Insiders, Outsiders, and In-Between: Asian Nonimmigrant Experience in the American Context of Intersectional Racism

Abstract

The racism discussion in the United States has often overlooked the role of legal statuses and left Asian resident nonimmigrants unable to process their intersectional experience with racial discrimination in the American context. This lack of space plays out within public discussions, within one’s subjectivity, and within the minority collective subjectivity. This paper demonstrates the invisibility of this space through examples of news reports and governmental policies during the 2020 pandemic and provides the language and framework for legal statuses as part of intersectional racism with reference to literature on the philosophy of race.