/when-words-fail-careful-framing-needed-research-asian-americans
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

It was no small coincidence that the US population hit the three-hundred- million mark just as we were putting the finishing touches on the second edition of Contemporary Asian America in October 2006. For most Americans, this unique historical moment was fairly anticlimactic. There were no visible signs of celebration—no parades with colorful floats and marching bands, no fireworks, not even a public gathering. President Bush —a politician who has an unusual way of speaking to the moment— delivered what can only be described as a tepid response to the demographic change. In a press release issued by the White House, the president lauded that people were “America’s greatest asset,” and praised the American people for their confidence, ingenuity, hopes and for their love of freedom. He concluded that “we welcome this milestone as further proof that the American Dream remains as bright and hopeful as ever.”1 This brief blip in the news cycle disappeared almost as suddenly as it came. To be certain, any celebrations that might have occurred were dampened by an ongoing debate in the United States about immigration and it impact on the environment, natural resources, public services, and quality of life.

By contrast, the arrival of the two-hundred-millionth American in November 1967 was a more splendid affair, marked by celebrations and extensive news coverage. Addressing the nation while standing before a giant census clock, President Lyndon Johnson delivered his own message of hope and caution for the future. As Haya El Nasser recounts, President Johnson’s words were broken on several occasions by the sounds of applause from the crowd of onlookers who had converged on the Department of Commerce to hear the president speak.2 Among the many events that celebrated the two-hundred-million mark was a contest of sorts, sponsored by Life magazine. The editors at Life sent teams of photographers to twenty-two cities across the United States, finding the baby who arrived closest to the hour appointed by the US Census Bureau when the two-hundred-millionth American would arrive. The winning baby was a fourth-generation Chinese American, Robert Ken Woo, Jr., born at Atlanta’s Crawford Long Hospital at 11:03 AM, November 20, 1967, to Robert and Sally Woo. Woo’s story was—to paraphrase the writer Gish Gen—“typically Asian American.” Bobby’s great-grandfather

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had come to Georgia after the Civil War to work on the Augusta Canal. His mother’s family had fled the Communist Revolution in China and settled in Augusta in 1959 after several years of waiting for permission to emigrate. Both of parents were college graduates; his father worked as a certified public accountant in Georgia. Bobby Woo was one of a small number of Asian Americans growing up in the suburb of Tucker. He attended Harvard University as an undergraduate and as a law student. Today, he is a practicing attorney (and the first Asian American partner at King & Spalding, one of the most prestigious law firms in America), an advocate for immigrant rights, and the father of three children.

Woo’s story is both fascinating and symbolically appropriate. Even though it was by happenstance, Woo’s selection as the two-hundred- millionth American anticipated drastic changes that had altered the country’s demographic, social, and political landscape since his ancestors first arrived in America nearly a hundred years before his birth. Woo’s parents and Woo himself were beneficiaries of the growing educational and economic opportunities that were made available to them and other racial/ethnic minorities only within a relatively short span of time—the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and subsequent changes in public policies and public attitudes toward racial/ethnic minorities as a result of the civil rights movement. The passage of the 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Celler Act), two years before Woo’s birth, made possible the coming of hundreds and thousands of immigrants from all over the world, especially from countries in Asia and Latin America that had legally been excluded. Consequently, the face of America has changed dramatically. Asian Americans, barely visible on the American scene in the 1960s, have experienced unparallel growth, largely through immigration, from 1.5 million in 1970 to 14.3 million as of today.

At a time when the United States is now the third most populous country on earth after China and India, one wonders what the future of Asian America will look like. With the exception of Woo’s story, Asian Americans and their contributions to American life were hardly mentioned by the American public either at the two-hundred-million celebration in November 1967 or at the quiet passing of the three-hundred-million milestone during the third week of October 2006. This absence is a glaring one. Since the arrival of the first immigrants from Asia in the mid- nineteenth century, Asian Americans have played and will continue to play a critical role in this country’s future. Their American stories need to be

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unfolded further and understood deeper. The second edition of Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader grows out of this urgent need. We have thus worked assiduously to compile a new reader that delves into contemporary Asian America in its fullness and complexity; to assemble a selection of readings and documentary films that offer an excellent grounding for understanding many of the emerging trends, issues, and debates in the community and in Asian American studies; and to organize topics that lend insight into the future of this ethnically diverse Asian American community.

Listening to students, instructors, researchers, and others who have used the first edition of our reader for their studies, teaching, and research, we aimed to make the second edition of Contemporary Asian America more user-friendly by reducing its size and revamping it with the best and most up-to-date works that reflect contributions—and changes—that have occurred within the field of Asian American studies since 2000. Our goal proved challenging: How do you reduce the number of articles and yet retain the breath and depth? How do you retain the “classic” works most utilized by survey courses in Asian American studies and at the same time introduce new topics, concepts, and perspectives that are sensitive to the changing terrains of contemporary Asian America and essential for the continual development of Asian American studies today? We have addressed these questions rather substantively through a reconfiguration of certain sections from the original volume and the incorporation of original and recently published works that concern twenty-first-century Asian America, including the impact of September 11 on Asian American identity, citizenship, and civil liberties; globalization as a dynamic force shaping the contemporary Asian American community; theoretical debates that continue to inform Asian American studies; and an emphasis on diversity of Asian American experiences along lines of class, ethnicity, nativity, gender, and sexuality. Of particular importance to the new edition is the movement away from nation-centered models of identity formation (a core component of Asian American studies as it existed in the 1960s through the 1990s) to a model governed by fluidity, cosmopolitanism, and flexible identities rooted in global citizenship.

Of course, our interpretation of Asian American studies is just an interpretation, and perhaps a limited one at that. While no reader can be all things to all people, this new edition strives to achieve a balanced coverage with the range and depth that reflects our commitment to multiple interpretations of the Asian American experience(s) and the shared vision of the many possibilities and promises that is one of the defining features

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of Asian American studies. Along the way, we ask more questions than we answer, offering what we hope will be the framework for a larger discussion within and beyond the classroom. We believe that this second edition has met our intended goals. It also meets the growing expectations of our users. Instructors who have used the original edition of Contemporary Asian America should be able to comfortably adopt this new edition whether they choose to teach their courses the same way or differently. Those who have not used Contemporary Asian America before may now consider adopting it as it will surely stimulate much intellectual and personally reflexive discussion in classrooms.

We, as coeditors, are appreciative for the encouragement and support of so many individuals who made the original edition of Contemporary Asian America a great success and this second edition a real possibility. First and foremost, we thank our editor, Jennifer Hammer, at New York University Press (NYUP). Hammer has been a champion of this edition. Her enthusiasm, encouragement, and editorial insight have made this project as intellectually challenging as fun. We thank Eric Zinner, the editor-in-chief at NYUP, for his steadfast support and for his vision of the possibilities of Asian American studies. We also thank our copy editor, Emily Wright, for her careful reading and meticulous editing of the entire manuscript. We are especially grateful to NYUP’s anonymous reviewers who offered additional suggestions after carefully reading our second edition prospectus.

We are much indebted to many of our colleagues, friends, and students, who offered invaluable feedback, insightful comments, and thoughtful ideas, and copious suggestions for our second edition based on their own research and classroom experiences using the original edition of Contemporary Asian America. Among these are Christina Chin, Meera Deo, Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, Russell Leong, Valerie Matsumoto, Don Nakanishi, Kyeyoung Park, and Nancy Yuen at the University of California, Los Angeles; Robert Lee, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, and Karen Inouye at Brown University; Carl L. Bankston III, Yen Le Espiritu, Demetrius Eudell, Matt Guterl, Christopher Lee, Lynn Mie Itagaki, Elaine Kim, Susan S. Kim, Jennifer Lee, Sunaina Maira, Edward Melillo, Gary Okihiro, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Edward Park, John Park, Paul Spickcard and his students, Leti Volpp, Ellen Wu, and Judy Wu at other institutions. We are extremely fortunate to work with our authors whose contributions were absolutely first-rate and whose cooperation was incredibly generous and timely. We thank Jason Gonzales, Ly P. Lam, Jesse Lewis, Ravi Shivanna, Tritia Soto, and Yang

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Sao Xiong who provided tremendous technical support and research assistance.

We would like to acknowledge the institutional support from the Department of Sociology, Department of Asian American Studies, and Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, and the Department of American Civilization and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in the Americas at Brown University. The Asian American Studies Center, the Social Sciences Division of the College of Letters and Sciences, and the Academic Senate at UCLA provided partial funding for the project. The Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences awarded a fellowship to Min Zhou during the academic year 2005–2006, which freed up much time for her to concentrate on developing this project.

Last—but certainly not least—we thank our wonderful families who continue to inspire us and our endeavors. Min Zhou dedicates this book to her husband Sam Nan Guo and son Philip Jia Guo. Jim Gatewood dedicates this book to his wife, Jules, to his mum, June Gatewood, and to his pugs, Boo and Moses. Min Zhou and J. V. Gatewood Los Angeles, October 2006

NOTES 1 Office of the Press Secretary, “Statement by the President on U.S. Reaching

300 Million Population Milestone” (News release, October 17, 2006), http://georgewbush- whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061017-8.html (accessed September 12, 2015).

2 Haya El Nasser, “Little Fanfare Expected to Mark Population Milestone,” USA Today, October 13, 2006, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-12-population- milestone_x.htm (accessed September 12, 2015).

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http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061017-8.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-12-population-milestone_x.htm
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The purpose of this anthology is to provide undergraduate and graduate students and all those interested in the Asian American community with some of the most central readings informing Asian America and Asian American studies today. Of critical importance in selecting the readings is our goal of making the entire project a reflexive undertaking. The readings, while important in and of themselves to the evolution of Asian American studies and the development of the community, have been selected upon the basis of what they can tell our readers about themselves or their own lives and, essentially, about the ways in which our readers’ experiences may resonate the larger framework of what we call “Asian American experience.”

We feel that it is important at the outset to state the limitations of an anthology such as this one. No one reader can capture the diversity of voices, experiences, and people that constitute different Asian American communities today. In privileging one topic of discussion, we must necessarily exclude another. It would be disingenuous for us to state otherwise. One of the most noticeable absences readily apparent to students and teachers is that of literary works produced by Asian American authors—the novels, short stories, poetry, plays. These literary works have played a fundamental role in defining both the curriculum in Asian American studies and in providing a valuable window through which to evaluate identity formation within the community itself. Our decision not to include literary works as such is not by happenstance. Initially, we agreed to include these works, but found it extremely difficult to devise ways to excerpt pieces without losing sight of their original meaning and context. It is disingenuous to the writers of these literary works to break apart chapters in their books or even short stories in a selection that cannot be fully understood when isolated from its other parts. We feel that most of the excellent literary works that exist in Asian American studies should be read and experienced in their entirety. Another reason underlying our motivations is that this anthology is meant to accompany a college-level introductory course in Asian American studies. It has been our experience from teaching Asian American studies courses that many classes have almost always included a number of monographs and novels by Asian American authors that frame the discussion of certain historical, cultural,

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and social themes in the community. We thus decided to provide a focus that frames these discussions in a social science context.

Although there are a number of anthologies in the past that have focused on Asian American immigration, community development, and socialization, there are none that really attempt to integrate the intersection of these themes and their effects on the contemporary Asian American community. The basis on which each section of this anthology is devised has come about through our own introspection into those issues that students find meaningful in Asian American studies classes today. The issue of identity is a central concept in these classes, and we have made a conscious effort to include various abstractions of Asian American identity —abstractions that deal with the intersections between generation, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and the cultural reconstruction of identity. The sections are not meant to read as merely chronological, but rather as different themes framing the reflexive bent that we assume. To compromise on spatial limitations, we have also include in each section’s suggested reading list a number of excellent works that have emerged in recent years as well as some of the “classic” readings in Asian American studies.

A project of this scope is never a solitary undertaking. We gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance of all those individuals who offered their precious time and invaluable help in shaping this anthology and making it better. First, we would like to thank Tim Bartlett, former editor at NYU Press, who initiated the project and pushed it through with his keen foresight and enthusiasm. Jennifer Hammer, our current editor at NYU Press, has graciously offered her unlimited support for this project as well as her own commitment to its underlying goals, which greatly facilitated our ability to make this project happen. We would also like to acknowledge the four anonymous reviewers who at an early stage read carefully and critiqued the works we originally selected and the manner in which we organized this reader. Their critical comments greatly strengthened the theoretical framework that we ultimately employed for the reader.

This project was partially supported by a research grant from the Asian American Studies Center at University of California, Los Angeles. We are particularly indebted to the Center Director, Don Nakanishi, who has always been committed to supporting faculty and students in teaching and research. We would like to thank our colleagues in both the Department of Sociology and Asian American Studies Center at UCLA for their insightful ideas, helpful comments, constructive critiques, and moral

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support; particularly we thank Shirley Hune, Yuji Ichioka, Jennifer Lee, Russell Leong, David Lopez, Valerie Matsumoto, Bob Nakamura, Don Nakanishi, Glenn Omatsu, Roger Waldinger, and Henry Yu. At other academic institutions, we specially thank Carlos Chan, Carla Tengan, and Horacio Chiong. We also thank our colleagues at the Japanese American National Museum for their support, specially Karin Higa, Darcie Iki, Sojin Kim, Eiichiro Azuma, Karen Ishizuka, Cameron Trowbridge, Debbie Henderson, Nikki Chang, Grace Murakami. A special thanks goes to Krissy Kim for her friendship and encouragement. We send a special note of appreciation to all the students in Asian American studies, among them Teresa Ejanda, Lakandiwa M. de Leon, Derek Mateo, Randall Park, Steven Wong, and many others, with whom we have worked and who gave us the incentive to compile this anthology. Diana Lee provided tremendous research and editorial assistance for this project.

Finally, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to our families who sacrificed a considerable amount of time with us to enable us to see this project through to completion. Min Zhou James V. Gatewood Los Angeles, April 1999

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Introduction

Revisiting Contemporary Asian America

MIN ZHOU, ANTHONY C. OCAMPO, AND J. V. GATEWOOD

As the new millennium unfolds, one cannot help but to notice dramatic changes that have transformed contemporary Asian America. Most significantly, the rapid pace of globalization and September 11 have altered the contours of our national identity while creating new challenges for Asian Americans. What is the current state of Asian America in the twenty-first century? How has it evolved and developed since the 1960s, a turbulent decade in America’s history that witnessed the birth of the nation’s ethnic consciousness movements? How have Americans of Asian ancestries constructed ethnic and national identities, and how has identity formation changed over time? To what extent has the Asian American community asserted itself socially and politically in American society? How are Asian Americans related to other racial/ethnic groups in the United States and to the people in their ancestral homelands and in other parts of the world? These are but a few of the questions posed by this anthology, an introductory reader for those interested in the urgent issues facing contemporary Asian America. We have selected a number of themes that critically inform the current state of the community. This anthology is meant to be personally meaningful to our readers, and to incorporate ideas that expose Americans to the struggles and triumphs of a racial minority group, to the evolution of Asian American studies, and to the broader social transformations in American society that have historically affected, and continue to affect, people of Asian ancestries and their communities.

Activism, the Movement, and the Development of Asian American Studies

For Asian Americans, these struggles profoundly changed our communities. They spawned numerous grassroots organizations. They created an extensive network of student organizations and Asian American studies classes. They recovered buried cultural traditions as well as

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produced a new generation of writers, poets, and artists. But most importantly, the struggles deeply affected Asian American consciousness. They redefined racial and ethnic identity, promoted new ways of thinking about communities, and challenged prevailing notions of power and authority.

—Glenn Omatsu (this volume)

The Legacy of Political Activism The birth of the Asian American movement coincided with the largest student strike in the nation’s history. At San Francisco State College, members of the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), a coalition of African Americans, Latino Americans/Chicanos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans, launched a student strike in November 1968. The organizers made demands on the university for curricular reform, initially aimed at three specific goals. First, student strikers sought to redefine education and to make their curriculum at once more meaningful to their own lives, experiences, and histories and more reflective of the communities in which they lived. Second, they demanded that racial/ethnic minorities play a more active role in the decision-making process and that university administrators institute an admissions policy to give racial/ethnic minorities equal access to advanced education. Third, they attempted to effect larger change in the institutional practices by urging administrators to institutionalize ethnic studies at San Francisco State College. The strike, in which Asian Americans played an integral role, brought about significant institutional changes; in particular, it led to the establishment of the nation’s first School of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State College. More than just a token concession to the students, the School of Ethnic Studies began to implement the students’ objectives of curricular reform and equal access to education.

In his seminal article, “The ‘Four Prisons’ and the Movements of Liberation” (this volume), Glenn Omatsu, a veteran activist of the movement, contends that the San Francisco student strike not only marked the beginning of the Asian American movement but also set the agenda for the articulation of an Asian American “consciousness.” Omatsu argues that those involved in the movement were not simply seeking to promote their own legitimacy or representation in mainstream society. Rather, the movement raised questions about subverting ideals and practices that rewarded racial or ethnic minorities for conforming to white mainstream values. The active involvement of Asian Americans extended well beyond college campuses on which many of these issues were being raised; it

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reached the working-class communities from which many students originated. Omatsu highlights several emerging themes that exerted a profound impact on the Asian American struggles in the 1970s: (1) building a coalition between activists and the community, (2) reclaiming the heritage of resistance, (3) forming a new ideology that manifested in self-determination and the legitimization of oppositional practices as a means of bringing about change to the racist structures inherent to American society, (4) demanding equal rights and minority power, and (5) urging mass mobilization and militant action. For Omatsu, the Asian American movement was a grassroots working-class community struggle for liberation and self-determination.

The political activism of the 1960s unleashed shock waves that have continued to reverberate in the larger Asian American community today. As both Karen Umemoto and Glenn Omatsu recount in their pieces on the movement (this volume), the spirit that initially infused the period carried over into the next two decades, despite a changing political climate that marked the onset of what Omatsu (this volume) deems the winter of civil rights and the rise of neoconservatism. The movement has evolved to incorporate a broader range of diverse viewpoints and voices, helping frame the way in which many students approach Asian American studies today. Not only does the movement provide students with an understanding of the strategies employed by racial and ethnic minorities in their fight against racism and oppression in American society, it also suggests specific ways in which these strategies can be effectively used for minority empowerment.

Institutional Development Shortly after the founding of the first ethnic studies program at San Francisco State College in 1968, other universities across the United States set to work on developing their own academic programs. According to a survey conducted by Don Nakanishi and Russell Leong in 1978, at least fourteen universities established Asian American Studies programs, including the Berkeley, Los Angeles, Davis, and Santa Barbara campuses of the University of California; the San Francisco, Fresno, San Jose, Sacramento, and Long Beach campuses of the California State University; the University of Southern California; the University of Washington; the University of Colorado; the University of Hawaii; and City College of New York. The programs at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University had the largest enrollments, with fifteen hundred each, and offered sixty and forty-nine courses, respectively. The programs on other

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campuses offered four to sixty courses per academic year and enrolled one hundred to six hundred fifty students. All Asian American Studies programs, with the exception of UCLA’s, listed teaching as their top priority, with community work and research ranked as second and third priorities. UCLA, in contrast, made research and publications as its primary goal, with teaching ranked second. By 1978, at least three universities, UCLA, San Francisco State University, and the University of Washington, offered graduate courses (Nakanishi and Leong 1978).

Since the movement of the later 1960s, Asian American studies has experienced unparalleled growth as Asian American student enrollment has increased at unprecedented rates at American universities. Today, Asian Americans account for 6 percent of the US population, but Asian American students are disproportionately overrepresented in prestigious public and private universities. In 1995, for example, Asian American students represented more than 10 percent of the student populations at all nine UC campuses and at twelve of the twenty CSU campuses, as well as at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Columbia, and other top-ranked universities. These regional and national enrollment trends have continued to grow with no signs of slowing down since the mid-1990s. The UC system, in particular, has seen its Asian American populations grow rapidly. For example, Asian Americans compose roughly 13 percent of California’s population but make up more than one-third of the undergraduates enrolled in fall 2014 at the University of California system-wide, with 34 percent at Los Angeles, 39 percent at Berkeley, Davis, and Riverside, 44 percent at Irvine, and 45 percent at San Diego.1 The nation’s leading universities have also reported a dramatic increase in enrollment of Asian Americans, who made up 24 percent of the undergraduates at MIT, 20 percent at Stanford, 19 percent at Harvard, and 16 percent at Yale.2 About 26 percent of Asian Americans are US-born, and nearly 50 percent of US-born Asian Americans aged twenty-five or older have at least a bachelor’s degree—a rate more than 20 percentage points higher than that for average Americans (Pew Research Center 2012).

In response to these demographic changes, major public universities and a growing number of private universities in which Asian American student enrollments are disproportionately large have established Asian American studies departments or interdepartmental programs. Today, all the University of California and the California State University campuses have established Asian American studies programs, some of which have evolved into Asian American studies departments. Outside California, many universities and colleges have established similar programs, often in

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response to student protests, even hunger strikes, and pure enrollment numbers (Monaghan 1999). The current directory of the Association for Asian American Studies, complied at Cornell University, shows an incomplete count of thirty-two Asian American studies departments and interdepartmental programs, twenty Asian American studies programs within social sciences or humanities departments, and eighteen other universities and colleges that offer Asian American studies courses. These departments and interdepartmental or interdisciplinary programs offer a wide range of courses on the diversity of Asian American experiences and greatly enrich academic curricula on college campuses.3

Despite the current boom, however, institutional development has often met with obstacles, ranging from the loss of faculty and staff positions to the retirement of veteran or founding faculty to budget cuts arbitrarily imposed on relatively young but growing departments. Although continued expansion of programs and departments is not inevitable, and likely to be a matter of ongoing conflict, demographic pressures, the political weight of the Asian American community, and the continuing intellectual development of Asian American studies as a field make the prospects for growth very promising.

Asian American Studies as an Interdisciplinary Field What is Asian American studies? Is it an academic field with its own unique perspective and with intellectually cohesive themes, or is it a field that brings together people of different disciplines who share common interests and who work on similar topics? According to the Association for Asian American Studies,

Asian American Studies examines, through multidisciplinary lenses, the experiences of Asians in the United States. It is a field of study, creative and critical, interpretive and analytical, grounded in experience and theory. It is located in the academy and therewith shares some of the assumptions and values of intellectual production and pedagogy, but it is also rooted in the extra-academic community and therewith shares some of the assumptions and values of the prevailing and contested social and cultural relations. Its subject matter is the diverse (but united by “racial” construction, historical experience, political ends) peoples from Asia—from West to East Asia, South to

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Southeast Asia—who live(d) and work(ed) in the U.S. But its subject matter is also comparative and expansive, inclusive of America’s Africans, Europeans, Latinos, and native peoples, and its geographic range is transnational, extending beyond the borders of the U.S.4

At the early stage of its development, Asian American studies understood itself as the offspring of the social movement from which it emerged. Thus, in its self-conceptualization, Asian American studies sought to reproduce central aspects of the broader movement for social change in which it started out as an oppositional orientation, preoccupied with refuting the prevailing theoretical paradigm of assimilation and fostering self-determination through a Third World consciousness (Nakanishi and Leong 1978; Omatsu, this volume; Umemoto, this volume). Both curricular development and research in the field focused on history, identity, and community (Tachiki et al. 1971). Meanwhile, Asian American studies explicitly served as an institutionalized training center for future community leaders, trying to connect scholars and students with grassroots working-class communities. Since the students and Asian American faculty of the 1960s and 1970s were mostly Japanese Americans and Chinese Americans, with a smaller number of Filipino Americans, most of the teaching and research focused on these ethnic populations.

Of course, the guiding theoretical principles and self-understanding of the founders, themselves still present and influential in the field, cannot be accepted without question. The founders’ views carry the characteristic traces of the baby boom generation of which the founders are a part: namely, the sense of constituting a unique group whose actions mark a rupture with the past. Indeed, in the late 1960s and the 1970s, both the Asian American movement and the academic field were intent on distancing themselves from the traditional academic disciplines and the more established, or “assimilated,” components of the Asian American community. For example, the ethnic consciousness movements of the 1960s fundamentally changed how historians and other social scientists interpreted Asian American history. The pre-movement historiography of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans tended to interpret this experience as a grave national mistake, but one that had been corrected by the postwar acceptance of Japanese Americans into American society. The movement challenged this established interpretation and influenced Japanese Americans and others to reexamine the internment experience

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within the context of the ongoing debate over past and present racism in American society. Although redress was successfully obtained, the issue of Japanese American internment continues to be linked with contemporary issues of racial justice.5

In retrospect, it is clear that contemporary Asian American studies stands in continuity with earlier attempts by Asian American intellectuals, within and outside the academy, to rethink their own experience and to link it to the broader sweep of American history. The connection is most evident in sociology: Paul Siu, Rose Hum Lee, and Frank Miyamoto, members of an older cohort, and Tamotsu Shibutani, Harry Kitano, James Sakoda, Eugene Uyeki, Netsuko Nishi, John Kitsuse, and many others, members of a younger cohort, have all made important contributions to the study of Asian America, as well as to broader areas in sociology. To the extent that Asian American studies involves activities that derive from an attempt at self-understanding, one also needs to point out the crucial literary, autobiographical, and polemical works of an earlier period: we note the writings of Jade Snow Wong, Monica Sone, Carlos Bulosan, Louis Chu, and John Okada, among others, a corpus that has now become the subject of considerable academic work within Asian American studies. Also noticeable is a small group of Euro-American researchers who work within the mainstream disciplines, but without the assimilatory, condescending assumptions that mar earlier work and who made significant contributions to the study of Asian America prior to the advent of the movement, providing notice to the disciplines that this was a topic worthy of their attention. The historians Alexander Saxton, Roger Daniels, and John Modell and the sociologist Stanford Lyman deserve particular mention.

In its recent iteration, Asian American studies is facing a new reality that is at odds with the Asian American community of the 1960s and 1970s. Asian American scholars have keenly observed several significant trends that have transformed Asian America, with attendant effects on Asian American studies within the academy: an unparalleled demographic transformation from relative homogeneity to increased diversity; an overall political shift from progressive goals of making societal changes toward more individualistic orientations of occupational achievements; unprecedented rates of socioeconomic mobility and residential de- segregation of native-born generations; and a greater separation between academia and the community (Fong 1998; Hirabayashi 1995; Kang 1998; Wat 1998). These trends mirror the broader structural changes that have occurred in American society since the late 1970s, which we shall discuss

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in greater detail shortly, and create both opportunities and challenges for the field.

To a large extent, Asian American studies has been energized by the interdisciplinary dynamism that exists not only in history, literature and literary works, and cultural studies, but also in anthropology, sociology, psychology, education, political science, social welfare, and public policy. The field has traditionally been guided by varying theoretical concerns— Marxism, internal colonialism, racial formation, postmodernism, and postcolonialism, among others—and has widened its purview of topics and subject matters. Interdisciplinary course offerings and research have touched on the daily experiences of the internally diverse ethnic populations: course subjects range from the histories and experiences of specific national origin groups to Asian American literature, film and art, and religion, as well as special topics such as gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, immigration, and health. The field has also expanded into comparative areas of racial and ethnic relations in America, diasporic experiences (including undocumented immigration), transnational communities, and the interconnectedness of Asians and Asian Americans, while maintaining a community focus through extensive internship and leadership development programs. These interdisciplinary and comparative approaches allow Asian American scholars and students to get beyond the simple assumption that, because people look similar, they must also share the same experiences, values, and beliefs. Asian American studies has also injected historical and ethnic sensibility into various academic disciplines and prevented itself from being trapped as an isolated elective subdiscipline.

On the academic front, however, there has been a debate over the relationship between theory and practice. Michael Omi and Dana Takagi voice a central concern over the lack of a sustained and coherent radical theory of social transformation, arguing that this absence may lead to a retreat to “more mainstream, discipline-based paradigmatic orientations.” These scholars see the “professionalization” of the field at universities, the demands of tenure and promotion for faculty, and new faculty’s lack of exposure to and experience of the movement of the earlier period as the main contributing factors to this trend of retreat. They suggest that the field should be “transdisciplinary” rather than “interdisciplinary” and that it should be revisited, rethought, and redefined according to three main themes—the scope and domain of theory, the definition of core theoretical problems and issues, and the significance of Asian American studies as a political project (Omi and Takagi 1995).

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Meanwhile, some scholars and students express concern that Asian American studies is being diverted from its original mission of activism, oppositional ideology, and community-oriented practices (Endo and Wei 1988; Hirabayashi 1995; Kiang 1995; Loo and Mar 1985–1986). As the field gains legitimacy at universities, it is increasingly uprooted from the community. Although students have continued to involve themselves in community affairs, their activities tend to be framed in terms of service provision, since the social infrastructure in many Asian American communities is always almost in need of volunteers, as one might expect. But volunteering is all too often a part-time event, in which students may pass through the community and then ultimately maintain a distance from it. Lane Ryo Hirabayashi (1995) points out that the divergence goes beyond the institutional “reward structure” that prioritizes theoretical contributions over applied research. He alludes to the problems of essentialized notions of race and ethnicity, the presumed unity of the community, and the impacts of poststructural and postmodern critiques aiming at deconstructing academic dominance. He believes that these concerns can be effectively addressed by redefining the community as a multidimensional entity with ongoing internal class, generational, political, gender, and sexual divisions, reconceptualizing Asian American communities as a dynamic social construct, and incorporating new theories and methodologies into community-based research. Kent A. Ono points out that the risk of dissociation from community struggles is of particularly critical concern, because September 11 has fundamentally redefined race in America (Ono 2005). He argues that, in the post-9/11 context, Asian American studies must reconfigure itself to become more conversant about the connections with Arab and Arab American communities, Muslim communities, and other marginalized cultural communities.

Finding a common ground from which to approach issues in Asian American studies is a challenging task. Many scholars have made concerted efforts to develop alternative paradigms and perspectives to deal with issues confronting a new Asian America that has become more dynamic and diverse. For example, Lisa Lowe (this volume) reconceptualizes contemporary Asian America in terms of heterogeneity, hybridity, and multiplicity to capture the material contradictions among Asian Americans. L. Ling-chi Wang (1995) proposes a dual-domination model for understanding Asian American experiences that takes into account the diplomatic relations between the United States and Asian countries and the extraterritorial interaction between Asian American communities and their respective homelands. Sau-Ling C. Wong (1995) uses the term “denationalization” to address transnational concerns that

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have emerged from the intrinsic relations between Asia and Asian America. Sylvia Yanagisako (1995) advances the idea of contextualizing meanings, social relations, and social action and of liberalizing the confines of social borders that cut across nation, gender, ethnicity, kinship, and social class in Asian American history. Shirley Hune (2000) calls for the rethinking of race. She suggests that theoretical paradigms be shifted to articulate the multiplicity of racial dynamics that has moved the black- white dichotomy and that more attention be paid to the differential power and agency of minority communities in the United States and to the situation of Asian America in connection to disaporic communities around the globe.

Since the 1990s, Asian American studies as an academic field has flourished. While the Amerasia Journal made its debut in 1971 as the first major academic journal in Asian American studies, published by the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, there has been a growing number of publication outlets for multidisciplinary works in the field, including Journal of Asian American Studies, the official journal of the Association for Asian American Studies (since 1998); AAPI Nexus Journal: Policy, Practice, and Community (since 2003), and Asian American Journal of Psychology (since 2009), as well as student-run journals, such as Harvard Asian American Policy Review (since 1990) and the Stanford Journal of Asian American Studies (online since 2008). Sucheng Chan’s edited volume, Remapping Asian American History (2003), offers new theoretical perspectives and analytical frameworks, such as transnationalism, the politics of international migrations, and interracial/interethnic relations, and points to new directions in Asian American historiography. Other more recent works include Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader, edited by Jean Wu and Thomas Chen (2010), The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority by Ellen Wu (2013), The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority by Madeline Hsu (2015).

While the ongoing discussion of goals and methodologies is at once refreshing and evidence of the field’s continuing vitality, it also testifies to the degree to which intellectual and organizational tensions are built into the field. On the one hand, the very language of the debate, often filled with jargon and trendy concepts, stands in conflict with the self-professed orientation toward the community and its needs. On the other hand, there is a certain nostalgia among veteran activists, now mainly tenured professors, for the spirit of the 1960s and, to some extent, that yearning for the past ironically threatens to produce a divide between US-born (and/or

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US-raised) scholars and some of their Asian-born counterparts, especially those whose education in the United States was more likely to begin at the college and graduate level, and who may not share the same connections to a history that they never experienced.6 Moreover, the ideological presuppositions of the scholars oriented toward the movement has the potential to create distance between them and the growing number of Asian American (often Asian-born) scholars who work on Asian American topics, but from the standpoint of the more traditional disciplines of history, sociology, demography, economics, political science, and so on. Of course, work in the traditional disciplines is by no means value-free, but the ideological presuppositions do not preclude the potential for expanding our understanding of the Asian American experience. Finally, we note the irony in the unspoken consensus about which groups are eligible for consideration as “Asian American,” namely, everyone with origins east of Afghanistan. As Henry Yu has pointed out, the very definition of Chinese and Japanese as an “Asian American community” is itself the product of earlier externally imposed definitions of America’s “Oriental Problem” (Yu 1998). The field initially organized itself around the study of peoples of East Asian descent, leaving others who were no less eligible on intellectual grounds, nor, for that matter, any less vulnerable to discrimination or stigmatization than the “official” Asian American categories, to different schools of “Oriental” studies.7

In our view, Asian American studies is best construed in the broadest possible terms, understood as that body of scholarship devoted to the study of Asian American populations, conducted from any number of standpoints, from within the frameworks most commonly found among scholars affiliated with Asian American studies as well as from a standpoint more closely connected to the traditional disciplines. Just as we reject the conventional disciplinary boundaries, we also opt for an expanded view of the field’s geographical scope, in particular, emphasizing a transnational framework that enables us to “better understand the ways that flows of people, money, labor, obligations, and goods between nations and continents have shaped the Asian American experience” (Yanagisako 1995, 292; see also Lowe, this volume).

The first edition of Contemporary Asian America (2000) was the first anthology to integrate a broad range of multidisciplinary research in assessing the effects of immigration, community development, socialization, and politics on Asian American communities. It aimed to expose readers to contemporary developments in the field of Asian American studies and to highlight the changes that the field has undergone

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since its inception in the 1960s. The many issues—the Asian American movement, historical interpretations of the Asian American experience, immigration, family and community issues, religion, gender, sexuality, the construction of identity among Asian Americans, representation and the future direction of Asian American studies—that it covered are clearly of contemporary significance. It enjoyed great success precisely because of the range and depth of its coverage. In the second edition, we reaffirmed our commitment to providing historical readings on the birth and development of Asian American studies, Asian American community formation, new immigrant and refugee populations, queer Asian America, multiethnic Asian Americans, interracial and interethnic politics, and citizenship and identity, among many important topics. In this third edition, we have maintained the organizational structure of the anthology but revamped its contents by adding more recent works by young scholars. While it is impossible to cover every new and significant development of the entire field, we hope that the third edition continues to expose our readers to multiple interpretations of the multifaceted Asian American experience(s) and to serve as a valuable reference guide to illuminating some of the most groundbreaking scholarship in the history and contemporary development of the field.

The Contents of This Anthology The chapters in the third edition vary in content and information. Some are meant to raise larger issues pertinent to Asian American studies and to provoke critical thinking, while others provide substantial data to enlighten students about the makeup of the community and its evolution over time. We hope that these two kinds of sources provide students with the background to raise their own questions, to respond to the readings, and to generally make up their own minds about the contemporary issues facing Asian America today. At the end of each section, we provide a list of reading response questions for use in conjunction with course material to enable students to seek out the most important information from each article and evoke other questions for discussion.

Claiming Visibility: The Asian American Movement Part I presents two classic works on the genesis of Asian American studies and the underlying ideologies that are instrumental for political mobilization. Umemoto’s piece surveys the history of the 1968 San Francisco State strike and offers an analysis of its importance to the development of Asian American movement. She shows the multifarious

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dimensions to which Asian Americans were part of the 1960s struggles. She argues that the student strike did not occur in a political vacuum, but rather was centrally informed by other ethnic consciousness movements and international Third World movements for liberation and self- determination. She asserts that the Asian American movement, specifically the outcome of the San Francisco State strike for Asian American students, left a legacy for the Asian American community and continued to influence Asian American student life on college campuses.

Framing his discussion in a much larger historical context, Omatsu underscores that the Asian American movement was a phenomenon centrally informed by the militant struggles against war, racism, and the multiple oppressions with which many Americans only began to grasp during the 1960s. He emphasizes that the Asian American movement was composed of diverse segments of the community and had one clear goal: liberation from oppression. He acknowledges the decline of the movement’s vitality during the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of neoconservatism, but nonetheless argues that the future of Asian American studies hinges upon the community’s ability to “forge a new moral vision, reclaiming the militancy and moral urgency of past generations and reaffirming the commitment to participatory democracy, community building, and collective styles of leadership.”

Traversing Borders: Contemporary Asian Immigration to the United States Part II examines the effects of contemporary Asian immigration on Asian American demographics and communities. Zhou, Ocampo, and Gatewood provide readers with an overview of the profound changes that have taken place in the past half century and a survey of the terrain that makes up contemporary Asian America. They locate their analysis as a mapping of ethnic diversity to raise issues on how the steady influx of Asian immigrants impact the Asian American community at present and in the future and what challenges the community currently faces as it is claiming America. They predict that as the community grows in number and heterogeneity, so too will its representation in the broader socioeconomic, cultural, and political milieu that is typified as “mainstream America.”

Bankston and Hidalgo highlight unique aspects of international migration from Southeast Asia. By illustrating the unusual forces that bring refugees to the United States from Southeast Asia, the authors deftly suggest the differences—both subtle and overt—between refugees and their immigrant counterparts. Significant intragroup and intergroup

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differences exist among refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and nonrefugees from the Philippines and Thailand in the varied contexts of exit and reception. Bankston and Hidalgo argue that the differential starting points, especially the internal socioeconomic diversity of particular waves and “vintages” within the same nationalities over time, augur differential modes of incorporation and assimilation outcomes that cannot be extrapolated simply from the experience of earlier immigrant groups of the same nationality, let alone from immigrants as an undifferentiated whole.

Ties That Bind: The Immigrant Family and the Ethnic Community Part III focuses on the family and the ethnic community. The chapter by Parreñas deals with transnational Filipino households, broadly defined as “famil[ies] whose core members are located in at least two or more nation- states.” Drawing upon interviews with Filipina domestic workers in Los Angeles and Rome, Parreñas documents the formation and reproduction of transnational households among Filipino labor immigrants as one of many mechanisms available to immigrants as they cope with the exigencies of their new lives. She argues that transnational households have long existed among Filipino migrant workers who have historically faced legal and economic barriers to full incorporation into the host society. The recuperation of this immigrant tradition by contemporary Filipino immigrants is the result of intersecting structural and cultural forces.

Xiong’s chapter focuses on the social and community relationships of Hmong immigrants and their descendants, a relatively small population on the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Hmong refugee communities face tremendous challenges adapting to life in the United States due to their lack of formal education, high rates of poverty, and earlier experiences of war prior to migration, all of which have lasting effects on their US-born children. Xiong highlights how their dispersed resettlement in this country has prompted transformations in the family structure of Hmong Americans, which in turn present unique obstacles to second-generation upward mobility—a notable contrast to the widespread stereotype that Asian Americans are all model minorities.

The chapter by Li, Skop, and Yu examines new patterns of community formation. Since the late 1960s, the combination of global economic restructuring, changing geopolitical contexts, and shifting American immigration policies has set in motion significant flows of new and diverse immigrant inflows from Asia to the United States. While family- sponsored immigrants continue to grow, record numbers of highly skilled,

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professional immigrants and wealthy investors have also joined the flow as result of the economic boom in China and other nations in Asia. As a result, patterns of immigrant settlement have also changed. The authors show that traditional inner-city enclaves still exist to receive newcomers but can no longer meet the social and economic needs of these newcomers. Affluent middle-class Asian immigrants tend to bypass inner-city ethnic enclaves to settle directly in suburbs that offer decent housing, high- performing schools, superior living conditions, and public amenities. As more and more immigrants settle away from urban enclaves, ethnoburbs have come into existence. The transformation of American suburbs into multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural, and multinational communities challenges the widely accepted characterization of the suburbs as the citadel of the white middle class and the traditional notion of residential assimilation.

Struggling to Get Ahead: Economy and Work Part IV delves into the question of how immigrants adapt to life in their new land. The chapter by Dhingra discusses the case of Indian Americans, an immigrant group whose educational attainment and income levels surpass those of nearly every other immigrant group in the country. Based on his extensive research of Indian American workers in various professional and entrepreneurial sectors, Dhingra shows that economic success does not always translate to full social incorporation into the American mainstream. As his research illustrates, Indian Americans have had to strategically navigate their different forms of cultural and ethnic capital to successfully achieve upward mobility in America.

Espiritu’s chapter focuses on Filipina health care professionals, a much sought-after group among US immigrants. In Espiritu’s view, US colonial training of nurses in the Philippines highlights the complex intersections of gender ideologies with those of race and class in shaping US colonial agendas and practices. The overrepresentation of health professionals among contemporary Filipino immigrants is not solely the result of contemporary global restructuring, the “liberalization” of US immigration rules, or individual economic desires, but rather is the product of historical outcomes of early twentieth-century US colonial rule in the Philippines. Espiritu also provides a detailed analysis of how migration processes, labor recruitment practices, and employment conditions have reconfigured gender and family relations. She shows that professional women, like most other working women, have to juggle full-time work outside the home with the responsibilities of child care and housework. In the context of

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migration, Filipina nurses often work in higher paid jobs, but lead lower status lives; their labor market advantage does not automatically or uniformly lead to more egalitarian relations in the family.

Eckstein and Nguyen address the working lives of Vietnamese immigrants working in American nail salons, which have emerged as a strong ethnic niche in and beyond the United States. As a result of their limited English proficiency and educational levels, Vietnamese manicurists have developed a foothold in the American beauty industry. Over the past few decades, Vietnamese immigrants, primarily women, have organically created a site in which they are able to develop strong professional networks and acquire important forms of career capital. Eckstein and Nguyen indicate that as the Vietnamese began to dominate the nail industry, they also began to diversify their services and transnationalize their clientele base all the way to Europe.

Sexuality in Asian America Part V looks into an important subject area that has recently begun to receive its due attention in Asian American studies—the experiences of gay and lesbian Asian Americans. Nadal and Corpus, both counseling psychologists, examine how lesbian and gay Filipino Americans negotiate their sexual identity vis-à-vis the cultural norms of their ethnic community. Drawing on their qualitative research of lesbian and gay Filipinos throughout the country, their chapter addresses the unique factors that shape their social and emotional lives, including religion, family pressure, and race. They also discuss implications for how these findings can be incorporated into counseling programs geared toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Asian Americans, their families, and their communities.

Han’s chapter centers on the marginalized perspectives of gay Asian American men, who often encounter fetishization and racism within the mainstream, predominantly white gay spaces. Han dispels the idea that gay people, as an oppressed minority, are incapable of subordinating others. Instead, he draws on his analysis of LGBT publications to highlight how cultural representations of queer Asian Americans (and people of color) remain on the sidelines. Han shows how gay Asian American men face both overt and subtle forms of racism within a community that ironically portrays itself as accepting.

Race and Asian American Identity Part VI examines issues of race and identity. The Asian American

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movement, inspired by the civil rights movement, has challenged the American racial stratification system and shaken its foundation. However, post-1965 Asian immigration has greatly complicated race relations. Janine Young Kim’s chapter focuses on the (uneasy) relationship between the black/white paradigm and the Asian American civil rights agenda. Kim argues that the current race discourse oversimplifies the black/white paradigm and that the seemingly unproblematic discussion of the paradigm fails to articulate the full cost of its abandonment. She sees the black/white paradigm as retaining contemporary significance despite demographic changes in American society and as having direct relevance for the Asian American civil rights as well as for a deeper understanding of ever- changing and racially stratified society today.

Ocampo’s chapter examines a new frontier in Asian American racialization. His study draws from surveys and interviews with second- generation Filipino Americans living in Southern California, a region where Latinos and Asian Americans now constitute a collective majority. Departing from the traditional black-white racial paradigm, his findings demonstrate that Filipinos most frequently negotiate their panethnic identity vis-à-vis Latinos and Asians. Specifically, he argues that the residual effects of Spanish and American colonialism have a deep influence on the way Filipinos develop (or do not develop) a sense of peoplehood with Latinos and other Asians. His chapter holds important implications for the direction of racial formation process as the United States becomes increasingly multiethnic.

Zhou’s chapter takes another unique approach to Asian American racialization by asking the provocative question of whether Asian Americans are “becoming white.” Asian Americans have been labeled a “model minority” for their high rates of socioeconomic achievement, and they appear on track to being accepted as “white.” Zhou contends that the model minority stereotype serves to thwart other racial minorities’ demands for social justice by pitting minority groups against one another while also setting Asian Americans apart from whites. She argues that, given the “foreigner” image Americans still have of Asians, whitening is both premature and misleading and can be a heavy burden upon Asian Americans themselves. Zhou shows that even though Asian Americans as a group have achieved parity with whites as measured by observable group-level socioeconomic characteristics such as education, occupation, and income, they are by no means fully viewed as “American,” which is oftentimes synonymous to “white.” In the end, whitening is a lived cultural phenomenon that has to do with the ideological dynamics of white

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America, rather than with the actual situation of Asian Americans. Speaking perfect English, effortlessly practicing mainstream cultural values, and even intermarrying members of the dominant group may help reduce this “otherness” at the individual level, but have little effect on the group as a whole. Like the model minority image that is imposed upon them, new stereotypes may unwhiten Asian Americans anytime and anywhere, no matter how “successful” and “assimilated” they have become.

Intermarriages and Multiracial Ethnicity Part VII delves into the phenomenon of intermarriages and multiracial/ethnic identities. Lee and Bean’s chapter adds another level of complexity into the current American population dynamics, calling attention to the increasing number of people who claim a multiracial background. Based on the analysis of the 2000 census data, the authors find that more than one out of every four Asian Americans intermarry and that one in eight Asian Americans is racially mixed, which is more than five times the national average in the United States. Today’s high rates of Asian intermarriage would boost a substantial growth in the Asian multiracial population, which is projected to be at least one in three by 2050. Lee and Bean also discuss the implications for multiracial identification for America’s changing color lines that revolve around a black-nonblack divide in the contexts of diversity and immigration.

Park Nelson’s chapter approaches the question of ethnicity through the perspectives of transnational Korean adoptees. Korean adoption by American families is a phenomenon that has been occurring for the past fifty years, but it is only within the past decade that it has received attention within Asian American studies. Park Nelson addresses the challenges that Korean adoptees face in dealing with their racial experiences in the United States, given that many are raised by white parents, whose experience with race is obviously distinct. Moreover, she also addresses the strategies that Korean adoptees have used to explore their ethnic heritage, such as forming organizations specifically aimed at creating community among adoptees and their families and facilitating stronger connections between them and their country of birth.

Confronting Adversity: Racism, Stereotyping, and Exclusion Part VIII touches on several aspects of adversity confronting Asian Americans—racism, stereotyping, and exclusion. Lisa Park’s original chapter speaks to difficulties encountered by two sisters as they struggle to

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find their own place in American life. Confronting her sister’s suicide in a meaningful way forces the narrator to consider the emotional toll that societal double standards wield on Asian Americans, especially those growing up in immigrant families. Park points out that racism, the perpetual drive to assimilate racial minorities to a white norm, the pressures placed upon the family and individual to live up to the model minority image, the family’s frustration with downward mobility, and the community’s reluctance to accept the mental health problem all play a part in her sister’s suicide. She exposes the detrimental effects of the “model minority” stereotype—“Do you see what a lie it is and how it is used to reinforce the American Dream and punish those of us who don’t ‘succeed,’ or who succeed ‘too much’?” She suggests that the “model minority” image not only places unrealistic and harmful expectations on Asian Americans who do not characterize the affluence and success, but also extends to other racial minorities, specifically African Americans and Latino Americans, who are asked why they cannot do the same. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of her sister’s suicide, Park writes another letter reflecting on her experiences as life moves on. She laments that there is “no such thing as progress” and that there is “no such thing as closure.” Park’s letters to her sister remind the readers that complacency inhibits process and that the fight against racism and social injustice demands constant vigilance, critical thinking, proactive attitude, and transformative action among Asian Americans.

Sunaina Maira lends her insights into the challenges faced by South Asian Americans in the wake of September 11. Drawing upon the experiences of young people in Boston, she assesses how racial stereotyping and the War on Terror have complicated identities and fostered an antagonism among men and women who see their opportunities constrained as a result of blatant stereotyping. The effect, Maira explains, is strengthened interethnic solidarity among Asians, but reduced desire for assimilation into mainstream American society.

Sue and his colleagues look at a form of racism that has become increasingly prevalent in the post–civil rights era—racial microaggressions. Racial microaggressions refer to the subtle messages that Asian Americans receive, both intentional and unintentional, that reinforce their sense of racial marginalization. Sue and his colleagues note that even supposed compliments such as “You speak such good English” or “You speak without accents” serve to remind Asian Americans of their forever foreigner status in this country. In this chapter, the authors use qualitative interview data to propose new metrics and surveys that can

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better measure these more covert forms of racial oppression that Asian Americans face in their everyday lives.

Behind the Model Minority Part IX examines what lies behind the “model minority” stereotype. The publication of William Petersen’s article on the virtues of Japanese American in New York Times Magazine in January 1966 marked a significant departure from the ways in which Asian immigrants and their succeeding generations had been traditionally depicted in popular culture. In December of the same year, another article similar in tone extolled Chinese Americans for their persistence and success. However, the celebration of the model minority buttresses the myth that the United States is devoid of racism and accords equal opportunity to all, and that those who lag behind do so because of their own poor choices and inferior culture (see Zhou, this volume).

The media circus that surrounded Jeremy Lin, the first major Asian American player in National Basketball Association (NBA), provided overwhelming evidence about the way American society was unable to comprehend that an Asian American man could become a star athlete. Leung chronicles how latent racist views of Asian American men came to the surface during the period of “Linsanity.” Comments from sportscasters, news outlets, and coaches clearly demonstrated that American society (minus other Asians) was unable to “see past his Asian features” and acknowledge Lin’s athletic prowess, despite his tremendous accomplishments as a high school and college basketball player. Ultimately, the attention that Lin received illustrated the incongruence of Asian bodies with an all-American pastime.

Lisa Sun-Hee Park’s chapter demonstrates further that birthright does not necessarily bring about a complete sense of belonging into American society. Her interviews with second-generation Chinese and Korean Americans reveal a deep sense of need for Asian immigrants and their children to justify their presence in the United States. Park notes that these second-generation Americans understand their parents’ migration story through an Orientalist lens that positions both them and their parents as foreigners in their adopted land. Against her own intuition, her analysis reveals that the migration stories that the second-generation Chinese and Koreans told were remarkably similar despite their age, gender, class background, and neighborhood. Such a trend reveals the tremendous impact of the racial stereotyping that Asian Americans confront.

Poon and Sihite’s chapter illustrates the angst that some Americans

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exhibit when Asian Americans become too integrated into US institutions, particularly when it comes to elite colleges and universities. The authors provide an overview of the complicated relationship that Asian Americans have had with American higher education—being excluded by quotas, being targeted as taking the spots of “more deserving” applicants, and being portrayed as vigorous opponents to affirmative action policies. Within these conversations about Asian Americans and higher education, Poon and Sihite insert a necessary discussion of government divestment from institutions of higher learning, which serves to disenfranchise all students in the process, Asian Americans included.

Multiplicity and Interracial Politics Part X discusses the complexity of citizenship and interracial politics. Lowe’s chapter is a challenging piece to read in its entirety, since it may be open to multiple interpretations. Her purpose is twofold, first to disrupt the common tropes of generational conflict and filial relationships that permeate the Asian American experience, and second to reconceptualize Asian American identity as an entity in a continual state of flux. The main point underlying her work is that Asian American culture is neither immutable nor vertically transmitted from one generation to the next. Asian American culture is as much a production of identities as a reception of traditions. As Lowe contends, “[t]he boundaries and definitions of Asian American culture are continually shifting and being contested from pressures both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the Asian-origin community.” These shifting constructions of identity constitute the heterogeneity, hybridity, and multiplicity of contemporary Asian American community.

Nadia Kim’s chapter adds a critique to the long-standing tendency of sociologists to equate socioeconomic integration with whitening. While Kim acknowledges that Asian Americans’ racial experiences remain distinct from those of African Americans, she also notes that Asian Americans continually have their legal and social citizenship called into question more so than the latter. Kim argues that the deep historical and contemporary influence of US state relations with Asian nations functions as a necessary backdrop for developing a transnational framework for Asian Americans’ racial subordination along the lines of citizenship.

Ng, Pak, and Hernandez look at the intersection of the perpetual foreigner and model minority stereotypes, specifically within the sphere of education. They point out the inherent contradictions in the Asian American educational experiences. On the one hand, Asian Americans have been applauded for their representation in institutions of higher

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learning; however, the threat of their presence has incited resentment among whites. Ng and her colleagues advocate for the disaggregation of Asian American students by nativity and ethnicity to better elucidate the heterogeneity of Asian American educational outcomes. The way Asian Americans are “framed,” they argue, will have tremendous influence on their future in US higher educational institutions.

The chapter by Ramakrishnan and his colleagues draws from the 2008 National Asian American Survey about Asian American political behaviors, data they collected during the presidential primary and national elections. Their analyses show that race played a significant role in Asian Americans’ support for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama during the 2008 primaries. However, during the national election between Obama and Republican hopeful John McCain, race-based considerations became less important relative to party affiliation and issue preferences. Their findings have implications for how political candidates and movements must be framed in order to galvanize support from Asian American communities.

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The chapters in this anthology taken as a whole illustrate the crucial prospects, possibilities, and problems currently faced by Asian Americans and their communities and by the field of Asian American studies. It is our hope that readers approach these issues in a critical and reflexive manner, one that draws heavily from their own experiences, histories, and interpretations. This anthology is by no means a definitive end to the complexity and range of issues confronting contemporary Asian America. In fact, it is only beginning to raise questions that may not necessarily have clear or definitive answers. For some people, the resolution may be simple. For many others, however, the solution may require compromise. We are excited by the prospects for the future of Asian American studies, but cast a tone of caution—one that is cognizant of how far the field has come from those early days at San Francisco State College. Our greatest successes— legitimacy in the academy, recognition by mainstream departments at universities across the United States, and publication of works by major university presses—seem to have distanced us further from the original goals of the Asian American movement. Nonetheless, we are moving forward in the new millennium. There are no clear answers, only prospects and possibilities.

NOTES 1 http://legacy-its.ucop.edu/uwnews/stat/ (accessed May 23, 2015).

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http://legacy-its.ucop.edu/uwnews/stat/
2 http://www.princetonreview.com (accessed January 28, 2015). 3 http://www.aaastudies.org/list/index.html (accessed May 23, 2015). 4 http://www.aaastudies.org/aas/index.html (accessed May 23, 2015). 5 The author gained insight from Yuji Ichioka’s comments. See also Yamamoto

(1999) for detail. 6 See the special issue (vols. 1 and 2, 1995) of Amerasia Journal and part 2 of

Hirabayashi (1995) for detail. 7 Indeed, all persons born in Asia, including those originating from that area

arbitrarily (and Euro-centrically) designated as the Middle East, were excluded from citizenship until the 1952 Immigration Act. For details, see Haney-Lopez (1996).

REFERENCES Chan, Sucheng, ed. 2003. Remapping Asian American History. Walnut Creek, CA:

AltaMira Press.

Endo, Russell, and William Wei. 1988. “On the Development of Asian American Studies Programs.” Pp. 5–15 in Gary Y. Okihiro, Shirley Hune, Arthur A. Hansen, and John M. Liu, eds., Reflection on Shattered Windows: Promises and Prospects for Asian American Studies. Pullman: Washington State University Press.

Fong, Timothy P. 1998. “Reflections on Teaching about Asian American Communities.” Pp. 143–159 in Lane Ryo Harabayashi, ed., Teaching Asian America: Diversity and the Problem of the Community. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Gupta, A., and J. Ferguson. 1992. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference.” Cultural Anthropology 7 (1): 6–23.

Haney-Lopez, Ian F. 1996. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New York University Press.

Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo. 1995. “Back to the Future: Re-framing Community-Based Research.” Amerasia Journal 21: 103–118.

Hsu, Madeline Y. 2015. The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hune, Shirley. 2000. “Doing Gender with a Feminist Gaze: Toward a Historical Reconstruction of Asian America.” Pp. 413–430 in Min Zhou and J. V. Gatewood, eds., Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, 1st ed. New York: New York University Press.

Kang, Laura Hyun Yi. 1998. “A Contending Pedagogy: Asian American Studies as Extracurricular Praxis.” Pp. 123–141 in Lane Ryo Harabayashi, ed., Teaching

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http://www.princetonreview.com
http://www.aaastudies.org/list/index.html
http://www.aaastudies.org/aas/index.html
Asian America: Diversity and the Problem of the Community. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Kiang, Peter Nien-chu. 1995. “The New Waves: Developing Asian American Studies on the East Coast.” Pp. 305–314 in Gary Y. Okihiro, Marilyn Alquizola, Dorothy Fujita Rony, and K. Scott Wong, eds., Privileging Positions: The Sites of Asian American Studies. Pullman: Washington State University Press.

Loo, Chalsa, and Don Mar. 1985–1986. “Research and Asian Americans: Social Change or Empty Prize?” Amerasia Journal 12 (2): 85–93.

Monaghan, Peter. 1999. “A New Momentum in Asian-American Studies: Many Colleges Create New Programs; Many Programs Broaden Their Courses and Research.” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 29.

Nakanishi, Don T., and Russell Leong. 1978. “Toward the Second Decade: A National Survey of Asian American Studies Programs in 1978.” Amerasia Journal 5 (1): 1–19.

Omi, Michael, and Dana Takagi. 1995. “Thinking Theory in Asian American Studies.” Amerasia Journal 21 (1–2): xi–xv.

Ono, Kent A. 2005. “Asian American Studies after 9/11.” Pp. 439–451 in Cameron McCarthy C. Richlow, Greg Dimitriadis, and Nadine Dolby, eds., Race, Identity, and Representation in Education, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.

Pew Research Center. 2012. The Rise of Asian Americans. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.

Tachiki, Amy, Eddie Wong, and Franklin Odo, with Buck Wong, eds. 1971. Roots: An Asian American Studies Reader. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

Wang, L. Ling-chi. 1995. “The Structure of Dual Domination: Toward a Paradigm for the Study of the Chinese Diaspora in the United States.” Amerasia Journal 12 (1–2): 149–169.

Wat, Eric C. 1998. “Beyond the Missionary Position: Student Activism from the Bottom Up.” Pp. 161–174 in Lane Ryo Harabayashi, ed., Teaching Asian America: Diversity and the Problem of the Community. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Wong, Sau-Ling C. 1995. “Denationalization Reconsidered: Asian American Cultural Criticism at a Theoretical Crossroads.” Amerasia Journal 21 (1–2): 1– 27.

Wu, Ellen D. 2013. The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wu, Jean Yu-Wen Shen, and Thomas Chen, eds. 2010. Asian American Studies

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Now: A Critical Reader. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Yamamoto, Eric. 1999. Interracial Justice: Conflict and Reconciliation in Post– Civil Rights America. New York: New York University Press.

Yanagisako, Sylvia. 1995. “Transforming Orientalism: Gender, Nationality, and Class in Asian American Studies.” Pp. 275–298 in Sylvia Yanagisako and Carol Delaney, eds., Naturalizing Power: Essays in Feminist Cultural Analysis. New York: Routledge.

Yu, Henry. 1998. “The ‘Oriental Problem’ in America, 1920–1960: Linking the Identities of Chinese American and Japanese American Intellectuals.” Pp. 191– 214 in K. Scott Wong and Sucheng Chan, eds., Claiming America: Constructing Chinese American Identities during the Exclusion Era. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Part I Claiming Visibility The Asian American Movement

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1

“On Strike!”

San Francisco State College Strike, 1968–1969: The Role of Asian American Students

KAREN UMEMOTO

The sixth of November, nineteen hundred and sixty-eight. Few thought this would mark the first day of the longest student strike in American history. Student leaders of the San Francisco State College Third World Liberation Front marched with their demands for an education more relevant and accessible to their communities. Their tenacity engaged the university, the police, and politicians in a five-month battle giving birth to the first School of Ethnic Studies in the nation. Batons were swung and blood was shed in the heat of conflict. But this violence was only symptomatic of the challenge made by activists to fundamental tenets of dominant culture as manifested in the university. African American, Asian American, Chicano, Latino, and Native American students called for ethnic studies and open admissions under the slogan of self-determination. They fought for the right to determine their own futures. They believed that they could shape the course of history and define a “new consciousness.” For Asian American students in particular, this also marked a “shedding of silence” and an affirmation of identity.

The strike took place against the backdrop of nationwide Third World movements that had a profound impact on the culture and ideology of America. Never before had a convergence of struggles—civil rights, antiwar, women, student, and oppressed nationality—so sharply redefined the social norms of our society. Originating from the call for basic rights, protestors moved on to demand power and self-determination. When the state resisted, activists held to their convictions “by any means necessary.” Though these movements did not produce major changes in the economic or political structure, they strongly affected popular ideology and social relations. They also resulted in the formation of mass organizations and produced a cadre of activists who would continue to pursue their ideals.

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The San Francisco State strike was a microcosm of this struggle over cultural hegemony. The focus of the strike was a redefinition of education, which in turn was linked to a larger redefinition of American society. Activists believed that education should be “relevant” and serve the needs of their communities, not the corporations. The redefinition of education evolved from the early 1960s when students initiated programs to broaden the college curriculum and challenge admission standards. They supported the hiring and retention of minority faculty. They demanded power in the institution. When they were met with resistance, activists organized a campus-wide movement with community support for their demands. They built organizations, planned strategies and tactics, and published educational literature. Their activities were rooted in and also shaped more egalitarian relationships based on mutual respect. While this doctrine was not always fully understood nor always put into practice, it was the beginning of a new set of values and beliefs, a “New World Consciousness.”

The emergence of this alternative vision is important to study today for several reasons. First, by understanding the beginnings of this vision, today’s generation of students can revive certain “counterhegemonic” concepts that have been usurped and redefined by those in power. For example, campus administrators have revamped the concept of “self- determination” to the more benign ones of “diversity” and “cultural pluralism.” Thus, the right of a group to decision-making power over institutions affecting their lives has been gutted to the level of “student input” by campus administrators.

Second, studying the strike can deepen our understanding of the process through which ideological currents develop among oppressed groups. Organizers are constantly trying to “raise political consciousness” among the people. But in what ways do the nature of the conflict, methods of organizing, strategy and tactics, propaganda and agitation, and historical factors influence mass consciousness within these movements?

This study analyzes the growth of political consciousness among Asian American students during the San Francisco State strike. I investigate the development of the strike in four stages from 1964 to 1969, defined according to dominant concepts within the movement: (1) 1964–1966— end of the civil rights era marked by the ideals of “racial harmony” and “participatory democracy”; (2) 1966–1967—implementation of programs under the banner of “serve the people” and “self-determination”; (3) fall 1968/winter 1969—struggle “by any means necessary”; and (4) spring/summer 1969—repression of protest and continued “commitment to

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the community.” These concepts signify trends in ideological development and provide a means of understanding the strike as a seed of a revolutionary transformation in America.

1964–1966: “Racial Harmony” and “Participatory Democracy” and the Civil Rights Era The civil rights era profoundly impacted the racial ideology of the nation, particularly Third World youth. The dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. and unsung heroes inspired actions for equality, dignity, and self-respect. The African American movement clearly revealed the deep-rooted, institutionalized nature of racial oppression. Although protests resulted in reforms limited to the legal arena, their impact was felt in all other sectors of society.