This week focuses on globalization and how it affects those living in diasporic communities. Evelyn Hu-Dehart contextualizes the term by recounting the story of Chinese-American Gary Locke and his experience navigating between his Chinese and American identity. Hu-Dehart raises interesting questions about how Asian Americans are made to be seen as “bridge-builders” as the descendants of both countries. She writes the unfair nature of the expectation that Asian Americans must hold more knowledge than others in order to represent the countries. She also brings up the term, “flexible citizenship” wherein the relationship between national identities and point of origin are not so strict. Further, in E. San Juan Jr.’s article, “The Ordeal of Ethnic Studies in the Age of Globalization,” he critiques Hu-DeHart when she argued over Ethnic Studies as a marginalized discipline. Juan argues, “The latest attempt to neutralize this challenge received ideology is by way of postcolonial nostrums of hybridity, ludic body politics, transmigrancy, and chic populism ascribed to diasporic, transnational intellectuals in First World academies and their neoliberal ‘fellow travellers’ (pg.272).” While it is interesting that Juan would argue that Ethnic Studies is being taught in a postcolonial way, how would it be possible for one to learn about their identities and community without abiding to imperialistic and colonial methods?
Evelyn Hu-Dehart. “Introduction: Asian American Formations in the Age of Globalization.”
E. San Juan Jr. “The Ordeal of Ethnic Studies in the Age of Globalization.” Displacements.
Image: https://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/governorlocke/images/family.gif
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