Week 4_Julie Guan_ASA114

Arif Dirlik’s “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian American” argues that the perception of the Asian American identity has changed from that of the past but regardless, we cannot ignore the lessons that history has taught us. Due to the rise of new global economic powers at the Pacific Rim, the power dynamics shifted, affecting society’s image of Asian Americans and their perceptions of self as the “community ideal” which was taken away when Asian Americans identified as “Rim people” (Dirlik 3). In the past, the western perspective dominated because of their desire to “rule the world”, thus painting those that were from Asian as “forever foreign” and needed to be civilized (Dirlik 4). A pan-Asian identity and community were then born out of the common experience of discrimination and exploitation that was inflicted on Asian Americans. This all changed when the Pacific-Asian countries rose into power, dominating the global markets, paving the way for the rise of transnationalism and a trans-Pacific professional-managerial class. Furthermore, Dirlik conveys that this led to harm to the Asian American community because it influenced the “model minority myth” as well as the movement of people back and forth between countries. The development of a dual identity allowed for the rejection of Americanness and the acceptance of Asianess, shifting the cultural dynamic and by-passing spatial boundaries. The reading relates to this week's topic of economics because economic prosperity drove transnationalism, which led to consequences that can be seen as negative. The harm of transnationalism can be shown through the concept of gentrification in places such as, San Francisco’s Chinatown pushing out many of the poorer immigrants that have lived there for generations and making room for the higher more skilled class of tech workers with university degrees working at major corporations, many of them being newer immigrants. 

Question: Lan's piece covers an OCW that works in Taiwan that's being exploited for her labor, why did Dirlik not mention workers like Priscilla when he criticized transnationalism? Instead, he solely focuses on those that are highly skilled rather than those being exploited, like those before the economic boom. 

Works Cited: 

https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2016/working-in-the-tiger-states

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

Contemporary Asian American."

Pei-Chia Lan, "Legal Servitude and Free Illegality: Migrant "Guest" Workers in Taiwan." Asian Diasporas.