Post Week 8 – K. Scott Wong Article

By Miggy Cruz

“Diasporas, Displacements, and the Construct of Transnational Identities” by K. Scott Wong analyzed the connectivity of the world today by discussing the evolution of immigration into a transnational and diasporic world. For example, he noted the waves of immigration beginning in the sixteenth century up until the exclusion laws were passed in 1965. Next, Wong includes four essays discussing the different lenses we could be analyzing this migration, and emigration of different groups of people to the U.S. and other host countries.  

It was interesting to find Wong’s notes on the shift to a “globalization of capitalism.” The idea is quite apparent with the idea of the passing of the TPP linking Vietnam and the U.S. In the past, much of the people from Asia emigrated to the U.S. in order to have a job to support their families back home. Today, the opposite. Jobs are being outsourced to Asian and Latin countries, but the punch line here is the lack of human right and resources available for the labor workers in those nations, who usually work under elites, large companies and industries. Additionally, I found Stuart Hall’s ideology that cultural identity “is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’” very true, the reason being unless one is indigenous, we have all technically been displaced from our "homeland."

Question: What truly caused the shift from the U.S being the hub for employment, “the land of milk and honey,” to Asia now being the provider, and the U.S. the consumer?

Source:

Wong, K. Scott. “Diasporas, Displacements, and the Construct of Transnational Identities.” Displacements and Diasporas: Asians in the Americas. Ed. Wanni W. Anderson and Robert G. Lee. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005. 41-53. Print.

http://condo.ca/immigration-more-important-for-housing-market-than-believed-cibc/