Asian American Studies Commons^™

In Order To Escort Her, Kimberly Baglieri

Theses and Dissertations

In Order To Escort Her is a thirty-five minute hybrid-documentary in which Lila, my great-aunt, converses with her niece, my mother, about various supernatural creature encounters and spirit visitations from relatives. This is interspersed with a “visitation” from another close relative, communicating from a different time and space dimension. By weaving together supernatural stories and matter-of-fact accounts of resilience and survival, a magical world is created where boundaries between the material and the invisible realms blur. The main thematic concerns of this film are love, care, presence in joy amidst terror, and the journey of the soul.

Re-Envisioning Caribbean Costa Rica: Chinese-West Indian Interaction In Limón During The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Centuries, Benjamin N. Narváez

History Publications

While West Indians constituted a much larger immigrant group in the port of Limón, Costa Rica and its environs, Chinese also migrated there during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In hopes of maintaining their culture and in response to the prejudice they faced, both groups formed their own tightknit transnational subcommunities. Nevertheless, they also interacted with each other. These interactions ranged from tension and conflict on the one hand, to routine, peaceful interaction and even collaboration on the other. In particular, class differences and the marginalization these groups experienced combined to produce this complex relationship. Tension and conflict …

Deference, Displacement, And Due Diligence In Aiib And World Bank Lending In India: The Amaravati Capital City And Mumbai Urban Transport Projects, Jason A. Kirk

Rosenberg Institute Scholars

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has invested almost one-third of its entire pan-Asian portfolio in India, which has quietly become the Chinese-led bank’s top borrower despite rising China-India tensions. Over the first half-decade of the AIIB, most of its projects were co-financed with other multilaterals, led by the World Bank, and applied their environmental and social policies, accountability mechanisms, and grievance processes. This empirical research paper traces the development of two projects in India involving AIIB and the World Bank: the ill-fated Amaravati Capital City Project in Andhra Pradesh, a cancelled co-financed project, and the ongoing Mumbai Urban Transport …

A Fat Imposter: The Embodied Intersection Between Race, Body Type And Fatness In Margaret Cho’S Comedy, Julia Cox

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Margaret Cho is a comedic goddess who, in her mockery, serves flaming hot social commentary about race, body image, and fatness. Within this thesis, I used critical discourse analysis to understand how Margaret Cho embodies Asianness, whiteness, and the body types and images prescribed respectively. While working on data analysis, I came across a common media trope of fat women: the use of indexically Southern (United States), Appalachian, and Working class indexicals in speech and lexical items. I connected the ideologies surrounding Southern and Appalachian language to the inequalities that fat women face. This voicing had not previously been written …

Exploring Taiwanese Creative Arts Therapists' Professional Identity After Returning Home From Studying Abroad, Rhona Jung Jung Chang

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This study aimed to document Taiwanese creative arts therapists' career experiences after studying abroad and returning home, and how they perceive their professional identity as creative arts therapists in Taiwan. This qualitative study explores the experience of eight female professional Taiwanese creative arts therapists, including two art therapists, two dance/movement therapists, two drama therapists, and two music therapists. Interviews were conducted, and the participants were asked about their personal experience of art-making, the practice of creative arts therapies in Taiwan, and the understanding and awareness of their professional identity.

Data from this study was gathered by the interviews' transcripts and …

In Between, Not Really Anywhere: Narratives Of Half Asian-Half White Young Adults Navigating A Monoracial Society, Lena Proctor

CMC Senior Theses

This senior thesis examines half Asian-half white biracial identity development among young adults. While previous literature explores how this group identifies, this study examines why individuals racially identify in the way they do. Over the course of two months, in a series of 10 in-depth, open-ended interviews with half Asian-half white young adults, the paper asks the two questions: 1. How do half Asian-half white individuals develop their racial identity?, and 2. How do half Asian-half white individuals make sense of their biracial identity in a monoracial world?. Through the analysis of the data, I conclude that in racial identity …

The Past As "Ahead": A Circular History Of Modern Chamorro Activism, Gabby Lupola

Pomona Senior Theses

This is not a traditional thesis of the Pomona College History Department. Spanning over a century from start to finish, this work tracks the history of Guam’s political status from 1898 to 2021. To support such a lengthy timeline, snapshots of key events and trends are recounted each chapter. Chapter 1 focuses on the Spanish-American War and the local struggle for acting governorship. Chapter 2 documents the impact of World War II, the Organic Act of Guam, modernization and early Chamorro activism on island. Chapter 3 depicts the evolution of late 20^th century Chamorro activism through a model of …

Imagining An Asian American Superhero Of North Korean Origin: A Design Fiction, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

My talk, a thought-experimental blend of literary criticism and speculative "design fiction," will introduce you to an Asian American superhero of North Korean origin. In this science-fictional superhero, whom I have tentatively named "구름"/"☁️"/"Ku-reum," Korea's elusive realities coalesce into legible form. More specifically, they become available for narrative experience and relatable to us as an anthropomorphic character, a person with whom we might identify, come face-to-face, sympathize, interact dynamically, and have a conversation. Ku-reum is designed to reflect Korea's complex past and hopes for the future. Existing beyond division systems, Ku-reum uses the non-binary pronouns "one"/"they." Neither "South" nor "North," …

The Trouble With (The Lack Of) Accents, Gladys Mac

Asian and Asian American Studies Faculty Works

How accent reveals identity politics in Hong Kong cinema.

Lived Experiences Of Pakistani American Women Who Sought Mental Health Treatment, Marriam Ashraf

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractDespite the research on how mental illness manifests in the United States, there is more to be known about mental health in the Pakistani American population. The goal of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of Pakistani American women who sought mental health treatment. Ecological theory provided the framework for the study. Data were collected from semi structured interviews with 10 participants via telephone and face-to-face conversations. Data were analyzed using managing, reading, memoing, describing, classifying, interpreting, representing, and visualizing techniques. Findings indicated that seeking help for mental health played a positive role in participants being …

The Right To The City: San Francisco's Chinatown Before And After The 1906 Earthquake, Alexandra Hsu

Scripps Senior Theses

The development of San Francisco, much like many American cities, is deeply entwined with the spatial process of settler-colonialism. Fueled by White supremacist processes of appropriation, dispossession and exclusion, city officials and White San Franciscans legally, financially, and socially segregated Chinese immigrants who entered into the U.S. context to a dense and degraded ethnic enclave. Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey theorize on The Right to the City, the social production of space and the ways in which social processes can be concretized by space. This thesis applies these concepts to the racialized space of San Francisco’s Chinatown. An examination of …

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. …