Week 4_Esther Lai_ASA 114

Esther Lai

ASA 114

Week 4

    In Arif Dirlik’s piece, “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian America,” the question of what “Asian America” means, according to the past, current, and future histories of Asians in America, is presented. Dirlik argues that understandings of past Asian American history is more crucial now than ever as it is a circular reaction with orientalism and what is being Asian American. A good example of this is Gary Okihiro’s argument on model minority and yellow peril, “[m]oving in one direction along the circle, the model minority mitigates the alleged danger of the yellow peril, whereas reversing direction, the model minority, if taken too far, can become the yellow peril” (Dirlik 14). With technology and transportation condensing space and time for the contemporary world, the migration patterns of Asian people from their home countries to places like the United States has changed drastically since its earlier conception of Asian migration in the mid-late twentieth century. What it means to be part of Asian America and what it is to be a powerful Pacific Rim economy is interconnected now with transnational travels and economic, political, and social changes between these countries. With Asian companies like Alibaba continuing to grow globally, it makes it difficult for the United States to ignore the economic power that is increasingly dominating global economics, making a case for local Asian America to be determined by its global “Asian America” presence.

Question: With the circular cycle of old and new concepts constantly recurring, how can anyone in the Asian American diaspora combat the orientalist lens of the West in present contemporary time without conflicting with their local and global communities?

Sources Cited:

Dirlik, Arif. 1996. “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian America.” Amerasian Journal, 22(3), 1-24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV-JwSC7Jts