Asian American Studies Commons^™

To Bee Or Not To Bee: The Influence Of Jollibee On The Identity Formation Of Young-Adults In The Filipino U.S Diaspora, Riana Cherie Dela Cruz De Veas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research examines the role of Jollibee, a Filipino fast-food chain restaurant, as a vehicle of encouraging identity formation for young-adult Filipinos within the U.S Diaspora. Members of the Filipino diaspora—whichever foreign country it is located in—often face difficulties in exploring Filipino culture without the knowledge of any dialect within the Filipino language, access to Filipino social circles due to geographical placements, and feelings of pressure to assimilate into a mainstream, foreign culture. Existing research on how diasporic Filipinos develop their ethnic identity through various cultural channels remains limited, even as Filipino cultural icons like Jollibee have become increasingly more …

Urban Japanese, Rural American: How Regionality Shaped Nisei Girlhood In Prewar America, Lauren Reiko Yanase

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores Nisei girls' racial and cultural identity formation in the American West before their forced removal to the World War II Japanese American mass incarceration camps. Japanese American history has long been dominated by male narratives, from labor histories of the 1880's first-generation Issei to the American patriotism of the 1930's second-generation Nisei. Japanese American women are generally considered through generational categories, promulgating a linear story of American progress. I argue that regionality is the main factor that shaped Nisei girls' self-identity, employing transcribed interviews with Nisei women born 1924-1929 as primary sources to write narrative histories differentiated …

Improving Healthcare Utilization Models And Uncovering Health Behavior Patterns In Asian Americans Through Data Disaggregation, Luke Cho

Undergraduate Research Symposium Podium Presentations

Although Asian Americans are made up of 20+ distinct ethnicities with unique health outcomes, previous healthcare research has treated them as a monolithic group, covering up many important disparities in health outcomes and healthcare utilization patterns. This study examines how disaggregating Asian American health data by ethnicity improves models analyzing healthcare utilization patterns, focusing on routine physicals, dental checkups, alternative medicine consultations, and preference for ethnic concordance.

Using data from the 2015 Asian American Quality of Life survey (2,609 adults in Austin, Texas), binomial generalized linear models (GLMs) analyzed the impact of income, age, gender, insurance status, and ethnicity on …

A Qualitative Study Of The Career Experiences Of Asian And Asian American Female Administrators In U.S. Higher Education, Yunru Shen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the experiences of Asian and Asian American women administrators’ career paths in U.S. higher education. The research fills a gap in the literature regarding the careers of Asian and Asian American women administrators. The recruitment process was completed between May 13 and July 9, 2024. Recruitment emails were sent to 25 potentially qualified participants, including a network of 17 people made up of mentors, professors, and colleagues, as well as eight professional associations and LinkedIn. The participants were six Asian and Asian American biologically female administrators at U.S. colleges and universities. These participants currently hold …

Asia In Saint Louis: Synergy Of Library Instruction, Digital Humanities, And Community Engagement, Joan Wang, David Romney

Journal of East Asian Libraries

This article explores the integration of library instruction, digital humanities, and community engagement through the "Asia in Saint Louis" project at Washington University in St. Louis. Led by subject librarians Joan Wang and David Romney, in collaboration with digital humanities specialists and local community organizations, the project aimed to digitally reconstruct and showcase the histories of Asian Americans in St. Louis from the late 19th to the 20th century. Funded by the Missouri Humanities Council, the project employed ArcGIS StoryMap technology to create a series of interactive narratives. These StoryMaps, supported by archival research and community involvement, highlight key themes …

Bridging Thought And Action: History, The Digital Humanities, And Building The Foundations Of Asian/American Political Thought, Vivian Yan-Gonzalez

Asian American Studies Faculty Articles and Research

This article argues that understanding the historical contours of Asian American electoral engagement provides an essential foundation for studying Asian/American political thought. However, historians have tended to adopt a broad understanding of "politics" beyond traditional civic and electoral politics, due to limited historical sources on Asian American electoral engagement and the longstanding interest among Asian Americanist scholars in alternative politics. I reintroduce Asian American electoral history as a vital and viable subject of study by exploring how scholars can use digital humanities tools and methods to build the archives of Asian American politics and to explore new insights and questions.

Book Review Of The Tryout By Christina Soontornvat And Joanna Cacao, Simon Boonsripaisal

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Soontornvat’s graphic memoir, The Tryout diversifies the Thai American experience to an audience intended for K-12 teachers and educators, parents, caretakers, and children. Canadian Filipino Joanna Cacao serves as the illustrator for The Tryout and does superb drawing expressions and emotions aligning with text in bubbles and boxes implying thinking or speaking. The story centers on Christina, who is a 7th grader living in a small town in Texas trying out for the middle school’s cheerleading squad. She tries to fit in, deals with racism, maintains friendships, develops new hobbies, and learns more about herself as a multiracial Asian American. …

Promoting Emergent Literacy In Preschool Through Extended Discourse: Covert Translanguaging In A Mandarin Immersion Environment, Robin E. Harvey, Kevin M. Wong

Education Division Scholarship

Rich oral language practices, including the opportunity and ability to participate in cognitively and linguistically challenging extended discourse, are foundational to early literacy development. To meet children’s needs in their first exposure to the languages of schooling, educators may engage students in extended discourse multilingually. The current study focuses on student-centered translanguaging conversations to examine strategies that preschool teachers employ to support young children’s emerging bilingual and biliteracy development in a Mandarin immersion preschool serving primarily nonheritage learners of Mandarin in the United States. Findings indicate that, despite the school’s Mandarin-only policy, teachers engaged in covert translanguaging practices to extend …

Sexual Surveillance: Morality Policing Of Greeks And Italians In The Early 20th Century, Isabella Ferrell

Digital Legal Research Lab

The Petitioning for Freedom Project under Dr. Jagodinsky is a database of habeas corpus use in the West. It examines legal action by marginalized individuals. This project focuses on how Greek and Italian petitioners used habeas to challenge sexual policing in a xenophobic context.

Research poster titled Sexual Surveillance: Morality Policing of Greeks and Italians in the Early 20th Century; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

The Harding Brothers And Underage Enlistment In The Age Of American Expansion, 1851–1857, Ryan Minton

Digital Legal Research Lab

The Petitioning for Freedom Project is an NSF funded database project that seeks to collect and encode carceral, institutional, and interpersonal habeas corpus petitions from county, state, and federal courts all throughout the American West.

This research project explores and analyzes the twenty-four habeas corpus petitions that were submitted between 1851 and 1857 to the Saint Louis County Law Commissioners Office to challenge the enlistment of underage recruits stationed at Jefferson Barracks.

Research poster titled The Harding Brothers and Underage Enlistment in the Age of American Expansion, 1851–1857; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of …

Maternal Chains: Black Women's Legal Battles For Freedom In Pre-Emancipation America, Roshawnna Brinkley

Digital Legal Research Lab

This research examines the use of habeas corpus petitions by Black Women in antebellum America to secure freedom for themselves and their children. Given that slave status was inherited matrilineally, these legal actions had implications for generational freedom. In Dr. Jagodinsky’s Petitioning for Freedom project there are numerous cases of Black Women utilizing Habeas Corpus. This study focuses on these Women's agency in navigating a hostile legal system.

Research poster titled Maternal Chains: Black Women's Legal Battles for Freedom in Pre-Emancipation America; via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and …

To Have And To Hold: Habeas Corpus And The Mobilization Of Female Petitioners, 1832–1924, Miranda Martinez

Digital Legal Research Lab

Dr. Jagodinsky’s Petitioning For Freedom (PFF) is an open-access database of habeas corpus petitions from the American West. It aims to further our understanding of the United States legal landscape in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Research poster titled To Have and To Hold: Habeas Corpus & the Mobilization of Female Petitioners, 1832–1924; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

Profiled Pickpockets: Seattle's Black Community & 1890s Habeas Mobilization, Zoë Williams

Digital Legal Research Lab

The Petitioning for Freedom project examines habeas corpus in the American West, 1812–1924 to highlight the legal mobilization of marginalized people. This study uses habeas petitions to identify Black people's response to racial profiling in Seattle.

Research poster titled Profiled Pickpockets: Seattle's Black Community & 1890s Habeas Mobilization; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

Legal Proxies And Advocates: Exploring Inter-Case Relationships In 19th- And 20th-Century Habeas Corpus, Ethan Reiter

Digital Legal Research Lab

• The Petitioning for Freedom Project (PFF) is an open access database that details the use of habeas corpus in legal proceedings in the American West from 1812 to 1924.

• A writ of habeas Corpus is a challenge by a petitioner that alleges that someone is detained unlawfully.

• In certain instances. a petitioner is petitioning on behalf of someone who is held illegally. This study examines the nature of the relationships between petitioner and bound party and how those relationships reflect historical and legal developments over time.

Research poster titled Legal Proxies and Advocates: Exploring Inter-Case Relationships in 19th- and 20th-Century …

Equal Protection Of Life, Liberty, And Labor: Habeas Corpus & The 14th Amendment, 1901–1904, Madison Mendiola

Digital Legal Research Lab

Presents and synthesizes three cases demonstrating the use of habeas corpus in the contect of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution between 1901 and 1904.

Research poster titled Equal Protection of Life, Liberty, and Labor Habeas Corpus & the 14th Amendment, 1901–1904, presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

"Huddled Masses:" The Immigration Act Of 1917 In Habeas Corpus, Chikamso Chijioke

Digital Legal Research Lab

Research poster titled "Huddled Masses:" The Immigration Act of 1917 in Habeas Corpus; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Introduction

Dr. Jagodinsky's Petitioning for Freedom is a collection of habeas corpus petitions in the American West and examines marginalized peoples’ use of habeas to challenge detention. This project explores the role of the Immigration Act of 1917 in these cases. The Immigration Act of 1917, passed due to xenophobic tensions surrounding WWI, restricted immigration of people from Asia and the Pacific while implementing an English literacy test for those over 16 …

(Dis)Connecting Incommensurable Relationalities: Aesthetics Of Desirable Citizenship & Interethnic Solidarity In Vietnamese/American Diasporic Media, Anh A. T. Nguyen

Communication ETDs

Employing critical diasporic rhetoric to articulate the pull and push glimmer of essentialist and nationalistic agendas of constructing Vietnamese diasporic subjectivities, I elucidate the complicated structure of diasporic nationalism that gives shape to ambiguities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Vietnamese diasporic withdrawal and regroupment in interethnic politics. Through three case studies explicating Vietnamese diasporic responses to the Chinese virus rhetorics, the appearance of the South Vietnamese flag on January 6 Capitol grounds, and the Atlanta shootings in Saigon Broadcasting Television Networks (SBTN), I highlight how Vietnamese diasporic authorities perform and enact citizenships of becoming desirable, which elevates oppressive forces of ideological …

Thai Americans: A Poem Collection Featuring "Bilingual หมา Standard Poodle" And "Last Name กู Too Long", Simon Boonsripaisal, Ravadee Boonsripaisal

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This is a co-authored poem collection focusing on Thai American life. In Bilingual หมา Standard Poodle, interactions and observations are made between a Thai American family and their supportive standard poodle named Pumpkin. This poem interjects on the disaggregated Southeast Asian American experience with inclusion of a pet companion. In Last Name กู Too Long, a Thai American graduate student discusses with their mother the challenges of gaining employment. This poem brings attention to hiring bias in the screening and interview process.

Talk Story Prompt Cards, Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, Family Literacy Focus Committee, Education Subcommittee, Becky Leathersich (Chair), Nicole Fernandez (Interim Co-Chair), Zoë Bowlus, Jessea Young, Tiffany Lee, Kim Nguyen

Librarian Publications & Presentations

These prompt cards were inspired by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) and American Indigenous Library Association (AILA) presentation on “Talk Story: Centering Oral Traditions to Advance Literacy Justice and Transform Community Relationships” at the ALA Annual Conference 2023. One representative from APALA and one from AILA shared an oral storytelling experience. Afterward, a panel discussion was held discussing “Talk Story as a community of practice to recenter youth literacy programs as intergenerational literacy opportunities with an emphasis on oral histories and traditions, intersectional community building, and cultural sensitivities.”¹ The APALA Family Literacy Focus Committee decided it would be …

Women Strength: Using Photovoice To Explore Female Chinese International Students’ Experiences, Yue Cai

Doctoral Dissertations

Female Chinese international students face discrimination and stereotypes in Western academia based on race and gender, yet they possess unique “Women Strength” characterized by agency, resilience, and self-advocacy. This study explores how these students navigate cultural differences and develop their strengths while studying in the U.S. Drawing upon “Women Strength” as a theoretical framework, including Community Cultural Wealth, Critical Feminist Theory- Chinese feminism, decolonial feminism, and transnational feminism, transformative agency, resilience theory, and self-advocacy theory, this research employs a qualitative approach, including Photovoice and autoethnography. Three research questions guide the study: 1) What cultural differences do female Chinese international students …

Book Review Of Drawn Together By Minh Lê And Dan Santat, Simon Boonsripaisal

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Drawn Together, written by Minh Lê and illustrated by Dan Santat, depicts the story of a grandson and grandfather spending time in the afternoon together. Lê and Santat’s shared experiences and cultures influence the picturebook’s construction. The greatest strength in Drawn Together is the inclusion of family in the creation process. Lê’s meaningful words and phrases complement Santat’s colorful and energetic illustrations. The setting is in the grandfather’s house and away from the site of Thai restaurants and Thai Buddhist temples, to which most of the existing research on Thai Americans hones it on (Bao, 2015; Padoongpatt, 2017). Drawn Together …

The Effects Of Covid-19 On Asian American Perception Of Mental Health, Emily Tseung

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study describes a qualitative study using a grounded theory, constructivist approach, which sampled (N = 6) Asian American college students who lived in the United States during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Research shows that COVID significantly impacted the Asian American perception of mental health, including mental health help- seeking behaviors and discrimination experienced. The long-term effects of this are still largely unknown. In depth, semi-structured interviews were used to explore the lived experiences of these Asian Americans. Qualitative analysis revealed thematic differences for the following themes: (a) experience with mental illness, (b) mental health help- seeking …

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: Hansol Goo, Mathew Schmalz, Hansol Goo

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Loving 바리데기: A Traveler's Guide To Anthologizing The 여성 시인, Tiffany Hyunkyung Chang

Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses

This thesis retells the folktale of the Korean shaman goddess 바리데기’s (Paridegi) as my journey through Korean literature. It follows Korean feminist poet Kim Hyesoon’s typology of the three deaths that 바리데기must experience to become a shamanic goddess and mediator with Death. I map these three deaths (the Death of Losing Your Name, the Death of Diaspora, and the Death of Immortal Crossings) onto the three stages of my development as a second-generation Korean American literary scholar, translator, and artist. Through connecting my personal journeys with the disciplinary concerns facing comparative literature, Asian American studies, Asian area studies, and Korean …

Placemaking And Placewashing In Manhattan's Chinatown: Capitalist Vs. Community Interests, Mary Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the late 1890s, there have been internal and external placemakers in Manhattan’s Chinatown. They take the form of city government, real estate developers, and community organizations vying for space, and seeking to define what this neighborhood should be, for whom it should serve, and how it should look. Sometimes these would-be placemakers operate with neoliberal goals and overt orientalist and/or racist views. They push those narratives through via media representations and as a tactic to attract tourism, but with little regard for how it affects the community. In this work, I examine connections between historic ideas of placemaking and …

The Migration Of South Asians From India To Guyana: The Journey, Struggles In A New Land, Reasons For Changes Over Time And Their Cultivation Of A New Culture., Cynthia C. Harry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Indians from different regions of India arrived in Guyana through indentureship in 1838. They were under a five-year contract and had to work on the sugar plantations for the duration of their indentureship. While they tried to persist their Indian culture, assimilation in their new environments and interaction with people of different cultures, allowed them to develop a culture unique to Indo Guyanese heritage.

This thesis focuses on the history of Indian diaspora in Guyana. It evokes the struggles they faced on the ships, and during and after indentureship. It also touches on the political and racial issues they had …

Parent Strategies For Antiracist Parenting In Families Of Multiracial And Asian Descent, Matlida Tavares

Doctoral Dissertations

The Pew Research Center’s analysis of United States census data depicts and increasing number of individuals identifying as more than one race. From 2010 to 2020, the population had nearly doubled to 13.5 million. This is particularly evident in states with large populations of Asian American communities such as California, where nearly two million people identify as multiracial and people identifying as both White and Asian making up the largest portion of the 61% increase the state saw since 2010 (Henderson, 2022). Despite claims that an increase in multiracial individuals signifies an end of racism, multiracial children, navigating complex ethnic …

Creative Resilience Against Racism Among Asian Americans: Development Of A Method, Janice Chen

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The experience of racism is inevitable and can become internalized when racism is persistent. As an Asian American woman, I am interested in exploring how art can be used as a form of resilience against internalized racism among Asian Americans. Racism against Asian Americans and recent immigrants from Asia has always existed throughout the history of the United States. Systematic laws, institutional policies, and cultural norms have set rules and narratives to put Asian Americans at a disadvantage. In addition, Asian Americans may have difficulty opening the conversation about racism. Internalized racism can cause physical and mental harm. I used …

The Perpetual Foreigner: Modeling Cycles Of Asian American Discrimination, Philip Min

Honors Projects

Through an Asian American perspective catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this research investigates the concept of the state of the perpetual foreigner for Asian Americans and the subsequent cycling of race-related tensions. To define the state of foreignness for Asian Americans, this is understood first through Kim’s model of Racial Triangulation, which intends to model the relationships of racial groups in the United States – namely between Black, White, and Asians – through concepts of civic ostracization and relative valorization that relate directly to foreignness and hierarchy. This is then further expanded upon through the creation of a separate model, …

Abcs: American Born Chinese Stories, Ethan Peng

English Honors Theses

Inspired by life as an Asian American in New York City, ABC and Other Stories explores family dynamics and perspectives, public perceptions, and emotions throughout twenty-six stories, one for every letter of the alphabet. Real memories and fantastical elements intertwine throughout the collection, all falling under the theme of “ABC,” representing both the English language and “American Born Chinese.” Many of the narrators, left nameless and genderless, recount their stories of growing up in an immigrant household. One recalls the last time their parents physically punished them. Another thinks of being unsettled by a stranger on the subway. Other narrators …