Editors' Preface

Abstract

Editors' Preface Lisa Sun-Hee Park and Diane C. Fujino The Journal of Asian American Studies (JAAS) began publication in 1998 as the official publication of the Association for Asian American Studies. With the current issue, we are now commemorating the journal's twenty-fifth anniversary and to mark this significant moment, we invited distinguished scholars to comment on what they view as important intellectual developments in Asian American Studies. We had intended these "reflections of the field" essays to provide a focused and timely critique on a given topic that coincides with their own area of research. In their respective essays, Moon-Ho Jung, Professor and the Harry Bridges Endowed Chair in Labor Studies in the History Department at the University of Washington, and Martin Manalansan IV, Professor and the Beverly & Richard Fink Professor in Liberal Arts in the American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, did just this and more. Moon-Ho Jung begins with an arresting vignette–lasting a few minutes at most–of an interaction between Arundhati Roy and Howard Zinn that occurred in 2003, after the US invasion of Iraq. This fleeting interaction sets the stage for Jung's incisive critique of nationalism and its persistent existence in articulations of Asian American history. Like some of the most significant contributions in Asian American studies, Jung takes a seemingly minute exchange and analytically pulls out a meaningful assertation that lies beneath–that the narrative of "immigrant America" is a nationalistic, sanitizing process that reinforces US empire. Martin Manalansan, takes a different but equally powerful approach in his essay. Following his own (disjointed) career trajectory, Manalansan outlines the experience of exceptionalism and isolation that results from the ways in which Asian American studies and LGBTQ studies have each worked to institutionalize their respective fields. Ever the optimist, Manalansan concludes his essay by providing an analytical key to creating a more expansive, fluid, and [End Page v] coalitional future–it is in fact something we already know as foundational to the beginnings of both Asian American studies and LGBTQ studies. He writes that we need to get back to "street knowledge;" grounded in the "realities of injustices, oppressions, and violence that compel us to act and move beyond institutionalized arrangements and scripted futures." To round out the commemorative section of this issue, Donna Doan Anderson took on the challenge of articulating a history of JAAS. Editorial Assistant for JAAS and graduate student in history and Asian American studies at UC Santa Barbara, Anderson contacted past editors of JAAS and sorted through data accumulated over the past twenty-five years to provide a snapshot of the journal and its reflection of the many shifts and tensions in the field. Anderson astutely notes that JAAS exists to "grapple with the field's growing pains" and, while the journal has successfully developed into an important academic resource (top 10 percent of journals viewed on Project MUSE!), questions remain about the costs of institutionalization and the current purpose of Asian American studies. As Editors of JAAS, we view these pressing, difficult concerns as central to the continued relevance of the journal itself. It is why JAAS exists. The next section of this issue is devoted to two research articles. The first is an important contribution by Na-Rae Kim, which focuses on the shifting cultural, legal, and political uses of North Koreans in the US imaginary. Bringing together theoretical critiques of war, militarization, humanitarianism, and critical refugee studies, Kim analyzes memoirs by a North Korean defector and a Korean American journalist about their experiences in North Korea, both published in 2015. Kim argues that 2015 was a pivotal year in which North Korean refugees became assimilable; culminating in 2018, when Donald Trump (who won the presidency based largely on anti-immigration politics) featured Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean defector, as an "American hero" in his State of the Union address. Kim's fascinating interdisciplinary study thoughtfully and engagingly explains how such an incongruent event came to pass. She shows also that the narrative structure of both memoirs are familiar constructions, with deep roots in both US and global literary traditions. Kim summarizes her analysis by reinforcing a foundational lesson in...