Asian American Studies Commons^™

The Migration Of South Asians From India To Guyana: The Journey, Struggles In A New Land, Reasons For Changes Over Time And Their Cultivation Of A New Culture., Cynthia C. Harry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Indians from different regions of India arrived in Guyana through indentureship in 1838. They were under a five-year contract and had to work on the sugar plantations for the duration of their indentureship. While they tried to persist their Indian culture, assimilation in their new environments and interaction with people of different cultures, allowed them to develop a culture unique to Indo Guyanese heritage.

This thesis focuses on the history of Indian diaspora in Guyana. It evokes the struggles they faced on the ships, and during and after indentureship. It also touches on the political and racial issues they had …

A Tale Of Two Motherlands: Bridging The Gap Between The American And Korean Identities Of Korean War Adoptees, Lily Zitko

The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History

In 1955, the Harry and Bertha Holt successfully petitioned for the passing of Private Law 475 (Holt Bill) allowing for the adoption of eight orphans from South Korea. This was the beginning of a global revolution in transnational and transracial adoption. Prior to this, the idea of adoption outside of the United States was seldom possible; however, the work of the Holt family rationalized with the pubic and garnered much attention from the government and media. Even more so complicated was the idea of mixed-race Korean children, fathered by American G.I.s stationed in the Korea during the Korean War. Their …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Moving At The Speed Of Trust, Sun Ho Lee

Masters Theses

Moving at the Speed of Trust is a workbook of strategies — practices, definitions, and techniques — to nurture community-building in support of inbetweeners who live between power structures and cultures and are often left out. Inbetweeners are those individuals whose lives are in transition through recent immigration or forced translocation from Asia to America.

These strategies revolve around threads of trust: kin, giggles, vulnerability, and shared experience. With these threads, we can question power. We can preserve stories, expand the ways we connect, shift perspectives on what is “standard,” and cultivate a community rooted in understanding. To understand each …

International Student Orientations: Indian Students At American Universities Around The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Param S. Ajmera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the writings and experiences of five Indian international students in the United States during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By drawing attention to these students, I attend to the ways in which notions of freedom, progress, and inclusivity associated with American higher education, and liberalism more generally, are related to structures of racialized and colonial dispossession in India. I build these arguments by reading archival sources such as university administrative records, student publications, personal and official correspondence, as well as understudied aesthetic works, such as memoirs, travel narratives, essays, doctoral dissertations, and public lectures. These historical …

Silent Music And Sacred Sounds Of The Hoysaḷas: Visual And Aural Sensory Experiences In Jain And Hindu Temples, Vani Vignesh

Jain Studies

This project examines affective responses to temple spaces and investigates how visual and aural sensory stimulations can amplify people’s experiences in Jain and Hindu temples through ethnographic research and qualitative interviews. It involves the study of the traditional Indian methods of designing and planning temples to understand their place in contemporary South Indian devotion. This project focuses on two twelfth century temples built by the Hoysaḷa dynasty in the South Indian state of Karnāṭaka—the Jain Pārśvanātha basadi (temple) at Haḷēbīḍu and the Hindu Vaiṣṇava Chennakēśava temple at Bēlūru—to show that their location, design, and structure were planned to cater to …

“Yellow Fever” + Pornhub Statistics: A Sociological Sickness, Patricia Plachno

Audre Lorde Writing Prize

This essay was written to explore the complexities behind "Yellow Fever," or the fetishization of Asian women. In further understanding the origins of "Yellow Fever", shining a light on historical stereotypes and microaggressions assist in problematizing this phenomenon. Pornhub's yearly statistics provide a tangible outline of the sheer volume of participants in racial fetishization.

From Farm To Table To Factory: Paths Of Cambodian American Foodways, A. C. Smith

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes the history of Cambodian Americans using theoretical frameworks utilized by food studies scholars. Cambodian refugees and their families experienced a historical process that I describe as being “from farm to table to factory.” Many Cambodians maintained a self-sufficient agricultural lifestyle prior to the Cambodian Civil War. As Cambodian refugees resettled in the United States, they faced a slew of challenges in navigating urban infrastructures and governmental institutions, as well as in adjusting to hegemonic discourses. Such issues constitute a metaphorical table to which Cambodians needed to adjust as they made their lives in the US. Adaptation also …

Love Is Real & I Just Had Some For Dessert: Legacies Of Communal Care & Compassion In Asian Diasporic Women's Food Writing, Miki Rierson

Honors Projects

In this project I work to recover influential yet often erased Asian American female immigrant chefs and food authors from the mid-twentieth century to the present, situating their contributions in a deep-rooted tradition of diasporic women who used cooking as a means of communal agency and care. Immigrant Asian cookbook authors and chefs have long faced internal criticisms from their own diasporic communities of either inauthenticity or engaging in “food pornography,” to use writer Frank Chin’s term—a line of criticism that Lisa Lau has elaborated on as “re-Orientalism.”Though these criticisms should not eclipse the works themselves, I discuss and counter …

Christian Mass Movements In South India And Some Of The Critical Factors That Changed The Face Of Christianity In India, Philip Joseph Mathew

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The main reason for Christian growth in India was not individual conversions but rather Christian mass movements (CMMs). Since the late 1700s, a series of independent CMMs among non-Christians and a mass reformation movement within the Suriani community have occurred in the southern end of India. These MMs culminated in a mass emancipation movement against caste-imposed segregation of Dalits in the late 1800s, an event of national significance. In the early 1900s, Pentecostalism evolved from these CMMs and transformed the religious landscape of Christianity in South India and later in India as a whole. The Thoma Christians were the early …

“Filipinos In California, Community, And Identity”: A Personal Inquiry, Sam T. Mcclintock

The Forum: Journal of History

No abstract provided.

Control, Allegiance, And Shame In Male Qing Dynasty Hairstyles, Carolle Pinkerton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is about the politicization of hairstyles in imperial China. They indicated conformity with social norms, or rebellion against them. This was especially true under the country’s last dynasty. The Manchu conquerors imposed their own hairstyle, the queue, on their Han Chinese subjects to make their rule palpable to China’s illiterate millions. “Hair martyrs” who refused to accept this “barbarous” hairstyle were ruthlessly eliminated. The Manchus had feared assimilation into the much larger Han population. But the introduction of one uniform male hair style for both Manchus and Han blurred the lines between the two groups. In this way …

The Need And Emergence Of Political Power For 'Asian American' Or Aapi And Its Impacts Today: Comparison Between The Black Power Movement, The Civil Rights Movement, And The Rise Of Asians, Sarah Yoon

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The first known Asians arrived in the United States in the 16^th century. By the mid-19^th century, major waves of Asian immigrants traveled to the United States. During this time, early Asian immigrants faced racist stereotypes, discrimination, and exclusionary legislations. Inspired by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, early Asian activists created political coalitions, redefined their identity, and gained political power. Gaining political power ensures they are incorporated into society, their needs are addressed, resources are shared equally, and meaningful influence over government policies were obtained. Through this, early Asians created their self-determined label and political coalition: …

Picturing A Storm Center In The Far East: Geopolitical Image And Representation Of Korea In Early American Newspaper Visuals, Jihyung Kim

Master's Projects and Capstones

This Capstone Project explores the image and representation of Korea in early modern American newspaper visuals during the period when Korea and the U.S. first began to engage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The American newspaper visuals, which interact with headlines, captions, and texts, are represented with specific patterns and features in close links to the newspaper's geopolitical discourse production, specifically the “Far Eastern Question,” which was produced by western powers and Japan. The visuals were intended to show Korea as a dangerous and uncivilized place, “a storm center in the Far East.” Such geopolitical visuals in …

Disrupters:Three Women Of Color Tell Their Stories, Dulce María Gray, Denise A. Harrison, Yuko Kurahashi

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

This essay is an amplified version of the presentation we made at the 7th Biennial Seneca Falls Dialogues. Our aim is to story back into the world our first experiences and motivations for investing in suffrage and democratic activism. We are three American professors of disciplines in the humanities, who for decades have taught and lived across the United States and have traveled the world. Yuko Kurahashi’s essay tells the story of how Raichō Hiratsuka and Fusae Ichikawa, Japanese activists in their suffrage and peace movements, helped shape her personal and professional life. Denise Harrison talks about the first wave …

“Unspoken Understanding”: The Evolution Of Chinese American Adoption Communities, Annie Abruzzo

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

While scholarly work on adoption, transnational adoption, and specifically international adoption from China has been robust, it has tended to focus on studying parents and parenting. This paper analyzes the resources used by both parents and children to discuss race, culture, and adoption, and seeks to understand the effects of these parenting strategies on Chinese American adoptees, who have begun to reach young adulthood in the last ten years. Examination of the recent growth of adoptee communities reveals that a shared and complex adoptee identity is a more powerful nexus than shared Chineseness.

The Colonial Marginalization Of Filipino And Filipino American Soldiers In The Us Army During World War Ii, Corey Joseph Tinay

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the structural paradigms in place within American society as multifaceted tools of colonialism and how they impacted the experiences of minority and colonized soldiers in the United States Army during the Second World War. The history is analyzed through the postcolonial lens, observing factors in place such as; denial of place in history, identity, and recognition of service. The research questions that this thesis addresses are as follows: What are the colonial implications in the experience of Filipino and Filipino American soldiers experience during the Second World War? Are colonial soldiers treated as more expendable than white …

Mechanisms Of Biases And Cultural Literacy In International Language Education: One Such Story To Carry, Yukari Birkett

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Despite equity and inclusion initiatives, the English based colonial model has permeated the kindergarten to college systems, teaching/learning, theories and methods, the perception of second language acquisition, multiculturalism, and language education (Knowles et al., 2015; Macedo, 2019; Phillips & Abbot, 2011; Battiste, 2013). Additionally, cognitive neuroscientific discoveries of the complexity of language learning, emotional intelligence, and cultural literacy systematically failed to reach educators. Few studies have focused on what factors impact on cultural biases of foreign language learners, or what factors in learning facilitate the dismantling of durable biases. What are the hidden agendas for teaching and learning foreign languages? …

Sovereignty, Statehood, And Subjugation: Native Hawaiian And Japanese American Discourse Over Hawaiian Statehood, Nicole Saito

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Although discourse over Hawaiian statehood has increasingly been described by scholars as a racial conflict between Japanese Americans and Native Hawaiians, there existed a broad spectrum of interactions between the two groups. Both communities were forced to confront the prejudices they had against each other while recognizing their shared experiences with discrimination, creating a paradoxical political culture of competition and solidarity up until the conclusion of World War Two. From 1946 to 1950, however, the country’s collective understanding of Japanese American citizenship began to shift with recognition of the community’s military service record and an increased proportion of veterans elected …

Cumulative Grief, Xuan Pham

Masters Theses

A written thesis to accompany the M.F.A. Exhibition Cumulative Grief, in which the artist's personal and familial narrative explores the complexity and nuances of racial grief.

The Chinese In California: Archaeology And Railroads At The Turn Of The Century, Evelyn Hildebrand

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research on Chinese sites in California have focused on ethnicity, ethnic relations, and the material expression of ethnicity all of which are key issues in overseas Chinese archaeology. Chinatown sites produced data that helped define Chinese culture and experience in historical California. One railroad construction work camp site identified in 2016 located in the Cajon Pass in the late 1800’s offers the potential for insight into the lives of the workers. Chinese occupation in San Bernardino is not well understood, and the site may offer information on the culture, traditions, and integrations of the workers. Thousands of Chinese men left …

Book Review: Yang, K. (2017). The Making Of Hmong America: Forty Years After The Secret War. Lexington Books., Thong Vang

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

The Making of Hmong America is part of a series of books and articles published by Dr. Kou Yang, highlighting the Hmong’s involuntary migration from Asia to the rest of the world, their past status and progress of the Hmong diaspora in the United States. The book expands upon a previous text that Yang had written entitled "40 Years After the Vietnam War: Celebrating the Contributions of Indochinese Refugees to the United States."

Finding Commonality: The First Principles Of The Leadership Thought Of Theodore Roosevelt And Traditional Chinese Culture, Elizabeth Summerfield, Yumin Dai

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

This paper argues that, while the imperative to find global solutions to complex problems like climate change and resource management is agreed, dominant ethical and intellectual thought leadership in many western nations impedes progress. The Cartesian binaries of western post-Enlightenment culture tend instead toward oppositional binary divides where each ‘side’ assumes to be the whole and not a part. And the present and future similarly assume precedence over the past. The paper points to systems thinking as both a method and a practice of wise leadership of past western and eastern societies, including their conservation of natural resources. Two historical …

The Permanent Liminality Of Pakistan's Northern Areas- The Case Of Gilgit-Baltistan, Hamna Tariq

Senior Theses and Projects

Since Pakistan’s inception, Gilgit-Baltistan, a sprawling region in Northern Pakistan, has not been granted provincial status due to its colonial association with the disputed region of Kashmir. Gilgit-Baltistan refutes its forceful integration with Kashmir, an unfortunate remnant of British divide-and-rule strategy, and demands provincial recognition and constitutional rights. Pakistan unfairly claims that it awaits the UN-sanctioned plebiscite in Kashmir to determine the region’s status. However, the likelihood of a plebiscite is little to none, since the Indian government officially annexed Indian-held Kashmir in August 2019, breaching the UN resolution on the plebiscite. A region that has been at the mercy …

Contextualizing Filipina/O Experiences Through The Life And Lens Of Virgil Duyungan, Benjamin Huff

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper serves a dual purpose: to examine the world of Filipina/o immigrants and Filipina/o Americans during the 1930s in the Puget Sound region, as well as look at the life and death of Filipina/o labor leader Virgil S. Duyungan. Incorporating these two different aspects into one paper reveals how Duyungan’s experiences contextualize and highlight key issues of the greater Filipina/o community in the region at the time, such as racial identity and tensions, labor rights, corruption and exploitation, and socio-economic conditions. By utilizing a body of primary and secondary sources, such as books, journal articles, government documents, images and …

Subtle Asian Womxn, Long Tran

Global Honors Theses

My involvement with the Global Honors Program culminates with a senior capstone project for T GH 496 Experiential Learning in Global Honors. Over the course of spring quarter, I had the opportunity to produce a documentary film, under the supervision of my faculty advisor, Dr. David Coon, to fulfill the requirements to graduate with a minor in Global Engagement and earn the full distinction from the program. My film actively engages with the intersection of the historical representations of Asian womxn and their lived experiences with dating. As of Wednesday, May 1, 2019, I have been able to interview 14 …

"Name Her Reiko!": The Ikemiya Diaspora, Morgan Ikemiya

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This creative-nonfiction project encapsulates a Japanese family diaspora to America beginning in the late 1880s. Through short stories, poems, and monologues, the author expresses familial struggles such as living in a foreign land and being Japanese in White America. The author reflects on her grandparents' time in the Japanese internment camps where they faced hardship and hegemonic oppression as well as her father's experience of growing up Japanese-American in Los Angeles. The stories weave together history, hardship, and race to create a unique diaspora story.

Two Poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones, Ánh-Hoa Thị Nguyễn

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This creative work features two poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones

Finding Place In Eureka, Ryan A. Sendejas

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

N/A

Rituals Of Remaindered Life In The Films Of Kidlat Tahimik, Alison R. Boldero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Kidlat Tahimik, who achieved international renown during the Marcos regime for his film Perfumed Nightmare (Mababangong Bangungot, 1976), is relatively unknown outside of international film circles. Considered a pioneer of Third Cinema in the Philippines, a radical film movement from Latin America that has since inspired similar movements globally, Tahimik challenged cultural hegemony in a postcolonial, post-World War II Philippines through the production of imperfect films. This paper looks to three of Tahimik's films - Perfumed Nightmare, Turumba (1983), and Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (Bakit Dilaw Ang Kulay ng Bahaghari, 1994) …