Asian American Studies Commons^™

The Rain Over Hanoi: A Personal Project About Screenplay Structure, Story, Representation And Intergenerational Struggle, Joan Moua

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

A good screenplay is first and foremost a good story. Elements of a good story include compelling characters, a theoretical structure, and a well-executed premise. The Rain Over Hanoi is an extremely intimate and personal project about an Asian American expat living in Vietnam. Our protagonist’s journey and coming of age is explored via the interactions she has with her old and new family. Communication through food, symbolism, and cultural exchange are also present throughout the screenplay, utilizing a realistic point of view for the benefit of a full story submersion experience to the reader/viewer. Themes of self-exploration, growing up, …

The One Who Won, Jeanna Polisini

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

I am an adopted Asian American with an Italian last name who was raised in the Jewish faith. While I am one of the lucky ones, the One-Child Policy is responsible for how my life turned out. My intention is to confront the inhumanity of this horrific policy with my adoption story. Until policies personally affect someone’s life, many people do not think twice about the other country’s problems and their repercussions on a global level. For my senior exhibition, I created an autobiographical installation to explore my adoption story and how China’s inhumane dictatorship. The full immersive installation will …

Las Voces Desde La Liminalidad Sino-Peruana: –Una Lectura Comparativa De Mongolia Y La Vida No Es Una Tómbola–, Jing Tan

LSU Master's Theses

Chinese immigrants first arrived in Peru in the mid-19th Century. Since then, the Sino-Peruvian community has lived through myriad vicissitudes. Today, despite its indisputable influence in Peru’s history, it is still largely invisible in society, just as the concept of an Asian Latin American identity remains elusive in the national consciousness. In the literary and academic world, the scarcity of a voice highlighting Chinese legacies in Peruvian literature is echoed by the dearth of such a voice in the criticism regarding works by Sino-Peruvian writers about Sino-Peruvian experiences.

This comparative analysis engages with two novels that evince deep parallelism with …

Cuteness And Curanderismo, Mylan T. Nguyen

Art Theses and Dissertations

Abstract:

In this paper I analyze the trajectory of concepts and explorations in my art practice during my graduate studies from 2019-2022. I examine how an interest in magic, healing and interconnectedness has led me to create illustration, ceramic, and risograph art that interprets the stories and practices I have encountered around Curanderismo, and Nahuales. I examine how these stories are shaped and also celebrate the wealth of healing knowledge they can provide.

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 …

Reading From Cutouts: The Aesthetics Of Alienation In The Photos Of Chinese Factory Workers, Heangjin Park

Asian and Asian American Studies Faculty Works

This essay explores the tensions, oppression, and alienation in factory workers’ relationship with their company and commodities registered in photographic aesthetics. Comparing product, portrait, and ID photos I took at a Chinese kimchi factory, I analyze how aesthetic dispositions in those photos were differentiated in the processes of preparation, review, editing, and publication. On the one hand, commodities are photographed to celebrate their virtues and value with the significant investment of time, resources, and attention to every detail. Their relationship with workers, who spend 14 hours a day making kimchi, is effectively effaced while the products are rendered appealing and …

The Rise Of An Eco-Spiritual Imaginary: Ecology And Spirituality As Decolonial Protest In Contemporary Multi-Ethnic American Literature, Andrew Michael Spencer

English Theses and Dissertations

The Rise of an Eco-Spiritual Imaginary reveals a shared ecological aesthetic among contemporary U.S. ethnic writers whose novels communicate a decolonial spiritual reverence for the earth. This shared narrative focus challenges white settler colonial mythologies of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism to instantiate new ways of imagining community across socially constructed boundaries of time, space, nation, race, and species. The eco-spiritual imaginary—by which I mean a shared reverence for the ecological interconnection between all living beings—articulates a common biological origin and sacredness of all life that transcends racial difference while remaining grounded in local ethnicities and bioregions. The novelists representing …

Memory Rewriting As A Method Of Inquiry: When Returning Becomes Collective Healing, Ethan Trinh, Giang Nguyen Hoang Le Mr., Ha Dong, Trang Tran, Vuong Tran

The Qualitative Report

Writing is collective healing to build a community. We, five Vietnamese bodies, enquire, how can individual memories be collective healing to rewrite a better future of education? We borrow Nhat Hanh’s philosophy to touch on our suffering to heal and Barad’s returning as a multiplicity of processes for reconnecting with the pastpresentfuture. We use the recollection of individual memories to share critical incidents of past experiences to build a collective community for healing purposes. We have demonstrated our deep commitment to creating a resilient system in retelling stories and rewriting for hope for educational change through this process.

Review Of Fang Tang's Literary Fantasy In Contemporary Chinese Diasporic Women’S Literature: Imagining Home, Lilly Chen

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Searching For Mirror Books For Young Asian/Asian-American Children With Disabilities, Sohyun Meacham, Su-Jeong Wee, Wu-Ying Hsieh, Pei-Chun Chen, Bryce Davis

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

America’s changing demographics and the increasing number of children with disabilities call for appropriate representations of race/ethnicity and disabilities in materials (e.g., books) for inclusive classrooms. This study analyzed how Asian/Asian-American (A/AA) people with disabilities had been portrayed in picture books with the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature (APAAL) or the Schneider Family Award (SFA). We addressed the intersectionality of Asian racial cultures and disabilities, focusing on the picture books with these awards, due to the potential impact of these portrayals on children. We used 35 picture books with the APAAL from 2001 to 2020 and 18 with the SFA …

Wages Of Resistance: A Consideration Of Time In Jessica Hagedorn’S Dogeaters, Laura A. Wright

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Using the formal elements of Dogeaters, Jessica Hagedorn offers a pointed critique of class. Bringing Karl Marx’s discussion of time from Capital into conversation with Gèrard Genette’s narratological essay “Order, Duration and Frequency” I argue that Hagedorn’s depiction of time deliberately undermines the systems of power in the novel. Drawing particularly on Genette’s conceptualization of duration and frequency, I examine Hagedorn’s depictions of men and women at work, specifically the characters of Romeo Rosales and Trinidad Gamboa. Romeo and Trinidad are seldom mentioned in criticism of Hagedorn’s text, but these characters demonstrate Hagedorn’s attention to the working-class and serve …

Orientalism Restated In The Era Of Covid-19, Joey Kim

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This essay bridges a gap between an analysis of anti-Asian targeting and an analysis of Orientalism. Because histories of Orientalism and anti-Asian targeting pre-date the current moment, I demonstrate the centrality of Orientalism to the evolution of xenophobic language and sentiment in U.S.-foreign historical relations. I recount instances of anti-Asian, xenophobic, and “Yellow-Peril” rhetoric in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, I examine the racialization of COVID-19 as a trope of orientalism. This racialization, I argue, places the Asian-presenting body in a state of heightened visibility, precarity, and susceptibility to plunder. The newfound precarity of the …

Trusting In Narrative: An Interview With Susan Choi, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Volume Eleven: Reading, Writing, And Teaching In The Whirlwind, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Cover Of Volume 11, Emily Chan

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Community Resilience: Stories About Chinatowns In Nyc During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Wendy W. Tan

Publications and Research

After two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sentiment that future is still insecure, and fluid has been widely shared by all the American communities. However, for this essay, I touched upon the effects and their measures of staying strong in a few Chinese American communities in New York City.

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 …

Cùng Với Nhau Chung Tay: A Collaborative Project With Vietnamese American Youth, Khanh Le

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of my research is to document, remember and reflect on the experiences of Vietnamese Americans. To create a space in which Vietnamese American youth can co-labor (García, 2020) and co-produce knowledge to disrupt the silence surrounding their lived experience in the U.S., I drew across methodological traditions for this collaborative project. In doing so, I seek to answer the following questions:

1. How do Vietnamese American youth view/narrate their lives and relationships to the past and the present in the U.S. and Vietnam?
2. What do youths’ narratives communicate about their transtrauma?

This collaborative project drew from translanguaging and …

Paper Sons And Chosen Families: Blurry Archives And Non-Biological Kinship In The Chong Family Album, Sam Battles

Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections

In the face of Chinese exclusion and Victorian-era morality, this project presents a family photo album as a counter-narrative to racialized and gendered immigration policies. The photo album is from the Chong family who were part of a Chinese American community living in San Francisco around 1915. The paper follows the fluctuating and non-chronological layout of the album and the uncertainties within to analyze Chinese Americans family formations in the context of state control of Asian migrants, including hyper-policing and surveillance around immigration status, queerness, and class. The Chong family album demonstrates how Chinese Americans employed flexible definitions of family …

Stop Asian Hate Zine, Alexandria Glover

Student Zines

This zine is a way to advocate for the Asian community. The graphic nature is purposeful as the hate crimes committed against Asians are atrocious themselves and should not be censored. This zine is supposed to make people feel uncomfortable because it needs to be seen and remembered. A bit of discomfort is nothing compared to the anxiety and fear Asians have in the U.S., especially since the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2. If enough people are horrified enough to advocate for change, then this zine has fulfilled its purpose.

Legal Strategies Used By Black Men During The Antebellum Period, A. D. Banse

Digital Legal Research Lab

AD Banse, "Legal Strategies Used by Black Men During the Antebellum Period" [Research Poster]

Digital Legal Research Lab REU Site, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2022

The Missouri Statute of 1807 existed as the primary act that somewhat ensured the freedom of those enslaved and pursuing their freedom. The act refuted laws such as the Futgitive Slave Clause of 1793 and 1850, and the Missouri Compromise, which were evidence that slaveholders held decisive political influence and could cast the Constitution in proslave terms (Baker 2012). These clauses essentially gave enslavers the right to seize enslaved people who escaped to free states deepening …

Habeas Corpus: Breaking Reservation Boundaries, Samantha Byrd

Digital Legal Research Lab

Dr. Katrina Jagodinsky’s Petitioning for Freedom examines marginalized peoples’ use of habeas corpus in the American West from 1812 to 1924. This project has uncovered Indigenous manipulation of the American legal system to counter the challenges of colonialism. Indigenous peoples used habeas to protest, and sometimes successfully mitigate boarding school experiences, forced removal, and confinement on reservations. This study aims to show how Indigenous peoples and other minorities had a complex understanding of the law and used it to their advantage.

Advisor: Katrina Jagodinsky

Understanding And Supporting Asian American Youth’S Mental Health Within Cultural And Family Contexts, In Young Park

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mental health problems are a major health issue among East Asian American (EAA) youth. Although previous research has explored the risk and protective factors associated with mental health problems of EAA youth, many studies have employed Eurocentric perspectives, thereby excluding their unique cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and values. To better understand mental health needs and support these youth, further research that identifies different factors associated with mental health problems in their cultural context and assesses evidence-supported and culturally responsive interventions is needed.

This three-manuscript dissertation is presented in three papers. The first manuscript presents an integrative conceptual framework that uses two …

A Home Shielded By Laws: Freedom Suits And Enslaved Mothers, Heidi Martin

Digital Legal Research Lab

This project collects, digitizes, and makes accessible the freedom suits brought by enslaved families in the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, Maryland state courts, and the United States Supreme Court. This project places families in the foreground of our interpretive framework of slavery and national formation.

Using TEI encoding, we focused on outcomes, relationships between individuals and the claim for freedom made. Using these data sets, I focused specefically on mothers petitioning for their children. Of the 508 cases I utilized, 131 included children and a parental figure. I set out to distinguish the additional burden mothers had …

In The Waiting: The Role Of The Slave Bastille In Antebellum D.C., Ellyzabeth Morales-Ledesma

Digital Legal Research Lab

In 1808 the Transatlantic Slave Trade ended and in turn the government created a federally protected human market. As the South's demand for human labor force increased the domestic slave trade rocketed and in turn created even more turmoil for the Black population if the United States. Slave Traders and Man-Dealers took advantage of the market and kidnapped Free Black men women and children. While waiting to be sold enslaved people would be admitted into holding cells and jails; this was the creation of slave jails and Slave Bastilles. Slave jails served as places where the horrors of a human …

Habeas Corpus As A Means For Economic Freedom In The Progressive Era, Janana Khattak

Digital Legal Research Lab

Habeas corpus protects individual freedom by allowing detained individuals proper trial. Economic liberty, or the “right to earn a living in an occupation of choice without unnecessary government interference,” is a key component of individual freedom. Following the depression of 1893, the Progressive Era ushered in a sharp increase in productivity. This was in part because of an immigration boom. While immigrants sought economic opportunities for the betterment of themselves and their families, ideologies of nativism rose.

Advisor: Katrina Jagodinsky

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), …

Building Our Own Houses: Aapis In Congress, Daenerys Pineda

CMC Senior Theses

During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian hate peaked and came to national attention. Given the country-wide scope of this issue, a potential avenue for its address is through federal representatives, and particularly through those representatives who identify as Asian-American. This community’s political participation began long before 2020, and this thesis evaluates how Asian-American representatives have provided meaningful political representation in various situations for a national Asian-American constituency. For the purpose of this thesis, I define substantive representation as an action of a representative, using their particular political powers and privileges, in the interest of their constituents. I conduct three case studies …

Investigating Asian American History And Its Roots In New England: A Curriculum For Secondary School Students, Karen Lau

Holster Scholar Projects

Connecticut is the first state to include Asian American and Pacific Islander studies in the K-12 public school curriculum, requiring boards of education to offer AAPI studies by the 2025-2026 school year. This curriculum supports the state’s efforts to teach students about AAPI history with a focus on New England. Under this six-week curriculum, students will learn about the transnational immigration of Asian indentured workers, the legacy of the Chinese Educational Mission, the heroism and resistance of Japanese Americans during World War II, the patriotism of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in the armed forces, and the activism of past …

Global Cities And Covid-19: Stories Of Resilience And Fragility In Los Angeles, Edward J.W. Park

Asian and Asian American Studies Faculty Works

This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global cities. In particular, the paper revisits and updates the academic literature on global cities and focuses on the discussion of the resilience and fragility of global cities in light of an unprecedented global pandemic. By severely testing the strength and durability of the international flow of goods and people, the sweeping scale and intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic directly called into question the thick and complicated network of global cities that serve as modes for international trade and travel. The paper then draws on the impact of COVID-19 on …