Asian American Studies Commons^™

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 …

Review Of Empire And Environment: Ecological Ruin In The Transpacific., Hanyue Li

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

A Book Review on Empire and Environment: Ecological Ruin in the Transpacific.

Review Of Beyond The Icon: Asian American Graphic Narratives By Eleanor Ty, Maite Urcaregui

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Re-Visions: Examining Narratives Of Asian American Mental Health, Kenji Aoki

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This paper examines the intersection between Asian American mental health and resilience tropes. While research has acknowledged that Asian Americans have disparate mental health gaps regarding mental health stigma and how Asian American young adults are the only racial group in which suicide is their leading cause of death, there has been limited study that attempts to directly convey Asian American voices beyond broad statistical or cultural generalizations. To supplement ongoing research and Asian American livelihoods, this essay conjectures and attempts to illuminate the histories, mental illness, and health narratives of Asian Americans, the good, the bad, the ugly, the …

Monstrous Matrilineage In Chinese American Literature, Leina Hsu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

In this paper, I explore the monstrous relationships between Chinese American mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Bone by Fae Myenne Ng, and Severance: A Novel by Ling Ma. I employ monsters as metaphors and motifs that illustrate the womens’ genealogical trauma and resistance. By putting Chinese American matrilineages in a monstrous context, I elevate them as alternative knowledge sources that haunt the margins of Western society. In The Joy Luck Club, ghosts reveal the invisibility and survivor mindset of Chinese American immigrant mothers. For Bone, skeletons represent the unspoken trauma that plagues Chinese American …

Memory, Politics, And Literary Imagination In Viet Thanh Nguyen’S The Refugees, Jian Zhu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Despite the official conclusion of the Vietnam War, the struggle for remembrance and recollection endures. Within the pages of The Refugees, Viet Thanh Nguyen offers a transnational lens through which to examine the formation and contestation of collective memories between the United States and Vietnam. Despite its military defeat, the United States appropriated anti-communist ideology during the Cold War era to assimilate the refugee community, leveraging a discourse of “freedom and democracy” as a means to reshape historical narratives. In stark contrast, Vietnam commemorated its revolutionary struggle against imperialism through the establishment of museums, statues, and public cemeteries within …

The Modular Fiction Of Ken Liu, Elizabeth Lawrence

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Ken Liu is an influential translator of Chinese-language science fiction and an award winning author of original speculative fiction as well. His readers routinely observe that Liu draws on his Chinese heritage for world building and plot development. Less remarked upon are parallels between Liu’s creative process and modular production within Chinese literary and material culture. In this article, I explore these parallels through Liu’s wide-ranging fiction. The intent is not to pigeonhole Liu as a distinctly Chinese or Chinese American author – he has rejected such labels himself – but to universalize models of Chinese creative expression.

Course Design As Critical Creativity: Intersectional, Regional, And Demographic Approaches To Teaching Asian American Literatures, Thomas X. Sarmiento

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This essay offers a theoretical and reflective exploration of critically informed acts of creativity expressed in my course design for and teaching of Asian American literatures at a predominantly white, public land-grant, Midwestern university. I argue that teaching is both a creative and critical activity as it generates new ways of knowing and being through an assessment and curation of extant literary texts and scholarly discourses. Given my geographic, scholarly, and personal orientations, my course features intersectional, regional, and ethnically diverse perspectives that aim to queer what “Asian America/n” signifies. I hope my situated pedagogical insights inspire other scholar-teachers to …

David Henry Hwang’S Yellow Face: Fictional Autoethnography And Parody On Racial Stereotypes, Quan Manh Ha, Jacob Christiansen

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Hwang’s play Yellow Face (2007), a dramaturgically inventive work, combines multiple narrative forms into a plot that blurs the distinction among social science, social commentary, and fiction. The play is simultaneously self-mocking and self-examining in its representation of the Asian American experience in theatre. It both examines Hwang’s own racial identity and boldly redefines conventional theatrical forms as the playwright places himself at the center of a highly embarrassing, fictional racial controversy in order to scrutinize the performativity of an Asian American identity. This article argues that Yellow Face is fictitious autoethnodrama as it acerbically parodies racialization.

"Loving You No Matter What You Do": Ai's Dramatic Monologues, 1970s Asian American Feminisms, And Reproductive Justice, Catherine Irwin

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This essay makes visible the 1970s involvement of Asian American and Women of Color feminists in reproductive justice. Grounded in the Asian American feminist praxis of remembering, this essay analyzes how three dramatic monologues by the Asian American mixed-race poet Ai engage with the discourses of reproduce justice set forth by Asian American and Women of Color activists leading up to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Using an Asian American feminist lens, this paper argues that the speakers in Ai’s monologues utilize these discourses circulating about abortion and women’s health care to construct images of the treatment of dispossessed …

In Praise Of Limes, Poets, And Mentors: A Conversation With Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Noelle Brada-Williams, Elizabeth Asborno

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Volume Twelve: Counting Our Blessings, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Aaldp Cover Volume 12, Joanne Lamb

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Service-Learning In The Context Of Asian American Studies And The Aaarcc At Purdue University: Asian/American Business Owners In Greater Lafayette And Indiana, Kawika David, Margaret Palanca, James S. Zhou, Manabu Taketani, Pamela K. Sari

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The journey of Asian Americans in the United States is vital to understanding the perspective that Asian immigrants take on the way to becoming Asian Americans. Within the past century, Asians in America have played an essential role in communities across the country. In order to understand the efforts it takes for some of these people, our “Internship in Asian American Studies” (ASAM 490) class explored their experiences and lives by highlighting Asian American and Asian business owners in Greater Lafayette, other areas in Indiana. With a lack of vocalization about this topic, it is crucial to establish this voice …

Threatening National Security Or Bridging The Digital Divide? A Case Study Of Huawei’S Expansion In Brazil, Julie Jin Zeng

Rosenberg Institute Scholars

China’s digital footprint has been expanding rapidly in Latin America in the last two decades. Neither the U.S.-China tech war nor the U.S.-led global campaign aimed at Chinese tech firms seemed to be able to reverse the trend. Much of the policy discussion in the western media surrounding China’s digital expansion focuses on the supply side, emphasizing the potential risks of adopting Chinese technologies. Yet there remains scant research on the demand side— namely, how policymakers in developing countries perceive Chinese tech firms and how they maneuver amid the intensifying rivalry between the U.S. and China. Why did Chinese tech …

An Exploration Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine Usage Within The Vietnamese Community In Lincoln, Nebraska, Helen Duong

Honors Theses

Lincoln, Nebraska is home to over 5,000 Vietnamese refugees and immigrants, many of whom practice complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as a result of healing traditions passed down through family members. This thesis explores the use of CAM among the Vietnamese population of Lincoln. The study employs an analysis of the literature on CAM among Vietnamese populations and thematic analysis of interviews conducted with members of the Vietnamese community of Lincoln, NE. Interviews explore perceptions of healthcare quality and access within this community as well as investigate the link between CAM and allopathic (Western) medicine. Findings suggest that certain CAM …

Critical Analysis Of Anti-Asian Hate In The News, Benardo Douglas Relampagos

Dissertations and Theses

Since 2019, the United States has had an increase in violence against Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities along with an increase of mainstream anti-Asian racist rhetoric. Between 2021 and 2022, The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism reported an overall 164% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes (Report to the Nation, 2021). While racism against black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) communities has been the topic of an ever-growing body of critical discourse, prior to 2019 few publications had addressed racism and injustice regarding language choices and discourse in the context of anti-Asian rhetoric in the US, specifically …

Review Of Fighting Invisibility: Asian Americans In The Midwest. Rutgers University Press, Xiang Zhou

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Despite the imperative to shed light on the experiences of Asian Americans residing in the Midwest, previous research has predominantly centered around Asians residing on the coasts. This phenomenon, as elucidated by Erika Lee in her concept of “doubly invisible” Midwest Asian Americans, highlights their dual marginalization—they are not only conspicuously absent from mainstream literature but also from the broader discourse on Asian American experiences, which primarily revolves around those on the East and West coasts. However, it is within the heartland of America that we witness one of the most profound transformations in Asian America over the past few …

Repressive-Responsive Parameters Of Autocracies In Asia: Vietnam And China Compared, Nhu Truong

Rosenberg Institute Scholars

Moving beyond crude dichotomies of regime types, this article examines how state strategies of repression and responsiveness vary across autocracies in Asia. Specifically, Vietnam and China show significant variance on the reactive-institutionalized spectrum when it comes to land expropriation. Whereas Vietnam has systematically strengthened mechanisms against arbitrary land seizures, China has reactively opted for sketchy and ad-hoc reforms to curtail land conflicts. This article discloses the repressive-responsive parameters of autocracies in Asia through an original framework that allows for sharper analytical differentiation of how autocracies differ.

Chinese Laundries In Massachusetts: An Oral History Project, Shauna Lo

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

"The Best Interests Of The Child:" Parental Claims In Nebraska Child Custody Cases, 1877 1924, Esme Krohn

Digital Legal Research Lab

No abstract provided.

Habeas At Home And Heart: Progressive Era Cases Of Spousal Confinement To Nebraska's Psychiatric Households, Isabelle Childs

Digital Legal Research Lab

No abstract provided.

Portland's Lost Chinatown, Artthew H. Ng

University Honors Theses

Portland's Chinatown is one of the oldest North American urban Chinatowns, but is largely unexplored in the literature. It is currently a Chinatown in name only, missing Chinese residential buildings as well as popular Chinese businesses. This article explores the mystery of Portland Chinatown's birth and death, analyzing its history with a sociological lens. It had a similar lifespan to other Chinatowns in the US. However, Portland's Old Chinatown was unique, as unlike an ethnic enclave, it did not have clearly defined boundaries, growing to cover seventy city blocks at its peak. Therefore, when urban renewal started taking place in …

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 …

You Are Cordially (Un)Invited: My Korean Femme Strategy And Aspiration For Survival And Queer Futures, Nahyun Kim

Masters Theses

You are cordially (un)invited: My Korean Femme Strategy and Aspiration for Survival and Queer Futures documents a series of ceremonies dedicated to the years I have survived. This book has branched from a project of the same name that consists of a durational installation, performance, and series of events. The project and book are an aspirational gesture to send off the part of myself–that had to compromise, comply, and negotiate with institutions–for a rebirth to live a life beyond survival.

As a book and project, You are cordially (un)invited is a culmination of my experiences as a Korean femme, using …

Shame And Silencing Of Amejo In Okinawa: Examining Gendered And Militarized Violence, Katie Hashimoto

University Honors Theses

Off the southern part of Japan is the small archipelago of Okinawa. Of Japan's total land mass, Okinawa makes up only 0.6% of the country, yet it hosts over 70% of the land occupied by U.S. military bases. Since the end of World War II, Okinawa has existed under dual-subjugation by Japan and the U.S., which has created the grounds for systemic gendered and militarized violence. Rape and sexual violence perpetrated by U.S. military servicemen continue to be the primary concern of Okinawan feminists pushing for the demilitarization of Okinawa. However, these concerns often get lost within heteronormative and male-masculinist …

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 …

Does Political Advertising Persuade? A Quantitative Assessment Of The Effects Of Campaign Contact In The Context Of Race, Ethnicity, And Immigrant Origin In New York City Council Primary Elections From 2001 Through 2017, Laura M. Tamman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through a quantitative analysis of the relationship between New York city council campaigns’ spending and election results between 2001 and 2017, controlling for key factors such as incumbency, I find substantial and statistically significant positive effects for radio advertising on election outcomes. I find small but significant effects for mail, and smaller sized effects for canvassing. My findings underscore the need for further study of the role of ethnic and community media outlets, such as radio, in shaping voter behavior. Moreover, I argue that the fixation of the current persuasion literature on television ads in presidential general elections misses critical …

Model Minority Myth And Oral Health Disparities In Asian Americans Of Multnomah County In Oregon, Taylor Kang

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores the concept of the Model Minority Myth (MMM) and its impact on minority groups such as Asian American communities. It discusses how the MMM is one of the many reasons why health disparities such as oral health disparities, may exist for these groups, particularly in the context of White-majority places like the city of Portland and Multnomah County in Oregon. These disparities, as a result, prevent communities from achieving racial equity in areas such as employment, education, occupation, and income, to name a few. At first glance, the MMM seems to shed an optimistic light with its …