Asian American Studies Commons^™

Writing, Performance, Resistance: Examining Feminist Ideology And Theory In Theatre Since The Second Wave, Olivia Cross

Theater Honors Papers

This project seeks to identify and analyze how feminist theatre is informed by theory and activism in its resistance against white, heteronormative, and patriarchal hegemony offstage through onstage representation. By identifying three consistent themes of gender & sexuality, race, and trauma and the methods used to effectively convey them to an audience, feminist theatre displays how advocacy takes unique forms to uproot the status quo. Furthermore, this research highlights how theatre is a viable and rich outlet for feminist intellectual history, displaying its versatility as a frame of analysis.

Ploy : An Immigrant Daughter's Archival Survival Strategy, Porntip Israsena Twishime

Doctoral Dissertations

Transnational human migration is commonly conceptualized as the moment a person crosses national borders. In “PLOY : An Immigrant Daughter’s Archival Survival Strategy,” I advance a framework of migration in which migration is an ongoing embodied and relational process, one that continues after a person crosses national borders. This framework maintains that migration exists as a meaningful concept because of the social, political, cultural, and historical contexts that gives this type of mobility meaning. I use a performative novel methodology to construct and represent this argument; a performative novel methodology uses fiction and the novel as a performative text …

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 …

Pioneers Of Evacuation, Pioneers Of Resettlement: The Photographic Archive Of The Japanese American Incarceration And The Settler Colonial Imaginary, Christina Hobbs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the photographic archive of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II produced by the US government, arguing that these images “restage” the evacuation, incarceration, and resettlement periods through a settler colonial “pioneer” mythology, thereby obscuring the precarity of Japanese Americans' racial positionality between “settler” and “native.”

Improving Veteran Access; Status Of Operations Of The United States Department Of Veteran Affairs Work-Study Program, Kirk Allen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The usage status of The U.S. Department Veterans Affairs Work-Study Program is examined. Beneficiary numbers from the Global, Unites States, State, and Local/County perspective are reviewed. While of essential value, the program suffers from a lack of scholarly research and government oversight, and is further hindered by restrictive administrative rules lived first-hand. Research suggests that the program is operating outside of accountability to the taxpayer, presents as unnecessarily/overly-restrictive in accessibility, and is underutilized. The program appears to not be serving all veterans to full potential.

The Work-Study Program is codified in Veterans Benefits', Title 38 United States Code, Part III, …

[2020 Honorable Mention] Six Days To Leave Home: The Diasporic Experience Of Japanese Americans To American Incarceration Camps, Evangeline Pabilona

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

Using diaspora as a rhetorical framework, this paper analyses the cultural connection between American incarceration camps and the imprisonment of Japanese American citizens during World War II. The forced removal of Japanese American families from their homes to concentration camps emphasizes the negative ramifications of diaspora regarding [forced] cultural assimilation, as well as a loss of culture, language, family, and bodily autonomy.

Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description Of Marginalized Histories, Annie Tang, Dorothy Berry, Kelly Bolding, Rachel E. Winston

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Influenced by the radical archives movement, panelists discuss their (re)processing projects for which they wrote or rewrote descriptions in culturally competent approaches. Their case studies include materials regarding underrepresented peoples and historically oppressed groups who are marginalized from or maligned in the archival record. Targeted to processors, this session aims to teach participants to apply their cultural competencies in writing finding aids through an introduction to cultural competency framework, the case study examples, and a short audience-participation exercise.

“Unwanted In My Own Country”: Testimonies Of Identity And Belonging-Negotiations In A Post-Trump America, Nadia Naghedi Baradaran Hajjar

Master's Theses

This research investigates the impact of Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 presidential elections and the so-called, “Muslim” Travel Ban presidential executive orders, on communities of first and second-generation Middle Eastern, Muslim immigrant women in the Los Angeles area, and it is framed within the context of post 9/11-biases and racial discrimination. The ethnographic-like methodology for this research has been conducted with the use of 11 semi-structured in-depth interviews from 2017 that have been transcribed and coded. Findings from the interview data shows that there is a varied amount of responses from the 2016 Presidential Elections and travel ban, however, …

The Socio-Political And Economic Causes Of Natural Disasters, Nicole Southard

CMC Senior Theses

To effectively prevent and mitigate the outbreak of natural disasters is a more pressing issue in the twenty-first century than ever before. The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rising globally, most especially in developing countries where the most severe effects of climate change are felt. However, while climate change is indeed a strong force impacting the severity of contemporary catastrophes, it is not directly responsible for the exorbitant cost of the damage and suffering incurred from natural disasters -- both financially and in terms of human life. Rather, the true root causes of natural disasters lie within the …

Theories Of The Self, Race, And Essentialization In Buddhism In The United States During The “Yellow Peril,” 1899-1957, Ryan Anningson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation is an intellectual history tracing developing notions of the Self in Buddhism through Buddhist publications during the years from 1899-1957. I define this time period as the Era of the Yellow Peril, due to common views in the United States of an Asian “other” which formed a larger clash of civilizations globally. 1899-1957 was marked by pessimism and dread due to two World Wars and the Great Depression, while popular and academic cultures argued for the validity of race sciences, and the application of these “sciences” through eugenics. Buddhism in the United States was created through a global …

Media Representation Of Asian Americans And Asian Native New Yorkers’ Hybrid Persona, Min Huh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Asian Americans, having been degraded in the realm of popular media and neglected in the consumer market, have been unable to obtain a voice or leave a trace in American pop culture. The meager representation that Asian Americans rarely have is highly controlled through a distorted lens, inclined to paint them in a grotesquely exaggerated light for comic relief. The absence of Asian Americans in the media has compelled the Asian American youth to adapt the personas of different cultures in their desires for social and cultural mobility. These factors have given birth to a hybrid persona among Asian Native …

Beyond Metropolises: Hybridity In A Transnational Context, Raihan Sharif

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Beyond metropolises and within transnational contexts, investigating hybridity discourses is long overdue. This article argues that the epistemic violence embedded in such discourse has grave implications for the very impoverished nations and peoples with whom it claims solidarity and that, because this discourse is trendy in academia, its service to neoliberal capitalism is both easy to miss and important to expose. Interstices of postcolonial hybridity discourses, development discourses, and environmental justice discourses—dominant versions of which are segregated from contextual issues—as produced in Western academia and exported to third world countries for appropriation as developmental efforts—reveal epistemic violence, the manipulation of …

Lani Montreal Interview, Thi Navi Thach

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with Filipina teacher, writer, performer Lani T. Montreal by Thi Navi Thach

Ann Poochareon Interview, Christina Yang

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with new media artist Ann Poochareon by Christina Yang

Tatsu Aoki Interview, Brian Callahan

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with musician Tatsu Aoki

Tina Ramirez Interview, Karina Lopez

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with poet Tina Ramirez

Dahuang Zhou Interview, Julia Lin

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with multimedia artist and entrepreneur DaHuang Zhou

Chi Jang Yin Interview, Anna Huang

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with experimental documentary filmmaker Chi Jang Yin by Anna Huang

Von Kommanivanh Interview, John Pluciennik

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with Loatian born/Chicago based painter Von Kommanivahn by John Pluciennik

Sam Del Rosario Interview, Nancy Shaba

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with writer and the former ED of the Asian American Artists Collective- Chicago Sam del Rosario by Nancy Shaba.

Rominna Villasenor Interview, Jamelle Apolinar

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with writer, performer, visual artist Rominna Villasenor by Jamelle Apolinar

Michiko Itatani Interview, Liza Rush

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with painter and School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor Michiko itatani by Liza Rush

Mike Park Interview, Ben Rogers

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 interview with Mike Park from Asian Man Records by Ben Rogers

Ann Marie Chua Lee Interview, Jasmin M. Ortiz

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 Interview with cosplay costume designer Anne Marie Chua Lee by Jasmin M. Ortiz

Jienan Yuan (Chien Yuan) Interview, Lauren Smith

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with record producer and composer Chien Yuan by Lauren Smith

Anita Chang Interview, Lauren Smith

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with filmmaker Anita Chang by Lauren Smith. For more information on the artist visit: http://anitachangworks.com/

Flo Oy Wong Interview, Angelika Piwowarczyk

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with Chinese American multimedia artist Flo Oy Wong by Angelika Piwowarczyk

http://www.flo-oy-wongartist.com/

Danny Pudi Interview, Shariq Jefferi

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with comedian Danny Pudi by Shariq Jefferi

Cynthia Tom Interview, Lauren Swift

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with painter and president of the Asian American Women Artists Association Cynthia Tom by Lauren Swift

Chris Naka Interview, Cheryl Franzen

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with new media and video artist Chris Naka by Cheryl Franzen