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l Week 27
Conceptualizing Asian American Studies
This semester created the opportunity for me to branch out and read through text I would have
never found on my own. It also brought me a lot of different perspectives on the world,
especially on Asian American Studies. When I signed up for this class, I wasn’t sure what I
would be learning because the title and the course description were very broad. However, I am
more then happy with how things turned out. My favorite texts came from the weeks we talked
about family and adoption. Both family by Evelyn Nakano Glenn and Legacies of War were
enlightening and opened up different perspectives of both. My favorite sources overall were
Memory of Forgotten war and First-Person plural A film by Deann Borshay Lie. Both films gave
me the opportunity to reach out to my friends and family and not only experience the movies
with them but also discuss how they felt and if the movie I showed overlapped with their lives in
some way. This class also could not have come at a better time, with COVID-19 being the main
topic of discussion I was able to take what I have learned from class and use it as a tool to
dissect how not only the media but also our government how chosen to discuss the virus. I have
never been blind to racism and in today’s world casual racism is more common than it should
be. Our president and many other elected officials have chosen to poorly handle discussing the
creation of our global pandemic. This class has taught me how to come up with discussion
policy, politics, and many other topics from a different angle and given me the chance to
experience Asian American Studies.
This week I chose to read “Living Under Siege: An interview with Mimi Khuc” and sections from
the zine “Asian American Feminist Antibodies: Care in the Time of Coronavirus,” particularly
Guo Jing’s piece “100 Masks” and Alice Tsui’s essay “Tired.” It was very powerful to be exposed
to both of these works because they offer alternative sites of community building, healing, and
activism in a time in which we are socially dislocated from important communities of support. I
was particularly drawn to the interview with Mimi Khuc because it gave me a much more
in-depth understanding of the beautiful tarot cards that professor Kim used on her syllabusses
this semester. Khan’s remarks as well as her overall project had a large impact on me, as they
allowed me to understand activism outside of the discrete forms of demonstration, petitioning,
and protest that “properly” define activism. The tarot cards create a space in which the
particularities of Asian American life are made tangible and yet are still individualized. I love the
tarot as a tool for activism because the medium in and of itself provides a flexibility of
interpretation that, I think, gives Khuc’s project a vast and malleable reach. I also was very
drawn to the ways in which Khuc relies on the work of creative writers, activists, and scholars in
creating the cards because it creates a space for healing and Asian American cultural
production. In particular, I was drawn to Khuc’s statement that the tarot deck is “amazingly
generative” (79); this powerfully repositioned my understanding of activism as working toward
the production of an alternative futurity, not simply a dissolution of the status quo.
Similarly, “100 Masks” and “Tired” relied on personal testimonials to illustrate the psychic and
physical effects of combating anti-Asian/Asian American racism in the midst of the coronavirus.
Both Jing and Tsui speak to the ways in which fighting against both anti-Asian racism and state
unpreparedness are utterly exhausting. Tsui powerfully reflects this in writing, “I want to be both
invisible and LOUD ABOUT THIS simultaneously… but I have felt so racially fatigued. I am so
tired right now” (25). In the beautiful format of the zine, both authors work to emphasizers the
importance of acknowledging and emphasizing fatigue in activism. In this, I think that Khuc’s
tarot deck can serve as both an invaluable, fun distraction and site of self care and
understanding.
My biggest takeaways from this weeks reading, especially in regard to the tumultuous nature of
the post-coronavirus world, revolve around the necessity of viewing other types of resistive
production as activism. For many, the task of physically organizing has been made altogether
impossible, meaning that as scholars we must open up our understanding of activism to include
testimonies and interviews such as the ones offered by Khuc, Jing, and Tsui. In understanding
activism and resistance at large in the future, I will be much more mindful of utilizing resources
that don’t come across as “official” or “complete” in their reckoning with the problems and
solutions of our modern world.
Genre For the two genres we are to chose for this weeks post I have chosen the open letter
project (Latinxs to our Families) and the racial justice toolkit. Beginning with the open letter
project, we can see how the author of the letter starts off by speaking to an audience. The
opening line says, “We want you to understand why Black lives are so important to us and hope
you will join us in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.” You can see that this type of
genre allows for the speaker or whoever is writing to attempt to reach out to the audience. We
can then see how this type of writing is used to reach out to others not only to inform that their
are Black lives being crushed, but asking other to take a stand for the mistreatment they are
receiving. I believe this open letter genre impacted me the most for this reason. Throughout the
reading I was impacted by the numbers and percentages of Black people being mistreated.
Although the open letter genre is informational, it seems like it is less educational and more
informational with persuasion. The racial justice toolkit on the other hand can be seen
differently. As I found more information from the reading, I found that the racial justice toolkit
was very informative. As I read deeper into the racial justice toolkit, I found that the genre was
much more informational and included excessive information regarding the Asian American
mistreatment and movement. After reading through both articles, I found both to be impactful.
The open letter genre was most compelling to me personally because of the seriousness. I
believe open letter genre can display flexibility by showing seriousness and being informative,
and showing a light hearted easy to comprehend density.
Need to comment on two peoples post
Week 20
On methods
Enriquez’s methods tend to mock that of a qualitative research design- to some extent in the
sense that she is gathering a majority of her information for her article via interviews with
specific members of a target population. Her social science method is extremely effective and
she elaborates on her method when she outlines her points so that the paper is easy to follow.
Not only is her method effective but it is also the more personal method of gathering
information- she is validating her point by using real people who have experienced the struggles
she is encompassing in her paper. Guerrero’s method is none the less effective and important
in some circumstances when gathering research; her method worked really well with what she
was trying to look for. It showed a very generalized idea of racism and how that can parallel
with religion- she did this well but her method lacked personal flair and specific details unlike
Enriquez’s paper. I personally would gravitate towards Enriquez’s methods when talking about
researching in general, but it would depend on the research I was trying to gather; Enriquez
would be for specific research and I would gravitate towards Guerrero’s methods in a more
generalizable study. Both are obviously equally important, but should not be used
interchangeably. I’m a sociology major and truly thought the course sounded interesting in
general- I thought it would be enjoyable with great discussion and I was correct! I truly did not
know that the class was an AMS course until we started the class; I was very excited by this
news because I honestly lacked knowledge in the field and wanted to know more. Our
discussions, readings and films are typically covering Asian American studies but the class does
a great job and then bringing that into a global scope.
Both Enriquez’s and Guerrero’s methods seemed to be effective for both. Guerrero’s seemed to
help her with her paper and Enriquez’s not only gave her points of argument but also a good
outline. Her method threw qualitative research to the side given she gathered a large portion of
her research from interviews and articles. Guerrero examined religion, Asian American Studies,
and also elaborated on how racism and religion tend to go hand in hand. However, I would
prefer to use Enriquez’s method. Depending on the research being done but hers was more
specific where Guerrero’s method would work on more broad topics. This entire semester we
focused on Asian American studies and we witnessed it first hand either through movies or in
discussion but I think everything we talked about did a really good job connecting to the rest of
the world. I took this class through SOC and it actually gave me a better perspective of AMS.
This is the first time I’ve experienced a class with this structure and I enjoyed the overall setup
and it helped give me a new perspective on the forgotten past.
Unpacking key concepts
The two readings by Perla Guerrero and Laura Enriquez both touch on the concept of
racialization, and how that racialization affects different groups of people. Although the readings
have different ways of analyzing that racialization, the two happen to reinforce each other’s
concepts. The way we can see this, is through the stereotypes Enriquez discusses, and
Guerrero’s use of those stereotypes to show how those particular stereotypes helped a certain
group of Vietnamese refugees be accepted in an area where whiteness prevailed. When I say a
certain group of Vietnamese refugees, I mean the refugees who were seen as being the model
minorities. The ones who carried characteristics or qualities that seemed favorable to white
Arkansans. In Enriquez’s analysis, she discusses how API students never really had been
affected by negative stereotypes or questioned about their undocumented status (Enriquez,
262). They had rather been viewed as law abiding, making them less likely to be questioned. In
Guerrero’s analysis, towards the end she discusses how although many Arkansans didn’t want
to accept Vietnamese refugees because of the “yellow peril,” ones who were more likely to be
accepted were refugees who were medical professionals or model minorities. This even was
true for Latinas/os who embodied values that White Arkansas’s embodied (Guerrero, 217-218).
In terms of differences, Enriquez’s analysis focused more on the negative effects of racialization
(stereotypes) for Latina/o college students, while Guerrero focused on how the racialization and
racial histories of other groups in turn tended to affect Vietnamese people. This is seen when
Guerrero says “white Arkansans often compare Mexicans unfavorably to the Vietnamese” and
“the racial formation of Vietnamese refugees—an Asiatic racial form—is being remade in
relation to other groups of people, including other Southeast Asians, and to the material
conditions on the ground.” (Guerrero, 218-219).
Week 13
Youth act
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) impacted
deportation within the Southeast Asian community by doubly punishing and criminalizing
refugees and/or immigrants who committed most forms of crime. The IIRIRA was significant in
increasing deportations because it both lowered the number of years sentenced to that would
result in deportation from 5+ years to 1 year and lowered the requirements for crimes to be
deemed “aggravated felonies” that made one eligible for deportation (413). This law essentially
stated that after serving their sentence in American prisons, any immigrant of refugee released
from prison would be subject to deportation – even years later and even if the crime was
committed in ones youth. This resulted in increased deportations of Southeast Asian men in
particular, many of whom had been in the US for the majority of their lives and had set up lives
and families in the US. The IIRIRA mandated that those deported would not be allowed to return
to the US, creating family separations and economic hardship for those left in America.
The AYPAL worked to combat and overturn the power of the IIRIRA, and was a primarily
youth-led organization that tried first to accomplish change through the liberal democratic
channels of local legislatures. The AYPAL set up press conferences, collected signatures, and
organized in order to try to persuade a local congresswoman to support the repeal of the
IIRIRA; however, they were constantly met with resistance and distance from the
congresswoman, making them realize that the legal/legislative system would not be receptive to
their concerns both as Southeast Asian immigrants/refugees and their allies and as underage
non-voters. After realizing this, the AYPAL took a much more grassroots route to organizing,
making great efforts to build coalitions beyond their community and age demographics. They
confronted the limits of liberal democracy by circumventing the “proper” channels of resistance
and instead finding vitality and support in their and other Asian communities. They also took up
the issue of immigration detention as irrevocably intertwined with incarceration and privatized
institutions of punishment (such as INS and prison “stores”), creating links between the goals of
their organization and struggles for racial and carceral liberation elsewhere and in other
communities.
Deport
When it comes to the deportation of refugees from Southeastern Asia, we as Americans have a
moral choice to make. Do we deport refugees back to their home countries or not? The quote
given in the beginning of the thread asks this question. I believe that this question has a
relatively clear moral answer, depending on where a person stands politically. People that are
more liberal would usually say that deporting refugees from countries that were negatively
influenced by American foreign policy choices is a bad idea. I generally agree with this. More
conservative individuals would likely say that most refugees should be deported. In the end, this
question involves more than just morals, it is inherently political. Politicians will do whatever it
takes to stay in power. More liberal politicians would like refugees to be allowed to inter the
United States because they expect to receive votes from those refugees. Conservative
politicians would not like this to occur because it gives support to their rivals. Both sides have a
strong incentive to bluff and create conditions that support their views. If the American people
do not start caring about refugees, then our politicians will not be pressured into caring. If we do
nothing, our politicians have no incentive to care about refugees. This applies to any refugee
from any country, whether it is Cambodia or Mexico. In summary, the moral arguments for
accepting or rejecting refugees from Cambodia may seem to have an easy answer. On one
level this is true, but on a political level things are much more complicated and in my opinion,
unfortunate for refugees.
Week 6
Why do we study
For this response, I chose to focus on the keywords “multiculturalism” and “nationalism” in
relation to Chan-Malik’s article. In Chan-Malik’s article, she discusses why she began to study
Islam, which had to do with her interpretation of the limits within Asian American Studies. The
main point I took from Chan-Malik’s article is that there is a lot that is left out within the discourse
of AAS, specifically in relation to religion and Blackness, as well as how Islam and Muslims are
perceived through race, gender, and religion. For Chan-Malik, it is important that AAS facilitate
dialogues between communities and disciplines.
Additionally, I can see Chan-Malik’s point in Kyung-Jin Lee’s article on Multiculturalism. It was
interesting to read Kyung-Jin Lee’s perspective on multiculturalism because I think it is one that
tends to be overlooked. At the time, the term multiculturalism didn’t signify what it generally does
today. I say this because I often hear the word “multiculturalism” being used in a more positive
way to mean the embrace of different cultures. However, Kyung-Jin Lee brought light to the
underlying implications this term has, along with its historical past. I think this is where I see
Chan-Malik’s article and Kyung-Jin Lee’s representing the same idea that with certain
discourses or terms, there tends to be things that are left out or are not properly taught.
Furthermore, in regards to the keyword nationalism, it was interesting to read how Asian
Americans achieved their own sense of nationalism through the rise of social movements that
occurred in the 1960’s-1970’s. However, this sense of cultural nationalism that emerged only
catered to heterosexual Asian American males, disregarding gender and sexual heterogeneity. I
can see the same idea from Kyung-Jin Lee’s article with Kim’s idea, that being, that these terms
tended to reinforce the same racist regime they were attempting to get rid of (pg. 179). What I
was able to take away from these three articles is that, it’s important we don’t forget or leave out
what is meant to be included. To Chan-Malik, this meant learning and teaching Islam within the
discourse of AAS, in a way other than what it has originally been perceived as. For Kyung-Jin
Lee, this meant recognizing the historical implications and exclusivity “multiculturalism” has had
on certain communities and/or groups of people.
Chan-Malik’s article discusses how she came to study Islam after the 9/11 attacks and how she
thinks the study of Islam in the United States should be integrated into other ethnic studies. The
two keywords that I have decided to connect to this article are the ones on multiculturalism and
nationalism.
The keyword on Multiculturalism discusses how America was seen as a “melting pot’ a place
where people could set aside old feuds and rivalries to come together under a new government
in a new place, but this view of America neglected to account for people who did not come from
Europe. This article has a far more complicated view of multiculturalism than I have
encountered before, in the past I have typically heard multiculturalism used as a more positive
term but this article goes into far more depth with the complications and issues that come along
with multiculturalism. I liked connecting this article to Chan-Malik’s because of Chan-Malik’s
interests in the intersections between multiple different races, not just Asian-Americans.
I also chose the Nationalism keyword for this assignment, this keyword discusses how important
Nationalism has been to Asian American studies since its founding. Nationalism has been
important to Asian American studies because at its beginning, the movement was founded in
order to let Asian Americans claim full involvement in political life and to refute stereotypes of
them being “unassimilable.”
If I were to explain this to another KU student I would talk about why its important to study Islam
and its place in America, but also touch on the complexities and issues of incorporating Islamic
studies into the field of Asian American Studies.
Shifting
I thought that “Shifting Geographies of Proximity: Korean-Led Evangelical Christian Missions
and the U.S. Empire” was a good read. Before hand, I wasn’t sure which keywords I wanted to
include in this. The two that I decided on are Religion and Nationalism. Religion was a big part
of what Han talked about. I wasn’t aware about this situation until I read this. They were
missionaries trying to help spread Christianity in a country that is Muslim for the most part. I
want to tie nationalism in with religion and with Han’s article. When I read it I began thinking
about nationalism, but not the mindset of loving your country and doing anything for it. Instead, I
began to think about how countries typically have the same or similar religions within the
population. Along with that, I began thinking about how people take their countries religion very
serious in some places. Thats how I wanted to tie nationalism into what Han was talking about.
Afghanistan didn’t want Christianity spreading because they already are Muslim. They are proud
of their religion, so that was what I thinking when Nationalism came to mind. These are the
reasons that I decided to include Religion and Nationalism to what Han wrote.
I found Han’s article very interesting. I am in an African literature class so we talk a lot about
colonial missions, but post-colonial missions like the one in Korea are new to me. The first
connection I saw was with the keyword on multiculturalism. Han talks about how missionaries
use “cultural neighbors” to reach more people (203). Christianity struggles to spread from one
group to another, so missionaries must use their heritage to reach farther. However, according
to Linda Trinh, there is a “paradigm” when it comes to multiculturalism: there is always a culture
that struggles (171). I think throughout Hans’ article, we can see this, For example, the Korean
missionaries that were arrested in Afghanistan where a “less powerful” culture/identity, while
American missionaries were more powerful in Korea.
The next connection I saw was with the keyword on religion. After reading David Kyuman Kim’s
article, I think that religion challenges multiculturalism. Kim mentions that post-9/11, religion
radicalized Asian Americans, and increased white supremacist “racial reduction” (214)Asian
religions at this time invoked fear in Americans and included attacked against Sikh’s due to the
images of Muslims drawn in cartoons. I thought this was similar to the arrest of Korean
missionaries in Afghanistan. Since the US is predominantly Christian, all Christians are bad.
Religion also challenges multiculturalism by completely changing the way of life. I was struck to
learn the world’s largest church is in Seoul. I looked up a video to see what the Yoido Full
Gospel Church is like, and I found it is very similar to the mega-churches and televangelists we
see in the US. It looked very American, which think is a result of the missionary work after
Japanese colonization. I’ll put the link to the video below. It feels like propaganda, but I thought
it was really interesting to see what the church offers. The church is basically still doing
missionary work in Korea, while now sending missionaries around the world.
Week 30
Art
In Glenn Omatsu’s article and in Moustafa Bayoumi’s article we see various photographs of
what I would consider different art forms. One of such examples is a chinese newspaper
printed in Los Angeles which is discussing DACA which stands for “ Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals which is a kind of administrative relief from deportation. The purpose of
DACA is to protect eligible immigrant youth who came to the United States when they were
children from deportation”(University Of California At Berkeley 2019). And given the date of this
newspaper it is safe to assume it is about the Dreamers Act which protects young
undocumented children who meet certain requirements from being deported. The Newspaper
also closely connects to the theme of the banner that reads “ Immigrants and Refugees
welcome”, This church is the church of St. Francis Xavier which is located in New york, The
location is important because it is in the U.S which is also where DACA was implemented which
makes me think an underlying theme between at the least the two different forms of art is
acceptance and peace of people not born in the U.S. This theme is continued in the last piece of
art depicting a boxer and a taxi cab driver, At first I did not know what to make of this but after
analyzing is and the article it is in I have determined that the street art is about many things, The
togetherness and differentness of a taxi driver and a boxer but it is also about the everlasting
impression that streetart like this has on an ever changing and growing neighborhood. All of the
tie into Machida’s keyword in various ways that I think reflect the changes and growth and boom
that is Asian American Art.
Next revolu NEED TO DO
Movements
I chose to focus on the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) and Wei Min She (WMS)
because although Daryl Maeda discussed the AAPA the most throughout his article he also
mentioned on page 167 how important the WMS movement was. I had never heard about either
of these groups prior to this class/this article so I was interested to look into the specifics of
each. The Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) was a political organization started at the
University of California, Berkeley in 1968. Its purpose was to unite all Asian Americans under on
identity and push for both political and social action. They identified as an anti-imperialistic, third
world political organization that fought for the liberations of Asian Americans. Over the course of
the next two years, the “yellow power” movement was mobilized and the AAPA participated int
the Third World Liberation Front strikes at SF State and at UC Berkeley. They also were
involved on movements such as the anti-Vietnam War movement and the Black Power
Movement. Although this group disestablished in 1969, the AAPA would continue to play a large
role in the Asian American movement and would help to influence other Asian Americans in the
future to take political action. Next, I learned that Wei Min She which translates to organization
of the people in Chinese was developed in the 1970’s as an anti-imperialist organization in the
San Francisco area. At first, many of the members identified as Marxists and consisted of many
different groups of people. The organization focused on Asian American Activism and was not
only one of the larger Asian American organizations but also believed imperialism was to blame
for the oppression of Asians in America.
http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Asian_American_Political_Alliance_(AAPA)
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/periodicals/iwk-journal/iwk-wms-ru/index.htm
Resistance
Before reading the keyword “Resistance” I was unaware of who Vincent Chin was and
his tragic story. In 1982 Vincent Chin, an Asian-American man, was out celebrating his
bachelor party with friends in Detroit. Two white men, who were auto workers,
approached Chin and began arguing which got them kicked out of the bar. When they
were out of the bar the two men began beating Chin with a baseball bat. At the time of
Chins attack, the auto industry was declining which caused unemployment for
autoworkers, but it just so happens Japanese auto manufacturers were rising in the US.
Both men got slaps on the wrist and didn’t spend anytime in jail. Chins murder caused
Asian-Americans to begin many civil rights groups.
Speaking of Asian-American violence, it’s hard not to mention what is going on in our
world today. I personally have not seen any racism toward Asian-Americans over the
coronavirus but that does not mean it isn’t happening. Our president of the united states
has even referred to the virus as a “Chinese virus”. With our own leader referring to the
pandemic as that, it causes many other Americans to follow in his footsteps and to do
the same. I’ve read multiple articles on ABC news, which are cited below, about how
Americans are ignoring, spitting, yelling racial slurs, and refusing to help
Asian-Americans. More than 1000 cases of xenophobia toward Asian-Americans was
reported between January 28-february 24. It’s a sad world when racism takes over ones
judgement.
Wang, Frances Kai-Hwa. “Who Is Vincent Chin? The History and Relevance of a 1982 Killing.”
NBCNews.com , NBCUniversal News Group, 15 June 2017,
www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/who-vincent-chin-history-relevance-1982-killing-n77129
1.
“The Latest US and World News.” USA Today , Gannett Satellite Information Network,
www.usatoday.com/news/.
Kandil, Caitlin Yoshiko. “Asian Americans Report over 650 Racist Acts over Last Week, New
Data Says.” NBCNews.com , NBCUniversal News Group, 27 Mar. 2020,
www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-americans-report-nearly-500-racist-acts-over-last
-week-n1169821.
War and terror
In Moustafa Bayoumi’s article, “Asian American Studies, the War on Terror, and the Changing
University,” he asks various questions regarding Asian American studies, particularly whether
AAS is about the organization and structure of power within the United States. The way he
answers this question is by discussing who does and doesn’t get included in Asian American
Studies, which is due in large part to the United States. Bayoumi explains how in the US,
especially since Post 9/11, Muslims are almost always talked about in a racial way, meaning
there is a lot of racism towards Muslims. But, Bayoumi asserts that we must recognize that
‘Muslim’ is not an ethnicity as many presume, as well as the Islam presence before 9/11 dating
back to the colonial era. Furthermore, Bayoumi talks about Muslim and Arab Americans origins
within different parts of Asia and how that can become complicated, specifically when thinking
about Middle Eastern Americans and MENA (Middle East North Africa). Asian American Studies
then, is not just about the geography of origins but about how people are organized in the US as
different types of “Asians” (pg. 22).
A quote from Bayoumi that stuck out to me is “the acknowledgment of this inclusion will also
illustrate that the prime motivator of Asian American Studies is the politics of the United
States…” (pg. 22). I found this quote to be related to the keyword of resistance given that what
Bayoumi discusses, demonstrates the need to resist what the US has created. This being the
exclusion of Muslim and Arab Americans in AAS, due in large part to the discourse surrounding
them. There is no hiding that the US has racialized Muslim and Arab Americans. This
racialization tends to disregard their Asian origins, resulting in their exclusion from AAS. As I
mentioned above, Bayoumi argues that Muslim and Arab Americans should be included in AAS
since its intent is to depict how different types of “Asians” are thought of in the US. We are
certainly aware of how Muslim and Arab Americans are thought of rather than how they should
be thought of. In other words, the US has a racist way of thinking about Muslim and Arab
Americans. That is why, as Bayoumi puts it, Asian American Studies should be “driven…by a
fundamental politics of transformation that seeks to create a more just and equitable society for
everyone” (pg. 23