Week 6 Blog Post: Culture

            In the following series of articles, we will be discussing the practices of cultural art and production, and how the identities expressed are in constant flux and ever-changing due to the current postmodern environment of globalization and transnational networks. Stuart Hall discusses the ways that cultural identity is presented while addressing cultural hybridity, and Caroline Valverde discusses Chau Huynh’s art and how its attempt at cultural hybridity resulted in anti-communist protests that suppress freedom of speech that are not conducive to the mob’s ideology. Finally, with Sunaina Mara’s article, we discuss South Asian American youth and their hybridizing of their cultural traditions with American hip hop ethos, and the desire to fit in both worlds while embracing the positive aspects of both.

Stuart Hall. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Reader
 

            In the article “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,”Stuart Hall discusses Caribbean and the “Third Cinema” in relation to the questions about identity, cultural practices, and cultural production. According to Hall, there are two ways of seeing cultural identity. First, identity is a shared and collective history among people of the same ancestry and that it is stable overtime. Second, identity is also seen as unstable and that identity is always developing and transforming. A common belief is that identity is fixed; however, identity is also a production which is always developing through time and culture. Hall claims that it is important to look at forgotten histories, in other words, hidden histories in order to reclaim the cultural identity of Africa. Hall discusses that Africa is the center of our cultural identity; however, many failed to know the meaning and importance of this. Cultural identities have histories, but it overcomes a lot of transformation. Histories is spoken through one’s experience and it is subject to changes due to memory, fantasy, culture and power.
           Hart exemplifies this concept of identity through three “presences” that constitutes the complex Caribbean cultural identities; they are Présence Africaine, Présence Européenne, and Présence Américaine. Présence Africaine “is the site of the repressed.” They are the history of Africa and slavery, hidden in the Caribbean culture.Through the history of revolution, civil rights movement, and reconstruction of identity, the origins of the term “Africa” is no longer there because it has been transformed. Hart talks about this “displaced homeward journey” experience, where one has an imaginary or real cultural identity that they wish to return to. But before they can reach that identity, they go through a long route through Europe and the United States. By the end of their journey, they finish off with a western twist instead of being in their homeland with their traditional music and monuments. Hart explains that it is “by another route” that the African identity has become.Présence Européenne, which is about domination and power becoming a part of our own identity. Présence Américaine is the “New World” where all these different cultures meet to create a new assimilated culture and the history that we know it today. The “New World” represents the beginning of diaspora. Hart describes the term diaspora as an identity of hybridity, where the identities are constantly producing and reproducing through history.

Kieu-Linh Valverde. "Creating Identity, Defining Culture, and Making History from an Art Exhibit: An Unfinished Story: A Tribute to my Mothers'" in Transnationalizing Viet Nam.

In discussing how diaspora impacts cultural identity, and the declaration of cultural identity in both old and new spaces, Kieu-Linh Valverde in “Creating Identity, Defining Culture, and Making History from an Art Exhibit: An Unfinished Story: A Tribute to my Mothers’” looks into the Vietnamese Community and the case of Chau Huynh and the protesting of her work entitled “Pedicure Basin” which appeared in a 2008 edition of the Vietnamese American newspaper called the “Nguoi Viet Daily.” The controversy, of the North and South Vietnamese flag stitched together, resulted in large anti-communist protests over the nature of her work. However, the personal intention of the art was dismissed in favor of courting anti-communist sentiment. The reason for the stitching of two flags together come from Chau’s experience as the daughter of Communist party members, and growing up in an environment that celebrated pro-Communist propaganda, while hiding the truth about what had really gone with the 4.3 million South Vietnamese refugees. Chau came to the United States in 1999 as an international bride, after several years of being in conflict with a South Vietnamese-American, and had constant arguments about their differing ideologies. Since her perspective on the Vietnam War differed greatly from Vietnamese Americans who came in post 1975 with anti communist sentiments, she did not identify with the South Vietnamese women at the nail shop she worked at. However, after coming to learn the truth, she later had to confront her own understanding of the two worlds of Vietnam that do exist. Stitching together the flags was her artistic and symbolic contribution to this methodical epiphany, and came from a place of not meaning to offend, but really in trying to comprehend her life.  In this chapter of her book, Valverde shows us that extremist Vietnamese Americans who are very anti communist obtained political control through cultural control.

Sunaina Maira. "Mixed Desires: Second-Generation Indian Americans and the Politics of Youth Culture" in Displacements.

By protesting Huynh’s “Pedicure Basin” they are able to shape the Vietnamese community and how Vietnamese Americans are perceived. Valverde’s point here is that by dominating the media and news outlet, anti communist groups succeeds in putting fear into the Vietnamese American community and silencing their free speech. These anti communist ideology has censored so many in the Vietnamese American Community, resulting in many Vietnamese Americans being unable to voice their freedom of speech because the fear of being labeled a communist and attacked by the community. This acceptable harassment continued with F.O.B. II: Art Speaks exhibit, ironically an exhibit of 50 Vietnamese artists that was meant to end self-censorship and simultaneously open dialogue from various groups. With an unacceptable showing of communist symbols, the anti-communist protests continued with zeal about what was the ‘wrong’ sentiment to show, while still continuing to ignore the significance of the artwork presented within the community. It later went into rather ugly personal attacks, using patriarchy and slurs such as ‘con di’ or whores to describe the women who ran the exhibit, showing that the cultural control that is required to keep an appropriate, homogeneous form of view regarding Vietnamese communism.

Other incidents that were similar to Chau Huynh’s case were the 1999 Hi tek protest, and the case of Kim Oanh Lam Nguyen being fired as superintendent of Westminster’s School District where Kim Oanh she was fired shortly after being hired because people from the Vietnamese American community had label her as a Communist. Valverde sees that these tactics are currently the predominant type of political actions in the Vietnamese Diaspora community. Valverde suggests that these incidents might be signs that the Vietnamese American community today is at a crossroad, more and more people like Huynh are attempting to challenge the  dominance of the anti communist ideology, in order to grasp the complexity of their existence, rather than running high on anti-communism sentiment.

            In trying to comprehend homeland and new traditions, Sunaina Maira’s article describes the experiences of South Asian American youth who struggles to define notions of authenticity that work to position these youth in relation to hierarchies of race, class, gender, and nationalism that mark them as “local” in America. At the same time, they want to include a transnational imaginings of India or their homeland. They do this by incorporating popular culture music hip-hop into India’s music to evoke a sense of “place” in a social hierarchy. In conjunction with the production of remix music, the youth constructs a culturally hybrid style, such as wearing Indian-style nose rings and bindis with hip-hop fashion, and dancing in traditional folk dance gestures while gyrating to club mixes.

          According to Maira, popular culture is a critical site for understanding the ways the youth position themselves in the landscape of ethnic and racial politics, because we see ethnic authenticity, cultural hybridization, racialized gender ideologies, and class contradictions. The youth thinks that it is “cool,” which also implies that they have racialized and classified  themselves in the United States. Popular culture offers youth to re-appropriate or symbolically transgress existing racial, gendered, and class boundaries. The second-generation youth are able to socialize with ethnic peers while reinterpreting Indian musical and dance traditions using American popular culture. The hip-hop culture is mostly adopted by middle-class/white/suburban youth, as well as Asian American, Latino, and white youth from the urban.

           Since most Indians lived in urban or suburban (cities), this fits them in the same “local” category. Hip-hop also expresses sexuality for women and men, but for Indian women the female “hoochi” outfits for nightclubs are against their Indian cultural beliefs of Chastity, but expresses femininity in America. For the men, the male black hip-hop style is machismo in the U.S. This is why the South Asian youth flaunt hip-hop styles while incorporating some Indian accessories and details.The hip hop culture alienates them from their parents or as a symbol of rebellion from their parents’ expectations. This alienation from their parents help make them “cool” like the youth in America, because they do not want to be classified as full Indians. They want to also feel belonging to the American culture. She argued that the cultural forms that responses to diasporic or transnational experiences take cannot be understood only in terms of the nature of migration but also be 

understood in terms of relationships to local cultural and political economies.  

http://youtu.be/k83j04J8l1Q

Questions:
1. Do you believe that under-covering hidden histories is the solution to cultural identities? Why?

2. Why do you think the Vietnamese Americans that are anticommunist are so vocal? Do they really represent the voice of the Vietnamese Americans?

3. Does hip hop culture influence other Asian American minority group as well? What does this hybridization of the culture mean?

4. According to Hart, what are ways to see identity? How does cultural identity form overtime?

5. In the discussion of anti-communist sentiment towards Huynh's art, what do you suggest to be a way to open dialogue about the presence of communism in the Vietnamese diaspora's person's past? More specifically, what is a possible solution, if the dialogue about art, war, and politics is currently at a standstill for not being able to transcend such ideology wars? 

Blog 6 by: Gaukue Xiong, Shoun Thao, Fanny Wong, Susan Xiong, Iris Xie

Week 5: Politics of the Diaspora

Michael Peter Smith’s article “Transnational Migration and the Globalization of Grassroots Politics” discusses about the lived experience of transnational migrants, exiles and refugees in the time of globalization and how global grassroots movement are slowing affecting the culture and politics of the local communities. He introduces the term “borderless people”: people who live in one national state that is not their country of origin, but at the same time adopts a hybrid culture. Smith believes that the “borderless people” are the future of hybrid cultures. Note that  a majority of these “borderless people” travel to different countries for better job opportunities, and they send regular remittances to their family and/or relatives overseas.

In the chapter “Whose Community is it Anyway?” in Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community Culture and Politics in the Diaspora, Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde highlights a momentous case study where the Vietnamese-American community becomes politically fragmented on the naming of a business district, where the conflict escalated to anticommunist red-baiting. Valverde reveals the politics of the diaspora by highlight the still deep-seated emotions towards Vietnamese communism and how it still informs the community’s politics to this very day. During the Madison Nguyen controversy, it seemed like the entire Vietnamese community turned their backs on Madison and a recall campaign was started by the protest organizers. Throughout the controversy and the recall campaign, the true nature of the protest organizers was revealed; they were jealous of Madison’s position of power. In the Vietnamese rendition of Confucianism, she is seen as the daughter of the community and, therefore, subject to their whims. Being a female politician creates the additional expectation that she must serve the Vietnamese community no matter what, Valverde reveals that this tension is ultimately what led to the “Little Saigon” controversy. In an extra twist, Valverde points out that the elder males of the Vietnamese community were jealous of her position and desired the power for themselves. “The older generation look at Madison and they ask themselves, ‘Why is it her and not me that had that position?’” The chapter pinpoints the motivations behind the controversy with Madison Nguyen and reveals the nuanced, multifaceted dimensions that make up the politics of the Vietnamese diaspora.

1. What concert did Madison organize to help Vietnamese people get involved in politics?

2. Why was Madison called a communist by her community in San Jose?

3. Why will major political decisions be made by Asian communities in the future and how will the Asian community ensure this?

4. What factors will lead to politics and culture being different in the future according to  Smith?

5. What are “borderless people” and what are they the leaders of?

by Edwin Leung and more.

Week 4: Economics

In “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian America,” Arif Dirlik “argue[s]… that… earlier conceptualizations of Asian America… may be more relevant than ever” (3). Although the United States did not become significantly involved in transnational trade or economics with countries in Asia in the past, the idea of an “Asian America” still needs to exist because changes have occurred to the economies of countries in Asia.

 One major point of the article is that when Asian Americans did not act together in the past, they became affected “by white capital” (Dirlik 4). Dirlik further emphasizes this by indicating that “Asian America” acts continuously and does not only apply to Asian Americans in former times (6). Although transnationalism connects the United States to countries in Asia, the United States can still affect Asian Americans.

The second main point of the article is that people move due to changes in the economy of the United States and those of the countries in Asia (Dirlik 12). Transnationalism includes people moving for financial reasons or purposes.

 The third main point of the article is that the transnationalism between the United States and countries in Asia can result in some people relating to those in Asian countries instead of relating to others in the United States (Dirlik 14). The transnationalism between the United States and countries in Asia affects the perspectives of Asian Americans.

Transnationalism can cause some Asian Americans to be influenced by the countries in Asia, which causes Asian Americans to be less focused on the people around them in the United States. Dirlik states, “Asian America is no longer just a location in the United States” (13). This suggests that Asian Americans do not necessarily need to live in the United States to be considered “Americans.” Transnationalism causes Asians who live in Asia to have knowledge about the United States. In addition, Dirlik states that the whole world became affected by “the economic and political emergence of Pacific Asian societies” (11). The changes in the economies of the countries in Asia influence the Asian Americans in the United States and the Asians in other parts of the world. However, the article focuses on the transnationalism between the United States and the countries in Asia, which suggests that the economies of the countries in Asia have greater effects on the Asian Americans in the United States than on Asians outside of Asia in other countries of the world. As a result, some Asian Americans focus their attention on the markets or economies of the countries in Asia.

In discussing that, we will be looking at Global Commodity Networks.  GCNs are the transnational chains of economic enterprises involved at different stages in the production and consumption of a single commodity. Through GCNs, we can understand the emergence of transnational economic organizaions in the contemporary global economy. Specifically in this article, Korwenewicz can analyze the changes in international capitalism in the leather-footwear industry industry through factors such as dynamics of national economies and the world economy and then considering political economy and the culture of Argentina, Brazil, and the US. Korwenewicz explains the changes in roles through national and international factors and then diving more deeper into politics and culture of the nation. 

The evidence is that data that shows the relationship between all the resources, production, and distribution segments of the leather-footwear industry, and observing changes in roles of being the dominant resource, producer, and distributor. Korzenewicz is aware that today Brazil is America’s top leather footwear import and Argentina’s top leather export.  In discussing the connection between Brazil, America, and Argentina, we can understand how the domestic, world and political economies and cultures result in a transnationalism that seeks to understand all of these combining factors. Without considering these factors, then the Global Commodity Network would lose its context of how certain goods are produced, imported, and then bought and sold. More specifically, how such goods are produced within the globalized economic context.

In “Legal Servitude and Free Illegality: Migrant “Guest” Workers in Taiwan” by Pei-Chia Lan, she provided an understanding of the process of international labor migration and the conditions of migrant contract workers.  The guest worker program is widely adopted in Asia, in which migrant workers are employed on temporary contracts that prohibited them from immigrating or becoming naturalized (Lan 255). Many migrant workers wanted to work in Taiwan because of the higher wages compared to other Asian countries; however, opportunities are scarce because of quota controls. In order to be able to seize the opportunity to work in Taiwan, migrant workers had to pay an unreasonably high price for the placement fees because of the kickbacks.

Through the guest worker program in Asia, it not only created a highly exploitative system of labor migration, but it also becomes an oppressive regime of labor control and social exclusion.  Documented migrant workers are exploited because of their foreigner status and lack of citizenship. Despite being exploited, they rarely do open confrontations because of the financial burden they have and also, they are bonded by the contract of employment. Some documented migrant workers can no longer handle the abuse, maltreatment and unreasonable workload so they chose to escape. Some of them escaped because of personal reasons or sexual harassment. One of the reasons for the great number of irregular migrants is because they wanted to stay in Taiwan longer than their contract permits. Undocumented labor workers benefit from higher wages because they are free to switch jobs and they also have more freedom compared to documented migrant workers. However, they are still being exploited by working in hazardous environments with no health insurance.

Lan points out that the migrant workers are situated in a bounded global market in which transnational labor recruitment exacerbates the commodification of migrant workers, who are treated as profitable objects of exchange by labor brokers and disposable labor power by receiving countries”(271).  A quote that Lan mentioned on page 262 stood out to me, “Migrant workers reduce costs for employers not only through their lower wages, but also through their powerlessness in the organization of labor process associated with their foreigner status and lack of citizenship” (Sassen 1988). This quote symbolizes the strategy of cheap labor that Americans used to exploit Asian immigrants in the old days. This shows that countries that are more superior with resources tend to abuse their power to dominant other groups who are less powerful. The author also goes to critique the host state government in their failure of dealing with the problem of irregular migration properly, but instead temporary bans on employment and punishment on unauthorized employers (272). It is important that if migrant workers are to be guest in a host country that they be treated with respect and equality in the community.

With the concern of undocumented migrant workers used as commodities in GCN, the monitoring of persons moving to other financial or economic reasons takes contextualizes transnationalism within the world of factory labor and production, along with distributors. This discussion of capitalism in a globalized context helps provide understanding of how products are made internationally, and that the problem of using labors and persons does not go away unseen, to another country. Instead, it provides a direct understanding of how Asian economies and Asian American consumption are linked, due to the this complex interplay of supply and chain networks.

Questions

1.     1)   How do these factors link the resource, the producer and the distributor? Why is the resource the resource, the producer the producer and the distributor the distributor? 

2.   2)     How can we apply an examine of the GCNs of the leather-footwear industry to the effects of the economic organizations and global economy? 

3.      3) Why can changes to the economies of countries in Asia cause the Asians in those countries to be seen as related to, or associated with, the Asian Americans in the United States?

4.    4)   Would it be beneficial for Asian Americans in the United States to distinguish themselves from those who participate in the economies of Asian countries? Why or why not? 

5.   5)    What changes can be done by the government to prevent the exploitation of migrant workers in host countries?

Source: Dirlik, Arif. “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian America.” Amerasia Journal 22.3 (1996): 1-24.

Source: Lan, Pei-Chia. “Legal Servitude and Free Illegality: Migrant “Guest” Workers in Taiwan.” Asian Diasporas: New Formations, New Conceptions (2007): 253-277.  

Source: StephyChung8. "Part 1: Culture Shock - Chinese Americans in China." YouTube. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Llkj58ujY>. 

By Thanhthao Nguyen, Susan Xiong, Fanny Wong, and Iris Xie

Week 3: Situating Diasporas through the Lens of Transnationalism

In the article “From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transitional Migration”, the modern migrant is presented as having a solid foundation in the country they immigrated to, but also continues to has ties to his or her homeland. The article explores the concept of transnational migration in that migrants (trans migrants) depend on connections between numerous borders and are able to identify with more than one nation. The word “transnational” is also has an evolving meaning. For instance, in the 1960’s “transnational” meant the many political institutions and ideas that were spread among national borders. Today, “transnational” in cultural studies refers to the deterioration of national boundaries and with that the deterioration of objects, ideas, and people. The word “transmigrant” is used with “transnational” to differentiate between migrants and immigrants.

The article goes on to present reasons for transnational migration. The major points are presented for this which are: 1. A global restructuring of capital based on changing forms of capital accumulation has led to deteriorating social and economic conditions in labor sending and receiving countries, 2. Racism in both the U.S. and Europe contributes to the economic and political insecurity of newcomers and their descendants; and 3. The nation  building projects of both home and host society build political loyalties among immigrants to each nation-state in which they maintain social ties. Even though many immigrant “Asians”, “Blacks”, etc. have obtained a secure position within the U.S. capitalistic system, minorities still have to deal with daily discrimination. Even though transmigrants use the word “home” to refer to their country where they migrated from they also refer to the country they migrated to as home as well ( although the country they migrated to refers to them simply as a visitor).

In Jonathan Y. Okamura’s article “Asian American Studies in the Age of Transnationalism,” he is critical of the notion of ignoring the concept of transnationalism, which jeopardizes the Asian American Studies (AAS) field as a whole. He believes that AAS is very diverse and can be followed by a variety of theoretical perspectives, especially through transnationalism. Simply focusing on the domestic (United States) perspective forfeits the opportunities to view the Asian diaspora phenomenon in a detailed, complete way. He believes that viewing AAS from a transnational perspective can still maintain an emphasis on the Asian American community and its social, economic, political status and concerns, while viewing it from a localized perspective (within the United States) limits such ability. To him, a transnational approach does not erase race as an analytic category. Instead, it provides a viable conceptual framework for situating communities transnationally in the political, economic, and cultural contexts of global capitalism.

Okamura used his work on the Filipino American and global Filipino diasporas to show how economic globalization can affect certain Asian American groups, using the transnational perspective. He also voices concerns that all Asian Americans are subject to racialization in the American society. He introduces the idea of transnational racism. Transnational racism emphasizes one’s Asian background, including cultural and political ties with their respective Asian nation, while denies their American status and therefore their civil rights, privileges and loyalties. A couple of examples would be the Japanese Americans internment camps, and the Dr. Wen Ho Lee incident, where Dr. Lee, the nuclear scientist, was charged by the U.S. government with espionage. Global capitalism also links to transnational racism, as Evelyn Hy-Dehart noted that “The smugglers and employers of cheap, docile, often female Asian migrant labor are typically Asian and Asian Americans themselves.”

“Diaspora, Transnationalism, and Asian American Studies: Positions and Debates” by Christopher Lee talks about how Asian American studies has come to realize that its object of study is transnational.  The essay describes some of the important debates about diaspora and transnationalism and gives context for these discussions.  Lee says that diaspora studies has been critical in understanding community and identity in the world of postmodernism and globalization.  In addition, the word “diaspora” naturally sparks comparison between other communities that have experienced displacement.  Although the meaning of the terms “diaspora” and “transnational” are often disputed, it is clear that many communities are more transnational than ever before due to globalization.  Asian American studies cannot ignore transnational issues because they are still relevant to Asian Americans.  Lee says that “to exclude these issues is to fail to adequately describe and understand the communities being studied.”

In the age of globalization, transnational processes create the framework in order for us to better understand the Asian diaspora. Through transnationalism, we see the transmigrant create and sustain multiple and hybrid identities through the multiplicity of connections that transcend nation-state territoriality. In postmodernity, we observe that transnational processes are being exchanged even more than before and these transnational identities are even stronger as a result of this. The multiplicity of these identities bring interesting questions to light, which reveals that Asian American Studies must evolve to cope with stronger transnational identities that are being formed in the face of globalization. Okamura argues that Asian Americans are not isolated from the transnational processes that connect them to Asia and vice-versa. If anything, these transnational connections reveal interesting implications as to how events of the "homeland" are instrumental in the politics of the constituent diasporas. In a world that is shrinking in the face of postmodernity, it is important to note how diasporic identities, culture, politics and ideas are shaped by deterritorialized nation-states and the connections that transcend these borders.

1. Sau Ling Wong posits that Asian American Studies must not accept Asian or Area Studies if we are to maintain the integrity of ethnic studies, is transnationalism a problematic notion for Asian American Studies in light of Sau Ling Wong's assertions?

2. In light of Japanese Internment Camps and the Case of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, does transnationalism posit a challenge to Asian American identity formations by strengthening perceptions of the "perpetual foreigner"?

3. Why do Asian Americans create and sustain transnational identities when they are supposedly settled into their host country?

4. In the absence of European/American Imperialism and neoliberal policies, would there still be transnational migrations?

5. How has postmodernity changed the relation between diasporic subjects and transnational processes?

by Edwin Leung and more.

Week 10: (Re)thinking Diasporas

http://www.cnas.org/node/723?gclid=COXDk--7464CFQKEhwod7iLcaA

 This week's articles offer different ways of defining, using and perceiving Diasporas from the lens of other theorists and academic studies. Rather than just knowing the differences between "Old" and "New" Diasporas or the five characteristics that define Diaspora, these articles offer different modes of thinking in terms of diaspora. Though it has been three years since the Obama administration issued the Security Strategy plan to maintain a positive global relation with the Asian-Pacific region, how does this impact patterns of migration to and from Asia?

Dispesh Chakrabarty’s “Notes towards a Conversation between Area Studies and Diasporic Studies,” purposes the potential benefits that area studies and diasporic studies offer each other. Chakrabarty first gives context about area studies, originating from U.S. liberal education for Americans in the postwar period. The development of area studies are carried out by long intensive study of other parts of the world and their economies, histories, government, sociology, and arts. However, area studies remain to have Eurocentric assumptions for studying cultures that were considered foreign. He uses Subaltern Studies, “a mutant of area studies,” as an example to demonstrate what area studies can contribute to understanding South Asian diaspora. Subaltern studies are a series that comes out of Delhi for an American audience to understand specificities of India’s history in a less, compact way and thus, it is also transnational for it is distributed to over four continents of Europe, North America, India and recently Australia.  He uses Subaltern Studies to reflect the possible relationships it has with South Asian studies by comparing it to Public Culture that is committed to a space that is produced by the interstices between nations and territories by the economic and cultural processes of globalization. They both share the political imagination that visualizes the international solidarity of scholars and activists to fight against global and regional forces of injustices and inequalities. The differences between both are that Public Culture expresses the need to “think ourselves beyond the nation” whereas Subaltern Studies commits to operating intellectually within a framework for which the nation, not nation-state, is still a salient and resilient category. This understanding of Subaltern Studies helps us rethink diaspora in that the nation and its multiplicity and heterogeneity of people, languages, cultures, class, religious and political beliefs, also shape the experiences and the identity of its people in diaspora.
                Chakrabarty also reflects on how diaspora studies may impact area studies or Subaltern Studies to expand in five different areas. These areas include raising questions about the histories within family dynamics such as sexuality, gender, aging, bodily practices; reflecting and defining generation; memory belonging to different generations within diaspora; the politics of identity in being “South Asian” in western democracies; and globalization of South Asian class formations and cultures. He also notes two areas in which diasporic studies can use area studies: interactive multiculturalism and the area of creative and performance arts within diaspora. He goes on to say that areas studies scholarship has been focused on centers that are cultural, statist, bureaucratic and familial whereas diasporic studies, politics of multiculturalism, and theorists such as Homi Bhabha and Arjun Appardurai lead us away from the imagination of centralizing structures.

Robert G. Lee’s “Crossing Borders of Disciplines and Departments” discusses the experiences of Asian immigrants in the U.S. after the 1996 Congress authorization of Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport any immigrant who had any conviction that was violent or non-violent and that the 9/11 terrorist attacks intensified the attack on immigrants altogether. He goes on to introduce the next two chapters written by Nancy Abelmann and Epifanio San Jaun Jr. Lee highlights San Juan’s assertion to build Asian American Studies with which to change the world rather than understand American society. I agree with San Juan’s assertion because in the history of Asian American studies, it derived from transnational solidarity with the counter-culture revolution, anti-Vietnam war movements, Third World Liberation Front, etc. These were anti-imperialist movements across the globe that help produced Asian American studies and thus, it would be ironic that Asian American studies do not help produce global change as well.

Nancy Abelmann’s “Anthropology, Asian Studies, Asian American Studies” uses Max Gluckman’s Closed Systems and Open Minds to demonstrate the micropolitics of academic localities as closed systems by championing naiveté – “the treatment of complex social phenomena ‘as simple, crude, or gross” – so as to ‘get on with the job,” and that the (mis)communication in those localites, particularly the student body need to have open minds. In her anecdote of receiving a letter from the Anthropology Department’s Courses and Curriculum Committee that expressed their support in her course if she just limit by design just to English literature or that she cut her 500 words and eight citations devoted to document the coordinates of transnationally shared anthropological history of the portrayal of “Korean” “Culture” just because it did not follow the long-standing organizational, institutional and ideological configurations of the department and university. To better understand her analogy to Gluckman’s theory, she states that “What these ever so micropolitics reveal, I think, is a university – and I do not take ours to be exceptional or uniform – closing its systems, and not necessarily open-mindedly,” (206-61). Furthermore, Abelmann argues that culture talks disrupts and decenters received configurations of knowledge. She believes that today’s classrooms should be held open to have conversations with the students that constitute to their identities and identification of their daily lives. She calls for professors to have an open mind for student’s questions, needs, stories, and imagination that contribute to the diversity in the classrooms of the university which have everything to do with diaspora and displacements. Therefore, to enable open systems is also to invite open minds.

Ien Ang’s “Beyond ‘Asian Diasporas’” proposes her definitions of the classical and today’s diaspora to further understand and move beyond the notion of Asian Diasporas. She says that the difference between the diaspora then and now is the experience of trauma. For example, she states that “the classic definition of diaspora emphasized the traumatic past of the dispersed group, in today’s usage trauma is located as much in the present, in the contemporary experiences of marginalization or discrimination in the nation-state of residence,” (286). In focusing about today’s usage of diaspora, Ang asserts that the term not only involves experiences of trauma and marginalization in the present moment, but it can also become a description of empowerment, enrichment and expansion as well. This means that out of the trauma of marginalization that people in today’s diaspora experience, produces identity and community that resists the power of nation-states. An example Ang gives are the “modern Chinese transnationalism” that Aihwa Ong and Donald Nonini refer to as powerful diasporic Chinese business networks in the racial/cultural/economic profile of contemporary global capitalism, (287). This means that the nation-states no longer have full control of its populations’ composition or the capability to command people’s movements in and out of their territories. How does this help us understand beyond Asian diasporas? Ang makes a good point that Asia is just an idea, constructed in our imagination, and that construction hides the fact that Asia is actually quite heterogeneous in terms of people, histories, economies, cultures. Thus, Asians as a people do not exist, because there are so many different ways of seeing people as Asian.  When the terms Asian and diasporas are together, Ang means to look at Asia and Asians with a diasporic point of view that emphasizes on the displacement, flows and movements of the subject whom ultimately embodies multiple histories and identities that maintain contradictory linkages of the past while experiencing disconnection within some origin from Asia.

Sauling C. Wong’s “Denationalization Reconsidered: Asian American Cultural Criticism at a Theoretical Crossroads,” discusses denationalization in three cultural phenomenon that he calls the easing of cultural nationalist concerns, the growing permeability between “Asian” and “Asian American,” and the shifting from a domestic American to a diasporic perspective.  The easing of cultural nationalist concerns is due to the changing demographics of a more diverse Asian American population and the theoretical critiques of gender, class, and sexuality within Asian American studies is denationalizing because it challenges the American structures of power that are also present in Asian American studies. The denationalization in the permeability of “Asian” and “Asian American,” arises from a larger global movement of transnational capital, whose cultural consequences include a normalization of multiple subjectivities, migrations, and border-crossings.  Lastly, the shift from a domestic American to a diasporic perspective in Asian American studies is denationalizing because “A diasporic perspective also provides the only way to capture the complexities of multiple migrations and dispersed Asian-origin families, which are not at all uncommon in the population designated as Asian Americans,” (10).  This means that the shift from a domestic point of view of Asian Americans studies to a diasporic view will encompass the diversity of migrations and dispersions of families originating from Asia. In his Reservations subsection, he highlights the dangers and consequences of uncritically participating in denationalization and the risks can be grouped into two categories of subsuming into master narratives and depoliticization occluded by theoretically self-critiquing.

                Regina Lee’s “Theorizing Diaspora: Three Types of Consciousness,” argues that diasporic communities tend to exhibit three forms of consciousness which are idealization of homeland, boutique multicultural manifestation, and transitional/transformational identity politics. The psychological state of homeland idealism within a diasporic community represents their ambivalence – having both negative and positive feelings toward home and host land – and thus is always marginalized for being physically absent from the homeland and socially excluded from the host society and its narrative. As the nation-states of both home and host countries tend to construct themselves as positive images with positive narratives, diasporic communities that idealize the homeland are trapped in the present because they are limited to an extent of which their narratives can recover those histories. The second psychological state of boutique multicultural manifestation is when diasporic/ethnic minorities within multicultural societies use the fact of their difference, highlighting their visibility, to gain recognition and some kind of acceptance into the host society. Though this is superficial and based on systematic exploitation of cultural plurality of ethnicities and the economic structuring of those groups into a subclass, it guarantees value-added capital and economic surpluses. And lastly, diasporas as being in a transitional or transformational state implies that they are still evolving personally as well as at community level and theorizations about their diasporic condition are works in progress that have to be constantly revised. Thus this type of diasporic consciousness enables the diasporic subject to be aware of its roots in more than one history and its location in the present as well as in the past.

                David Palumbo-Liu’s “Asian Diaspora, and Yet…” argues that the rubric of Asian Diasporas demonstrates a basic contradiction of diaspora as being transported into the modern and postmodern periods. He views the term Asian Diasporas as a rubric that subordinates the variety of case histories and attempts to find the conceptual, historical, theoretical, and political justification for it. He analyzes the notion of diaspora from the editors of this volume, Oxford’s English Dictionary’s definition of experience to further challenge a statement made in the editor’s Introduction that they deploy the word logic to avoid the claim that the state is in fact homogenous. He reveals the basic contradiction of diaspora as having “to name both a difference and a sameness at once, and inside and an outside, a co-occupation, and this is its tension,” because of this “partial belonging” (281). He questions the term Asian as an oppositional definition that differentiates Asia from the West and tends to reinforce categories that are broad and has undifferentiating a fashion. Perhaps the biggest argument he makes is that the contradiction of diaspora is the transposition of the term from a premodern to modern and postmodern carrying the historical and foundational element of disenfranchisement and statelessness that drives the identification with home. This means that however we use the term as political or cultural identification, we should be aware of the possibility that for some diaspora is the loss of something real and irrecoverable.

(1) According to Chakrabarty, what is the conversation between area studies and diasporic studies and how can they potentially benefit each other? (Reader)

(2) What were some of the experiences of Asian immigrants after the 1996 Congress authorization of Immigration and Naturalization Service of deportation and give an example how the 9/11 terrorist attacks intensified the attacks against certain Asian American communities? (Displacements)

(3)How does Abelmann apply Gluckman’s Closed Systems and Open Minds to her anecdotes of the micropolitics of academic localities and (mis)communication within these localities, particularly the student body?   (Displacements)

(4) What is Ien Ang’s definition and the usage of today’s diaspora and how does that help us understand her when she says, “There are no Asian diasporas, only ways of seeing diasporas as Asian?” (Reader)

(5) Explain the three ways that Wong discusses denationalization of Asian American cultural criticism? (Reader)

(6) Explain the three psychological states that Regina Lee argues that diasporic communities exhibit and what are the benefits of each? (Reader)

(7) What is the contradiction that Palumbo-Lui sees in the transposition of the term diaspora and how does the term Asian Diasporas demonstrate this contradiction? (Asian Diasporas)

By Laura Vu

Week 9: Asia as Home(land)

In all these articles, they interconnect through the theme of how immigrating to the United States have affected the diasporic communities perspectives on traditions, taboos, economics and politics and the effect of how they see Asia as homeland.

            In Daniel Tsang’s article “Notes on Queer ‘N’ Asian Virtual Sex”, he focuses on the relationship between sexuality and technology. “The advent of the information superhighway, more and more folks are discovering the sexual underground within the virtual community in cyberspace” (Tsang, 432). Through internet and Asian American queers, gays, lesbians, etc are able to express their sexuality openly with other queers, thus creating a virtual queer community. The Bulletin Board System (BBS) is an example of a cyberspace has a large sum of Asian gay members who seek for romance, love, friendship, sex, etc. “One reason BBSing is so fascinating is that the on-line environment truly allows one to continually reinvent one’s identity, including sexual” (Tsang, 433). The members who use BBS are able reconstruct their own race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. Also, with the simple stroke of a key, members are able to change their identity and sexuality constantly.  BBS serves as a virtual haven for Asians because homosexuality is a taboo in Asian cultures. Due to these virtual communities, Asians and Pacific Islanders are able to explore their sexualities thus breaking the silence of the taboo and empowering their voices to reinforce their sexual identities.

            In Massey et al, “Theory and Reality in Asia and the Pacific”, discusses about the past two decades of geographic mobility within the Asia Pacific region and how international migration emerged. “The Asia Pacific migration system emerged in the 1970s and 1980s due to four transformations of shift in national origins of immigrants, termination of net-migration, onset of labor migration growing in industrialized nations, and emergence of South-East Asia a source of political refugees” (Massey, 160). International migration link to social capital theory and the cumulative causation of migration uncover the power of these forces to be perpetuating international movement. Asia Pacific migration system is impactful due to the importance and prevalence of institutions, association with “immigration industry”, it shapes flows within systems, several nations in their systems are importers and exporters of labor and it has an outstanding size of its principal in sending nations. 

            “Diaspora Politics, Homeland Erotics, and the Materializing of Memory”, written by Louisa Schein focuses on the Hmong and the concept of homeland. “Homeland desire fragments, as nostalgic imaginings span out over Asia, giving rise to diverse practices of recovery” (Schein, 698). This yearning for happiness in their homeland leads Hmong American men to tour their homeland in search of women, not for transnational marriages but rather for a sexual encounter with a homeland girl and then move on. Schein introduce the idea of “erotics of homeland”, where “sex also figures in homeland practices and hence must figure in more nuanced ways in considerations of diasporic dynamics” (Schein, 699). Homelands are not imagined, left behind, static but are the sites for capital accumulation and erotic entanglements. For Hmong Americans, homeland has become more of a geographic site. Schein did an ethnographic study on the Fresno Hmong New Year in 1996, which she focused on the how homeland traditions and customs are applied in Hmong Americans. This event of celebration is also highly structured by gender, which a ritual is done by offering young women to high-prestige men as a form of gender disparity to portray political subjection. However, the influence of western culture has impacted Hmong womanhood in regards to familial and gender propriety. Young females are starting to realize that they are worth more and voice their opinion and confront their source of bitterness. “Sexual conquest epitomizes the recovery of masculine power that travel to the homeland offers the pleasures of phallic dominance that have been stripped from Hmong refugee men in their newcomer status in the U.S.” (Schein, 719). Due to the progression of liberation of Hmong American women, the Hmong men’s patriarchal positioning are threatened and are emasculated, which leads them to flee and recuperate their masculinity with sexual encounters with homeland women.

            Ashely Carruthers, “The Accumulation of National Belonging in Transnational Fields: Ways of Being at Home in Vietnam”, discusses the notion of transnational citizenship and how it affects mobility and flexibility of transmigrants. Transmigrants must legitimatize their claim to national membership by practicing national belonging. Though transmigrants are able to have some freedom their liberty potential has been over exaggerated. However, national membership allows them to reap their benefits of mobility and allows them to secure higher rates of conversion for their transnational cultural capital. A transnational citizen may not have to perform citizenship to practice national belonging but can enhance profit through their transnationality. For instance, Carruthers gives an example of the Viet Kieu who wants to have their foreign passport as a symbol of their citizenship which under this condition of keeping it they pay less than non-Vietnamese foreigners. The purpose of accumulating national capital is to turn it into national belonging which is symbolic capital which is recognized as the dominant national group. Carruther introduce the term “potlatch” which is the social distance that separates Vietnamese migrants from immigrants. The purpose of potlatch is to return to homeland and show instant and visible form of social mobility that was achieved through migration. Thus this causes an international hierarchy in wealth which is associated by western influence and the idea of “whiteness”. Due to this transnational corporate power which sets racial hierarchies found in host nation, it constitutes a kind of symbolic capital in the disaporic Vietnamese. The fact that transmigrants are able to move between different nation states, they are able to exploit the disciplinary truth and power on those who are nonmobile, they struggle with the difficulty of presenting themselves as legitimate national subjects.

Jeffrey Lesser, “From Japanese to Nikkei and Back”, talks about Japanese immigrants being originally dated back to be from Brazil is based on foundational fictions. These foundational fictions characterized Japanese immigrants to be the “original” and “authentic” Brazilians. The Nikkei ethnic identity constructed in Brazil began to widely be contested. To define national identity the Brazilian state were able to set boundaries of certain groups by ethnicity, class, color gender, etc. The Nikkei marked a period of massive economic growth, authoritarian rule, demographic change and, etc. Due to Nikkei success politically, economically, socially they challenged the Brazialian identity. One group was the educated professionals and the other was the immigrants and minority elites. “Instead, the elite was sharply divided between those who saw the “whiteness” of Brazil as a goal that would be achieved through the physical transformation of the skin color of the masses and others who saw “whiteness” as related the  economic growth and domestic production (Lesser, 114)”. The immigrant and minority elite group promoted the idea of Brazil improving by becoming more Japanese. Nikkei were invested in the promotion of their whiteness in Brazil. Japanese men married white Brazilian women, showed their genetic patriotism. In 1942, Brazil joined the Allies and then formed a “Brazilianization” campaign which banned foreign language schools, newspapers which led to anti- Japanese propaganda. The immigrants and Nikkei started forming secret societies in which to support Japanese-Brazilian ethnicity. Their goals were to maintain a Japanized space by preserving their language, culture, and religion led by Shindo Renmei in the late 1945. There were then tensions and a war which led to many killings. Japanese succeeded in spreading Japans victory and ordered all false propaganda to be stopped. The killings stopped and a quarter of a million Nikkei settled in Japan and search for identity as motivations for migration.

By: Karina Lathrop

Questions:

1. Explain BBS and how have virtual communities have affected/impact one’s identity? (Tsang)

2. Explain the Segmented Labour Market Theory, World Systems Theory, and Social Capital Theory. What is the significance of each? (Massey)

3. What are three ways Schein describe as disasporic sex? How has diasporic sex transgressed and affect Hmong Americans?

4. According to Carruther’s “The Accumulation of National Belonging in Transnational Fields: Ways of Being at Home in Vietnam”, what is “potlatch” and the purpose of it? How does this apply and affect to Vietnamese in Vietnam?

5. In Lesser’s article “From Japanese to Nikkei and Back”, how does Brazilians see “whiteness” and how does that affect them economically?