Asian American Studies Commons^™

Acculturation And Ethnic-Identification Of American Chinese Restaurant, Ting Shi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Immigration reform in 1965 enabled a large number of Chinese immigrants to settle in the United States. Chinese restaurants expanded quickly both quantitatively and geographically. This thesis researches the interactions between Chinese restaurant employers and employees and their customers. I focus on several Chinese restaurants in a mid-size Southeast U.S. city with a university and I analyze their methods for attracting culturally distinct groups of customers—local Americans and Chinese students or immigrants. I conducted participant observation in two Chinese restaurants and in-person interviews with 14 people from four restaurants whose roles are owners, managers, or servers. I found that Chinese …

The Net Of Nostalgia: Class, Culture, And Political Alienation And Nostalgia In Contemporary Latino And South Asian American Literature, Farzana Akhter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Generally thought of as a yearning for recent past, or homesickness, nostalgia is seen as a sentiment that impairs living in the present. And in case of immigrants, nostalgia is thought of as a debilitating form of escapism and an inability to adapt to change and mobility. In this dissertation, contesting against the prevalent concept, I argue that immigrant nostalgia is neither a colored memory (Dyson 117) nor a romance with one’s own fantasy (Boym xiii); rather, immigrant nostalgia has a socio-economic and political underpinning. By exploring the various nuances of immigrant experience delineated in the literary works of South …

Patricia Nguyen Interview, Joyce Shoults

Asian American Art Oral History Project

BIO: Patricia Nguyen is an artist, educator, and scholar born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University and a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow for New Americans. Her research and performance work examines critical refugee studies, political economy, forced migration, oral histories, inherited trauma, torture, and nation building in the United States and Vietnam. She has published work in Women Studies Quarterly, Harvard Kennedy School's Asian American Policy Review, and The Methuen Drama Anthology of Modern Asian Plays edited by Siyuan Liu and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Patricia is currently …

Remapping Emotion And Desire: Same-Sex Romance In Ah Cheng's "The King Of Chess", Yanjie Wang

Asian and Asian American Studies Faculty Works

This article examines the representation of emotion and desire in Ah Cheng's The King of Chess (Qi wang). The interpretation of The King of Chess has been oriented toward an allegorical reading that revolves around grand cultural concepts, such as aesthetics, Taoist tradition, cultural consciousness, and national identity. In this paradigm of reading, the literary text has largely become a footnote of the master narrative of China's cultural reconstruction of the 1980s. Following the recent interpretative turn of this story from cultural to existential and from allegorical to corporeal, the article extends to yet another domain, that of emotion, intimacy, …

Hương Ngô Interview, Jessica Perez

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Hương Ngô is a multidisciplinary artist whose work incorporates performance, sound, text, and installation. She was recently awarded the prestigious Fulbright US Scholar Grant in Vietnam to continue a project (begun at the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer in France) that traces the colonial history of surveillance in Vietnam and the anti-colonial strategies of resistance vis-à-vis the activities of female organizers and liaisons. The project, To Name It Is To See It, fleshes out identity and visibility as territories that both colonizer and colonized manipulate to achieve personal agency or state sovereignty. She was born in Hong Kong and is currently …

Jon Yamashiro Interview, Ciera Stokes

Asian American Art Oral History Project

BIO: Jon Masuo Yamashiro was born the oldest son and raised as a third-generation Okinawan American in the “cultural pastiche” of Honolulu, HI. He traveled from the islands to study at Washington University in St. Louis and received his BFA in 1985, then went on to earn an MFA in photography from Indiana University in 1991. Since the fall of 1993, he has had the privilege of teaching photography to college students at Miami University. Jon lives in Liberty, Indiana, with his wife Jennifer and their daughter Lydia and son Luke. http://yamashirophoto.com/

Matthew Avignone Interview, Alicia Urquizo

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Matthew Avignone is a Korean-American photographer born in 1987. In 2011, he obtained his B.A. in photography from Columbia College, Chicago. He has been exhibited at the Aperture Foundation, the Pingyao Photography Festival (China), and the Camden Image Gallery (London), among others. His first artist book, An Unfinished Body (2011), is part of the collections of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film and the International Center for Photography. In October 2014, after working for five years on documenting his own family, he released his self-published book, Stranger Than Family. The story of this project, …

Raeleen Kao Interview, Beena Patel

Asian American Art Oral History Project

BIO: Raeleen Kao is a drawer, printmaker, and amateur competitive eater aka glutton residing in Chicago with a Charles Brand etching press, a red tabby, and forty plants.

Her prints and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the country most notably at the International Museum of Surgical Science, the Monmouth Museum of Art, Bert Green Fine Art, the Smith College Museum of Art, Tory Folliard Gallery, Firecat Projects, and Normal Editions Workshop. Her work has been represented at SELECT Fair New York, the Editions and Artist Books Fair in New York, the Cleveland Fine Print Fair, the …

Wesley Sun Interview, Chad Novotny

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: BA, 2004, Stetson University, DeLand, Florida; M.Div, 2008, The University of Chicago. Both Wesley Sun and his brother (Brad Sun) were born and raised in Orlando, Florida, by their parents who are Chinese immigrants from Malaysia. Wesley serves as the Director of Field Education and Community Engagement at the University of Chicago Divinity School and is a volunteer chaplain at Cook County Jail. He also does creative writing for graphic novels that both he and his brother have collaborated on. His completed graphic novels include: Chinatown, Apocalypse Man, and Monkey Fist. Eisegesis: Kings + Queens is expected to be …

Renluka Maharaj Interview, Steven Zych

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Renluka Maharaj grew up in the country of Trinidad and Tobago and moved to New York as a child where spent most of her life. Her Eastern and Western background wrapped with modern sensibilities is evident in her bodies of work. Her interests are centered on gender roles, sexuality, colonialism, mythology, iconography and fetishism. Some of the artists that have influenced her work are Yinka Shonibare and Yasumasa Morimura.

Ms. Maharaj completed her BFA at the University of Colorado Boulder and is currently completing her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received the …

Michio Iwao Interview, Grace Johnson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Michio Iwao is one of four sons of the parents Kotama and Tomonosuke Iwao. He is known as an Asian American craftsperson that was born on July 12, 1922 in Suisun City, California. During World War II Michio and his family were relocated and held at the Gila River Internment Camp also known as Trulock. This stay lasted from 1942 to 1945 under the War Relocation Authority. This Japanese Internment camp inspired Iwao to spend his idle time learning how to make bird pins. This was the start of Iwao becoming a craftsperson.

Jun-Jun Sta.Ana Interview, Jackson Hughlett

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Jun-Jun Sta.Ana is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist born on September 19, 1963 to Remigio Benavidez Sta.Ana and Emma Cecilio Catral in Manila, Philippines. He moved to the United States at the age of 24, shortly after finishing a degree in Dentistry. He started his art career late just before he was turning 40- having a solo show of digital works using appropriated images from free porn sites which he deconstructed and embellished with images and symbols culled from Filipino talismans. His practice has become multi-disciplinary, and while still utilizing found images and materials, he also employs the technique of …

“It’S Not A Life Or Death Thing”: A Grounded Theory Study Of Smoking Decisions Among Chinese Americans, Yu Lu

The Qualitative Report

Smoking results in a high mortality rate for Chinese Americans. Little is known, however, about the decisions members of this group make that lead to these unhealthy behaviors. Examining smoking decisions could help us understand these choices as well as develop effective prevention strategies. This grounded theory study was conducted to understand Chinese Americans’ smoking decisions. Fifty-four individual interviews and three focus groups were conducted with Chinese Americans of different smoking statuses. The findings describe five smoking decisions including the trajectory of these behaviors. Optimistic bias is identified as one of the main reasons that regular smokers decide not to …

Kristine Aono Interview, Maureen Vela

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Kristine Aono is a sculptor and installation artist. She has a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. In addition, she has done residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Arts.

She has received numerous grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts (Visual Artist/Public Project Grant), the Maryland State Arts Council, the Painted Bride, the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, and the Prince George’s Arts Council. Kristine Aono has served on the Board of the Washington Project for the Arts, …

Kevin J. Miyazaki Interview, Anthony Santoro

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Kevin J. Miyazaki is an artist and photographer born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Japanese American parents originally from Hawai‘i and Washington state. His artwork often focuses on issues of ethnicity, family history and memory. The incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is of particular interest to Miyazaki, whose father spent time at both Tule Lake and Heart Mountain camps. His work has been exhibited in a variety of locations, including The Center for Photography at Woodstock (New York), The Haggerty Museum of Art (Milwaukee) The Rayko Photo Center (San Francisco) and Photographic Center Northwest (Seattle). …

Sameena Mustafa Interview, Uyanga Chinzorig

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Sameena Mustafa is a stand-up comedian, actor, and writer named in the Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago 2016 issue. She has been featured in videos by The Onion and performed on world-famous stages like the Laugh Factory and Biograph Theater. A Northwestern University graduate, Sameena is a sought-after speaker and host, praised for founding Simmer Brown, a comedy showcase featured in the Chicago Sun-Times and Redeye Chicago.

Being Non-Christian In A Christian Community: Experiences Of Belonging And Identity Among Korean Americans, Jane Yeonjae Lee

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

This study responds to the need to investigate the lives of secular migrants where religious marginalization may play a significant role in their everyday lives. Through a qualitative approach, this exploratory study examines the experiences of secular and religiously marginalized Korean Americans in relation to their predominantly Christian communities. In particular, the study focuses on the unique experiences of those aged between 25 and 35 living in the greater Boston area. The study compiles vivid narratives of non-Christian Korean American experiences within a dominant Christian ethnic community focusing on their religious and non-religious performances.

The overall objectives of this study, …

Filipino Americans' Perspectives On Caregiving, Maribel Lapuos Dominguez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

With increased life expectancy, more individuals will need to rely on caregivers and/or caregiving services. Filipino Americans are reluctant to depend on outside help when it comes to caring for their family members. There was a gap in the literature concerning the specific impact of the caregiving role on Filipino Americans and how cultural values affect the care provided to their family members. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain understanding of how Filipino cultural values and life roles affected Filipino Americans' experiences of caregiving. The conceptual framework included the sociocultural stress and coping model. The central research …

Volume 8 Cover, Joanne Lamb

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Walking And Wandering: Reconstructing Diasporic Subjectivity In T. C. Huo's Land Of Smiles And Lê Thi Diem Thúy’S The Gangster We Are All Looking For, Brian G. Chen

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Diaspora has often been defined as the condition of dispersal and displacement in which its members express minimal connections with their host country and always look to return to their ancestral homelands. However, from the literary representations in T. C. Huo’s Land of Smiles and Lê Thi Diem Thúy’s The Gangster We Are All Looking For, it is clear that members of the Southeast Asian diaspora determine to set root in their host country and refuse to be treated as temporary guests. This determination is warranted by their desire to redefine the contentious idea of home beyond cultural ancestry …