Asian American Studies
Guidebook

for the City University
of New York

Edited by

Jane Sung-ee Bai and

Alexandra Seung Hye Suh

and the Editorial Committee

of the CUNY Initiative:

Asian American Studies Faculty
Development and Curriculum Project

New York, NY
November 1995


Asian American Studies Guidebook for the City University of New York
Copyright 1995. All rights reserved.

This Guidebook was published through funding from the CUNY Office of Faculty
Development.

Spring 1995 CUNY Initiative: Asian American Studies Faculty Development
and Curriculum Project

Peter Kwong, Director
Jane Sung-ee Bai, Program Coordinator
Sandy Yee, Administrative Assistant

= | Produced at The Print Center., Inc., 225 Varick St.,
New York, NY 10014, a non-profit facility for literary
mum 2rd arts-related publications. (212) 206-8465


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors’ Note Vv

Preface vil
Introduction ix
Chapter 1:

Interdisciplinary Fields in the Institution 1

Interdisciplinary Fields As a Challenge to Disciplinarity
Pedagogy

Structures and Administrative Organization: Courses, Programs,
Departments, and Institutes

Hiring and Tenure

Courses and Course Credit, Concentrations, and Majors

Asian American Studies and Other Interdisciplinary Fields

Chapter 2:
Introduction to Asian American Studies 9

General Priorities of the Field
An Introductory Course on Asian American Studies
Challenges Facing the Field

Chapter 3:
Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 17

Anthropology

Communication (or Journalism)
Education

History

English (Literature)

Media

Political Science

Psychology

Sociology


iv Asian American Studies Guidebook

Chapter 4:
Asian American Studies and Interdisciplinary Courses
With or Without Programs 41

Lesbian and Gay Studies
Urban Studies and Planning
Women’s Studies

Chapter 5:
Curricular Transformation: The Infusion Model for
Non-Asian American Studies Courses 49

Current Prospects

Tokenizing: Inclusion Without Impact
Gatekeeping vs. Identifying Priorities
An Example of Infusion

Implications and Horizons

Editorial Committee 57

Selected Bibliography 61


Introduction

CUNY established the earliest Asian American Studies program on the
East Coast at City College in 1970 as a result of student demands. The
program never flourished. In fact, it ended recently with the retirement
of its lone senior faculty. In 1993, Hunter College established its Asian
American Studies program—again as result of persistent student
struggles. It and the research-oriented Asian/American Center at
Queens College are now the only permanent Asian American Studies
presence in the whole CUNY system.

The obstacles for the development of Asian American Studies in the
CUNY system are many, not the least of which is the racial
marginalization of Asian Americans reflected in the mainstream
academic disciplines. Traditional academic departments generally see
Asian American Studies and other interdisciplinary programs as a
challenge to their academic domains. The departments often
undermine the programs through non-appointment and non-tenure of
faculty in interdisciplinary programs.

Continued mobilization of Asian American communities pressuring
CUNY colleges to hire more Asian American Studies faculty is still the
top priority, though in the 1990s we have the advantages of
demography and the growing political power of Asians in our favor.
Advocacy of the intellectual imperative of Asian American Studies on
campuses is equally important. There is the need to consolidate the
strength of Asian American Studies scholars in the New York City area
to shape a uniform strategy and thus establish an effective advocacy
force in this struggle.

The Asian American Studies Faculty Development and Curriculum
Project is designed for that purpose. This project, funded by the CUNY
Office of Faculty Development, has pooled human and intellectual
resources in the system to kick-start a CUNY-wide Asian American
Studies initiative.


Editors’ Note

In Spring 1995, the Core Committee of the CUNY Initiative: Asian
American Studies Faculty Development and Curriculum Project
conducted a series of meetings and seminars which provided the
foundation for this guidebook. The guidebook Editorial Committee’s
readings and discussions of the initial draft generated a coherent
structural framework and_ identified major omissions, — stylistic
discrepancies, and areas requiring clarification. Thus, we found it
necessary to make substantial revisions, as well as rewrite portions and
incorporate new material. Consequently, we take responsibility for any
shortcomings.

As the first publication to provide practical and structural guidelines
for the integration of Asian American Studies into the CUNY curriculum,
this guidebook attempts to

+ theorize Asian American Studies as an interdisciplinary field in
CUNY;

« introduce and provide a history of the field of Asian American
Studies;

« provide a detailed analysis of the intellectual and structural
relationship of Asian American Studies to many affiliated fields and
disciplines;

¢ address significant structural and conceptual challenges to the
integration of Asian American Studies at CUNY;

- offer specific teaching approaches and pedagogical and theoretical
considerations based on analyses of a wide body of Asian American
Studies syllabi from institutions nationwide and _ teaching
experiences of Core Committee members within the CUNY system;
and

« indicate significant intellectual challenges facing the field.

We consider this guidebook to be a work-in-progress—one which
will undoubtedly require amendments and refining, especially as Asian

Vv


vi Asian American Studies Guidebook

American Studies becomes increasingly established on CUNY campuses.

We thank Sandy Yee and Lily Ng for helping to make the Spring
1995 seminar program a success. We also thank Robert Ku and
Margaret Chin for their comments on and revisions of later drafts.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge the efforts of the past and present
student struggles to establish Asian American Studies at CUNY. Their
spirit, courage, and commitment inspire us.

Jane Sung-ee Bai
Alexandra Seung Hye Suh
Co-editors

New York City

October 1995


Preface

Curriculum Through the Ages

In some respects it seems long ago that we were developing some of
the first Asian American Studies courses at UCLA in 1970.' There simply
were no blueprints or models for us—this was not a simple task but we
were afforded unusual freedom to create new paradigms of teaching
and learning as well as adapt a variety of topics and disciplines to our
purposes. We had only a few basic principles: first, this was to be a
field that would produce, in some broad but discernible sense,
information that could benefit Asian American communities; second,
the field would, by definition, engage the communities of people it
studied so that the long-term process would be continually reflexive and
interactive; third, students would be encouraged to put their
knowledge to positive use. This “applied” element made Asian
American Studies differ enough from traditional humanities disciplines
to make some colleagues who believed in research “for its own sake”
somewhat uncomfortable. But our colleges and _ universities
accommodate many departments and schools with a much more
applied nature—Architecture, Performing Arts, Engineering, Business,
Agriculture, Law and Medicine, to name but a few. And many of the
social sciences do much in the way of applied research and teaching.
One of the unusual facets of our approach was advocacy for Asian
American communities facing socio-economic problems; in this way we
were akin to fields also then emerging like Women’s Studies or
Environmental Studies.

But in other respects it seems like we are still in the same
place—trying to assist individual students and groups who would like to
be involved in Asian American Studies but are without Asian American
Studies faculty or institutional support for this work. This is especially

' Editors’ Note: The first Asian American Studies programs were established in 1969,
as a result of the Third World Student Strikes, at San Francisco State College (now a
university) and UC Berkeley.

vil


viii Asian American Studies Guidebook

true away from the West Coast universities with fairly long traditions in
this field. And yet a great deal has changed in the past quarter-century
and this CUNY guidebook reflects the dramatic social, political, and
intellectual shifts that have occurred. | have had the privilege of
working intensely with Asian American Studies programs and initiatives
in Southern California and in Hawai'i. Over the past two years | have
had the pleasure of working with students, faculty, and community
groups struggling with the challenges of establishing this field in New
York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey—the Mid-Atlantic area with
dramatic increases in Asian American student and community
populations. Clearly the CUNY system is now faced with resource
challenges unlikely to abate in the foreseeable future. This crisis comes
at precisely the time that the need for Asian American Studies is
greatest and the demand likely to be most energetically articulated. It
does seem to me that there will be opportunities for some gains in the
midst of a generally gloomy environment.

This guidebook is evidence that there is, for example, an impressive
critical mass of individuals within New York City capable of constructing
interesting and challenging courses with cutting-edge material. The
curriculum guidelines and reading list will be of immediate use to
students and faculty anxious to institute new courses or to encourage
students in the absence of established courses. The guidebook will also
be of great interest to those who wish to understand Asian American
Studies as a field of study and to imagine its place within the CUNY
system. The topics to be studied and researched—reading assignments,
documentaries, site visits, and lectures—would certainly look different
in Berkeley or in Honolulu. But the basic principles of progressive
education and commitment to social justice would surely find
considerable resonance everywhere. It will be our major challenge to
find ways to incorporate these principles and this field into the many
campuses of the City University of New York.

Franklin Odo
New York City
Spring 1995


x Asian American Studies Guidebook

During the 1995 Spring semester, a core group of Asian American
scholars gathered for a series of four seminars. Five consultants in
different fields of Asian American Studies presented their papers. Each
gave an evaluation of the curriculum development in a specialized field,
and discussed the various teaching approaches, the major issues of
concern and debate, and the primary texts in the field. Their
presentations were based on their own teaching experience and on an
analysis of syllabi used by others around the country. Much of their
discussions touched not just on course content but on pedagogical and
academic institutional issues relating to Asian American Studies.

After their presentations, ample time was given to participants for
questioning and dialogue. For many of us, this was a rare opportunity
for in-depth intellectual exchange with fellow Asian American Studies
scholars—rare due to the marginal status of Asian American Studies and
the relative isolation of Asian American Studies scholars on the East
Coast. The series helped us to catch up with reading and follow-up on
the critical debates in the field. More importantly, we have constructed
a peer group struggling to make Asian American Studies a part of the
CUNY academic community.

The Asian American Studies Faculty Development and Curriculum
Project enabled us to call together almost all the major scholars in the
New York City area in the field of Asian American Studies. The core
group of approximately 15 members are full-time and adjunct faculty or
graduate students in the CUNY system. During the public sessions after
the core group discussions, we were able to attract scholars from
Columbia, Harvard, and Rutgers universities, as well as CUNY college
students and community activists.

This assembly of mostly younger scholars is the bedrock of the
future for the field on the East Coast. This initiative is particularly
important for the CUNY system, as it is located in the heart of one of the
largest Asian concentrations in the nation, attracting ever larger number
of Asian students, and housing, at present, the program that offers the
largest number of Asian American Studies courses on the East Coast.
CUNY colleges and the Graduate Center do and will play a vital role in
the national development of Asian American Studies.

Though most of the core group members are junior faculty and
doctoral candidates with busy schedules, they met willingly a dozen


Introduction xi

times in the planning before and summary after the seminars. The
participants have had an extremely positive experience with the project,
for it has given us new energy, new direction and camaraderie. We
have come to believe that we will be able to make Asian American
Studies a vital part of the CUNY academic environment.

In closing, | would like to thank the CUNY Office of Faculty
Development for funding this project. | would also like to thank Jane
Bai for her intellectual leadership and her admirable administrative
efforts in coordinating this successful project.

Peter Kwong
New York City
July 1, 1995


Chapter 1
Interdisciplinary Fields
in The Institution

This opening chapter surveys issues facing Asian American Studies’ as
an interdisciplinary field struggling for its place in the academy.
Interdisciplinary fields are fields of study which cannot be contained
within one of the traditional disciplines, such as Literature, History, or
Sociology, but rather draw from multiple disciplines. By the nature of
their formulations and approaches, most interdisciplinary fields
challenge the very notion of disciplinarity and disciplinary boundaries.
This chapter discusses the major structural and conceptual barriers to
the institutionalization of emergent interdisciplinary fields and analyzes
the relationship of Asian American Studies to other interdisciplinary
fields, such as Women’s Studies and Lesbian and Gay Studies.’

Interdisciplinary Fields As a Challenge to Disciplinarity

Post-secondary education in the United States and much of the
world is formally divided into disciplines: classifications which
designate and distinguish among objects of study. Thus, in Literature,
one studies literary texts, in Sociology, human social behavior, and so
forth. As the word suggests, however, disciplines also comport
historically developing yet consistent, specific, and rigorous approaches
to their diverse objects of study: “belonging” to a discipline
traditionally means not only studying something in particular but
studying it in a way that sustains and is sustained by the ways it has
been studied in the past. One of the foundational components of
training in a particular discipline is the assimilation of the history of that

1 Editors’ Note: The field known as “Asian American Studies” has come to include
Pacific Islander Studies as well. However, Pacific Islander issues continue to be
marginalized within the field.

2 Editors’ Note: Asian Americanists and other scholars have framed this field to
include Bisexual Studies. This field is also increasingly being referred to as “Queer
Studies.”


2 Asian American Studies Guidebook

discipline, a mastery of its methods, and a thorough understanding of
its methodological approaches. Scholarship is thus parceled into more
or less mutually exclusive categories, each with methods and
approaches proper to it.

Over the past few decades, a number of fields which do not follow
a single discipline have developed within the U.S. university structure,
fields such as Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, African Studies,
and Middle Eastern Studies—"area” studies which designate a
geographical region outside of Europe, and which are themselves a
product of the earlier “Oriental Studies.’ For ideological and political
reasons too complex to address adequately here, these fields have long
been able to exist alongside traditional disciplines. The core of the U.S.
educational system was understood to concern Europe and European
culture, so that literary studies, for example, traditionally meant the
study of the literature of Europe. Accordingly, the study of Asian
literature would be carried out not within the discipline of literature,
but rather within the discipline of Asian Studies, a structural
arrangement still in place today which manifests the ideological
position that the study of Asian literature should naturally be lumped
together with the study of Asian economy, Asian history, and Asian
societies. The main point here is that these “area studies,” though
interdisciplinary, do not structurally or intellectually challenge the
traditional disciplines. The overarching category of geography
partitions off scholarship about a designated non-European part of the
world. The geographical boundaries which define area studies have
thus become intellectual barriers as well; thus, scholarship addressing
the non-European world remains apart from the concerns of scholars
within the traditional disciplines.“

The emerging’ interdisciplinary fields such as Asian American

3For an extended discussion of the history of Oriental Studies and its historical,
intellectual, and political underpinnings, see Edward Said, Orientalism (New York:
Random House, 1978).

4An interesting and ironic illustration of the university's historical Eurocentrism is
the growing presence of American Studies. The work of Americanists continues to
be marginal vis-a-vis the work of Europeanists. But even within American Studies,
the treatment of Asian American Studies and other Ethnic Studies components is
highly problematic. An ideological battle is being waged between Ethnic Studies


Interdisciplinary Fields in The Institution 3

Studies, Women’s Studies, and Lesbian and Gay Studies, are like area
studies in that they draw from more than one of the traditional
disciplines. They are also unlike area studies in a number of ways. The
histories of their origins are one indication of these differences.
Whereas area studies historically grew out of the needs of the state (for
knowledge regarding politically and militarily important areas of the
globe) and were often state-funded, interdisciplinary fields such as
Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies, and Lesbian and Gay Studies arose
from student and community protest movements which demanded that
education directly correspond to society and to the unmet needs and
interests—in all senses—of the people. Recognition and legitimation of
these fields on their own terms challenges the very foundations of
traditional disciplines on three primary bases: scope, methodology, and
disciplinarity itself.

For the first matter, scope, note that the purview of the emerging
fields is not geographically isolatable but rather bears upon the same
terrain that traditional disciplines purport to study, pointing to specific
lapses, biases, and distortions within what is proper to the traditional
disciplines. U.S. lesbian and gay history, U.S. women’s history, African
American history, Native American history, Latino history, and Asian
American history are all integral components of U.S. history, but these
histories have been largely excluded from or distorted in traditional
American historical studies. Thus, these emergent fields designate

and American Studies. Whereas these two fields appear to cover the same terrains,
with Asian American Studies as a part of either or both, the two fields are at odds
politically: American Studies tends to reproduce the hierarchies and biases of
Eurocentric studies, whereas Ethnic Studies emphasizes diversity within “America”
and challenges such hegemony. Perhaps the growth of American Studies is a sign
of higher educational institutions’ recognition of the fundamental significance of
areas studied within the rubric of Ethnic Studies and, thus, the academy‘s
intention to dilute and monitor the counter-hegemonic foundation of Ethnic
Studies.

5Though some of these fields, such as Women’s Studies and African American
Studies, have had a formal place in U.S. academic institutions for over 25 years,
they are more or less without exception still marginalized in a number of ways.
They are referred to as “emergent” in this structural sense only, and the term is not
intended to overlook or discredit the extremely wide body of scholars and the
history of scholarship in these fields.


4 Asian American Studies Guidebook

subjects and topics which by definition should be covered by the
traditional disciplines but are not covered or improperly covered.

In addition to challenging what is studied within traditional
disciplines, the interdisciplinary fields carry with them methodological
innovations and theoretical reconceptualizations. Filling in what is
missing and correcting what was distorted is a process that cannot
leave original theoretical structures intact. New material generates not
only more knowledge but also different ways of thinking, which both
add to and challenge the work generated within the disciplines.

Finally, the emergent interdisciplinary fields challenge the very
notion of disciplinarity, or at least its sufficiency. Whereas there are
contingents within each discipline fighting for the incorporation, for
example, of Asian American sociological issues within sociological
studies, and of Asian American literature within literary studies, the
disciplines as a whole integrate only those aspects which are
characteristic of the respective disciplines and do not recognize the
interdisciplinarity of the field. Scholars in Asian American Studies and
other interdisciplinary fields have found that much meaningful work
can only be done by crossing disciplinary boundaries, and recognizing
the linkages among what are normally seen as discrete disciplines.

Pedagogy

It is clear that curricular transformation alone will not bring about
the changes in higher education sought by students, communities, and
educators. Although this guidebook is devoted to curricular issues, it
should be noted that curriculum is only one cornerstone of the
challenge that interdisciplinary fields bring to traditional education.
Emergent interdisciplinary fields, in addition to bringing previously
excluded matters to scholarly attention and challenging traditional
intellectual categories, have also advocated new approaches to
pedagogy. Voices within these fields have questioned traditional
teacher-student relationships, structures of authority, methods of
analysis and evaluation of student work, and classroom dynamics.

Structures and Administrative Organization:
Courses, Programs, Departments, and Institutes

Departments, courses, programs, and institutes form an


Interdisciplinary Fields in The Institution 5

interlocking network that structures the educational dimension of the
college and university system in the United States. Departments are
the principal units in the university structure. They are generally
constituted along traditional disciplinary boundaries, and hold primary
sway over courses, majors, and concentrations. Courses must be
offered and faculty must be rostered through at least one department.
A program is a field of study often without independent faculty that
offers courses in a particular field. Faculty members—permanent or
adjunct—who teach within a program are generally rostered through
existing departments and their courses under the interdisciplinary
program are cross-listed with that department's other offerings. The
Asian American Studies and Women's Studies programs at Hunter
College are examples. Programs may or may not be able to offer
students majors of some kind in the field, though they usually can offer
concentrations. Institutes are generally non-teaching entities
composed of scholars engaged in independent research and
administrators who facilitate research and extra-curricular
programming.

Often, one or more departments within an institution may offer
Asian American Studies courses without an overarching structure such
as an Asian American Studies program or department. These courses
are generally taught by adjunct faculty or by permanent faculty without
substantial experience in the field, and who may or may not be moving
toward an Asian American Studies specialization. Although this is in
itself a laudable attempt on the part of the individual departments to
address curricular shortfalls, it must be clear that such courses, often
spontaneously generated and sporadically offered, can in no way
substitute for the permanent establishment of Asian American Studies
at the institution. Some system must be in place guaranteeing the
continuation of Asian American Studies beyond the presence of a
particular course or instructor at an institution. And, only a permanent
administrative structure with some control over hiring, curricular and
extra-curricular programming, and long-term planning can guarantee
any stability and security of the field within that institution. Only with
such a structure can Asian American Studies be considered to be solidly
established on a particular campus.


6 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Hiring and Tenure

Many scholars of interdisciplinary fields are themselves trained in
and work within traditional disciplines because structures for the
interdisciplinary fields often do not exist. With few exceptions,
departments control the hiring and tenure of permanent faculty.
Candidates are sought based on departmental needs, evaluated and
selected by departmental search committees, and tenured based on
departmental and university standards. Because departments are
predicated along traditional disciplinary lines, those working in
interdisciplinary fields must contend with structures—and often
colleagues—inimical to their work and unprepared to evaluate it in
terms of the interdisciplinary field itself. When a program is established
it sometimes carries with it one or more floating lines. These are faculty
positions designated for the field, not for a specific department.
However, the faculty hired must be rostered through one or more
existing departments and thus the departmental standards once again
become relevant, with program advocates and departmental
representatives favoring different candidates. Even adjunct instructors
must generally work within at least one department.

Courses and Course Credit, Concentrations, and Majors

Under the present system, faculty affiliation with departments is
also crucial for course credit. Courses in interdisciplinary fields often
also satisfy distribution requirements, which once again are determined
along departmental lines. Since students often do not have the time or
the financial resources to take courses outside of what is required for
graduation, cross-listing courses can allow students to satisfy
requirements with courses in an interdisciplinary field they are
interested in. Interdisciplinary fields, when institutionalized within a
program, can offer students the opportunity to concentrate in the field,
and in some cases, provide a major. Both are especially difficult in fields
such as Asian American Studies and Lesbian and Gay Studies which,
unlike Women’s Studies, do not have a critical mass of faculty already
rostered through existing departments and able to teach in the field.
The establishment of a major is, again, a difficult enterprise because of
the same issues regarding the lack of faculty positions, control over new
hires and tenure, and evaluation of the field by committees operating


Interdisciplinary Fields in The Institution 7

along disciplinary standards.

Asian American Studies and Other Interdisciplinary Fields

Whereas traditional disciplines carve out mutually exclusive niches
in an institution, the boundaries of interdisciplinary fields are by nature
flexible. Thus, in addition to drawing from and contributing to the
many existing disciplines, interdisciplinary fields can be extremely
compatible with one another and due in fact overlap in many areas.
Individual courses and faculty often combine theoretical perspectives,
themes, and materials from more than one interdisciplinary field. Of
course, the degree to which all of these fields are institutionalized will
determine the degree to which their alliance is officially recognized. For
example, though there is considerable overlap between Lesbian and
Gay Studies and Asian American Studies, this fact is often not
recognized institutionally because, in many institutions, administrative
structures have not been established for either field. On the other hand,
many institutions do have Women’s Studies programs, which may offer
Lesbian and Gay Studies courses and/or Asian American Studies courses.

When one interdisciplinary field gains an institutional foothold, its
administrators are sometimes willing and able to facilitate the entrance
of another interdisciplinary field in the same college or university.
However, even when there is some willingness on the part of the more
established field, that field rarely, if ever, carries the resources and
influence of a traditional department. Accordingly, its ability to
facilitate the establishment of another interdisciplinary field is often
limited to arranging an adjunct course or extra-curricular programming.
Regardless, it must be kept in mind that the institution, not another
interdisciplinary program within it, must be held ultimately accountable
for the offering of a comprehensive curriculum. Despite budgetary
constraints, a zero-sum financial argument is never an adequate
response to educational imperatives.


Asian American Studies Guidebook


Chapter 2
Introduction to Asian
American Studies

Born out of the Third World Student Strikes which began in 1968 at San
Francisco State College (now a university), Asian American Studies
emerged in a climate of Third World liberation struggles against
European and U.S. imperialism, a heightened awareness of the
academy’s role in the U.S. military-industrial-technological complex,
increasing identification by Asian American students with other
oppressed peoples, and an intensifying movement against the Vietnam
War. As an academic field of study, Asian American Studies is the
disciplined examination of Asians in the United States, and oftentimes
the Americas. Its category of analysis encompasses a wide range of
ethnic groups, including East Asians, Southeast Asians, and South
Asians, and extends at least into the eighteenth century. Asian
American Studies also includes Pacific Island Studies, and its purview
accordingly involves the history and experiences of native peoples,
including Hawai‘ians, Guamanians, and Samoans, and their migrations
to Hawai'i and the U.S. mainland.

General Priorities of the Field

Asian American Studies is predicated on the basis of an Asian
American panethnicity which sees Asian Americanness not only as a
result of racist homogenizing but also as a basis for non-essentialist
political alliance and solidarity. Throughout its twenty-six-year history,
Asian American Studies has developed a flexible yet identifiable set of
priorities that continues to remain central to the field. While the
following priorities are not intended to be prescriptive or limiting to
individual scholars, they reflect those considerations that determine
Asian American Studies as a distinct field with a “critical,
counterhegemonic stance.”

6 For elaboration on the current trends and issues that are challenging the original


10 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Asian American Studies and Asian American Communities

Asian American Studies is accountable to Asian American
communities, both narrowly and broadly defined. It is not only
individual scholars and teachers but also Asian American
communities who have a stake in Asian American Studies research,
scholarship, and teaching, and thus their interests and input must
be considered. Of course, questions can and do arise as to what
constitutes “Asian American communities” and the standards for
determining “community interest.” Rigid, monolithic conceptions
of communities defined, for example, exclusively along ethnic lines,
may ignore the stratifications of gender, class, and sexuality, and
must be challenged. However, the general principle remains that
knowledge is neither “for its own sake” nor should it benefit
scholars if it is at the expense of the communities they have based
their work on. At this point, the question of how to maintain
ongoing dialogue and exchange between communities and the
academy, as well as accessibility and accountability of academy to
community, seem to be important issues.

Contemporary Issues

Asian American Studies is redefined and reshaped through
engagement with current circumstances and issues. In designing
their courses, instructors must reassess the field and their emphases
in light of new developments within the field and global, national,
and local current events, as well as the applicability of material to
the specific needs of the campus community in which the courses
are taught.

Asian American Studies as a Corrective to Traditional

U.S. Education
Asian American Studies addresses not only the fact that treatment
of Asians in traditional curricula has been distorted or neglected,
but examines this distortion and neglect as constitutive both of the
fields themselves and of the ways in which the subjects which are

visions of Asian American Studies, see “Asian American Studies: Reevaluating for the
1990s,” Lane Ryo Hirabayashi and Marilyn C. Alquizola, The State of Asian America:
Activism and Resistance in the 1990s (Boston: South End Press, 1994).


Introduction to Asian American Studies 11

the focus of study are understood. Thus, for example, lack of
knowledge of Asian American history, sociology, political science,
and economics has made it possible for the model minority myth to
become firmly entrenched in U.S. mainstream perceptions. Asian
American Studies generate theoretical models must be elaborated
which provide a more accurate assessment of Asian Americans’
educational, economic, and social adaptation in the United States.
And, in addition to misperceiving Asian Americans as a group, such
lacunae in education make a thorough understanding of such
crucial historical moments as the Reconstruction, during which
Chinese laborers were recruited to replace Black slaves on southern
plantations, impossible.

Asian Americans as a Component of Ethnic Studies

Asian American Studies emphasizes Asian Americans’ historical and
contemporary relationship to other communities of color in the
United States. This emphasis resists dominant trends which tend to
produce narratives and theories which isolate and alienate racial
and ethnic groups from one another.

Redefining Scholarly Material

Asian American Studies emphasizes the importance and legitimacy
of Asian American sources. It has amplified and validated the role
of oral testimonies and histories, which are often the only means of
access to crucial historical, cultural, and sociological insights. It has
made use of archival and other material not traditionally seen as
scholarly evidence, such as the poems carved into the walls of the
Angel Island detention center by Chinese male immigrants.

An Introductory Course on Asian American Studies

A foundational course in Asian American Studies introduces
students to the history of the field and its methodologies, and provides
a general overview of themes and topics. As in other disciplinary and
interdisciplinary introductory courses, “Introduction to Asian American
Studies” courses emphasize breadth, coverage, and synthesis, as
opposed to in-depth exploration of a specific topic. The course places
the field of Asian American Studies within its historical context—arising


12 Asian American Studies Guidebook

out of student movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and highlights the
general priorities of the field. These include the field’s relationship to
Asian American communities, a focus on contemporary issues, a re-
evaluation of traditional U.S. education from an Asian American Studies
perspective, a conceptualization of the field as a component of Ethnic
Studies, a consideration of the field within a global context, a
redefinition of scholarly methods and materials, and new approaches to

pedagogy.

Teaching Approaches

“Introduction to Asian American Studies” courses must address the
ethnic diversity of Asian American populations, even if this diversity is
not represented within a particular classroom. One approach has been
to divide the syllabus by ethnic and/or national origin. Whereas this
method fosters clarity, it also carries with it certain problems. Division
by ethnicity diminishes the basis for cross-cultural comparative and
synthetic analyses, promotes fragmentation, and homogenizes
members of each ethnic or national group, ignoring the diversity within
each group. Another approach divides the syllabus by themes,
examining a selection of materials on several (but not all) ethnic groups.
This approach can facilitate comparative analyses and provide a better
basis for an articulation of Asian American panethnicity. Both
approaches must select topics and themes judiciously, taking into
account not only ethnic diversity, but also regional differences,
historical processes, class and gender divisions, and other issues.

Another significant feature of “Introduction to Asian American
Studies” courses is that they acknowledge that Asian American Studies
is a burgeoning and vital field. While all fields are constantly evolving,
the process is particularly acute for Asian American Studies and other
emerging fields which are gradually gaining the institutional footholds
and financial resources with which to develop a solid base of research
and scholarship. Thus, “Introduction to Asian American Studies”
courses must keep abreast of changes and developments, placing them
within the context of the field as a whole.

“Introduction to Asian American Studies” courses bring key
methods and themes of the field to bear upon the examination of both
historical and contemporary issues. Part of the process of defining the


Introduction to Asian American Studies 13

field is emphasizing the connections among the field, Asian American
communities, Asian American community organizations, and local,
national, and international issues.

Themes/Topics

Overview of patterns in and effects of the Asian American presence
in the United States (e.g., racial and other inequalities; community
formation; activism; diverse perspectives on American history and
contemporary issues)

Construction and components of Asian American identity (e.g.,
racial marginalization and inequality; issues of ethnicity, class,
gender, sexuality, language, and generation; ethnic and cultural
diversity among Asian Americans)

Overview of basic concepts, theories, and methods of social inquiry:
polishing methodological tools for not only Asian Americans but
also other American “minorities” and social groups in general
Introduction to the disciplines of Asian American/Ethnic Studies
Impact of patterns of immigration and contemporary race relations
on current configurations of family, community, political,
economic, and educational issues

Changing immigration patterns

Refugee experiences

Model minority myth

Higher education/bilingual education/language rights/multicultural
education

Anti-Asian violence

Political representation

Interracial/interethnic/intraethnic relations

Labor

Health/mental health

Domestic violence

Gender and sexuality

Media representations

Prospects for the 1990s and beyond

Challenges Facing the Field

Ethnic and national diversity among Asian Americans is far too


14 Asian American Studies Guidebook

complex to address by using traditional ethnic classification methods:
Chinese Americans come from Taiwan and Hong Kong in large numbers
besides continued migration from the People’s Republic of China, and
there are Asians remigrating to the United States from their diasporic
homes in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other parts of the world.
New immigrants, with their backgrounds in developing countries and
postcolonial societies, are bringing Asian America into a dialogue with
changing global conditions and transnational identities. These
demographic changes call for a re-evaluation of links between
academics and community issues and of the forces of racialization,
ethnicization, social class, gender, and globalization in the formation of
new Asian communities.

Within the Social Sciences, most Asian American Studies programs
are currently too small to offer many courses beyond the introductory
level. Among the few that are more focused, oftentimes an inordinate
amount of classroom time is devoted to correcting mainstream
stereotypes and misconceptions of Asians and Asian Americans. Thus,
the debates focus on whether Asians are a successful minority; whether
the existence of ethnic enclaves provides Asian immigrants a new path
towards upward social mobility; whether Asian Americans are politically
passive; whether Asian Americans should be classified as an ethnic
minority or a racial minority; or whether cultural rather than class assets
are the causes for Asian Americans’ high academic achievements.

Of course, the proclivity to emphasize more well known events and
issues can be attributed to the uneven character of research agendas
which tend to favor those ethnic groups with longer historical presences
and larger populations in the United States. As a result of these and
other factors, Asian American Studies as a field often seems to lack its
own research agenda. In Asian American history,’ for instance, much
scholarship addresses only prominent events. For example, research is
saturated by the Japanese American internment experience and devoid
of any substantive attention towards the following period. There are
dozens of works on the Chinese Exclusion Act but almost nothing on
Chinese Americans from the 1900s to the 1960s; work on Koreans

7 Depending on the institution, History is classified as either a social science or an
humanities discipline. For the purposes of this guidebook, History is considered a
social science discipline as determined by the CUNY curriculum.


Introduction to Asian American Studies 15

focuses on the African American and Korean American “conflicts” of the
late 1980s and early 1990s; work on Southeast Asians, specifically
Vietnamese and Cambodian, focuses on refugee policies and
experiences. Moreover, research has favored earlier Asian American
groups (Chinese and Japanese), indicating the field’s imperative to
generate more work on the dozens of other Asian ethnic groups.

Asian American Studies has evolved from a highly ideological
approach with emphasis on racial and class oppression (identifying
Asian Americans as part of the “colored minorities”) to an ethnic study
orientation (identifying Asians more with the “assimilation” experiences
of the European immigrants). Within the academy, where class
theories, community activism, and oral research are discouraged, the
sharp edges of Asian American Studies are muted by research agendas
based on analysis of census data and historical documents. And, given
the prevalent fierce attack on totalizing discourses in the disciplines, the
field has become fragmented into specializations, rendering
comparative studies almost nonexistent. Increasingly, researchers are
focusing on issues concerning a single national group, in a particular
place, and during a specific time period. In the face of the diversity and
complex nature of Asian American communities, instructors are now
more concerned with the breadth of coverage than with theoretical
depth and analysis. Although comparative scholarship appears to have
gained more acceptance in certain academic arenas, such research is
still generally marginalized.

Recent publications reflect little effort, or a seemingly intentional
resistance, towards the formulation of a central theoretical axis for
Asian American Studies as a unified field. In fact, with the increasing
interest in Asian Diaspora Studies, the trend is to study the linkage
between single national groups and their Asian “homelands,” further
diluting the concept of Asian America. Most courses offered by Asian
American Studies programs nationwide stretch the definition of the
field far beyond the previously accepted locale of analysis (e.g., “History
of South Asians Overseas”). While a course such as “United States and
Philippines Relations” should have a space within the field in that it
covers the colonialist relationship which clearly affects Filipino/a
American experience (e.g., Filipino/a labor migration and immigration
patterns to the United States), the scope of study needs to be expanded,


16 Asian American Studies Guidebook

and thus contextualized, to include Filipino/a experience in the United
States in relation to other Asian ethnic groups, communities of color,
and the broader U.S. society.

Another general challenge is providing equal coverage of all Asian
ethnic groups from the 1800s to the present. Such an initiative is
predicated upon the concept of a collective Asian American identity.
Recognizing the enduring relevancy and currency of this political
construction, Asian Americanists continue to develop and generate
teaching strategies that would utilize selected themes and topics to
reveal patterns of experiences for Asian ethnic groups. An on-going
process of critique is necessary to negotiate the often tense relationship
between recognizing distinct differences among Asian ethnic
groups—which tends to perpetuate an insularity that ignores the
operations of systemic discriminations and the dynamics of oppressive
powers—and contextualizing those experiences within broader
theoretical frameworks—which would allow for significant comparative
analyses. One substantive attempt to make Asian American Studies less
isolated and more politically relevant has been cross-ethnic analysis,
especially from labor, women, migration, and Cultural Studies
perspectives.

Many of the challenges outlined above can be met through
increased faculty hirings and funding for research—at least initially. The
bottom line, however, is that a programmatic structure is needed to
house faculty and scholars, to provide institutionalized forums for on-
going discussions, and to centralize the field so that developments can
be built upon rather than reinvented in isolation. An institution's
recognition of Asian American Studies as an intellectual imperative must
be substantiated with financial commitment. Only then can Asian
American Studies remain consistent with the field’s critical and
counterhegemonic principles.


Chapter 3
Asian American Studies
Courses Within Departments

This chapter presents general course descriptions and commonly
covered themes and topics of Asian American Studies courses offered
through departments. As explained in Chapter 1, within higher
education institutions most departments are defined by traditional
disciplines, such as English (Literature), Linguistics, History, Sociology,
Psychology, Political Science, and Anthropology. Some institutions also
have departments which are interdisciplinary in nature, but still retain,
for the most part, discipline-specific components. An Asian Studies
department, for example, is constituted by a number of discipline-
specific courses, such as South Asian literature, Japanese language, and
Korean history. Within a department structure, however, Asian Studies
is institutionally recognized as a field of study. Given the predominance
of discipline-specific departments on CUNY campuses, the offerings of
Asian American Studies courses are most likely—as has been the case at
Queens, Hunter, and Baruch Colleges—to emerge from such
institutional structures. In other words, discipline-specific departments
have hired adjunct instructors or permitted rostered faculty members to
teach Asian American Studies courses within particular disciplines, such
as Asian American literature and Asian American history. Prior to the
establishment of the Asian American Studies program at Hunter College
in 1993, adjunct courses on Asian American literature were offered
through the English Department. Therefore, Asian American Studies
courses can be offered in departments as an intermediary phase
towards the establishment of an Asian American Studies program.
While the offerings of specific Asian American Studies courses by
individual departments on campuses lacking an Asian American Studies
program is a significant step forward to the full-fledged integration of
the field into CUNY’s curriculum, this apparent commitment can be a bit
misleading. Since budgetary constraints require departments to
prioritize areas of expertise, adjunct funds are commonly used to

17


18 Asian American Studies Guidebook

supplement the existing departmental curricula. Most Asian American
Studies courses offered on campuses without an Asian American
Studies program have been funded through designated adjunct monies.
There are primarily two reasons for this: 1) existing faculty are
unfamiliar and/or not trained in Asian American Studies; and 2)
departmental hiring priorities for full-time faculty do not include Asian
Americanists. Of course, the continued offering of “adjunct” courses
without a program structure—without permanent faculty members
trained in the field—deems such courses as transient, non-essential
elements of the departmental curriculum. Equally significant, the
presence of a few discipline-specific courses ignores the interdisciplinary
nature of the field from which they emerge. While the initial necessity
to use adjunct funding to introduce Asian American Studies to
campuses through departments is understandable, the traditional over-
subscription of such courses and the ever increasing production of
scholarship should designate this field a priority—an essential part of
any liberal arts curriculum—for the institution.

The following sections provide an overview of disciplines and their
attendant courses. Housed in departments, these courses are
commonly cross-listed with interdisciplinary programs, such as
Women’s Studies. Despite the absence of institutional structures for
other interdisciplinary fields, such as Lesbian and Gay Studies, many of
these courses incorporate their themes and topics.

Anthropology

Anthropology appears in many ways to be the ideal academic
location in which to investigate many Asian American issues,
particularly since the categories of race and ethnicity are important
intellectual and social concerns of Asian American Studies. This union,
however, has not occurred: Asian American Studies has not found a
niche in Anthropology. (But neither has any other Ethnic Studies
component, with the possible exception of Native American Studies
which has a long and complicated association with the field of
Anthropology.) A possible reason for this may be the widely shared
belief that Anthropology has traditionally addressed questions of race
and ethnicity most vibrantly through ethnography's assumption of the
dichotomy of “primitive” or “pre-industrial” and “modern” or “post-


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 19

industrial” societies or cultures. For this and other reasons, such as the
field’s relationship to orientalism and colonialism, many Asian
Americanists have been ambivalent to Anthropology’s methodologies
and mission. Of course, within the past two decades, the field of
Anthropology has gone through an “identity crisis,” where the very
nature of the discipline has been challenged both from within and
outside of the field. And as such, perhaps Asian American Studies can
now find a more comfortable place within the field, leading to much
needed scholarship and curricular developments.

Teaching Approaches

One of the most immediate concerns in a course that explores
anthropological issues pertaining to Asian Americans is the question of
who exactly is an “Asian American.” What exactly is the nature of this
collective category? In what ways can the various theoretical
frameworks of Anthropology provide insight into this issue? This
question leads to the examination of the complex relationships between
race, ethnicity, gender, national identity, migration, and power. While
ethnic identification might be a global phenomenon, many questions
relating to Asian American ethnicities, such as Filipina/o American,
Vietnamese American, and Korean American, have yet to be
systematically studied. A course concerned with these types of issues
may explore the socio-cultural dimensions that shape and influence
ethnic identity for the individual and community—dimensions such as
gender, marriage, kinship, language, religion, class, and other
traditional and emergent concerns of Anthropology.

Themes/Topics

¢ Concepts of identity

« Ethnic groups in conflict

¢ U.S. nationalism and Asian Americans

- Differences between “Asianness” and “Asian Americanness”
« Challenges to Anthropology’s methodological assumptions
« Ethnographies of Asian American communities

¢ Oral histories

¢ Cultural “insiders” vs. “outsiders”

¢ Ramifications of “Auto-ethno-biographies”


20 Asian American Studies Guidebook

e Culture and diaspora
¢ Culture of migration

Communication (or Journalism)

Distinct from Media Studies, Communication courses focus on
analyzing communication models and media systems, such as broadcast
television and radio, the film industry, and the print and publishing
industries. In addition, they train students in journalism.

Teaching Approaches

A common approach may be to focus on the role of journalism in
Asian American communities with a special emphasis on how
investigative reporting can uncover and highlight critical issues.
Objectives for this course may be to provide students with a new
perspective on historical and contemporary issues in Asian American
communities through the eyes of ethnic media; to enlarge students’
understanding of U.S. mass media by focusing on the contribution of
“alternative” and “advocacy” publications in U.S. ethnic communities;
and to encourage students to share what they have learned in the
classroom by writing articles for campus and community publications.

An overview of issues in Asian American journalism could include
identifying publications in Asian American communities. Discussion
could focus on why they exist, what relationship they have to media in
the larger U.S. society, and what the “image” of Asians in America is
and how this “image” is reflected in mainstream and community media.
Examining Asian American publications and the historical development
of Asian American communities could lead to an investigation of the
impetus for such publications—do they exist as a response to the needs
of immigrants and/or to racism from the larger society? What role do
these publications play in today’s communities? Exploring theories of
mass media and U.S. society leads to discussion on how the media
shapes our view of “reality” in America and what relationship to
mainstream media Asian American publications play. If Asian American
publications are seen as an “alternative” form of media, what role do
these play in Asian American communities? Are they all “advocacy”
publications? Regarding investigative reporting, how do journalists
investigate community problems? Where do they find information?


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 21

How do they evaluate the facts they find?

Themes/Topics

« Political representation

« Labor, gender, and sexuality

« Media stereotypes and the model minority myth

« Images in mainstream culture

« Contemporary Asian American culture

« Activism and resistance around issues of media stereotypes

« Racism and anti-Asian violence

¢ Immigrant experiences

¢ Popular culture in Asian American communities

« Challenges of community publishing, broadcasting, etc.

« The history of Asian Americans in the communication industry
¢ Control of ethnic media and stratification within ethnic communities
e Audiences: generation, language, culture, class, gender

Education

The most critical issue in establishing Asian American Studies within
Education departments is the ability to address Asian American
perspectives in teacher education. This is most crucial in that Asian
American Studies needs to have an impact on K-12 students, schools,
administrators, and practitioners. Secondly, Asian American Studies can
also draw on the K-12 experiences of Asian American students in class
regarding curriculum, racism, cultural awareness, and parent
involvement in the schools. Using actual experiences, explicit attention
can be paid to teaching methods and pedagogy.

A second important issue is the ability to train educators with a
socio-historical understanding of Asian American experiences in the U.S.
educational system. One focus is the role that education as an
institution has played in Asian American communities. This discussion
would cover desegregation, bilingual education, affirmative action, and
multicultural education, thus revealing how Asian Americans have
utilized the educational system and how the educational system has
responded to the Asian American population.

Teaching Approaches


22 Asian American Studies Guidebook

One possible teaching approach is to examine the experiences,
needs, and concerns of Asian American students. The course could
consist of two basic interrelated themes. The first part of the course can
examine the history of Asians in the United States. Topics could include
the effects of the migration process, the role of Asian and American
cultural values and institutions, U.S. stereotypes of Asians, and the
impact of U.S. domestic and foreign policies on Asian American
communities.

The second part of the course can be devoted to issues specifically
related to the contemporary educational concerns of Asian American
communities. Topics could include school achievement among Asian
Americans, equality of educational opportunity, the model minority
thesis, bilingual education, and multicultural education. The course
could view the Asian American education experience within the context
of developments in U.S. education.

The following series of questions generated by Professor Don
Nakanishi, University of California, Los Angeles, can help formulate a
course on education:

« What were the major educational issues in Asian American history?
Who were the significant actors in these issues? To what extent
were Asian Americans effective in protecting their educational
rights and interests?

« What were the purposes of the early ethnic language schools in
Asian American communities? How did those purposes
complement or conflict with those of the U.S. educational system?

« Do Asian Americans “value” education? Why and how do they
value education?

« What educational aims did early Chinese and Japanese immigrants
have in relation to their homelands? How effective were they in
those aims?

« If we are to define education in the broadest possible terms (to
include both formal and nonformal educational practices within
and without the Asian American community), what aspects of the
Asian American experience should be studied in a course of this
nature?

« What are the major contemporary educational issues facing Asian
Americans? What makes them major issues? Are they similar or


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 23

different to issues facing other groups?

- How have different demographic changes had an impact on the
educational needs and issues facing various Asian American
groups? What, if any, impact will projected demographic trends
have on the educational agenda facing Asian American
communities?

e Should the needs and concerns of recent Asian immigrants and
refugees be considered separately from those of U.S.-born Asian
American students?

« What are the educational implications of the notion of Asian
American success? How, if at all, does the perspective influence
policies and programs aimed towards the schooling of Asian
Americans? What, if anything, makes it a myth?

e Are Asian Americans “genetically smarter” than other groups, as
some contemporary researchers have argued? Are they “culturally
advantaged"? What, if anything, accounts for the success that the
media attributes to them?

« Do numbers lie? Why do some Asian American scholars refute the
statistics which are offered by other researchers to support the
interpretation of Asian American success? Are the counter-
arguments compelling?

« Asian Americans are a diverse population. However, what do you
consider to be the major variables of differentiation among Asians?
What arguments are presented by scholars?

e Does the Asian college-going population differ significantly from
other groups of college-goers? How, if at all, do Asian American
students differ with respect to their academic preparation,
extracurricular involvement, career interests, educational
aspirations, and other characteristics?

« If Asian Americans as a group exhibit high levels of educational
achievement, why do they still need affirmative action programs for
undergraduate admissions, entrance into professional and
graduate programs, and faculty hirings and promotions?

+ What are the policy implications, if any, associated with the
dramatic rise in college enrollment among Asian Americans?

« What allegations have Asian Americans made about admissions
practices and policies towards Asian applicants at various


24 Asian American Studies Guidebook

competitive undergraduate institutions? What have been the
responses?

« What do we mean by “objective” and “subjective” criteria in the
evaluation of applicants to undergraduate colleges? Why do Asian
American critics believe that Asian American applicants are at a
disadvantage if subjective criteria are used?

« Why did the “Asian admissions issue” become a significant item on
the organizational agendas of many Asian American community
organizations? What, if any, role can these groups play in the
resolution of this issue?

+ What, if any, parallels are there between the current “Asian quota
controversy” and the pre-World War II Jewish quota debate?

Themes/Topics

¢ Historical dimensions

+ Major educational reforms (e.g., bilingual education; desegregation)

+ Education as measure of Asian American success

+ Socialization patterns

« Job market

+ Higher education (e.g., issues of access; quotas and affirmative
action; Asian American admissions controversy)

« Asian American Studies

« Education of immigrants and refugees

¢ Politics and education

History

History is a critical component of Asian American Studies. Many
students turn intuitively to history to understand the Asian American
“experience” and to wrestle with the meaning of their ethnic identity,
that is, how did we/l come to be? History courses are among the most
widely taught Asian American Studies courses in the university.
However, owing to the persistence of Eurocentrism within many, if not
all, of the History departments in the country, Asian American history is
often marginalized—and still too frequently entirely excluded—from
the mainstream of U.S. history. Thus, Asian American historical
scholarship has often been produced outside the formal discipline of


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 25

History.

Teaching Approaches

Asian Americanists face a number of challenges in teaching Asian
American history. Asian American history classes are usually limited to
introductory classes. Thus, there is the general challenge of trying to
cover “everything” in a survey course. Most will quickly conclude this
to be impossible to achieve. Therefore, the challenges have to do with
developing teaching strategies that, on the basis of selected themes and
topics, illuminate the meaning of the Asian American experience and,
furthermore, begin to enable students to interrogate and reconsider
American history. Asian American history should ask: “How have Asian
American experiences been shaped by, and in turn shaped, American
history?” and "How does that history inform our perspective and
agenda for our communities—and America—today?”

First, there is the challenge of covering the historical experience of
dozens of Asian ethnic groups from 1800 to the present. The task is
dictated by the definition of “Asian American”—a concept of identity
that was constructed during the 1960s and 1970s by a self-defined
“Asian American” political movement. That movement took the
position that the immigrants and descendants of immigrants from
various Asian and Pacific nations shared a common historical experience
and trajectory in the United States. Asian Americanists accept this basic
definition yet also understand that history is much more nuanced and
complex. The experiences of Asian ethnic groups differ in some cases
quite widely; moreover, Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipino/as, and Asian
Indians historically did not—and still do not—necessarily identify with
each other or even consider themselves as “Asians” or “Asian
Americans.” This is not to suggest that there is no Asian American
history or that Asian American history classes should not attempt to
cover the experience of discrete Asian ethnic groups. The challenge is
to problematize the historical meaning of “Asian American.”

One approach is to organize a course according to discrete ethnic
histories—a unit on the Chinese, a unit on Cambodians, one on
Koreans, and so on. The course may take up the issue of defining Asian
American history through comparative analysis. One problem with this
approach is that it runs the risk of mechanically covering a series of


26 Asian American Studies Guidebook

discrete experiences. Another problem is an unevenness in quality and
quantity of the literature on different ethnic groups.

Another approach is to organize a course thematically, covering
selected topics such as immigration, community formation, labor
market status, sex and gender relations, ethnic identity, nationalism,
race relations, foreign policy, and imperialism. This approach lends
itself to problematizing a definable “Asian American” experience. It
also promotes an investigation of Asian American history’s relation to
broad economic, social, and political trends and changes in U.S. society.
However, the attention paid to various Asian ethnic groups may be
uneven; moreover, the experience of a specific group at a given
historical moment may be selected to illustrate a specific theme without
pursuing that group’s historical experience more comprehensively.

Second, there is the challenge of contextualizing Asian American
history within broader U.S. history. If “mainstream” history tends to
exclude or marginalize Asian American history, the latter sometimes
tends towards a certain insularity that ignores or plays down its
connection to that “mainstream.” In other words, we tend to reinforce
our marginality. Nineteenth-century Chinese immigration and the
exclusion movement, for example, are not fully understandable outside
of general trends of nineteenth-century American history, such as
Western expansion and Manifest Destiny, the sectional crisis of the
1850s, Reconstruction-era politics and race realignments, the growth of
monopolies, and the labor movement. Moreover, these general trends
assume greater or even different meaning when their relation to
Chinese immigration is explored.

Third, there is the challenge of the literature. Scholarly research on
Asian American history over the past twenty-five years has produced a
fine body of work. The strengths and weaknesses of the literature
articulate the two challenges discussed above. One problem is
unevenness. As stated in Chapter 2, research has tended to focus on
“big events,” such as Japanese American internment, Chinese exclusion,
and Southeast Asian refugee policies. Moreover, research material
favors the Chinese and Japanese, groups that have longer histories and
larger populations in the United States, whereas there is patchy
coverage of Koreans, and Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, and South
Asian nationalities.


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 27

As the field develops, so does specialization. More and more
monographic works dealing with specific historical moments of single
ethnic groups are being produced. This adds tremendously to our
knowledge of Asian American history. At the same time, the field has
become increasingly fragmented. That problem reinforces the
problems of both marginality and the lack of synthesis. But if the
explicitly ideological emphasis on race and class oppression of the
1970s seems inadequate to many Asian Americanists today, we have
not yet developed a new theoretical framework or approach.
Furthermore, we do not simply lack an approach; there are emerging
differences within the field itself. Some Asian Americanists choose to
pursue a Cultural Studies approach to Asian American history, while
others are uncomfortable with that or even oppose it. The tension
between scholarship and community relevance and activism also enters
the dynamic. It is a sign of healthy development that different
theoretical approaches are debated within the field, but it also creates
a situation of difficulty for the instructor who must fashion a course,
particularly a survey course, within this context.

Thus, instructors of Asian American history today may utilize a
growing body of literature that increasingly includes in-depth analytical
monographic work but lacks synthesis. Instructors should be highly
selective about the materials they use, but must also be more
independent and self-conscious about articulating a theoretical
framework. There are a number of survey texts (Chan, Takaki, Daniels)
which are adequate as “textbooks” but are best used in combination
with monographic work, journal articles, and primary sources. As well,
fiction and autobiographical work are frequently used in Asian
American history courses. Also useful are interpretive essays and books
that reprint primary documents, such as Supreme Court cases,
immigration statutes, and Angel Island poetry. Finally, Asian American
history courses would do well to include work on important periods or
themes of American history, such as westward expansion, labor
movements, and imperialism, that help contextualize Asian American
experiences.

Themes/Topics

« Race and stereotypes


28 Asian American Studies Guidebook

» Political determinations of race (e.g., U.S.-Asia relations; early
immigration history)

« Transformations in the U.S. economy and polity

» Immigration and labor (e.g., plantation Hawai'i; picture brides and
community formation; domestic labor; U.S. colonization of the
Philippines; Japanese colonization of Korea)

« Categories of race and anti-miscegenation laws

- Vietnam War and Southeast Asian refugee experiences

¢ World War Il and Japanese American relocation and internment

« Asian American movements of the sixties and seventies

e Sojourners and immigrants

¢ Foreign policy and domestic racial politics

¢ Imperialism and Asian emigration

e Nationalism and community development

¢ Politics of assimilation (e.g., pre-war Asian Americans: second-class
citizens vs. reluctant sojourners)

¢ Politics of repression and assimilation (e.g., racial politics during the
Cold War)

¢ Immigration and segmentation of Asian America by race and class

¢ Model minority vs. oppressed minority

« Asian diaspora communities in the post-Cold War era

English (Literature)

Asian American literature courses are perhaps the most widely
taught Asian American Studies courses within higher education
institutions across the country. Reasons for this are not surprising or
unexpected. Due to the nonempirical nature of the field's social,
cultural, and linguistic analysis, English departments traditionally have
been a more viable and visible site of debate for other “nontraditional”
literary studies, such as African American literature and women’s
literature. Perhaps entering through the narrow doors opened by these
related “minority” studies, Asian American literature has in turn opened
up other doors, allowing other components of Asian American Studies,
such as Sociology, Film, and Media, to gain entrance into the seemingly
hermetically sealed university curricula characterized by Eurocentrism.
Although the 1969 Third World Student Strikes led to the creation of
Ethnic Studies as a recognized field, the impact of this field has been


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 29

generally localized to campuses with strong student activist movements
and progressive faculty members. Nationwide, this field continues to be
absent from most campus curricula. Perhaps then, we can attribute
English departments’ receptivity to Asian American literature to the
relative success of multiculturalism of the 1980s, a movement which has
succeeded in infiltrating both the academy and broader society. This
connection presumes that the publishing industry has sought to meet
the mainstream public's demand for more literature by writers of color.
And, with this increasing presence of published works by Asian
American writers comes an academic interest in teaching and studying
this work.

Due to the incredible breadth and scope of Asian American
literature, it can be a daunting task to attempt to construct even an
introductory level or a survey course of Asian American literature. Most
often, if they are to even offer courses in the field, English departments
are content to offer only a single introductory level course in Asian
American literature. As a result, attempts to design a syllabus can be
difficult for the individual, given that the task must take many factors
into consideration. Instructors might ask themselves: Will my course be
ethnically inclusive? Will it cover all or most genres (novels, poetry,
short stories, autobiographies, drama, oral histories, literary criticism
and theory, and even letters, diaries, and journals)? Will it focus on
women’s writings? Will it adequately incorporate gay and lesbian
writings and themes? Will the students be required to purchase an
inordinate amount of books, given that one cannot simply assign a
“Norton's or Oxford’s Anthology of Asian American Literature”? Hence,
there is a continual need for more dialogue and thoughtful
experimentation on levels of both scholarship and pedagogy.

Teaching Approaches

There are as many approaches to studying and teaching Asian
American literature as there are those who study and teach it. One
possible approach, outlined in detail in Elaine H. Kim’s Asian American
Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context,’ is

8 First published in 1982 by Temple University Press, this text has stood for almost a
decade as the only book-length study of Asian American literature and is,
indisputably, still the most cited work in the field.


30 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Asian American literature as historical and sociological documents.
Arising from the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, many
writers have addressed themes of sojourns, migration and immigration,
migrant labor, modernism, and orientalist representation of Asia.
During the mid-twentieth century, writers addressed themes of war,
Japanese American internment, questions of nationalism, agricultural
life, and life in ethnic enclaves. During the late 1960s and throughout
the 1970s, writers addressed themes such as civil rights, women’s
rights, Third World liberation struggles, Asian American identity, and
the model minority myth. And, during the past fifteen years or so, an
incredible burgeoning of Asian American writers and anthologies have
begun to address various contemporary issues including conflicting
nationalist identities, experiences of secondary migration, multiracial
identities, and the damage of assimilation.

Another possible approach to studying and teaching Asian
American literature is literature as expressions of ethnicity and
nationalism. A primary concern since the origin of Asian American
Studies in the early 1970s has been the dominance of the Chinese and
Japanese American experience within the field. This dominance is
somewhat understandable given the fact that the majority of the Asian
American population, as well as writers who have published literary
works, have come from these two groups. During the last decade or so,
a concerted collective effort has been made by Asian Americanists to
achieve a truer pan-Asian American emphasis whenever possible. For
this reason, Asian American literature courses have done their best to
highlight not only Chinese American and Japanese American writers,
but also Korean and Filipino/a American writers, and writers of Pacific
Islander, South Asian, and Southeast Asian nationalities, in addition to
Amerasian, Asian Canadian, Asian Caribbean, Arab American, and Asian
diaspora writers.

Obviously, it is not enough to address historical or sociological
themes across the pan-Asian American experiences. Issues and
approaches specific to the traditional study of literature, such as
discourses of genre, style, and form, must also be considered. This,
however, leads to another series of problems—the question of “art”
versus “politics.” The pressure to conform to literary study's dominant
notion that literary and political questions are to remain separate, poses


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 31

a special problem to Asian Americanists. How does one teach Asian
American literature, which is located within a politically constructed
field, apolitically? And here reference is made not just to the substance
of the works but to the politics of its emergence vis-a-vis the publishing
industry and presence within the academy. This precarious dichotomy
of literature/politics, of course, must be deconstructed, but it is often
difficult to do so under the auspices of literature because of the kind of
reasons Terry Eagleton and Gerald Graff write about: it is the
institutional study of English literature itself that has created the false
dichotomy between the literary and the political or social spheres. As a
result, the tension between form and content, between style and
meaning, inevitably follows. And thus, to read Asian American
literature without the consideration of political and social significance
is, in essence, to return to the “dominant” mode of literary discourse
where politics is removed from the question of literary or artistic
endeavors. This in turn leads to the perpetuation of the problematic
dichotomy of art/politics. A possible remedy, however, for addressing
this problem is Gerald Graff's suggestion that we “teach the conflict.”

And as such, another approach to the study and teaching of Asian
American literature is the examination of Asian American literature as
sites of literary polemics and debates. An example of this approach
might include the question of (mis)representation and (in)visibility of an
Asian American literary tradition, a polemic first brought into
prominence by the editors of the Asian American literary anthology,
Aijieeeee! (first published in 1974). In their introduction to Aijieeeee!
and other subsequent essays, the editors insist that there is a “real”
Asian American literary tradition, exemplified by writers such as Carlos
Bulosan, John Okada, and Louis Chu, and a “fake” one, exemplified by
Jade Snow Wong, Pardee Lowe, and Maxine Hong Kingston. This
position, of course, has been widely challenged and debated by Asian
American writers, critics, and audiences.

An approach for an Asian American women’s literature course
could be to examine a cross-section of literary genres: poetry, fiction,
biographies and autobiographies, plays, and essays. As a survey course,
the focus could be around issues of Asian American women’s
experiences and woman-centered narratives, both fiction and non-
fiction. Critical and theoretical by nature, the approach would


32 Asian American Studies Guidebook

investigate literature written by and about Asian American women from
the early twentieth century to present day. Through an examination of
these texts, the students would explore a range of issues, such as
representation, identity constructs, race, ethnicity, culture, gender,
nationalism, sexuality, class, and power structures; from a range of
analytical perspectives, such as literary, historical, sociopolitical,
economic, feminist, cultural, multicultural, postcolonial, and
postmodern. Some questions raised could include “What are Asian
American women’s narratives?,” “How have Asian American women
writers explored and expressed Asian American women’s experiences?,”
“How do patriarchal power structures impact Asian American
women?,” “What are our multiple identities?,” and “What are our
common struggles as women of color in the United States?” These
courses should promote critical thinking about Asian American
women’s experiences and literature within respective Asian American
communities as well as within broader cultural and socio-political
contexts.

Themes/Topics

» Constructions of identities

« Relocation and displacement

» Movement/resistance literature

« Colonialism

« Nationalisms and sexualities

+ Gender and genre

« Comparative literary traditions (e.g., African American, Chicano/
Latino, Native American)

« Immigration and immigrant experience

« Generational differences

¢ Cultural assimilation

« Notions of community

e Reconsidering the master narrative

e Lesbian/gay/bisexual issues

¢ Biracial issues

¢ The “family narrative”

« Asian diaspora

+ Images of Asian American women


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 33

e Gender roles in transition

e Asian American women vs. Asian American men
« Interracial and interethnic relationships

¢ Postcolonial writings

« Feminism and postcoloniality

e« Domestic violence

e Class

« Language

¢ Culture and social change

Media

Within the CUNY system, Media Studies is considered a component
of Communications since their areas of study are not mutually exclusive.
Differing in focus, Asian American media courses seek to analyze films
or videos which critique mainstream media itself and representations of
Asians and/or Asian Americans in film and television. Critical and
theoretical writings on media, representation issues, and film analysis
may be supplementary.

Teaching Approaches

Asian American Studies media courses are often taught in an
interdisciplinary manner. Films and videos are utilized as primary source
materials for media analysis. Film and video analyses can be
supplemented with discussions on Asian American literature, pop
culture, and critical essays as well as films, videos, and theoretical
writings by other people of color around issues of representation,
power, and social structures.

Media Studies courses examine the production of Asian and/or
Asian American images in the mainstream Hollywood film and television
industries, and how Asian American producers have attempted to
create more complex images of Asian Americans and Asian American
experiences. The semester could be divided into themes or topics which
are socially or culturally defined. Selected film/video makers’ works
range in terms of ethnic diversity and in media formats, such as feature
narrative and documentary; short narrative and documentary;
experimental and avant garde; and mainstream, independent, and
alternative. It is not always possible to show feature films during a class


34 Asian American Studies Guidebook

period, but it is effective to show various film clips from Hollywood-
produced films around any given Asian American topic or issue with
short films or videos made by Asian Americans as a basis for
comparative analysis.

It is necessary to provide multiple contexts for analysis, since many
students may never have taken an Asian American Studies course prior
to a Media Studies course. Asian American experiences and Media
Studies issues emerge from historical, socio-political, cultural,
economic, psychological, sociological, and community-based contexts.
Discussions could involve issues such as assimilation, displacement,
generational differences, gender differences, sexuality, class and labor,
migration, interracial relationships, multiculturalism, and racism in
relationship to mainstream media representation and how Asian
American producers have addressed these issues.

The goals of Asian American media courses include promoting an
awareness of Asian Pacific cultures in America through media analysis
and developing a more critical way of thinking about media
representations, such as narrative, documentary, and experimental, and
how they affect our lives.

Themes/Topics

« Media stereotypes of Asian women/men and Asian American
women/men

- Influence and effects of media on gender identity and comparison
of these images with those of other groups of color

« Comparison of images of Asian women with images of white
women

« Asian Americans and mass media

¢ Capitalism and mass culture

+ Media activism/self-determination

« Community-based film- and video-making

« Independent narrative film

» Experimental/avant-garde filmmaking

« Margins/fringe and mainstream media

» Diaspora consciousness

« Community-building

« Active and passive viewing


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 35

« Making images of “the other” and racism

¢ History of Hollywood film industry

« Television representation of Asians and Asian Americans
« Significance/insignificance of Asian ethnicities

e Is there an Asian American audience?

« Assimilation dilemmas

¢ Asia-born and U.S.-born issues

¢ Biracial issues

- Interracial relationships

» History and memory

+ Who speaks for whom?

- Forms of activism, Asian American social movements
¢ Questions of “home”

¢ Gay and lesbian filmmaking and audiences

¢ Limits of multiculturalism

Political Science

Political Science examines issues of power and the institutions that
distribute and maintain it. Asian American politics is a vital field of
understanding. However, Political Science Departments are often the
least hospitable to Asian American Studies, in part due to the
underdevelopment of this discipline in dealing with race and class
issues. Concerns for political scientists have been limited to voting
patterns and party affiliations of people of color. Power relationships
among races and the complex internal political structures within
communities of color are rarely appreciated by mainstream political
scientists. This is unfortunate since a characteristic weakness within
Asian American Studies is the lack of understanding of “power” and
political strategies.

Themes/Topics

» Asian Americans and political institutions

« Politics and political mobilization: historical and contemporary
perspectives

¢ Political ideologies and institutions (e.g., concepts of democracy
and equality; historical transformations in the role and scope of the
state)


36 Asian American Studies Guidebook

¢ Racial theory and the politics of race (e.g., impact of the Civil Rights
movement; racial politics in the post-Civil Rights period)

¢ Asian American movement (e.g., concept of panethnicity)

« Community-based politics and struggles (e.g., urban issues;
race/class politics)

* Quotas and affirmative action (e.g., Asian American admissions
controversy)

e Crime, the justice system, and legal challenges to institutional
inequities (e.g., corum nobis cases and the redress and reparation
movement; anti-Asian violence)

+ Immigration reform and the smuggling of “illegal aliens”

« Panethnic organizing

¢ Gender, labor, and politics

¢ Politics of a multicultural society (e.g., Los Angeles uprising)

« Electoral politics

Psychology

The field of Psychology is another area where Asian American
Studies has yet to find a niche, although much progress has been made
recently, especially in research-oriented institutions such as UCLA. Of all
the divisions within Psychology (such as clinical, social, cognitive,
community, and cross-cultural), the areas of social and clinical
psychology appear to be the most developed in terms of Asian
American Studies, especially as they relate to mental health issues.
Psychology is a field with much potential for developing Asian American
scholarship, not just within the mental health component, but within all
divisions, whether it be theoretically driven (social and cognitive) or
applied (clinical and community).

Teaching Approaches

Because U.S. psychology still largely defines race in terms of black
and white and because the notion of “culture” is often used in lieu of
“race” or “ethnicity,” Asian American themes become easily trapped
within the problematic and simplistic dichotomy of West-as-
individualistic/East-as-collectivist. A course concerned with Asian
American issues in Psychology may complicate and challenge this
tendency. In the area of cognitive psychology, the course may


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 37.

investigate how individuals process information and determine in what
ways race, ethnicity, and/or culture become important variables. In the
area of social psychology, the effects of acculturation and assimilation
on the personality and identity of Asian Americans can be examined to
investigate the psychological toll of “acculturation stress.” Cross-
cultural issues such as the effect of race and ethnicity on an individual's
sense of self may lead to a deeper understanding of how racism, for
example, impacts the self-esteem of Asian Americans. The results of
such an investigation can then lead to the concerns of clinical
psychology, where assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of mental
health problems can be developed and debated. This in turn can lead
to the discussion of many important community-related issues such as
juvenile delinquency, HIV/AIDS, child care, the elderly, and countless
other social concerns of Asian Americans.

Themes/Topics

¢ Identity/personality/concept of self

- Self-esteem

« Acculturation stress

« Mental health

¢ Mental health services and cultural sensitivity
¢ Diagnosis and treatment

e Cross-cultural similarities and differences

» Juvenile delinquency

¢ Cultural values or value systems

Sociology

There is ample room for Asian American Studies in Sociology
departments. Many scholars and students of Asian American Studies
have adapted certain theories and methods available in Sociology, while
others have been more critical and have challenged the standardization
of such theoretical frameworks and methodology.

Within Sociology, the study of race and ethnicity may best reflect
and incorporate the concerns and issues relevant to Asian American
Studies. But this area of study, which includes topics like the sociology
of immigration and the sociology of education, provides contending
theories that delineate the perspectives and issues within the field. For


38 Asian American Studies Guidebook

example, immigration/migration is viewed from push-pull factors that
are generalized from the experiences of European immigrants and
applied to subsequent immigrations/migrations from Third World
countries. Contending research, on the other hand, investigates the
role of imperialism, colonization, nationalism, and immigration/
migration (post-1965, in general) and demystifies the generalizing
tendencies of Sociology from previous examples of white European
ethnics.

While there are many theories and works that can incorporate
Asian American Studies within Sociology, such as the work on the
construction of ethnic and transnational identities, and interracial
conflict and cooperation, there are many tensions that remain. For
example, theories of neo-classical human capital and individual
endowments join theories of structural and economic transformations
to explain racial stratification in the United States. Tensions exist
because some of these very same theories—especially the individualist
ones—are used to explain the relative successes of Asian Americans.
Though such works can be seen as superficial by Asian Americanists,
they are often used in introductory Sociology courses to explain the
debates surrounding the status of the post-1965 immigrants and people
of color in the United States. Alternative theories generated, such as
those proposed by Omi and Winant where theoretical primacy is given
to race, can be more fruitful in guiding the discussions in Asian
American sociology courses.

Because of the tensions arising from diverse theories and
perspectives within Sociology, it is important to keep in mind the role
and influence of sociologists, particularly Asian American Studies
sociologists, in defining and leading the field of Asian American Studies.
There has been a troubling pattern of focusing only on those issues,
such as the glass ceiling, model minority myth, and elite school quotas,
that have currency with mainstream media and academics. While these
issues are important, analysis stemming from such research may favor a
political stand that conflicts with joint political efforts with “colored
minorities” on issues of racism, health reform, education, and
immigration, as well as neglects other pressing concerns.

Methodologically, one of the strengths of Sociology is its
pioneering work in field methods and ethnography. These methods


Asian American Studies Courses Within Departments 39

seem to be the most appropriate in gaining access to contemporary
Asian American communities. They are also the most suitable in giving
voice—albeit ones selected by the researcher—to communities that are
often not represented in scholarship, including those communities that
do not speak English, are not male, and are not from the middle or
wealthier classes.

In addition, although Sociology has relied on survey data and the
resulting quantitative analyses, much of what has been done needs to
be viewed critically. There are limits to what the census can reveal
about Asian American communities. Ethnographies, oral histories,
content analysis, immigrant newspapers, and other methods can and
should complement statistical information to better comprehend the
diversity of Asian American communities.

Teaching Approaches

Asian American Studies courses in Sociology could focus on a
variety of topics including that of immigration/migration, race and
ethnicity, identity formation, family, intergenerational conflicts,
education, and economic adaptation and mobility. As in the other
disciplines, a problem remains: how inclusive can you be in a one-
semester undergraduate course?

One approach could be to focus on Asian American immigrants
since 1965. Theoretical perspectives on immigration, economic
adaptation, and race and ethnic relations can be examined in light of
the experiences of Asians in the United States. The first half of the
course could focus on the immigration and migration patterns of such
ethnic groups as the Filipino/as, Koreans, Asian Indians, Vietnamese,
Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmong in the United States. The second
half of the course could discuss immigrant social adaptation, socio-
economic adaptation and mobility—that of both the working and
middle classes—and race relations with the various Asian American
groups and Americans as a whole.

A second approach could be a course on Asian American
communities that would include pre- and post-1965 immigrants and
the community development and destruction during WW II. Again, the
first half of the course can be devoted to immigration and migration
patterns, plus community development of each of the Asian groups. All


40 Asian American Studies Guidebook

of the groups can be discussed with respect to historical development
and contemporary community development. The second half of the
course can then focus on issues that the different ethnic groups share
as Asian Americans. These include intergenerational conflict, anti-Asian
violence, interracial conflict, stereotypes (including the model minority
myth), socio-economic mobility, as well as working class and
professional political participation.

Themes/Topics

e Race and ethnicity

« Immigration/migration within the context of imperialism and
colonization

- Identity formation

« Problematizing assimilation theory vis-a-vis systemic discriminations

« Ethnographies, oral histories, immigrant newspapers, etc.

« Immigration patterns and class differences of new Asian
immigrants

¢ Historical developments of Asian American communities

« Family

+ Intergenerational conflicts

« Education

e Economic adaptation and mobility

¢ Immigrant and refugee social adaptation

« Anti-Asian violence

¢ Interracial conflicts

¢ Working class and professional political participation


Chapter 4

Asian American Studies

and Interdisciplinary Courses
With or Without Programs

At CUNY, the basic academic units are single-discipline academic
departments such as Sociology, English, and History. Interdisciplinary
programs, such as Asian American Studies, are the creation of academic
administrations in response to perceived intellectual needs and/or
external political pressures, such as student struggles. Interdisciplinary
programs are given separate budgets and sometimes the authority to
offer majors, but members of the programs have to be appointed
through specific departments. Therefore, these programs do not have
the sole power in appointment and tenure of faculty, nor the final
authority in curricular approval. Relationships between departments
and such programs are often tense. The departments often see these
programs as a challenge to their academic domain and a threat to their
budgetary allocations. The programs, on the other hand, consider the
departments as obstacles to changes, innovations, and, ultimately,
academic freedom. This chapter discusses Asian American Studies
courses which overlap with other interdisciplinary fields. These fields
may or may not have formal structures within a particular institution.
Regardless, such courses must be understood and designed in the
context of all relevant fields.

Lesbian and Gay Studies

Because Lesbian and Gay Studies has yet to achieve a firm
institutional foothold, it has been through either a course on women or
a literature course with emphasis on gender that Asian American
lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues have received some attention. These
associations, of course, are not particular to Asian American Studies. A
similar relationship can be seen within the larger academy, where
lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues have been embraced primarily through
Women’s Studies or Gender Studies, and only nominally through
gender-focused literary studies. Courses specifically designed with an

4)


42 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Asian American Lesbian and Gay Studies emphasis have only recently
been established even at a place like UCLA, where the Asian American
Studies program has been in existence for almost twenty-five years.
While Asian American Studies courses, in all disciplines, are increasingly
incorporating themes specific to Lesbian and Gay Studies, more courses
directly focused on this field need to be established.

Teaching Approaches

An interdisciplinary survey course on, for, and about Asian
American lesbians, gays, and bisexuals could discuss issues of coming
out, personal relationships and family, community formation, class,
cultural production, social constructions of the physical body, political
struggles, and the “mappings” of identity positions. Through these
discussions, the course could proceed to examine the intersections and
contradictions of power relations and the possibilities for social change.
In exploring some of the dimensions of Asian American lesbian, gay,
and bisexual living spaces, the course could provide participants with
diverse perspectives through which students will be empowered to
engage in their own living spaces. As well, students can be encouraged
to go beyond “learning about” Asian American lesbian, gay, and
bisexual communities and to engage with these communities by
working on specific issues, such as media (mis)representation and
HIV/AIDS education. To facilitate this aspect of the course, community
members could be invited to make presentations.

Another approach could focus on the histories, experiences, social
movements, and contributions of Asian American gay, lesbian and
bisexual students in keeping with the student-based, student-centered
tradition of Ethnic Studies. This course could attempt to examine how
Asian American gays, lesbians, and bisexuals integrate their multiple
identities, cultures, and social realities. The relationships of Asian
American gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to gay and lesbian movements
and identities in Asia and the Pacific Islands; to the larger Asian
American communities; to the white gay and lesbian community; and
the various gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities of color (African
American, Chicano and Latino, Native American, and so forth) could be
discussed. Finally and most importantly, this course could seek to
understand how racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism—as


Asian American Studies and Interdisciplinary Courses
With or Without Programs 43

interrelated sets of attitudes and systems of social domination—affect
the lives of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals of color and attempt to
illuminate how Asian American Studies—and Ethnic Studies at
large—can aid in conceptualizing and theorizing about race, ethnicity,
gender, sexuality, class, family, and identity.

Themes/Topics

« “Coming out”

« Personal relationships and family

¢ Scholarship from Asia and Pacific Islands

« Community formations

¢ Political representation

- Media representations

« Relationships with white lesbian and gay communities and with
other lesbian and gay communities of color

¢ Relationships with the larger Asian American communities

¢ Intellectual and cultural production

¢ Social constructions of the physical body

« “Mappings” of identity positions

¢ Politics of HIV/AIDS

¢ History of gay and lesbians movements

« Activism and Resistance

e Gay and lesbian history, cultural production, and activism in Asia
and the Pacific Islands

Urban Studies and Planning

The interdisciplinary nature of Urban Studies and Planning
programs allows them to include Asian American issues more easily
than more traditional programs. Nevertheless, Asian American issues
have had limited impact on the fundamental perspectives of even the
most progressive Urban Studies and Planning programs, as these
programs continue to be strongly influenced by approaches developed
in response to the Black-white urban political struggles of the 1960s
and early 1970s. Explorations of power, racism, political inequality,
spatial segregation, and mobility in urban areas—when they deal with
race at all—generally focus on comparing whites and African
Americans, particularly when the issues are treated more broadly. The


44 Asian American Studies Guidebook

types of policy issues studied and the approaches to studying these
issues are also limited by a narrow Black-white view of race. For
example, a policy course on poverty and welfare will tend to analyze in
detail the situation of whites and African Americans, and provide only
cursory, if any, treatment of Asian Americans, thus severely limiting the
analysis of the dynamics of poverty and inequality.

Because of the growing presence of Asians in East Coast cities,
however, Urban Studies and Planning programs are finding it
increasingly difficult to ignore Asian American issues. Although there
continue to be glaring oversights, most recent treatments of
demographic change in cities include discussions on Asian Americans.
Many Urban Studies and Planning programs now offer courses on
immigrants and migration, which provide substantial coverage of Asian
immigration flows, Asian American communities such as Chinatowns,
and the role of Asian immigrants in urban labor markets.

While Asian American issues are still largely ignored in analyses of
urban politics, poverty, and other social welfare issues, recent media
highlights, such as conflicts between Korean grocers and African
Americans, high welfare use by Southeast Asian refugees (particularly
Cambodians), and the role of Asian immigrants in restructured urban
economies, have made it difficult to exclude Asian American issues
completely. In fact, a focus on Asian Americans in Urban Studies and
Planning has contributed to advances in theories of urban economic
restructuring, informal economies, urban economic development, social
networks, and race and ethnicity.

Teaching Approaches

In designing survey courses in Urban Studies and Planning to
include Asian American issues, it is important first to discard a Black-
white approach to race. A course on urban labor markets, for example,
would look not just at Black and white earnings and employment
figures, but also at those for Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans. This
approach would lead to many significant issues, such as glass ceilings,
global economic restructuring and its impact on urban economies,
immigrant labor markets, and ethnic economies. A course on welfare
policy, by including an analysis of poverty among Asian Americans, will
have to grapple with issues such as the nature of anti-Asian racism, the


Asian American Studies and Interdisciplinary Courses
With or Without Programs 45

impact of pre-migration material and human capital, and the role of
ethnic community support networks. A course on land use might
include an analysis of land use policies in Chinatown, and how zoning
policies have been used to curtail the expansion of predominantly Asian
American neighborhoods and business districts.

Some courses, such as those on immigration, will focus more
heavily on Asian/Asian American issues. Topics included in an Urban
Studies course on immigration may include the development and
structure of ethnic enclaves/communities; the role of ethnic economies
in facilitating mobility; the contribution of immigrants to urban
economic development; the conflict between U.S.-born Americans and
immigrants; spatial patterns of settlement and expansion; immigrants
in the urban labor market; immigrant entrepreneurs; and immigrants in
local politics.

Themes/Topics

e Ethnic economies, ethnic enclaves, informal economies

» Spatial patterns of Asian American community development

« The role of immigrants in urban labor markets

¢ Structure and function of immigrant social networks

- Second-generation adaptation

e Asian Americans in urban politics/social movements

e Anti-Asian violence

« “Middleman minorities” and racial conflict

» Asian Americans and social policy (e.g., housing, health care, and
welfare)

« Zoning as a tool for curtailing the expansion of Asian American
communities and business districts

» Interethnic relations among Asian Americans

Women’s Studies

Women’s Studies has, in many institutions, been among the most
receptive to Asian American Studies. The field of Women’s Studies has
a history comparable to that of Asian American Studies. However, in
many institutions across the country, Women’s Studies is more firmly
institutionalized than Asian American Studies, due in part to the fact
that there often exists a critical mass of faculty already rostered in


46 Asian American Studies Guidebook

existing departments who are willing and able to develop Women’s
Studies scholarship and courses. Such a situation makes it much easier
to establish a program or department. However, the field still struggles
in many institutions over issues of autonomy in hiring, tenure, and
course credit. Some institutions have programs and institutes in Gender
Studies or Feminist Studies, rather than Women's Studies. The
distinction among the three is significant, and indicates much about the
founding philosophies of these programs, but does not seem to be
significant in determining the types of Asian American Women’s Studies
courses taught within or through them.

Teaching Approaches

Asian American Women’s Studies courses often incorporate
discourses on feminism, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, and
nationalism, and imperialism. Many highlight both race and gender as
social constructs, and use this analysis to explore issues of family,
generational conflict, silence, language, individual and community
identity and empowerment, nationalism, and the linkages between
racism and sexism. Courses examine the histories, experiences, and
cultural production of Asian American women. In some cases, they
explore the relationships of Asian American women’s writing and
experiences to those of other women of color.

Questions generally raised include: How have race, class, gender,
sexuality affected and impacted the experiences and opportunities of
Asian American women? How have Asian American women negotiated
self-determined identities? What is “feminism” and “feminist
movement”? How is gender identity shaped or influenced by family,
ethnic community, interactions in the society-at-large, and by print and
visual media? How are experiences and expressions of nationalism
gendered within Asian American communities? What are the effects of
these depictions on relationships between Asian American men and
women?

In addition, these courses provide an opportunity to contest and
problematize the notion that non-Western cultures are more sexist than
Western cultures, with the corollary that women born or raised in the
West are more “advanced” or “liberated” than women of other
cultures. Thus, one component of Asian American Women’s Studies


Asian American Studies and Interdisciplinary Courses
With or Without Programs 47

courses can be a critical analysis of traditional feminist standards of
“development” and “liberation,” a process that questions whether, in
fact, the liberation of women of color communities in the United States
and abroad can be measured by the standards of liberation that white,
liberal, middle-class, heterosexual feminists have productively
determined for themselves, standards which are generally presented as
race- and class-blind criteria for all women, but which ignore the
priorities of women of color and especially of working class women of
color. Even the term “feminist” must be redefined and disaggregated
from its associations with the concerns of mainstream feminists.

Themes/Topics

« Social constructions of gender and race

¢ Constructions of gender in traditional and contemporary Asian
societies

¢ Gender roles in marriage

¢ The family as mother

e« Working women

e Asian American women and their art, film, poetry

« Women’s sexuality and sisterhood

e Asian American lesbians

¢ Resistance to patriarchy

« Western influences on women’s status and roles

¢ Gender constructions (e.g., concepts of love, family, work, marriage
in the United States and Asia)

« Comparative analysis of gender relations between Asian American
men and women and the ideas of romantic love in Asia and the
United States

« Concepts of beauty as women of color and Asian American women

e Aging

« Race, gender, and representation (e.g., analysis of stereotypes of
Asian men and women in mainstream media; influence and effects
on gender identity; comparison of these images with other groups
of color; comparison of images of Asian women with white
women)

¢ Interracial relationships

« Effects of racism on Asian American gender identities


48

Asian American Studies Guidebook

Race, gender, and colonialism and the objectification of the Asian
woman

Family relations (e.g., mother/daughter, father/daughter, assimilation
conflicts)

Domestic violence

Asian American women and U.S./Third World feminism
Nationalism and feminism

Asian American women as women of color

Asian American women and activism

Warbrides

Japanese American internment (e.g., gender roles, family)
Immigrant labor on Hawai'i plantations

Community formation (e.g., nineteenth-century sex workers,
picture brides)

Immigrant families and experiences

War and Asian American women (e.g., G.I. brides; military
prostitution; relationships during war time)

Refugee experiences and mental health issues

Asian American women and labor (e.g., garment industry; domestic
work; Silicon Valley; sex industry)

Western military imperialism in Asia

Sex Tourism in Asia and sex trafficking

Mail order bride industry

Expressions of identity and self-determination

Language and identity


Chapter 5

Curricular Transformation:
The Infusion Model

for Non-Asian American
Studies Courses

As Asian American Studies programs multiply and develop, more faculty
trained in Asian American Studies join departmental rosters, and greater
numbers of Asian American Studies courses fill the listings, we must
look to the impact these developments can have on the CUNY
educational system as a whole. New conceptual paradigms and
methodological issues raised by Asian American Studies bring us to
rethink theoretical and interpretive models generated both in traditional
fields such as Sociology or History and in emerging fields such as
Cultural Studies. This chapter addresses the infusion of Asian American
Studies into relevant components of the CUNY curriculum. It will
attempt to address issues of concern to faculty members not trained in
Asian American Studies but interested in integrating Asian American
material into their courses.

Current Prospects

A wide range of courses at all levels and in many disciplines within
the CUNY system stands to benefit from the integration both of Asian
American sources and of the theoretical and methodological
innovations of Asian American Studies. Fields that can be engaged with
Asian American Studies include American Studies, Anthropology, Art
History, Asian Studies (including Northeast Asia Studies, Pacific Rim
Studies, South Asia Studies, Southeast Asia Studies), Caribbean Studies,
Communications, Cultural Studies, Diaspora Studies, Economics,
Education, Ethnic Studies, Film, Health Sciences, History, International
Affairs, Labor, Latin American Studies, Law, Lesbian and Gay Studies,
Literature, Media, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Post-colonial
Studies, Psychology, Religion, Social Work, Sociology, Urban Studies,
and Women’s and Gender Studies. The courses taught within these
fields at CUNY that can incorporate Asian American Studies are
extremely diverse and include both introductory/survey courses and

49


50 Asian American Studies Guidebook

advanced courses on specialized topics. For example, the following
CUNY courses either can or do incorporate Asian American materials:
“American Social Protest Movements,” “Reimagining Gender;"
“Introduction to Cultural Studies;” “Race and Class in Twentieth-
Century America;” “Identity, Ethnicity, and Nationality;” and “Issues in
Community Research.” A cursory review of CUNY course syllabi at the
undergraduate and graduate levels indicates that of the countless
courses that could fruitfully integrate Asian American materials, very
few have done so thus far. The need to integrate Asian American
sources and Asian American Studies scholarship within these diverse
courses cannot, at this point, be overemphasized.

Tokenizing: Inclusion Without Impact

One common approach to curricular change has been to “add on”
or ensure “coverage” of materials previously left out of the curriculum.
Not only in Asian American Studies, but in Women’s Studies, Lesbian
and Gay Studies, and other Ethnic Studies fields, scholars have pointed
to the problems with “adding on.”” In many cases, it is difficult to
distinguish, from the syllabus, between a course that merely
includes—tokenizes—Asian American sources and one that fully
integrates—infuses—the sources into the course. In both cases, we are
likely to find approximately one Asian American text, or reference to
one Asian American issue, on a syllabus devoted to a particular theme,
such as the post-Civil War Reconstruction Period in U.S. history, or
twentieth-century American autobiography, or an introductory course
in Women’s Studies. The difference is how that single text or source is
treated in the course. If it is merely added on, it will add a little variety
to existing material, and the course’s theory and methodology would
not be significantly different if Asian American perspectives were
omitted. If the text or source is infused, engagement with it will
transform the way in which other material on the syllabus is
approached, and Asian American perspectives become an integral part
of the course.

The relationship between course content and course

3 See, for example, Sandra Harding, “Introduction. Is There A Feminist Method?” in
Harding, ed., Feminism and Methodology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1987).


Curricular Transformation: The Infusion Model for
Non-Asian American Studies Courses 51

methodologies and structure can never be inert. The addition of Asian
American content and subject matter to the curriculum necessitates
reformulations of existing theoretical and methodological paradigms as
well as the development of new paradigms altogether. For example, a
History or Sociology course on immigrant assimilation in the United
States, if it included anything at all about Asian Americans, might do so
only insofar as references to Asian Americans further corroborated
existing theories about the melting pot or the process of adjustment
undergone by previous waves of immigrants from eastern Europe, Italy,
or Ireland. Such a course would tend to treat problems or differences
in Asian American experiences as variations in degree or time period for
adjustment. Asian American Studies scholarship, on the other hand,
has pointed to the ways in which the traditional models of assimilation
are fundamentally inapplicable to the experience of Asian
immigrants—to differences in kind in the experiences of Asians vis-a-vis
other immigrant groups and even among Asian groups. Such findings
have brought Asian American Studies scholars to articulate new models
and theories to account for these differences, emphasizing the impact
of U.S. racial dynamics, class, political ideology, resettlement policies,
and other factors not adequately considered in the traditional models.
Such scholarship is necessarily of significance to all those engaged in
studies of immigration, and if considered in light of particular course
topics, can lead to new emphases, or even reformulation of the course
itself.

Another problem with tokenization is that frequently a single text
or source tends to appear over and over on many syllabi. Very often, an
Asian American source is added to a syllabus to provide coverage or
variety. It is quickly dealt with in the course period allotted to it and its
relationship to other themes and sources on the syllabus is not
developed. Most importantly, the source tends to serve merely as an
illustration or variation of existing theoretical paradigms or sociological
models that are themselves in no way altered by the inclusion and
treatment of the source. With each recurrence, the tendency to regard
that source as the sole and adequate representative of an extremely
diverse population and its histories becomes more deeply entrenched in
the mainstream curriculum.

It is in the English departments that Asian American Studies has


52 Asian American Studies Guidebook

made the most inroads, and have emerged as the most receptive to
Asian American Studies. This ostensible embrace of Asian American
literature by English departments, however, can be a bit misleading.
The status of Asian American literature, within even the most
receptive—or most “multiculturally committed”—department not yet
offering specific courses in Asian American literature, is fraught with
many problems. One specific example is the tokenization of two
particular Asian American writers who have received more critical and
commercial acclaim than any other Asian American writers: Maxine
Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. Since the publication of Maxine Hong
Kingston’s immensely popular The Woman Warrior in 1975, this text
has stood in the minds of many American literary scholars as the only
worthwhile or noteworthy Asian American text until the publication of
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club in 1989. These two texts, both written by
Chinese American women, have become objects of fascination for both
mainstream feminists and multiculturalists, and have emerged within
the U.S. academy as sole representatives of a century-long tradition of
Asian American literature. In the past few years, it seems quite evident
that this “Kingston phenomenon” may have been eclipsed by the “Tan
phenomenon.”

Often, students are assigned Maxine Hong Kingston's work in high
school, then in multiple undergraduate classes, and rarely if ever
encounter any other Asian American writer’s work. The issue, it should
be clear, is not the quality of Kingston’s work, but rather the fact that
no text should be selected so consistently and singularly to represent
Asian American literature within the extremely broad range of survey
and thematic courses in the field. Similar examples of tokenization can
be found within Sociology, History, Film, and other disciplines as well.

Such a situation is problematic from a number of perspectives. In
treating one work as representative of “the Asian American experience”
or “the Asian American voice,” it ignores the unique characteristics of
the tokenized work. At the same time, it denies students access to texts
which bring up issues of form and content utterly different to those of
the tokenized work. Most works are historically, ethnically, and
regionally specific, among many other factors which may distinguish
them even from other works within the same ostensible categories. For
example, Monica Sone and Hisaye Yamamoto have written about the


Curricular Transformation: The Infusion Model for
Non-Asian American Studies Courses 53

Japanese American internment, but from very different perspectives.
Exclusive attention to one work fixes one perception of diverse and
ever-changing Asian American communities. The tokenization of
Kingston and Tan, for example, has ironically—and unfortunately—kept
invisible and insignificant scores of other Asian North American writers
who came before, at the same time as, and after them. Finally, it must
be stated that when a work is selected again and again for inclusion, it
is frequently precisely because it is possible to read (or, as Kingston
herself has asserted, misread) that particular text in ways that do not
challenge mainstream theories and interpretations about Asian
American cultures, communities, and production.

Gatekeeping vs. Identifying Priorities

Asian American Studies is a burgeoning, vital field; one sign of that
vitality is its flexibility and development into new areas of research,
scholarship, and teaching, as well as theoretical and methodological
innovations. These developments sometimes come about through
interaction with other fields such as Transnational Studies and Gender
Studies. Asian American Studies is itself undergoing changes as it
transforms the landscape of education in the United States, and part of
its strength is its ability to accommodate change. Therefore, there is no
singular standpoint within Asian American Studies as to precisely how
a particular work or history must be studied and analyzed.

At the same time, however, the field has a distinct history and grew
out of a fundamental, constitutive neglect in U.S. education and
curricula. Thus, turning now to Asian American history and culture
means more than merely adding on to a curriculum that has incidentally
neglected this area of study. It means that this neglect was
indispensable to the formulation of particular narratives of U.S. history,
and of particular theories about immigrants, assimilation, ethnicity, and
race. The integration of Asian American Studies means revisiting and in
many cases revising or transforming these narratives and theoretical
models. And as understood by Asian American scholars who
established the field twenty-six years ago, this neglect resulted in near
total amnesia of the history of Asian American communities, a lack of
understanding of Asian immigrants and immigration, and an inability to
articulate Asian American sensibilities and experiences, which requires


54 Asian American Studies Guidebook

moving beyond the black/white binary opposition. Attention to these
and related questions has been central to Asian American Studies. A set
of priorities, flexible yet identifiable, has held the field together
throughout its formal history of twenty-six years and remains central
today. Chapter 2 delineates an overview of such priorities. Scholars
may indeed choose to use Asian American materials in ways that do not
bear upon these priorities. However, it must be clear that programs
that maintain these priorities are crucial; they may be supplemented or
complemented, but not substituted or replaced by ones that do not.

The fundamental difference between tokenizing and integrating
Asian American material in a non-Asian American Studies course is
often not to be found on the syllabus, but in the classroom. For it is in
teaching the material that we may ask whether the material is serving
merely to illustrate previously elaborated theoretical models, or
whether, on the other hand, the material is dialectically engaged with
theoretical models.

An Example of Infusion

The following is one of many possible ways in which a course on
social movements in the United States might incorporate Asian
American sources and Asian American Studies perspectives. Such a
course might focus on the effects of these movements in historical,
political, and legal institutions. It could examine such movements as
the Civil Rights Movement, diverse labor organizing efforts throughout
the United States and at different periods, and the first and second
waves of U.S. feminism.

Asian American Studies could enter into such a course in a number
of ways. Discussion of labor protests could include thorough
consideration of the role of racist anti-Asian propaganda, fundamental
to the establishment and consolidation of the labor unions in the early
part of the century. Discussion of the Civil Rights Movement might
consider the significance of the fact that in the very early stages of this
movement, religious figures were prominent among the few Asian
Americans involved; or it might examine how peoples’ understanding of
the relationship between oppression at home and imperialism abroad,
as during the Vietnam War, shaped “Third World” unity and activism.
The women’s movements from the 1970s to the present might be


Curricular Transformation: The Infusion Model for
Non-Asian American Studies Courses 55

examined and questioned from the standpoint of Asian American
women’s involvement and issues, forcing the issue of race to be
addressed in terms that go beyond the black-white binary. Finally,
Asian American social movements themselves might be examined. For
example, examination of Chinatown labor protests in the 1930s not
only engages racial, economic, and cultural dynamics specific to the
Chinese communities of that period, but also points to the relevance of
which industries were involved and why, raising questions that go to
the heart of U.S labor history. The significance of infusing Asian
American materials goes far beyond the principle of equal coverage.

Implications and Horizons

It is crucial to place our efforts today at the infusion of Asian
American Studies in the context of the goal, shared with a number of
other emerging fields, to transform educational institutions in the
United States. As mentioned in Chapter 1, curricular issues is a
cornerstone to the challenge but there are other essential attendant
components, such as pedagogy, university restructuring, and
reprioritization of funding. And, these factors must be guided by newly
generated and relevant philosophies and principles for the U.S.
educational system. Education must be seen as one component among
several crucial to any systemic, long-term change in our society.


56

Asian American Studies Guidebook


Editorial Committee

Jane Sung-ee Bai, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, teaches
an Asian American Women’s Studies course at New York University (Fall
1995) and has taught Asian American Studies courses at Hunter and
Bard Colleges. A former board member of the Association for Asian
American Studies and the New York Asian Women’s Center, she
currently serves on the board of Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence
and is a counselor/advocate for the St. Luke’s/Roosevelt Rape
Intervention Program.

John Chin is a second generation Korean American Ph.D. student in
Urban Planning at Columbia University. His research interests include
transmigration, ethnic economies, and intraracial and intraethnic
dynamics within ethnic economies. Co-founding board member, he is
currently Director of Planning, Evaluation, and Research for the Asian
and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS.

Margaret May Chin is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Columbia
University, working on her dissertation entitled Sewing Women:
Immigrants and the New York City Garment Industry. She has taught a
course on Education and Asian American immigrants. She is a board
member of the Chinese Progressive Association (NYC) and was a board
member of the Association for Asian American Studies. She was born
and raised in New York City, and received her undergraduate degree
from Harvard University.

Madhulika S. Khandelwal is engaged in developing research and
teaching programs on Asians in the United States and their global
diaspora. As a Visiting Professor at Cornell and Columbia Universities,
she taught introductory courses on Asian American Studies. At Hunter
and Queens Colleges, she is currently teaching courses on the history of
South Asian diaspora. She serves on the boards of the Association for

57


58 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Asian American Studies, the Asian American Higher Education Council
(CUNY), and City Lore.

Dae Young Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at CUNY Graduate
Center. He is presently conducting research on the evolution of
Mexican and Ecuadorian employment in Korean-owned businesses in
New York City.

Robert Ji-Song Ku is a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at
the CUNY Graduate Center. He is presently teaching Asian American
literature courses at Hunter College and New York University. He has
also taught Asian American literature at Columbia University and Bard
College, as well as Developmental English and first-year writing courses
at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Peter Kwong, Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning, is the Director
of the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College. He is also a
contributing writer to The Village Voice and World Business.

Mae M. Ngai is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Columbia University.
Her dissertation is about U.S. immigration policy and its role in the
(re)construction of nationality and citizenship during the post-war
period (1940-1965). She teaches labor history at Cornell University
School of Industrial Relations, works professionally as the Director of
Research and Policy at the Consortium for Worker Education, and serves
on the executive board of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance,
AFL-CIO.

Franklin Odo is Director and Professor of the Ethnic Studies
Department at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He is a Visiting
Professor of History at Columbia University in 1995-96 and has recently
been appointed as Assistant to the Provost for Asian Pacific American
Research and Public Programming at the Smithsonian Institution. He
taught at Hunter College in Spring 1995 and feels it is vital to increase
Asian American Studies capabilities within the CUNY system.

S. Shankar is Assistant Professor in the English Department at Rutgers
University (NJ), where he teaches courses in postcolonial theory and the
literature and culture of the “Third World.” He is currently working on
a book-length manuscript tentatively entitled Textual Traffic: Textual


Editorial Committe 59

Economics and Narratives of Travel in a Colonial Context. He has
published a collection of poems, / as Man, and is co-founder and
editorial collective member of Samar (South Asian Magazine for Action
and Reflection). His work has been published in various periodicals in
India and North America.

Angel Velasco Shaw, born in Los Angeles and raised in New York,
received her BFA from CalArts and a masters degree in Media Studies
from The New School for Social Research. A member of Pilipino
Pilmmakers Pare (NYC) and recipient of artist residency appointments
and grants, she has produced numerous videos and films. She has
taught courses on Asian American film/media at Hunter College,
Columbia University, and New York University.

Shuang Shen is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department
at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is working on a dissertation entitled
Self, Nation(s), and the Diaspora—Re-reading the Works of Lin Yutang,
Bai Xianyong, and Frank Chin. She has taught at Baruch College,
Kingsborough Community College, and Queensborough Community
College, where she tries to integrate Asian American Studies
perspectives into first-year composition and introduction to literature
courses.

Alexandra Seung Hye Suh is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of
English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She is
currently teaching courses on Asian American women’s writing at
Hunter College and Barnard College. She serves on the board of the
Rainbow Center in Flushing, NY, and is a member of the Committee
Against Anti-Asian Violence and SEORO Korean Cultural Network, both
in New York City.


60

Asian American Studies Guidebook


Selected Bibliography

Note: The following annotated bibliography was generated to
provide a sampling of the material available to teachers and
scholars interested in Asian American Studies. It includes both
Asian American Studies scholarship and sources as well as
scholarship that bears directly upon the field. This list is obviously
not intended to be complete or comprehensive.

Abeles, Schwartz, Hacckel, and Silverblatt, Inc., The Chinatown
Garment Industry Study (New York: Local 23-25 International
Ladies‘ Garment Workers’ Union and the New York Skirt and
Sportswear Association, 1983).

Aguilar-San Juan, Karin, ed. The State of Asian America: Activism and
Resistance in the 1990s (Boston: South End Press, 1994).
A collection of perspectives on the current and future patterns of
Asian American activism, this book includes essays on political
movements, anti-Asian violence, racist inequalities, and cultural
and media representations. The introduction links the various
issues faced by Asian American movements and the concluding
essay evaluates the current state of Asian American Studies.

Anzaldoa, Gloria, ed. Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical
Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: aunt lute
Foundation, 1990).

Includes a number of Asian American women’s texts in the context
of writings by other women of color. See especially Kit Yuen
Quan’s “The Girl Who Wouldn’t Sing.”

Asian Women United. Making Waves: An Anthology of Writings By and
About Asian American Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989).
This anthology presents women-centered perspectives through
critical essays, short stories, poetry, and fiction.

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62 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Bao, Xiaolan. “ ‘Holding Up More Than Half the Sky’: A History of
Women Garment Workers in New York's Chinatown, 1948-1991,”
doctoral dissertation. (New York University, 1991).

Berson, Misha, ed. Between Worlds: Contemporary Asian-American
Plays (New York: Theatre Communication Groups, Inc., 1990).
Collection includes the plays of Ping Chong, Philip Kan Gotanda,
Jessica Hagedorn, David Henry Hwang, Wakako Yamauchi, and
Laurence Yep.

Bonacich, Edna. “A Theory of Middleman Minorities,” American
Sociological Review 38 (1973): 583-94.

Bonacich, Edna and Lucie Cheng and Paul Ong. Global Production: The
Apparel Industry in the Pacific Rim (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1994).

Bonacich, Edna and Lucie Cheng. Labor Immigration Under Capitalism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

Bonacich, Edna and Ivan Light. Immigrant Entrepreneur: Koreans in

Los Angeles, 1965-1982 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1988).
This book details how Koreans in Los Angeles have been channeled
into small businesses. The authors describe the context of
immigration—the political and economic background of South
Korea and the United States—and the formation of the middle-man
economic formation in contrast to the enclave economy which are
both part of the ethnic economy, and the social costs of immigrant
entrepreneurship.

Bonacich, Edna and John Modell. The Economic Basis of Ethnic
Solidarity (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of
California Press, 1980).

Bruchac, Joseph, ed. Breaking Silence: An Anthology of Contemporary
Asian American Poets (Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield Review
Press, 1983).

One of the first major anthologies of Asian American poetry, a
good, comprehensive representation of Asian American poets,


Selected Bibliography 63

including Mei-Mei Berseenbrugge, Diana Chang, Eric Chock, Garret
Hongo, Alan Chong Lau, Janice Mirikitani, Al Robles, and many
others.

Bulosan, Carlos. America Is In the Heart (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1973).
Originally published in 1943, considered a classic in Asian American
literature. This autobiographical novel chronicals the life of a
young Filipino’s childhood in the Philippines and his voyage to
America where he worked as a migrant laborer in California while
establishing himself as a proletariat poet and labor organizer.

Bulosan, Carlos. /f You Want To Know What We Are (Minneapolis: West
End Press, 1983).
Poems, essays, and short stories from the 1930s and 1940s.

Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. D/CTEE (New York: Tanam, 1982).
Explodes conventions of genre and explores issues of identity,
language, nation, gender, history, memory, and love, among
others.

Chan, Jeffery, et al., eds. Ajiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian-American
Writiers (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974).
The first major anthology of Asian American literature, most noted
for its controversial introduction, considered by many to be the first
Asian American “manifesto.” Writers represented include Carlos
Bulosan, Diana Chang, Toshiro Mori, Sam Tagatac, Hisaye
Yamamoto, among others.

Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston:
Twayne, 1991).
A good introduction to the leading themes in Asian American
history. Chan starts with Asian immigration patterns for each
ethnic group, weaving the commonalities and distinct traits. The
rest of the text is divided into chapters that study different groups
under themes such as Asian communities, changing immigration
patterns, and women and families. This is a solid piece of work
regarding its use of sources, recognition of different groups among
Asian Americans, and historical interpretation. Scant coverage of


64 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Asian Americans in the post-1965 period.

—This Bittersweet Soil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
The only book dealing with the Chinese who worked as agricultural
laborers in California.

—Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America,
1882-1943 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).
Collection of essays on the era of Chinese exclusion.

—Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos and America (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1994).

Chen, Hsiang-Shui. Chinatown No More, Anthropology of
Contemporary Issues (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).

Chen, Hsiang-Shui. Chinatown No More: Taiwanese Immigrants in
Contemporary New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
This study discusses dynamics of a new Asian immigrant
community that is distinguishable from traditional Chinatowns. It
explores various levels of organizations and activities among
Taiwanese immigrants who live in ethnicly diverse areas in Queens,
New York. Descriptions of scenes from daily life of immigrants
provide timely information on the workings of class, community
structure, and culture within an immigrant population.

Cheung, King-Kok. Articulate Silences (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1993).
Perceptive critical essay of how the theme of “silence” is dealt with
in the works of Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Joy
Kogawa.

Chin, Frank. Donald Duk (Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1991).
Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, a coming of age novel about a
boy finding meaning in his Chinese American history, culture, and
traditions.

—The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon: Two Plays
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981).
First produced in 1972 and 1974 respectively, these two plays deal


Selected Bibliography 65

with fundamental questions about Chinese American masculine
identity. Playwright is first Asian American to have play produced
on a New York stage.

Chu, Louis. Eat a Bow! of Tea (New York: Carol, 1990 [©1961]).
Classic novel about New York City’s Chinatown. Focuses on the
turbulant lives of a young, married couple dealing with the
claustrophobic and gossipy environment of Chinatown’s “bachelor
society.” One of extremely few portrayals of mid-twentieth century
Chinatown bachelor life, set in New York City.

Daniels, Roger. Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United
States Since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988).

—The Decision to Relocate the Japanese Americans (Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1975).

Espiritu, Yen Le. Asian American Panethnicity (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1992).
Excellent definition of the nature of challenges faced by Asian
Americans. This is a study that analyzes the growth patterns of
Asian Americans. Starting with the origins of the Asian American
movement, it highlights issues and challenges of ethnic diversity in
the pan-Asian American identity. The author studies this under
sections such as electoral politics and census categorizations.
Special attention is paid to changing identities and coalitions and
the role of groups like Asian American women and ethnic-specific
organizations. An important book to orient the field of Asian
American Studies.

Fawcett, James and Benjamin Carino, eds. Pacific Bridges: The New
Immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands (Staten Island, NY:
Center for Migration Studies, 1987).

Foner, Nancy. New Immigrants in New York (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1987).

Fong, Timothy P. The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of
Monterey Park, California (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1994).


66 Asian American Studies Guidebook

Gans, Herbert. “Second-Generation Decline: Scenarios for the
Economic and Ethnic Futures of the Post-1965 American
Immigrants,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 15.2 (1992): 173-92.

Gibbs, J. and L. Huang. Children of Color: Psychological Interventions
of Minority Youths (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989).
Covers a wide range of topics in child psychology. Chapters on
Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, and other Asian American
groups.

Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. /ssei, Nisei, War Bride: Three Generations of
Japanese American Women in Domestic Service (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1986).

Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan, eds. Scattered Hegemonies:
Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1994).

Hagedorn, Jessica, ed. Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of

Contemporary Asian American Fiction (New York: Penguin Books,
1993).
Eclectic collection of fifty stylistically diverse and experimental short
stories. This contemporary anthology can be used to assess the
diverse range of topics and styles covered by Asian American
fiction. This collection mirrors the developments in identity,
images, and ethnic diversity that Asian Americans have experienced
in recent years. It includes writings from more established and
newer writings who are selected from a range of ethnic and
cultural backgrounds. This work can be used to sample Asian
American literature as well as to explore conceptual directions for
the ongoing shaping of the field.

—Danger and Beauty (New York: Penguin Books, 1993).
—Dogeaters (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990).

Hatamiya, Leslie T. Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the
Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press, 1993).


Selected Bibliography 67

Hing, Bill Ong. Making and Remaking of Asian America Through

Immigration Policy, 1850-1990 (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press,
1993).
Concise general summary of immigration history, focussing on the
impact of immigration policy on Asian American populations. This
study is useful for understanding how immigration policies have
shaped the Asian American population and its ethnic and class
diversity. There are few studies on this subject with such
consideration of pan-Asian issues. There is also valuable
comparative data on different ethnic groups. First three chapters
give the best summary of Asian immigration history. An appendix
of Supreme Court cases and immigration statutes are included.

Hong, Maria, ed. Growing Up Asian American (New York: Avon Books,
1993).
This is an anthology of writings by thirty-two writers on their
experiences with self-identity (both as individuals and as a group)
while growing up in the United States. This text can be a simple
and yet forceful way to introduce the students to a range of Asian
American writings on a variety of issues. As the Asian American
population continues to grow rapidly due to the ongoing
immigration, these bicultural and crosscultural Asian American
experiences speak to the formation of new communities.

Hongo, Garrett, ed. The Open Boat. Poems From Asian America (New
York: Anchor, 1993).

Hune, Shirley et al, eds. Asian Americans: Comparative and Global
Perspectives (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1991).
This anthology seeks to define the field of Asian American Studies
by engaging discussions of the field’s emerging concerns and
issues. Based on selected papers presented at the Sixth Annual
National Conference of the Association for Asian American Studies,
this collection is divided into thematic sections on the field's links
with other area studies, historical explorations into lesser known
case studies and methodologies, and literature and art in
comparative and global perspectives. Sections may be used to
define the identity of Asian Americans and their field comparatively


68 Asian American Studies Guidebook

and provide examples of case studies into historical and
contemporary communities.

Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly (New York: Plume, 1989).
1988 Tony Award-winner for best play; a tale with mistaken sexual
identity as the center, an overt criticism of how the west
"feminizes” the east for its own political and sexual gain.

Jennings, James. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in Urban America: Status
and Prospects for Politics and Activism (Westport, CT: Praeger,
1994).

Kang, Younghill. Fast Goes West (New York: Follett Publishing
Company, 1965).
First published in 1937, an autobigraphical narrative chronicling
the life of the Korean-born author as he attempts to establish his
American identity. A sequel to the earlier The Grass Roof.
Considered a classic in Asian American literature.

—The Grass Roof (New York: Scribners, 1931).
The autobiographical narrative chronicling the life of the author
from his birth and childhood to his young adulthood in Korea
during the Japanese occupation. Followed few years later by East
Goes West describing his subsequent life in America. Considered a
classic in Asian American literature.

Kibria, Nazli. Family Tightrope: The Changing Lives of Vietnamese
Americans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Kim, Elaine H. Asian American Literature: An Introduction to Writings
and Their Social Context (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1984).

A groundbreaking first book-length critical study of Asian American
literature. Published over a decade ago, this text continues to
provide insights into relevant topics to Asian American Studies. In
lucid and forceful style, Kim guides the reader through a range of
issues, from stereotypical images of Asians in white American
literature to case studies of Asian women and ethnic groups. This
work can be used to determine directions in both past and future
readings Asian American literature. Grounded in historical and


Selected Bibliography 69

sociological realities, the most cited Asian American literary study
to date.

Kim, Illsoo. New Urban Immigrants: The Korean Community in New
York (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

Kim, Myung Mi. Under Flag (Berkeley: Kelsey Street, 1991).

Kim, Willyce. Dancer Dawkins and the Californian Kid (Boston: Alyson
Publications, 1985).
Highly comical and fantastical novel about the adventures of three
lesbians matching wits against an insidious, misogynistic
Californian cult. Interesting questions arise from its ostensible
focus on white characters.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood
Among Ghosts (New York: Vintage International, 1989).
First published in 1975, winner of the National Book Critics Circle
Award in 1976. Undoubtably the most read and discussed Asian
American work to date. Autobiographical narrative of the author's
reconciliation with her pained childhood as a Chinese American
girl.

—Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (New York: Knopf, 1989).
The author’s first work of fiction. The novel focuses on a young
Chinese American playwright and rebel in 1960s San Francisco. A
wild, surreal narrative that is not meant for the uninitiated.

Kono, Juliet S. and Cathy Song, eds. Sister Stew. Fiction and Poetry By
Women (Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge, 1991).

Kwong, Peter. Chinatown, N.Y. Labor & Politics, 1930-1950 (London
and New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979).

—The New Chinatown (New York: Hill and Wang, 1987).
A useful study of the formation and social issues within an Asian
ethnic population. This study also deals with the gaps between
images and realities and points to the political and structural
changes. The only book dealing with the political structure of an
ethnic community outside of the U.S. political system.


70 Asian American Studies Guidebook

LEAP Asian Pacific American Institute and UCLA Asian American Studies
Center. The State of Asian Pacific America: A Public Policy Report,
Policy Issues to the Year 2020 (Los Angeles, 1993).

Lai, Him Mark, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung, eds. /sland. Poetry and
History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940 (Seattle
and London: University of Washington, 1991).

Poems carved into detention center walls by male Chinese
immigrants and hopeful immigrants on Angel Island.

Lau, Alan Chong. Songs For Jadina (Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield
Review Press, 1980).

Lavender Godzilla. Journal published by the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance,
San Francisco, CA.

Lee, Mary Paik. Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990).
Interesting for its insight into early immigrant Korean American
agricultural workers’ lives, and in its embrace of U.S. nationalism.

Leonard, Karen Isaksen. Making Ethnic Choices: California Punjabi
Mexican Americans (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).

Leong, Russell. The Country of Dreams and Dust (Albuquerque: West
End Press, 1993).
Collection of calmingly lyrical poetry that adeptly intertwines
Buddhist insights and themes of the Asian diaspora.

Leong, Russell, ed. Dimension of Desire—Other Asian and Pacific

American Sexualities: Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identities and
Orientations. Amerasia Jounal 20:1 (1994).
Collection of articles seeking to forge links between questions of
sexual and racial identity among Asian Americans. Writers include
Dana Takagi, Kimberly Yutani, Trinity Ordona, Lawrence Chua,
among others.

Leong, Russell, ed. Moving the Image: Asian and Pacific American
Media Arts (Los Angeles: UCLA and Visual Communications, 1991).

Light, Ivan. Ethnic Enterprise in America (Berkeley: University of


Selected Bibliography 71

California Press, 1972).

Lim, Shirley Geok-lin and Mayumi Tsutakawa, eds. The Forbidden Stitch.
An Asian American Women’s Anthology (Corvallis, OR: Calyx
Books, 1989).

Lim, Shirley Geok-lin and Amy Ling, eds. Reading the Literature of Asian
America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).
One of few published collections of critical essays on a wide-range
of Asian American literary topics. Essayists include Oscar V.
Campomanes, Chung-Hei Yun, Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Ruth Hsiao,
Gayle K. Fujita Sato, David Li, among others.

Lim-Hing, Sharon, ed. The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writings by
Asian Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women (Toronto: Sister
Vision Press, 1994).

Collection of essays, fiction, and poetry; writers include Ann Uyeda
and Mi-ok Bruining.

Loo, Chalsa M. Chinatown: Most Time, Hard Time (New York: Praeger,
1991).

Lum, Darrell H.Y. Pass On, No Pass Back (Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge
Press, 1990).
A highly enjoyable series of stories written in “Hawai‘ian-pidgin.”
Stories all deal with childhood experiences of growing up in Hawaii
and speaking pidgin. Audio tape of author reading the stories is
available.

Miller, Stuart. The Unwelcomed Immigrants (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1969).
An important book for understanding the formation of racial
attitudes through national and racial images even before
Americans came into personal contact with Asians.

Min, Pyong Gap. Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues
(London: Sage Publications, 1995).
Up-to-date sociological study of ethnic-specific Asian American
groups. Coverage of issues is limited. Although a useful reference
book, there is an uneven quality among the chapters regarding


72: Asian American Studies Guidebook

some national groups.

—Efthnic Business Enterprise: Korean Small Business in Atlanta (New
York: Center for Migration Studies, 1988).

Mink, Gwendolyn. Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political
Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).
This political science text argues that the AFL entered the national
political arena by the using immigration issues of Chinese exclusion
and restrictionism and created a base for trade union politics
according to race and not class.

Mirikitani, Janice. Shedding Silence (Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1987).
Mootoo, Shani. Out On Main Street (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1993).

Moraga, Cherr’e and Gloria Anzaldoa, eds. This Bridge Called by Back:

Writings by Radical Women of Color (New York: Kitchen Table
Press, 1983).
Groundbreaking and uncompromising collection of prose, poetry,
and personal narratives by women of color. Asian American
contributors include Nellie Wong, Genny Lim, Mitsuye Yamada,
Merle Woo, and Barbara Noda.

Mori, Toshio. Yokohama, California (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1985).
Originally published in 1949, a series of short stories by one of the
most respected and highly regarded Japanese American writers.
Subject matters include family, community, loneliness, sibling
rivalries, and coming of age.

Murayama, Milton. All! Asking For Is My Body (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1988 [© 1959]).
One of extremely few representations of pre-World War Il
plantation life in Hawai'i. Written in 1959 and first published in
1975, a novel about the Hawaiian sugar cane plantations in the
1930s, focusing on a Japanese family and specifically the two sons
who attempt pay off their father’s debt. Considered a classic text
that accurately portrays the harsh realities of plantation life.

Nakanishi, Don T. and Tina Yamano Nishida, eds. The Asian American


Selected Bibliography 73

Educational Experience: A Source Book for Teachers and Students
(New York: Routledge, 1995).

This collection of essays includes historical and current debates
concerning Asian Americans in education. Some of the leading
specialists write on significant topics that are usually not available
in one place—historical case studies of Asian Americans and
education, stereotypes and myths about Asian Americans in
education, and curricular and structural struggles on university
campuses.

Nee, Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee. Longtime Californ’: A
Documentary Study of an American Chinatown (Palo Alto:
Stanford Univesity Press, 1972).

Nelson, Emmanuel S., ed. Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of
Color (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1993).
Asian American contributors include Martin F. Manalansan IV, Alice
Y. Hom, and Ming-Yuen S. Ma.

Ng, Fae Myenne. Bone (New York: Hyperion, 1993).
Emotionally honest and uncompromising novel about a young
Chinese American woman living in San Francisco’s Chinatown. A
remarkable work.

O’Brien, David J. and Stephen S. Fugita. The Japanese American
Experience (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1991).

Okada, John. No-No Boy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976
[© 1957).
First published in 1957, a bitterly emotional novel about a “no-no
boy's” return to his Japanese American community in Seattle after
his release from prision following the end of WW II. Considered a
classic in Asian American literature.

Okihiro, Gary. Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History
and Culture (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994).
A fascinating work in challenging established perceptions and
asking questions about Asian Americans in the United States. The
author, an experienced Asian American Studies activist, contends


74 Asian American Studies Guidebook

that from the margins of the American system, Asian Americans
and other “minorities” have played a central role in sustaining the
cherished American values of freedom and democracy. Each of the
six chapters in this book take up the challenge of centralizing the
marginalized groups (e.g., women, colonized societies, and
“others”) and highlights the limitations of stereotypes and
impermeable boundaries and their implications.

Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United
States: From the 1960s to the 1980s (New York: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1986).

Ong, Paul et al. The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global
Restructuring (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994).

Park, Kyeyoung. “The Korean American Dream: Ideology and Small
Business in Queens, New York,” doctoral dissertation. (City
University of New York, 1990).

Portes, Alejandro and Ruben G. Rumbaut. /mmigrant America: A
Portrait (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1990)

Ratti, Rakesh, ed. A Lotus of Another Color: An Unfolding of the South

Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience (Boston: Alyson Publications,
1993),
Collection of poetry, essays, interviews, and testimonies by South
Asian lesbian migrations across Africa, England, Canada, and the
United States. Wide-range of materials, although very little
coverage of working class and lower caste South Asian concerns.

Santos, Bienvenido N. Scent of Apples: A Collection of Stories (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1979).
Originally published in 1955, collection of short stories by the
highly respected Filipino writer. His first collection to appear in the
United States. Themes dealt with include pain of separation,
loneliness, struggles of exiles, nostalgia, and search for “home.”

Sasaki, R. A. The Loom and Other Stories (St. Paul: Graywolf Press,
1991).


Selected Bibliography 75

Series of short stories by the Japanese American author portrays
three generations of Japanese Americans. More notable stories
include “The Loom” and “American Fish.”

Sassen, Saskia. The Mobility of Labor and Capital (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1988).
This Sociology/Urban Studies text provides an analysis of
contemporary global economy, causes of international migration
patterns, and the role of immigrants in metropolitan economies
(e.g., New York and Los Angeles).

Saxton, Alexander. The Indispensible Enemy (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1971).
This classic history text discusses the role of the anti-Chinese
movement in the development of the labor movement in California
during the late 19th Century. It includes an analysis of the role of
Chinese labor in the development of California’s economy.

—The Rise and Fall of the White Republic (New York: Verso, 1990).
This history text provides an analysis of the role of race in
Jacksonian politics, Manifest Destiny, and the settlement of the
West.

Siu, Paul. The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation (New
York and London: New York University Press, 1987).

Sone, Monica. Nisei Daughter (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1979 [© 1953]}).
A uniquely personal autobigraphy of a Japanese American woman
growing up in Seattle in the 1930s and her family’s subsequent
internment during WW II, this text is considered a classic in Asian
American literature.

Song, Cathy. Picture Bride (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983).
1982 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, competition; a
beautifully lyrical collection of poetry by the Hawaii-born poet.

Sue, Stanley and Nathaniel Wagner. Asian Americans: Psychological
Perspectives (Palo Alto: Science and Behavior Books, 1973).
One of the earliest studies on Asian American psychology, this text


76 Asian American Studies Guidebook

is dated, but the most widely cited text in the field.

Tachiki, Amy et al, eds. Roots: An Asian American Reader (Los Angeles:
UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1971).
This is an example of one of the earliest readers put together for
teaching Asian American Studies courses. Though the conditions
have changed rapidly and much more materials are available now,
this reader serves as an inspiration for new programs to this day.
The content—comprised of interviews, studies on communities,
case studies of organizations, explorations into Asian American
identity, and much more, including the struggles embedded in
these topics—is very much relevant today. Many instructors have
continued to create their own readers for Asian American Studies
courses, and this work may be a good example of student activism
and participation in shaping the origins, contents, and directions of
the field of Asian American Studies.

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club (New York: Putnam, 1989).
The most popular and commercially successful Asian American
novel ever, chronicling the lives of three generations of Chinese and
Chinese American women. The controversy of its commercial
success is as interesting a topic of discussion as the stories in the
novel.

Takagi, Dana Y. The Retreat from Race: Asian-American Admissions
and Racial Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
1992).

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers From A Different Shore: A History of Asian
Americans (New York: Penguin, 1989).
One of the most popular texts on Asian Americans, this book can
serve as a good introductory read. This also encourages students
to approach Asian American materials analytically. Scant coverage
of Asian Americans in the post-1965 period.

Trinh T. Minh-ha et al, eds. Out There: Marginalization and
Contemporary Cultures (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).

Trinh T. Minh-ha. Framer Framed (New York: Routledge, 1992).


Selected Bibliography 77

—When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural
Politics (New York: Routledge, 1991).

—Woman Native Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).

Tsui, Kitty. Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire (New York and San
Francisco: Spinsters, Ink: 1983).
Currently out-of-print but selections are anthologized in numerous
collections.

Uba, Laura. Asian Americans: Personality Patterns, Identity, and Mental
Health (The Guilford Press, 1994).
Good, general introductory text into Asian American psychology.
One of the most recently published.

Uno, Roberta, ed. Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian

American Women (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press,
1993).
Collection includes the plays of Genny Lim, Wakako Yamauchi,
Momoko Iko, Velina Hasu Houston, Jeannie Barroga, and Elizabeth
Wong. Also includes appendix with partial listing of plays by Asian
American women.

Waldinger, Roger. Through the Eye of a Needle: Immigrants and
Enterprise in New York’s Garment Trades (New York: New York
University Press, 1986).

This sociology text anaylzes the contemporary garment industry,
immigrant labor and entrepeneurs.

Waldinger, R., H. Aldrich, R. Ward and Associates. Ethnic
Entrepreneurs: Immigrant Business in Industrial Societies, Sage
Series on Race and Ethnic Relations (Newbury Park: Sage
Publications, 1990).

Waters, Mary C. Ethnic Options - Choosing Identities in America
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990).

Wei, William. The Asian American Movement (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1994).
A timely assessment of the origins and nature of the Asian


78 Asian American Studies Guidebook

American movement that started over two decades ago. This is an
important exploration of the more recent Asian American
experience—of fighting cultural supremacy in different parts and
levels of the country, of the making of activism, and of the
challenges facing Asian American political organizations and
coalitions. It can be used not only as a tool for learning more about
Asian American Studies and its driving forces, but also a text to
encourage discussion of different perspectives and interpretations
on the directions of the field. Many critics argue that this text lacks
a substantive and grounded political framework.

Witness Aloud: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Asian/Pacific American
Writings. The APA Journal. 2:1 (Spring/Summer 1993).
Collection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by Jee Yeun Lee,
Quentin Lee, Alice Y. Hom, Mari Gonzalez, among many others.

Women of South Asian Descent Collective, ed. Our Feet Walk the Sky.
Women of the South Asian Diaspora (New York: Kitchen Table,
1981).

Wong, Bernard. Chinatown: Economic Adaptation and Ethnic Identity
of the Chinese (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982).

—"The Chinese: New Immigrants in New York’s Chinatown,” New
Immigrants in New York, ed. Nancy Foner. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1987).

—FPatronage, Brokerage, Entrpreneurship in the Chinese Community of
NewYork (New York: AMS Press, 1988).

Wong, Nellie. The Death of Long Steam Lady (Los Angeles: West End
Press, 1986).

Wong, Sau-ling Cynthia. Reading Asian American Literature: From
Necessity to Extravagance (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1993).

A critical discussion of Asian American literature through the study
of four themes: food and eating, the Doppelganger figure,
mobility, and play. Rigorously researched and persuasively argued.


Selected Bibliography 79

Wong, Shawn. Homebase (New York: Plume, 1991).
First published in 1979, a short novel about a fourth-generation
Chinese American youth searching for identity, history, and
“home.”

Yamamoto, Hisaye. Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories (New York:
Women of Color Press, 1988).
One of the most highly respected and regarded Asian American
writers. Collection includes stories that span nearly fifty years of
her career. Stories deal with intimate lives of Japanese Americans
in and out of the internment camps.

Yamauchi, Wakako. Songs My Mother Taught Me (New York: The
Feminist Press, 1994).
Stories, plays, and memoirs by one of the most respected Asian
American writers focusing on the lives of Japanese Americans as
farmers, laborers, internees, urbanites, and family members.

Yans McLaughlin, Virginia, ed. Immigration Reconsidered (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1990).
This history text contains comparative essays on immigration,
including one by Sucheng Chan on Asian immigration.

Yone, Wendy Law. The Coffin Tree (Boston: Beacon, 1987 [© 1983]).

Zhou, Min. Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban
Enclave (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).