Final Discussion Post: You choose the topic/article from Case Law
moshmosh
week_4__5_lecture.docx
Extra Reading (not required):
*Nakanishi & Lai, “Part III: The Period of Political Incorporation (1965-Present)” pp. 89-133
*Nakanishi & Lai, “The ‘Four Prisons’ and the Movements of Liberation (by Glenn Omatsu), pp. 135-162
*Nakanishi & Lai, “Serve the People” (by Kim Geron), pp. 163-179
*Aoki and Takeda, Chapter 4, pp. 78-94 & Chapter 5, pp. 95-116.
Identity, Agency, & Social Change
In July, 2014, there was an incident with Representative Curt Clawson mistook and assumed that two Asian Americans from the Obama administration (U.S. government workers) were representatives of the Indian government is an example of how Asian Americans are often assumed to be foreign rather than American. There is a social, legal and historical framework from which to understand why this is (and why this is problematic, as well). We might ask ourselves if Americans of English descent, German descent, Irish descent, Scottish descent or French descent are assumed to be from those European countries before they are from the U.S.? Why? Why not? Are there parallels with Asian Pacific Americans? How? How not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpYdapZUU1c
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/curt-clawson-indian-officials_n_5622078.h
Asian Pacific Americans have been stereotyped as “passive” and “disengaged” from American society and most especially politics. This has contributed to the “perpetual foreigner” and “model minority” images. The laws have often supported, reinforced and reified this view, serving to exclude people of Asian descent from fully participating in American society. The invisibility of APAs, despite their ever-growing presence, continues to perpetuate this view to some extent in the 21st century. The critical mass of APAs and their growing numbers (as the largest immigrant groups in the U.S.) may begin to crack these long-held stereotypes and views.
Throughout U.S. history, however, we have seen APAs challenge the legal system (e.g. People v. Hall case in 1854, the Thind and Ozawa Cases on citizenship in the 1920s, WWII’s Hirabayashi, Korematsu , & Yasui Cases of the 1940s among many) and transgress the roles and positions they were often relegated to politically, socially, economically and educationally. Collective movements (such as Sugar Plantation Strikes in Hawai’i in the 1908 & 1920, the Asian American & Ethnic Studies Movement in the 1960s, the pan-Asian emergence from the Vincent Chin Case, organizing around saving the I-Hotel, etc.) moved Asian Americans from individually contesting U.S. institutions to developing "social movements" and impacting "social change."
Organizing and understanding oneself as part of a “pan-ethnic” social and political identity, “Asian American” and “Asian Pacific American” have been integral in engaging in “movement politics” and becoming an instrument for change (exerting “agency” or “actors” in their own historical making). In other words, from the social, cultural, and legal limitations within the context of the U.S., APAs have gone from awareness of their social reality, consciousness-raising, theory & ideology, participatory democracy, community-building to liberation. Furthermore, as APA political participation has increased both formally and informally, we have seen APAs express their advocacy, access, legitimacy, empowerment and assertiveness. In other words, a critical mass of APAs (and allies) with a shared sense of identity and history, raising awareness and concern can and have realized major social change.
The articles that were in the original textbooks for the class (no longer required) by Glenn Omatsu, Kim Geron, Nakanishi & Lai, and Aoki & Takeda provide an alternative view (arguably a more accurate view) of the engaged, active political participation and agency of APAs in their own historical making. From individual acts to collective organization, APAs have had to carve out their own spaces and places. This week’s readings fully detail a part of U.S. history that is most fascinating and yet most understated.
Asian Americans Becoming More Prominent in Immigration Debate
It's really interesting to consider these articles from a sociohistorical perspective (contextualizing APAs within their historical incorporation experiences from the readings)!
During the last great immigration debate of the mid-2000s, it was mainly Latinos who were heard and seen pushing for an immigration overhaul. But things have changed. Take one single day this week in Los Angeles, when two Asian-American groups in different parts of town were speaking out in favor of comprehensive immigration reform.
At the Korean Resource Center in Koreatown, Dayne Lee and his colleagues were discussing a month-long phone effort to reach Korean-American voters.
"In the past, we’d be in coaltions or at rallies, and we’d be one of the only Asian-American faces in the room, or in the streets," said Lee, a civic engagement coordinator with the group. "I think what is happening now is that so many organizations are really making a push to get the word out to our community members."
Lee's coworkers and volunteers spent the past month working the phones, pushing Korean-American voters to ask their member of Congress to vote for comprehensive immigration reform.
On the same day, a few miles away in downtown L.A., an Asian-American civil rights group was kicking off a new campaign to help people start green card petitions for their adult married children and siblings, who stand to be cut off from immigrant visas under the immigration bill approved by the Senate.
Such issues have become a rallying point for many Asian-Americans, says Stewart Kwoh, who heads the L.A. office of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
"About 55 percent of Asian-American immigration into the United States has been due to family preferences," Kwoh said. "And so when we've seen the interest of a number of elected officials to cut family immigration in order to boost the numbers for skills-based immigration, Asian-Americans have really been outraged by that choice."
More young Asian-Americans who grew up in the U.S. without papers have been going public with their status, as have young Latinos and other activists. They include people such as Kevin Lee, a 23-year-old UCLA graduate. He grew up in the U.S. without legal status after his family arrived from South Korea and overstayed their visas.
"More Asian Americans are ... sort of recognizing that a lot is at stake here," Lee said. "It's not just the students, it's not just the young folks, it's not just the parents, but it's everybody. It's our friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts."
Lee and seven other young Asian-Americans recently traveled to Washington, D.C. and met with lawmakers to share their stories. But even as Asian-Americans join Latinos and others pushing for an immigration overhaul, it's not clear how much influence their efforts will have, says Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist who studies immigration policy at UC Riverside.
"This immigration bill involves a lot of compromises," Ramakrishnan said. "And I think you have a realistic recognition among many groups that they may not be able to get some of the most important things they are pushing for, but that it's still important to push for it in the chance that it might work out."
Immigration from Asia recently surpassed new arrivals from Latin America, with Asians becoming the nation's fastest-growing racial group. If anything, Ramakrishnan says, the growing Asian-American presence in the immigration debate is helping reshape the present — and future — perception of who immigrants in the U.S. are.
Asians have become the fastest growing group since 2012! (Asians and Latinos are always engaged in a "healthy" competition of which group is the fastest growing! It appears, the Census, documents APAs, at least for now!) :)
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb13-112.html
Week #5 Lecture
Professors Roger Waldinger and David Fitzgerald of UCLA put forth that, "International migrants and their descendants do repeatedly engage in concerted action across state boundaries, but the use, form, and mobilization of the connections linking “here” and “there” are contingent outcomes subject to multiple political constraints.”
Concepts such as “transnationalism” and “globalization” are an integral part of understanding international migration (and immigration) in the 21st century. Borders are blurred, travel and communication are instant, and as Waldinger and Fitzgerald have argued the distance between “here” and “there” is no longer as increasingly communities are connected and inter-connected transnationally. Transnationalism is a theoretical framework that helps to explain the interrelationships between, betwixt, and among individuals, groups, firms, institutions, and to movements beyond state (i.e. national) borders. It is part of the process of globalization. It is treated as a “new” socioeconomic and sociopolitical phenomenon.
The Asian American & Pacific Islander communities such as the ones in this week’s readings from both textbooks illustrate how these communities are living and breathing examples of those extending beyond loyalties connect to any specific place of origin or ethnicity/national origins. While those like Waldinger and Fitzgerald argue that “transnationalism” means that these communities go beyond any specific ethnic or national loyalties, (others like Sandhya Shukla and Pei-te Lien from this week’s readings) extensively explain how particular communities with their specific ethnic, historical attachments (i.e. Asian Pacific Islander communities) respond to, adjust, adapt, and organize.
Due to the “aliens ineligible for citizenship status” and the notion that Asian Pacific Islanders are “perpetual foreigners” unworthy of “American-ness” and all of the *legal benefits* and *legal consequences* attached to what it means to be an American, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th generation Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have often had to distance themselves from their ancestors’ homeland, if not geographically, certainly socially and emotionally. The distance between “here” (American identity) and “there” (ancestral homeland) had to be distinct in order to prove one’s “American-ness.” However, Asian Pacific Islander communities have always been “transnational” even with immigration restrictions and exclusion (institutional constraints) and personal/social identity struggles “Asian American/Pacific Islander versus American.” The existence of “Chinatowns,” “Little Tokyos,” “Historic FilipinoTowns,” “Little Saigons,” and “India Squares” (i.e. “Little Indias”) have been vibrant, existent communities (not just “imagined communities) that have long been “transnational” lessening the distance between “here” and “there” since their founding and establishment. The discussion of “transnationalism” and “globalization” may be the “trend” in academia, but Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have been living them since their first arrival in the New World.
Let’s take Hawai’i (the 50th state of the U.S. and a former territory, as well as a British colony) as an example. When Captain Cook arrived in the Hawaiian Islands, it established Hawai’i as a transnational port, as well as a colonial station and the movement of peoples across continents became the driving & building forces of the social, cultural, and economic diversity that we have come to associate with “Hawai’i --including the birth and nurturing of those ranging from the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, to mega-superstar Bruno Mars). If we take the example of President Obama (Barack Hussein Obama), his white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya met in Hawai’i. President Obama’s white mother later met his Indonesian step-father in Hawai’i and even spent several years living in and moving back and forth from Hawai’i to Indonesia. If we take the example of mega-superstar Bruno Mars, his Filipino immigrant mother met his South European-Puerto Rican father in Hawai’i and gave birth to Bruno Mars (born Peter Hernandez). In these two very famous people’s biographical examples, you can already see the various “transnational genealogical movements” of their family history. Famous or not, this is and was the complex and varied personal and social histories of many Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, not to mention “All Americans.” Many of you should consider your own backgrounds and the transnational nature of your own personal and family histories, whether you are Asian American/Pacific Islander or not. How has your cultural ancestries remained? What connections to your cultures and the geographies from which they come have been kept and the connections to where those cultures originate are constantly being affirmed as the day-to-day contact between “here” and “there” continue to thrive.
Asian Pacific American immigrants and transnational communities are part of the political landscape in the U.S. Asians; they are now the fastest growing immigrant group. Although the immigration debate is usually discussed as primarily a “Latino” issue, Asian Pacific Americans will surely need to be one of the main players in this discussion and help to lead the direction of policy-making.
Recommended (additional) Readings:
*Nakanishi & Lai, “New Immigrants, New Forms of Transnational Community” (by Sandhya Shukla) pp. 181-192
*Nakanishi & Lai, “Ethnicity and Political Adaptations” (by Pei-te Lien), pp. 193-210
*Aoki and Takeda, Chapter 8, pp. 156-186
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/as-americas-fastest-growing-immigrant-group-asians-find-a-growing-voice/2117633
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb13-112.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/us/asians-surpass-hispanics-as-biggest-immigrant-wave.html?_r=0
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2013/05/28/64474/why-immigration-is-an-asian-american-issue/
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-asians-family-visas--20130730,0,5344089.story?track=rss
http://apalc.advancingjustice.org/
