Asian American Studies Commons^™

Editors' Introduction, Raj G. Chetty, Beverly Greene

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

No abstract provided.

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 …

“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.

The Afterlife Of Jennifer Laude: Trans Necropolitics And Trans Utopias, Max D. López Toledano

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

Jennifer Laude is a filipino trans woman who was murdered by a visiting member of the United States army in 2014. Her murder led to several protests in the Philippines and in the United States led by both queer and anti-imperialist movements that urged for the rejection of the 'Visiting Forces Agreement' in the Philippines. This essay explores how Laude's murder is located in a climate of 'trans necropolitics' that allocates death and disposability to unruly trans and brown bodies who fail to comply with cis-normative gender ideals. This essay understands her murder (and her afterlife) beyond her individual body, …

The Model Minority Myth And The Mental Well-Being Of Academically Struggling Asian Americans, Jan Michael Roa Ballesteros

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation investigates relationships between pressures Asian Americans experience to be academically successful and their feelings of depression and stress. The model minority myth (MMM) stereotype characterizes Asian Americans as industrious, intellectually-gifted, assimilating to U.S. values of meritocracy, and achieving higher academic and employment success levels compared to other racial groups in the general population. While many consider MMM a positive stereotype, it also comes with a cost. Prior research demonstrates the tensions that exist among Asian Americans who do not uphold the MMM stereotype and its corollary, the Asian Academic Success Frame. Those unable to meet academic success standards …

Mahalaya: Building Community In The Filipinx Diaspora Through Solidarity Journalism, Casey Ticsay

Master's Theses

Unethical approaches to storytelling in professional journalism continue to shape public discourse around the diverse experiences of Asians and Asian Americans. This paper analyzes the origins and impact of ethnic news media, specifically the rise of Filipino and Filipino American press in the United States, and the ways journalists of color continue to challenge traditional practices of professional journalism that perpetuate anti-Blackness and maintain white supremacy. Filipino and Filipino American newspapers in the early twentieth century provide historical insight into the issues, debates, and conversations transpiring at the time and highlight the community’s ongoing response to the misrepresentations of their …

Women And Western Mission: A Case Study On The Christian Khasi And Garo Tribal Women, Rosemary Philip

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Western mission justified a mission to the Global South that was ingrained with the dominance of its culture and values. Women’s mission, as a tool of this mission, patronized themselves as the ‘care-taker’ of the ‘subjugated’ women of the Global South. This mission promulgated new ways of thinking and prescribed new gender roles and values to the Global South. In doing so, it framed the traditional roles and cultural values of the non-Western world as oppressive and replaceable. Subsequently, Women’s mission along with Western feminism and Feminist theology as a broad idea has been challenged by feminists from the Global …

Asian Americans And The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Multi-Lingual Survey In Greater Boston, Carolyn Wong, Ziting Kuang

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

This report on Asian Americans and the Covid-19 Pandemic describes lessons from a multilingual survey administered in Greater Boston during the Fall, Winter, and early Spring of 2020-21. The Institute for Asian American Studies (IAAS) at UMass Boston designed and administered the IAAS Covid-19 Survey on the health, economic, and social impacts of the pandemic for Asian Americans. The IAAS Covid-19 Survey was designed to fill significant gaps in data available from a previous Spring 2020 survey, Living in Boston During Covid-19, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and administered by UMass Boston’s Center for Survey Research …

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 …

Asian Americans In Massachusetts Including Boston And Other Selected Cities: Data From The 2020 Decennial Census And American Community Survey, Shauna Lo

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

The data in this report are drawn from multiple U.S. Census Bureau datasets: the 2020 Decennial Census, the 2019 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, the 2015–2019 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates, and the 2015-2019 American Community Survey 5-Year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). Note that data from different datasets are not directly comparable. The dataset used for each table and chart is indicated.

Limited data was available from the 2020 Decennial Census at the time of publication.

Population data in this report may be for racial groups “alone” (one race only) or “alone or in combination” (one or more races), …

The Nature Of Anti-Asian American Xenophobia During The Coronavirus Pandemic: A Preliminary Exploration Into Envy As A Key Motivator Of Hate, Daisuke Akiba

Publications and Research

Background. The current Coronavirus pandemic has been linked to a dramatic increase in anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) hate incidents in the United States. At the time of writing, there does not appear to be any published empirical research examining the mechanisms underlying Asiaphobia during the current pandemic. Based on the stereotype content model, we investigated the idea that ambivalent attitudes toward AAPIs, marked primarily with envy, may be contributing to anti-AAPI xenophobia. Methods. Study 1 (N = 140) explored, through a survey, the link between envious stereotypes toward AAPIs and Asiaphobia. Study 2 (N = 167), …

Spatial Disparities: The Role Of Nativity In Neighborhood Exposure To Alcohol And Tobacco Retailers, Georgiana Bostean, Luis A. Sánchez, Jason A. Douglas

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Studies of retail environment, one of the social determinants of health, document racial/ethnic disparities in exposure to alcohol and tobacco (A and T) retailers, but have largely overlooked nativity. We examined associations between A and T retailer density and rates of foreign-born Latinx and foreign-born Asian residents in California census tracts (N = 7888), using spatial regressions and controlling for population and ecological confounders (e.g., population density, zoning, residential instability, urbanicity). Socio-demographic data came from the American Community Survey (2012–2016); census tract density of A and T retailers came from geocoded addresses from state license data for off-sale alcohol distributors …

Mediating Asian-Ness: How And Why Does Asian Identity Salience Vary By Biracial Status?, Kaitlan Wong

Honors Theses

The following study explores how and why Asian identity salience may vary between biracial and monoracial Asians. This study further aims to find potential mediators—including daily Asian contact, linked fate, group solidarity, and microaggressions—that might explain any group differences in Asian identity salience. I used the 2016 Post-Election National Asian American Survey to explore these research aims. Contrary to expectations, I found that biracial Asians have higher Asian identity salience than monoracial Asians. As expected, linked fate and microaggressions were positively associated with Asian identity salience. Surprisingly, daily Asian contact was negatively associated and group solidarity was not significantly associated …

Human Capital Formation And Return Migration Within Mong Communities In Rural/Semi-Rural Northern California, Chong Yang

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This research uses computational grounded theory to explore the human capital formation and stay/return migration experiences of well-educated Mong adults living in various rural/semi-rural Northern California localities within Butte, Yuba, and Sutter Counties. Rural vitality is dependent on the return of these well-educated rural-raised adults. Out-migration of rurality’s best and brightest contributes towards a brain drain and the hallowing out of rurality’s human capital. Findings of this research is conveyed using two research articles examining two different points on the continuum of rural vitality. The first article examines 19 Mong adults’ educational experiences within their rural communities and college education. …

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.

Umuwi: Coming Home: Decolonizing Filipinx-American Identity, Theresa Joyce Esmejarda Arocena

Communication & Media Studies | Senior Theses

This study investigates Filipinx-American identity using contextual understandings of decolonization as a conceptual framework. We will explore some of the long-term consequences of colonization on identity in the Filipinx-American community, including labeling theory’s current psychologies within the community, the formation of certain ideologies, and the attempts to reconcile transgenerational trauma and dismantle negative ideologies within the community. Seven participants were selected through non-probability sampling and were interviewed individually over Zoom video conferencing. Participant interviews revealed five interconnected themes regarding how identity is formed and sustained. Given the complexity of identity, more research is needed to explain other nuances of the …

Colonized Loyalty: Asian American Anti-Blackness And Complicity, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In this essay, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstad argues that solidarity between and within communities of color remains our only chance to fight against the brutal and insidious forces of racism, white supremacy and racial capitalism.

La Construcción Del Imaginario De Una Ciudad Multicultural: El Barrio Chino De Buenos Aires Como Exhibición Pública De Cultura, Yiran Lin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En el marco de la globalización, ha surgido una nueva competencia entre las ciudades contemporáneas donde su multiculturalidad se convierte en símbolo de prosperidad. El imaginario urbano se creó en la intersección de los espacios públicos y los espacios sociopolíticos, de las culturas y sus representaciones, de lo ideal y la realidad. Estas dualidades nos hacen preguntarnos: ¿cómo afecta la espacialización pública de la cultura a la comunidad misma y a la sociedad receptora? ¿Quién se incluye en este imaginario y a quién se excluye? En este estudio, examinamos el Barrio Chino de Buenos Aires como caso de estudio de …

Present And Passionate: A Critical Analysis Of Asian American Involvement In The United States Environmental Justice Movement, Emily M. Ng

Pitzer Senior Theses

Communities of color are disproportionately exposed to toxins and pollution. The environmental justice movement addresses the greater health and environmental risks experienced by minority groups. Although Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in the United States, there is little known about their involvement in the movement. In this thesis, I further observe Asian American involvement in the United States environmental justice movement. By analyzing community case studies, I identify Asian American-specific mobilization challenges and strategies. Interviews with prominent Asian American environmental justice activists reveal activism and collective identity are connected, but vary greatly according to individualized Asian American experiences. …

Recovery After The Rupture: Linking Colonial Histories Of Displacement With Affective Objects And Memories, Aarzoo Singh

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

The notion of home and belonging, specifically in the context of South Asian postcolonial diasporas, is connected to past traumas of colonization and displacement. This paper addresses how trauma, displacement, and colonialism can be understood through and with material culture, and how familial objects and items emit and/ or carry within them, emotional narratives. I turn to the affective currency that emit and are transferred on and down from objects, by diasporic subjects, to access the possible reclamation of otherwise silenced narratives within colonial and postcolonial histories. By following the events of the Partition of India in 1947 as a …

Racialized Aggressions And Sense Of Belonging Among Asian American College Students, Kevin J. Gin

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

This naturalistic, qualitative inquiry explored how Asian American college students’ encounters with racialized aggressions on social media impacted their sense of belonging at a predominately White institution (PWI). Participants indicated that encounters with racism on social media, especially on the anonymous mobile app Yik Yak, engendered racial distrust, and alienation from their institution. These findings suggest the virtual components of campus culture play a critical role in determining how Asian American college students feel they are welcomed, valued, and included at a PWI.

The Mere Mention Of Asians In Affirmative Action, Jennifer Lee, Van C. Tran

Publications and Research

Presumed competent, U.S. Asians evince exceptional educational outcomes but lack the cultural pedigree of elite whites that safeguard them from bias in the labor market. In spite of their nonwhite minority status, Asians also lack the legacy of disadvantage of blacks that make them eligible beneficiaries of affirmative action. Their labor market disadvantage coupled with their exclusion from affirmative action programs place Asians in a unique bind: do they support policies that give preferences to blacks but exclude them? Given their self- and group interests, this bind should make Asians unlikely to do so. We assess whether this is the …

Cyborgs For Environmental Justice: East Asian American Stories From The 1991 People Of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, Lisa Ng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this paper is threefold: to serve as an oral history archive of the East Asian American experience at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to analyze the role of East Asian Americans in the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM), and to fill an ideological and political vacuum that exists in East Asian American communities. This work analyses the experiences of East Asian Americans who were present at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit--an event scholars have attributed to igniting the EJM. The paper argues that East Asian Americans act as “Cyborgs”—both as their ascribed …

Kumain Na Tayo! Exploring The Role Of Food In Communicating Tradition And Instilling Familial Values, Aaron Negrillo

Student Research

As a core part of Asian values, family plays a huge role in developing the individual’s identity. Family strongly contributes to the passing down of traditions and values. The expression of cultural values can be observed through many surface-level interactions such as food and meal rituals. This auto-ethnography explores the link between food and culture, specifically how it serves as a vehicle of communication that passes down traditions and values. The underlying core values of hospitality, respect, and sacrifice stand emerged from the thematic analysis conducted. Overall, food can be understood as a tangible expression of love: creating something for …

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) …

Exploring The Acculturation Preferences Of Bangladeshi-Muslim Second-Generation American Immigrants In New York City., Jakir Hossain

Senior Projects Fall 2019

The purpose of this study is to apply previous frameworks of acculturation to evaluate the acculturation preferences of the Bangladeshi-Muslim second-generation American immigrant population in New York City. This thesis attempts to understand the acculturation preferences of the aforementioned population by analyzing how they view their Bangladeshi ethnic identity and their Islamic religious identity in relation to their American immigrant upbringing. To do this, participants have been organized into acculturation preference tracks based on John Berry’s acculturation preference model. This thesis will then explore possible explanations for why differences between these acculturation preferences exist and why certain individuals found themselves …

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.

Hyper-Selectivity, Racial Mobility, And The Remaking Of Race, Van C. Tran, Jennifer Lee, Oshin Khachikian, Jess Lee

Publications and Research

Recent immigrants to the United States are diverse with regard to selectivity. Hyper-selectivity refers to a dual positive selectivity in which immigrants are more likely to have graduated from college than nonmigrants in sending countries and the host population in the United States. This article addresses two questions. First, how does hyper-selectivity affect second-generation educational outcomes? Second, how does second-generation mobility change the cognitive construction of racial categories? It shows how hyper-selectivity among Chinese immigrants results in positive second-generation educational outcomes and racial mobility for Asian Americans. It also raises the question of whether hyper-selectivity operates similarly for non-Asian groups. …

Koreans, Americans, Or Korean-Americans: Transnational Adoptees As Invisible Asians, A Book Review, Tairan Qiu

The Qualitative Report

The book, Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptionalism, explores the personal narratives and histories of adult adoptees who were born between 1949 and 1983 and who were adopted from Korea by White parents. Using oral history ethnography, Nelson (2016) seeks to correct, complicate, and contribute to current discussions about transnational adoptions. In this book review, the author provides an overview, a personal reflection, and recommendations for potential audiences of this book.