Race
Whiteness is an American ________
Who wrote Orientalism?
Edward Said
What was the goal of the SF State Strike?
To create an ethnic studies/Third World curriculum program, hire Third world faculty
What are "vertical" differences and "horizontal" differences among Asian Americans?
Vertical - between generations
Horizontal - among generations
Who was Richard Pratt?
Founder of the first Indian boarding school in 1879
"The only good Indian is a dead one...In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man” (Pratt, 1892)
How is race constructed?
Socially, relatively, and transnationally
Why is representation not a natural depiction of people and their cultures?
Representation is created - how we present it and how we give it a particular meaning
What is anti-history?
Counter-representation, going against existing historical representations
What are coolies?
Immigrants from mainly China and India who became low-wage laborers. Asian coolies replaced black slavery, made up the shortage of labor in the new world.
What is assimilation and how is it a tool for empire?
"Assimilation refers to the process through which individuals and groups of differing heritages acquire the basic habits, attitudes, and mode of life of an embracing culture."
Assimilation can be seen as a form of cultural genocide (especially for indigenous groups) that disconnects them from their community, and most importantly from their land.
What is race formed by?
(Hint: Prof. Park points out four things)
Law - institutions, policy, immigration
Science - creates epistemological categories that are seen as inevitable
Culture - popular culture
Materiality - racial capitalism, maintaining capital accumulation for settlers
Culture is _____ and ______ of meanings
giving and taking (shared meanings)
What is the tracking system? (from SF State strike film)
Students (starting from as early as elementary school) are placed into different "tracks". One track led to college/careers, the other led to vocations. Usually, only white, upper class students would be put into the college track. The tracking system was a tool to maintain the labor force.
What is an example of how the Asian population has been managed, homogenized, and essentialized by exclusion?
(e.g.) the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act: the first immigration act that identified eligibility determined by race.
(e.g.) the 1917 Barred Zone Act: barred Asians from all Asian countries, ranging from Middle East to Southeast Asia.
What is manifest destiny?
Belief that enterprising pioneers had a divine right to expand from the east coast to the west coast of the continental US as a moral obligation to God
Why is there no scientific "evidence" for race?
There is no single genetic characteristic that can distinguish one "race" from another
What is orientalism?
"Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and (most of the time) 'the Occident'" (pg. 2)
Orientalism is the critique of the binary of us and them
Why was the creation and use of the term "Asian American" significant?
Before the 1960s, there was no single term to define Asians and Asian Americans. The term "Asian American" included all people of Asian ancestry and escalated solidarity
Define heterogeneity, hybridity, and multiplicity
Heterogeneity: "the existence of differences and differential relationships within a bounded category" (Lowe, pg. 67)
Hybridity: "the formation of cultural objects and practices that are produced by the histories of uneven and unsynthetic power relations" / identities that are constructed by political struggles
Multiplicity: "the ways in which subjects located within social relations are determined by several different axes of power, are multiply determined by the contradictions of capitalism, patriarchy, and race relation"
What are the three ontological distinctions between franchise and settler colonialism?
(Hint:
Settlers
Main goal of acquisition
Colonial rules and practices)
Settlers do not leave, franchise colonists eventually leave
Acquisition of land is the primary reason behind settler colonialism
Settler colonialism is permanent and ongoing in its colonial rules and practices
What is ideology? Why is racial ideology an opinion about race?
It is series of coded messages that determines a particular meaning and shows the relationship between us and society. Racial ideology is opinion about race because race is normalized through ideology.
According to Said, knowledge can be distorted by _________ and _______ can shape knowledge production
Knowledge can be distorted by representation and power can shape knowledge production
Knowledge is produced and exists in exchange with various kinds of power
Why was self-determination important for proponents of Third World/Ethnic/Asian American Studies?
To mitigate misrepresentation and miseducation, to give them a political voice to represent themselves
What are problematic ways of understanding Asian Americans and their culture?
Essentializing them as "Asian", obscuring heterogenous identities
Why is the US an empire-state and not a nation-state? (What is the difference between empire-states and nation-states?)
Nation-state: imply homogenous population of citizens (with equal citizenship) or membership, its territories must be politically homogenous
Empire-state: requires usurpation of foreign land and its sovereignty, of disposession of people / different degrees of sovereignty and different access to power and priveledge