Introduction to Asian American Studies

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Critical Race Theory (redux)

Whiteness vs. White PeopleLouis CK, “I Enjoy Being White” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPVG4vgPWAc

Three Paths to Citizenship1. Birth on soil (jus soli)2. Blood/Parents (jus sanguinis)3. Naturalization (racial prerequisite cases)

Brief rundown of immigration law

• Naturalization Act of 1790: citizenship explicitly limited to “free white persons”

(Civil War: Slavery Abolished)• 1870: naturalization laws were “extended to aliens of

African nativity and to persons of African descent”• Page Act, 1875 – prohibited Asian women from

entering U.S.• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (repealed 1943) & Alien

Land Laws (Asians could not own property)

More Immigration LawAfter Heavy European Immigration & U.S. Industrialization

• Immigration Act of 1924 – established quotas for how many people could enter based on country of origin

• Until 1931, American women who married aliens ineligible for citizenship lost their citizenship – became stateless persons

• 1942-1944: Executive Order 9066 places ~115,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps

World War II: A Racial Break (new paradigm)• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter Act) – no

more racial distinctions on immigration• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Cellar Act) – abolished

system of national-origin quotas (attempted family reunification policies)

The Big Question

How does U.S. history (or culture, or geography, or whatever) look different if we consider it

through the lens of Asian American experiences?

The Big Question

How does U.S. history (or culture, or geography, or whatever) look different if we consider it

through the lens of Asian American experiences?

…Asian American Studies tries to answer this.

The Big Question

How does U.S. history (or culture, or geography, or whatever) look different if we consider it

through the lens of Asian American experiences?

…Asian American Studies tries to answer this.

It asks questions that don’t get asked otherwise.

Quick History

• Term coined in late 1960s

Quick History

• Term coined in late 1960s• Adopted by a group of students of color @ SF

State who wanted to radically change their curriculum (“Third Liberation Front”)

Quick History

• Term coined in late 1960s• Adopted by a group of students of color @ SF

State who wanted to radically change their curriculum (“Third Liberation Front”)

• A reaction against the term “oriental,” which became pejorative/offensive (painted people as forever-foreign)

Quick History

• Term coined in late 1960s• Adopted by a group of students of color @ SF State

who wanted to radically change their curriculum (“Third Liberation Front”)

• A reaction against the term “oriental,” which became pejorative/offensive (painted people as forever-foreign)

• Through 1970s and 80s, focus on solidarity, uplift, building community (“yellow power”) -- it was looking to make political change, not just about creating an identity/culture.

What’s It Called?

• Asian American Studies

What’s It Called?

• Asian American Studies• Asian Pacific American Studies

What’s It Called?

• Asian American Studies• Asian Pacific American Studies• API (Asian Pacific Islander)

What’s It Called?

• Asian American Studies• Asian Pacific American Studies• API (Asian Pacific Islander)• APIA (Asian Pacific Islander American)

What’s It Called?

• Asian American Studies• Asian Pacific American Studies• API (Asian Pacific Islander)• APIA (Asian Pacific Islander American)• Asian-American

What’s It Called?

• Asian American Studies• Asian Pacific American Studies• API (Asian Pacific Islander)• APIA (Asian Pacific Islander American)• Asian-American• Asian/American

What’s It Called?

• Asian American Studies• Asian Pacific American Studies• API (Asian Pacific Islander)• APIA (Asian Pacific Islander American)• Asian-American• Asian/American (like “and/or”?)• Asian??? (we often let the “Pacific” or even the

“American”) part drop out! (Why?)(points to the instability and constantly changing discourses around race)

A Subjectless Discourse

Keeping “heterogeneity, hybridity, multiplicity” in mind, the term “Asian American” points to its own instability, its lack of unitary meaning. As Am Studies can be thought of as a “subjectless discourse.”

Emphasis on radical difference rather than on “natural” sameness. This is not a crisis!

For more, see Kandice Chuh, Imagine Otherwise: On Asian Americanist Critique (Duke UP, 2003)

Who Is Asian?

(where is Asia?)

Who Is Asian American?

Are all U.S. Asians Asian Americans?

Should everyone in the U.S. who is of Asian descent identify as Asian American?

What is the utility of the term “Asian American”?

What does Asian American Studies allow us to do, as a methodology – as a way of asking questions?