Asian American Studies

My First Experience at a Women-Only Conference by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

“This ain’t your daddy’s conference!”

I knew that I was going to be attending a totally different type of... more “This ain’t your daddy’s conference!”

I knew that I was going to be attending a totally different type of conference than I had ever been to before when I received the following instructions on additional items to pack: (1) my own mug with which to drink coffee or tea (“we will go green in this conference as much as possible”), (2) 3 oz. of water “from a source of nature near your home” to be offered during “opening worship,” and (3) a small, modest, pre-owned, homemade, or inexpensive “earth-honoring gift for exchange.”

“Passing” for White to Get Into Harvard? By Grace Yia-Hei Kao

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on Feminism and Religion project

Asian Americans and Harvard University have been in the news and on my mind recently. The bigger story has been about... more Asian Americans and Harvard University have been in the news and on my mind recently. The bigger story has been about the “Linsanity” surrounding (Harvard grad) New York Knicks player Jeremy Lin who continues to take the NBA by storm.

The smaller story, though one that also made national headlines in  early February, is of the recent decision by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate a complaint that Harvard and Princeton Universities discriminate against Asian Americans in admissions.

According to Daniel Golden of the Bloomberg News who first broke the story:

“Like Jews in the first half of the 20th century, who faced quotas at Harvard, Princeton, and other Ivy League schools, Asian-Americans are over-represented at top universities relative to their population, yet must meet a higher standard than other applicants based on measures such as test scores and high school grades, according to several academic studies.”

Chin, Christina, Meera E. Deo, Jenny J. Lee, Noriko Milman, and Nancy Wang Yuen. 2007. "Without a Trace: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Prime Time Television," Chapter 24 in Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader. Second Edition. Edited by Min Zhou and J. V. Gatewood. New York: New York University Press.

by Nancy Yuen

Deo Meera E., Christina Chin, Jenny J. Lee, Noriko Milman, and Nancy Wang Yuen. 2008. "Missing in Action: ‘Framing’ Race on Prime Time Television." Social Justice 35:2.

by Nancy Yuen

Yuen, Nancy Wang. 2004. "Performing Race, Negotiating Identity: Asian American Professional Actors in Hollywood." Pp. 251-267 in Asian American Youth Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity, edited by Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou. New York: Routledge.

by Nancy Yuen

Yuen, Nancy Wang. 2009. “The Asian American Vote: How the Media Portrays Race Relations in the 2008 Democratic Primaries.” St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary, Vol. 24:2, pp. 421-424.

by Nancy Yuen

Participating in Beauty Culture by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

by Feminism and Religion

originally published on the Feminism and Religion Project

At the most recent Society of Christian Ethics annual meeting, I got into an impromptu late night discussion with... more At the most recent Society of Christian Ethics annual meeting, I got into an impromptu late night discussion with several women friends about why some of us participate in “beauty culture” and how we feel as feminist Christian ethicists and moral theologians about our decisions. Each of us shared why we have chosen to wear make-up (or not), keep up with fashion (or not), dye our greying hair to mask the signs of aging (or not), or put in the effort to maintain a certain physique (or not). We also addressed what role our own mothers and larger communities have played in our decision-making processes.

Since it is certainly not my place to reveal what others disclosed behind closed doors over wine, let me expand upon a few things I shared that night.

First, I told them that when I used to work at Virginia Tech (2003-2009), I had both noticed and been a little self-conscious about the fact that I was the only faculty member in Women’s Studies who regularly wore make-up. My self-consciousness stemmed from multiple sources:

“I'm not paid enough for this”: Rationalizing Labor Constraints and Exercising Agency in Janitors at The University of Hawai'i and East West Center

by Bryant Murakami

Ho, E. Y., Chesla, C. A., & Chun, K. M. (2012). Health Communication With Chinese Americans About Type 2 Diabetes. Diabetes Educ, 38(1), 66-75. doi: 10.1177/0145721711428774

by Evelyn Y. Ho

Just Another Ethnic Pol': Literary Citizenship in Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker

by Liam Corley

Refracting media characters through the prism of ethnic identity formation and gender

by David Oh

Revise & resubmit at Popular Communication; This is the final essay adapted from my dissertation.

Second-generation Korean Americans’ identification practices with media characters and celebrities in transnational... more Second-generation Korean Americans’ identification practices with media characters and celebrities in transnational media from Korea intersect with their constructions of ethnic identity. Intragroup differences in identification around ethnic involvement and gender, in particular, lead to reading positions. Their identification practices are constructed within taste hierarchies that define ethnic authenticity and boundaries of ethnic membership.

Biased optimism, media, and Asian American identity

by David Oh

Book chapter for Identity and Media: New Agendas in Communication (in press)

Not available - It is an audience reception study of Asian Americans' viewing practices of dominant media.  The... more Not available - It is an audience reception study of Asian Americans' viewing practices of dominant media.  The chapter asserts that Asian Americans adopt "biased optimism" to believe they are only beneficially shaped by representation. 

Viewing identity: Second-generation Korean American ethnic identification and the reception of Korean transnational films

by David Oh

Communication, Culture, & Critique, 2011; The first of three papers adapted from my dissertation, and the second-place faculty paper award winner for the Asian/Pacific American Division of NCA

Despite the growing importance of transnational flows of heritage media for second-generation Asian Americans, there... more Despite the growing importance of transnational flows of heritage media for second-generation Asian Americans, there is little research that investigates this relationship. This study focuses on second-generation Korean American adolescents' reception of transnational Korean media as influenced by their ethnic identity formation. It builds greater understanding of a specific Asian American ethnic group, informs ethnic identity formation research, furthers understanding of transnational Korean films, and furthers understanding of second-generation Asian Americans' reception of media. The primary finding of this study is that ethnic identity formation is a socializing force for second-generation Korean Americans that shapes their reception of transnational Korean films.

Mediating the boundaries: Second-generation Korean American adolescents’ use of transnational Korean media as markers of social boundaries

by David Oh

International Communication Gazette, 2012; This is the second of three chapters I am adapting from my dissertation.

This article builds on media use scholarship by focusing on an understudied population, second- generation Korean... more This article builds on media use scholarship by focusing on an understudied population, second- generation Korean American adolescents and their use of transnational media. The primary findings are that second-generation Korean Americans use transnational media as cultural resources through which they construct “new ethnicities” that are situated at the borders of their identities as members of the Korean diaspora whose everyday experiences are rooted in their status as marginalized racialized ethnic minorities in the U.S. Second-generation Korean Americans build inter-ethnic boundaries to create a unique identity that separates themselves from the controlling gaze of dominant culture and to build intra-ethnic boundaries to differentiate between authentic and inauthentic Korean Americans. To do so, they draw on knowledge of Korean popular culture as it comes to be known through transnational Korean media. Finally, their use of Korean media is also influenced by their local views of gender and, in particular,
masculinity.

Covering Asian America: A content analysis examining Asian Pacific American community size and its relationship to major newspapers’ coverage

by David Oh

Co-authored with Madeleine Katz, an undergraduate at Denison University, Howard Journal of Communications, 2009; The paper was the lead article in the special issue, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission.

This study attempts to determine whether 4 decades after the Kerner Commission, newspapers report more accurately on... more This study attempts to determine whether 4 decades after the Kerner Commission, newspapers report more accurately on an increasingly diverse population. Specifically, it studied whether the size of the Asian American population covered by a newspaper influences the coverage of Asian Americans in newspaper articles. It appears that although newspapers situated within larger Asian American communities report more frequently, at more depth, and with more prominence on Asian Americans, the quality of that coverage is not influenced by the size of the Asian American community. In cities with larger Asian American populations, newspapers have responded with increased stories and length but not with increased quality of coverage. This is likely because of newspaper fears of alienating European American readers, leading to a “White flight” in circulation and because of news practices that lead to distorted reports of Asian Americans. These findings renew calls for the newspaper industry to more fairly represent the diverse range of its readership and not just its most favored demographic.

Fantasy island: oceanic imaginings in Paul Yoon's Once the Shore

by John R. Eperjesi

"Just another ethnic pol": Literary Citizenship in Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker

by Liam Corley

Studies in the Literary Imagination, Volume XXXVII, Number 1, Spring 2004

It’s a Required Course: Asian Americanist Critique Outside the Asian American Studies Classroom

by Paul Lai

“Teaching Texts” column of the Journal of Asian American Studies 9.2 (June 2006): 198-201.

Film Culture Crossover: Cultural Translation and Post- Bruce Lee Film Fight Choreography

by Paul Bowman

Keynote given at East Winds conference, Coventry University, 3rd March 2012

This paper reads the emergence of ‘Oriental style’ in Hollywood (Park 2010) as an exemplary case of what Rey Chow... more This paper reads the emergence of ‘Oriental style’ in Hollywood (Park 2010) as an exemplary case of what Rey Chow calls ‘cultural translation (Chow 1995). The paper explores the intimate yet paradoxical relationship between ‘Oriental’ martial arts and the drive for ‘authenticity’ in both film choreography and martial arts practices; plotting the trajectories of key martial arts crossovers since Bruce Lee. It argues that, post-Bruce Lee, Western film fight choreography first moved into and then moved away from overtly Chinese, Japanese, Hong Kong or indeed obviously ‘Oriental style’; a move that many have regarded as a deracination or westernisation of fight choreography. However, a closer look reveals that this apparent deracination is actually the unacknowledged rise of Filipino martial arts within Hollywood. The significance of making this point, and the point of making this kind argument overall boils down to the insight it can give us into how ‘cultures’ and texts are constructed, and also into our own reading practices and the roles they play, sometimes in perpetuating certain problematic ethno-nationalist discourses.

Alter/Native Identities: Negotiations In Immigrant and Transcultural Discourse

by Parvinder Mehta

This dissertation examines ways in which immigrant identities are narratively performed, negotiated, transgressed, and... more This dissertation examines ways in which immigrant identities are narratively performed, negotiated, transgressed, and resisted. Taking its examples primarily from selected works of Bharati Mukherjee, Meena Alexander, Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston and Mira Nair, the current study explores how they, within their own specific and historical contexts, initiate and pursue the re-examination of the methods that govern our reading and understanding of categories like "American" literature, immigrant writing as well as gender. Their foci reveal a desire for self-representation that not only redefines identities but also forces us to rethink the debate on ethnicity in America. Their representation of identities within specific contexts (violence in Mukherjee's novels, memory and its relation to the female body in Alexander's writings, matrilinear ethnic self as represented by Kingston and Tan, and visualizing "home" in Mira Nair's selected films) also undertake along equally powerful critiques of the fundamentally static notion of identity that has been a matter of debate since last two decades in America. My suggestion that these writers advance a hetroglossic, dialogical concept of self also acknowledges the impossibility of perceiving cultural identities in pure essence with exclusive allegiances to ethnic origins. Their pre-occupation with identities is not native but alter/native. The relationship between the immigrant identity and established discourses involves participation rather than passive conformity to current theories about cultural negotiations. The ultimate negotiation overcomes the difficulties in building new, supportive communities that see the new identity not with a perceived sense of loss but rather as an enriching experience. This dissertation thus challenges the complex phenomena of reading the Other primarily in terms of repression and subjugation. The dissertation posits alter/native identities that must be negotiated in contemporary American literary scene. In order to highlight a postcolonial America, I have selectively used postcolonial theories along with other approaches as psychoanalysis, postmodernism, feminism and diaspora studies. Such interdisciplinary inquiries attempt to bridge the seeming gaps between American cultural criticism and postcolonial theory.