Week4_EmmanuelCapua_ASA114

Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian America, written by Arif Dirlik argues that “Asian America seem irrelevant under current circumstances and have come under criticism for being outdated… We need to rethink earlier conceptualizations because they no longer seems to be capable of containing the changes either within Asian America or in its relationship to its local and global environments” (Dirlik, 1996, p. 3). 

One of the points that stood out occurred when Dirlik stated, “The historicism of the new discourse was expressed at the most fundamental level in ‘claiming America’ by rooting Asian Americanness in the ground of U.S History” (Dirlik, 1996, p. 5). In other words, Dirlik is stating that Asians have been a part of the makeup of U.S history for a very long time. However, their stories were suppressed and the only way to reclaim those stories and their identities within American makeup was to bring up key points in American history and find themselves within that narrative. 

In order to make clear that they aren’t necessarily trying to erase American history rather discover and help explain their lost identities, Dirlik further states, “our roots go deep into the history of the United States and they can do much to explain who we are and became this way” (Dirlik, 1996, p. 6). This cooperates with a lot of the work that folks fighting for Ethnic Studies is continuing to reinforce and reiterate that they are not trying to erase history, but rather discover their lost identities within the American narratives. 

Question: Dirlik refers to a new transformation is occurring where a “process of constructing new ethnicities that are no longer containable within the national framework.” Is he essentially referring to the blending of ethnicities or the increasing prevalence of mixed children? 

Photo Source: https://youtu.be/2tl0xxmqwuc (Thumbnail)

Source: 

Dirlik, Arif. “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of 

Contemporary Asian America.” Amerasia Journal, vol. 22, no. 3, 1996, pp. 1–24., doi:10.17953/amer.22.3.626172n811343982.