Protestant Missionaries, Asian Immigrants, and Ideologies of Race in America, 1850-1924 By Jennifer C. Snow. Studies in Asian Americans: Reconceptualizing Culture, History, and Politics. New York: Routledge, 2007. xx + 179 pp. $95.00 cloth.

Race, Sexuality, and Representation in David Mura’s The Colors of Desire 1 Xiaojing Zhou (bio) In Asian American literary discourse, identities of race, gender, and culture have been highly contested sites, whereas sexuality is still an emerging terrain of literary and critical exploration. 2 Sexuality, especially homosexuality, intersected by race, gender, and class, as a central theme has developed rapidly, but only recently as shown by Timothy Liu’s collections of poetry, Vox Angelica (1992), Burnt Offerings (1995), and Say Goodnight (1998), and by anthologies such as A Lotus of Another Color (1993), The Very Inside (1994), On A Bed of Rice (1995), and Asian American Sexualities (1996). 3 David Mura’s second book of poetry, The Colors of Desire (1995), is part of this significant development among Asian Americans and their growing consciousness of the complex relations between race and sexuality. Mura’s volume also marks a new departure in Asian American writers’ treatment of sexuality as a racialized and gendered positionality. 4 Mura’s poems explore the connections between racial ideologies and representational deployments of sexualities, and their effects on sexuality. They also illustrate that prohibition and taboo imposed by law or dominant ideology on sexual transgressions are enabling conditions for both the articulation and subversion of racialized heterosexual norms. Judith Butler in Bodies that Matter considers ideologically determined sexual prohibitions as “constitutive constraints,” which make the “performativity” of gender and sexuality possible. Butler further argues [End Page 245] that the “performative” dimension of the construction of sexuality is “precisely the forced reiteration of norms.” In other words, Butler contends, constraint should be “rethought as the very condition of performativity”; “the law is not only that which represses sexuality, but a prohibition that generates sexuality or, at least, compels its directionality.” 5 Butler’s theory of performativity in terms of the regulative and generative functions of power in constructing sexuality, can shed light on Mura’s representation of the connections between racial identities and sexualities. Butler’s argument that “the law is . . . a prohibition that generates sexuality or, at least, compels its directionality” can also illuminate Asian American men’s feminized stereotypes, and their counter-representations by Asian American writers of their racialized, gendered, and sexualized identities. These representations and their historical roots provide an important context for our understanding of Mura’s Colors of Desire. According to the editors of one of the earliest Asian American literary anthologies, Aiiieeeee! (1974), the history of Asian Americans is one of disempowerment and marginalization, or “emasculation” to use King-Kok Cheung’s word. 6 While fully aware that “terms such as ‘emasculated’ and ‘effeminate’ presume and underwrite the superiority of the masculine over the feminine,” Cheung examines the “emasculation” of Asian Americans as an imposition upon Asian immigrants and Asian Americans by the dominant power in the historical, cultural, and political contexts of the United States. 7 Cheung’s location of Asian American gendered identities helps shift the terms of the debate on gender issues in Asian American literary discourse from patriarchal sexism and cultural nationalism versus feminism to a more complex consideration of gender in terms of power relations, racial ideologies, and historical specificities. 8 Jinqui Ling’s recent essay on Asian American masculinity further contributes to dismantling binarisms in the debate on issues of gender. Ling argues that in investigating the meaning of Asian American men’s experience troped on their “emasculation” or “feminization,” it is necessary to contextualize these terms in a social and historical framework. 9 Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men is perhaps the most informative and galvanizing work which provides a historical context for an [End Page 246] understanding of Asian American men’s social, political, and sexual “emasculation,” as well as an Asian American writer’s counter-representations of Asian American manhood. Although Asian American sexualities have always been constructed as part of their racial and ethnic identities, Asian American writers’ rearticulations of their identities have been more concerned with the racialization and ethnicization of gender, and the engendering of race and ethnicity than with sexuality. 10 Sau-ling Cynthia Wong notes a curious absence of sexuality in works by American-born Chinese American writers since the 1960s in contrast to those...

Asian American graphic narratives typically produce meaning through arrangements of images, words, and sequences, though some forgo words completely and others offer an imagined “before” and “after” within the confines of a single panel. Created by or featuring Asian Americans or Asians in a US or Canadian context, they have appeared in a broad spectrum of formats, including the familiar mainstream genre comics, such as superhero serials from DC or Marvel Comics; comic strips; self-published minicomics; and critically acclaimed, award-winning graphic novels. Some of these works have explicitly explored Asian American issues, such as anti-Asian racism, representations of history, questions of identity, and transnationalism; others may feature Asian or Asian American characters or settings without necessarily addressing established or familiar Asian American issues. Indeed, many works made by Asian American creators have little or no obvious or explicit Asian American content at all, and some non-Asian American creators have produced works with Asian American representations, including racist stereotypes and caricatures. The earliest representations of Asians in comics form in the United States were racist representations in the popular press, generally in single-panel caricatures that participated in anti-immigration discourses. However, some Asian immigrants in the early to mid-20th century also used graphic narratives to show and critique the treatment of Asians in the United States. In the realm of mainstream genre comics, Asian Americans have participated in the industry in a variety of different ways. As employees for hire, they created many well-known series and characters, generally not drawing, writing, or editing content that is recognizably Asian American. Since the 2010s, though, Asian American creators have reimagined Asian or Asian American versions of legacy characters like Superman and the Hulk and created new heroes like Ms. Marvel. In the wake of an explosion of general and scholarly interest in graphic novels in the 1990s, many independent Asian American cartoonists have become significant presences in the contemporary graphic narrative world.

Moving Forward: Asian Americans in the Discourse of Race and Social Problems

The Challenge of Providing Culturally Competent Services

Honoring Asian diversity by collecting Asian subpopulation data in health research.

Introduction The Shape of Difference in Missionary Discourse Missionaries and the Chinese Exclusion Act Missionaries and the Exclusion of the Japanese United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind From Homogeneity to Diversity: Missionary Responses to Scientific Racism Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Protestant Missionaries, Asian Immigrants, and Ideologies of Race in America, 1850-1924

Background Racial/ethnic minorities constitute more than 30% of the U.S. population, and yet represent less than 18% of clinical trial (CT) participation. The participation of minorities in CTs is a critical link between scientific innovation and improvement in health care delivery, as well as the provision of evidence-based medicine. Although Asian Americans (AAs) are the fastest growing minority group in the U.S., they are the least represented in CTs. Specifically, more than 65% of AAs are foreign-born, and greater than 30% have limited English proficiency. Little is known about AA immigrants' willingness to participate in CTs. The purpose of this study was to examine (1) AA immigrants' perception of CTs and (2) how sociodemographic factors might influence their perception. Methods This study used a cross-sectional design and quota sampling. Participants were recruited through seven AA community-based organizations and from six AA subgroups (Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Laotian, South Asians, and Vietnamese). An eight-item survey tool was developed to measure perceived benefits and cost of participating in CTs. The survey tool consisted of four positive statements and four negative statements. Participants were asked to rate each statement on a 5-likert scale. A total perception score was calculated by adding all eight items. A higher score indicates a more positive perception. The score can range from 0 to 40. The survey tool was translated, back translated in participants' native language. Results 470 participants completed the survey and 459 (98%) were immigrants. 48% of the participants had family income less than $20,000/year, 32% had less than 9 years of education, 39% reported less than average English proficiency. 26% of the participants were less than 50 years old (mean age = 56) and 27% were in the U.S. less than 10 years (mean years = 20). The Cronbach's Alpha for the perception scale was 0.64. The average perception score was 28.5 (SD = 4.03) and ranged from 18 to 40. There was a significant differences in the perception score across the seven subgroups. Both Vietnamese and Cambodian communities had the lowest perception scores (mean = 26.58 and 26.83, respectively); while Filipinos community had the highest perception score (mean = 30.20). The majority believed CTs could be beneficial to their community (83%) and helpful to advance medical knowledge and improve treatment (87%), as well as provide patients with an opportunity to try new treatment (86%). 70% of participants indicated that they would consider participation in clinical trials if they knew more about it. Participants who had less than 9 years education had significantly lower perception score than participants who had more than 9 years education (p <.0005). Participants whose family income < $20,000/years had significantly lower perception score, compared to participants with family income >$20,000/year (p = .003). Participants whose English proficiency less than average also had significantly lower perception score (p < .0005). While age did not have significant effect on CT perception, participants who lived in the U.S. less than 10 years had a significant lower score than participant who lived in the U.S. longer (p =.017). Conclusion The inclusion of AAs in clinical trials is critical for the mitigation of disparities and for realizing the true promise of precision medicine in cancer prevention and treatment. It is often argued that racial/ethnic minorities do not participate in CTs because they don't understand the importance of CTs or distrust the system. However, our findings challenge these assumptions. It will require greater effort and commitment on the part of institutions and researchers to recruit and enroll hard-to-reach populations in CTs. Steps must be taken to assure the inclusion and representation of racial/ethnic minorities. Citation Format: Helen Lam, Michael Quinn, Edwin Chandrasekar, Reena Patel, Karen Kim. Asian immigrants' perception of clinical trials. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Ninth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2016 Sep 25-28; Fort Lauderdale, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2017;26(2 Suppl):Abstract nr A16.

Language identity has been defined in the research as an individual's connection to their sense of self through using language with others. Understanding language identity construction in a new environment among Asian immigrants, a racial/ethnic minority population, is important for addressing health disparities and inequities. This study examined how language identity could be defined by 1.5 generation Asian and Asian American immigrant young adults, and how using multiple languages influenced their sense of belonging in the United States. Additionally, we investigated how languages influenced the way they interact with others and see themselves, and what language use contexts and characteristics helped them to establish their language identity. Participants were defined as those who arrived in the United States from Asia with their 1st generation parents when they were 5-17 years old, have lived for at least 12 months, and are now aged 18-29. We conducted 8 focus group discussions with 24 participants (2-4 in each group) residing in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and analyzed verbatim transcriptions using Dedoose. We report on three themes identified in the analysis: 1) languages played a key role in forming personal and professional relationships that impacted identities; 2) language identity was distinct from language proficiency; and 3) multilingualism shaped their ethno-racial identity and sense of belonging. Future research will pursue one-on-one in-depth interviews and longitudinal studies to subsequently understand individualized experiences and expand the scope of the target population to provide generalizability to other 1.5 generation Asian and Asian American immigrants.

Since the late 1960s, Asian American studies began to become a significant discipline and a common response to the immigrant experiences, but most of the discussions unbalancedly focus on reacting against the racial and ethnic discrimination imposed on the minority immigrants; that is why the assertions such as “claiming American” (to quote Maxine Hong Kingston) or “uncovering the buried past (to quote Japanese American historian Yuji Ichioka) are advocated vehemently in their search of an (American) identity. However, the category of Asian American or Chinese American and the position against a hegemonic majority, is no longer sufficient and even not adequate for a more recent and diverse group of emerging Asian immigrants, who may not be primarily concerned with the to-be-or-not-to-be dilemma or worlds-choosing. Since Asian immigrants historically have been considered transnational and diasporic, Asian American studies' focus on either the American experiences of Asian immigrants or the rootedness of Asian Americans in the United States needs to be reevaluated. In other words, what emerges out of the hyphenated-status discussion is the demand to rethink and reconceptualize the original ideal of an Asian American identity rooted in the U.S. experience and the need to include a variety of Asian American experiences that go beyond the national boundary of the United States. Like what Evelyn Hu-DeHart and Arif Dirlik maintain in Across the Pacific: Asian Americans and Globalization, important issues, such as how Asian American studies involve more relevance to a transnational and immigrating aspect and also incorporate diasporic linkages in Asian immigrant experiences, need to be emphasized and scrutinized. The thesis is composed of two parts, attempting to incorporate textual analysis with the Chinese translation of the novel. The first part the thesis is composed of four chapters. In the first chapter, I provide a brief account of Chinese immigration history to serve as a background understanding of Chuang Hua’s Crossings. Besides, a succinct introduction of Crossings is presented too, partly to emphasize its significance and its difference from other Chinese immigrant narratives better known, and partly to spell out the issues of identity and exilic status. In Chapter Two of this thesis, my focus is on the protagonist, Fourth Jane, the patriarchal principles she has to obey, and the “system of balances” she is cast in. For this middle child in her traditional family, she experiences cross-cultural narratives about being a daughter and a female in an unyielding familiar structure and in a stagnant love relationship with her unnamed Parisian lover, as well as being a Chinese emigre in Europe in the 1960s. Her own individual displacement is a mobility not merely crossing from homecoming to wandering as a defiant female, but also crossing from England to America to Paris as a Chinese. Furthermore, I argue for a different reading of exile to elucidate the minority mobile subjects’ identities. Conventionally, exile is experienced as a dislocation, both physical and psychic. However, exile may also offer liberating possibilities. Amy Kaminsky notes that the experience of physical and emotional rupture can lead to personal growth and transformation. Through the discovery of an inner capacity “to survive and grow in the new environment” (37), one may find a greater independence and confidence and thus gain a more fulfilling self-affirmation and realization. This act of self-discovery to rebirth can be seen as an emergence of new personhood and subjectivity. The concept of “identity on the move” can also be associated with the immigrant’s position in exile and between worlds, and the unfixed ethnicity should be put within this framework of discussion as well. Chapter Three of the thesis reexamines the framework of “between-worlds” and the search of self under the “Orientalist” stereotype and in dislocation. The feeling of being between worlds, totally at home nowhere is a duality that is characteristic of all people on the move and in a minority position. The feeling of being between worlds is at the core of many ethnic minority writers and, consequently, of the books they write. Superficially, Chuang Hua’s Crossings deal with the “between-worlds” ambiguity fostered in the protagonist’s mind; however, Chuang Hua tries to accomplish more to carve out a new position for Fourth Jane while confronting the “between-worlds” complex and suffering from a personal fragmentedness. The between-world complexity is indeed a paradox, for Fourth Jane the female emigre is simultaneously subordinate and central, victimized and heroic and active. On the one hand, being caught between worlds can be interpreted to mean occupying the space or gulf between two banks; then, one is in a state of suspension, accepted by neither side and therefore truly belonging nowhere, which could lead to identity fragmentation. On the other hand, viewed from a different perspective, being between worlds may be considered as having footholds on both banks and therefore belonging to two worlds at once. One not only has less but also enjoys more. What is interesting is that Fourth Jane entirely experiences the two aspects of being between worlds, and the two aspects seem to be a linear procession from belonging to nowhere to owning both worlds. This is a path to epiphany. The space of alienation and the interstitial position between worlds become the space of self-liberation and self-exploration. Also, in the context of globalization and internationalization, not only the role of Asian American studies but the migrating subjects are going through an identity shift. The duality of the between-world condition and the hyphenated identity definitely need to be reexamined in dealing with narratives by Asians in exile. The traditional negotiation of being between “two” worlds and the embarrassment of hyphenated identity now seem to be limited and inconvincible while we read works of Asian immigrating writers. More and more critics have attempted to redefine the place of these hyphenated Asians, and to describe them in different ways. Sau-ling Wong, for instance, uses the term “denationalization” to explain the easing of cultural national concerns and the shifting from a domestic to a diasporic perspective. Shirley Geok-lin Lim in her essay “Immigration and Diaspora” employs the categories of “immigrant and diasporic” to view U.S. minority literature and cosmopolitan, metropolitan literature (290). These different perspectives could be a help for us to read the narratives of Asian immigrant writers of recent decades without identifying them as merely conventional ethnic minority and immigrants. As an immigrant narrative read within the parameters of Chinese American literature, the transnational and global constituents embedded in the novel can be neglected easily; thus in the concluding chapter, I attempt to discuss whether it is possible to view Chuang’s Crossings as a “global narrative,” with the hope to carve out a different way to read Chinese immigrant literature. In dealing with narratives by Asians in the diaspora, Eleanor Ty contends that “global novelists” or “global writing” is a more accurate term. Crossings, like the global narratives, highlights movement, instability, and the importance of standpoint or location. To a certain extent, it reveals the way transportation/moving, transnational crossing and globalization has shifted and changed the meaning and the signifier “Asian American” or “Asian European.” What I am also interested in looking at in the final section is narratives by Asians in the diaspora whose works fall outside of this hyphenated paradigm of Asian-plus-adopted-country. In the last few decades, Asians in the diaspora have produced books and films which deal not only with immigration or being caught “between worlds” but also with transnational mobility and exile. They contribute to the creation of what D. N. Rodowick calls a “globalized cosmopolitan public sphere,” a “contradictory and heterogeneous transnational space” (14). He argues that “postmodern forces of globalization have shifted or, more precisely multiplied and complicated centers of power so as to diminish the forms of self-identity conveyed or constructed by nationality” (14). Thus mobile identities and mobile citizens, including “expatriate intellectual” and the “new cosmopolitans,” emerge out. Chuang Hua’s Crossings does deal with questions of identity and subjectivity of the Asian subject, but it does not limit the subject in the adopted America or in the native China respectively, but relocates the subject in the suspension and duration of different continents. Chuang in a way brings a global perspective to the otherwise narrowly defined parameters of hyphenated identities of Asian American or Chinese American. I am not arguing for an abolition of the label Asian American or the Asian-plus-adopted-country paradigm per se. What I want to call attention to in this final section is the fluidity of subjectivity and positions available to Asian Americans. Stressing the unstable and cosmopolitan identity aspects of the novel is another way of pointing out the transnational, transcultural, and fluid potential that I think liberating in Crossings and in works by Chinese American or Asian American authors.

The journey of Asian Americans in the United States is vital to understanding the perspective that Asian immigrants take on the way to becoming Asian Americans. Within the past century, Asians in America have played an essential role in communities across the country. In order to understand the efforts it takes for some of these people, our “Internship in Asian American Studies” (ASAM 490) class explored their experiences and lives by highlighting Asian American and Asian business owners in Greater Lafayette, other areas in Indiana. With a lack of vocalization about this topic, it is crucial to establish this voice for the Asian and Asian American communities. In our service-learning project, we created a narrative over images captured to visualize the history of the Asian Americans we interviewed. Through this narrative, we hope to enable a more established engagement within our campus archives both institutionally and academically in order to showcase the Asian American community and the successes and triumphs that those in the Greater Lafayette area have overcome.

Untangling the Myth of the Model Minority

The US is a multicultural society due to its growing number of ethnic minorities. These ethnic populations have made intracultural studies more difficult because of the different senses of identity and degrees of acculturation the varied groups possess. The current study examined the impact of perceived ethnicity (Asian vs. Asian American) and acculturation level (low vs. high) on consumer ethnocentrism towards the country of immigration (the US) and its consequences with respect to Asian immigrants, the fastest growing minority in the US. One hundred and eighty‐five responses from Asian immigrants were collected through a convenience sample from a university campus located in the southwest US as well as a snowball sampling technique. Results revealed that perceived ethnicity and acculturation play an important role in influencing Asian immigrants' ethnocentrism towards the US, which in turn affects their attitudes and behavioural intentions towards products made in the US. Implications and future research directions are suggested.

Leisure Time, Non-leisure Time, and Occupational Physical Activity in Asian Americans

Asian American religions have dramatically increased their presence in the United States. Partly, this is a function of the increasing population of Asian Americans since 1965. Asian American is a name given to the United States residents who trace their ancestry back to the area of Asia from Pakistan in the west to the Pacific islands east of the Asian landmass. There are over 18 million Asian Americans in the United States (about 6 percent of the national population), and Asians are immigrating to the country at rates that far exceed those for any other group. Other names have been taken, given, or forced upon Asian Americans. Such terms as “Chinese or Japanese imperial subjects” heightened a unity of political and religious obedience to a divine emperor. “Oriental” started as a French idealization of the Confucian state before descending to the level of being an epithet for backwardness. Immigrants come with nationalities like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and so forth that often intervene into religious discourses (see an example of this process in the Chinese American experience as described by Fenggang Yang (Chinese Christians in America. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999). In the 1970s the name Asian American was popularized by West Coast intellectuals in order to gather forces at the barricades of political and racial movements. Some scholars like Michael Omi and Howard Winant (Racial Formation in the United States. From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994) claimed “Asian American” as a racialized reality, which was the result of racial conflicts innate to American society. Others saw the identity as an ethnic claim to assimilation into American cultural reality. Asian immigrants and their progeny find ways to balance out the religious, national, ethnic, racial, and other identities from their homeland, new nation, and religion. “Asian American” has also become a common-sense meaning that was institutionalized by the U.S. census. But one should remember that many layers of names sit upon Asian American houses of worship as so many barnacles telling tales of ancestral honors, woes, and self-reflections. Over three-quarters of Asian Americans profess a religious faith. About a quarter say that they are “religious nones,” that is, either having no particular religious faith or identifying as agnostic or atheist. About half of the “nones” actually have religious beliefs and ethics and practice them as an intrinsic part of Asian American culture, not as something that is “religious.” Two-thirds of religious Asian Americans are Christians. This is not surprising when we take into account the rapid growth of Christianity in the non-European world. Asian Americans are contributing to the “de-Europeanization” of American Christianity and signal the increasingly religious direction of the 21st century. Other Asian American religions include Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroasterism, new Japanese religions, and many more. The history of Asian American religions involves a dynamic interplay of the United States and Asia, global politics, democratic revolutions, persecution in Asia, racism in the United States, Supreme Court cases, and religious innovation. The largest Asian American groups, those with 1–4 million people each, trace their ancestry back to Japan, China, Philippines, Vietnam, India, and Korea. Seven smaller groups have over 100,000 people each: Bangladeshis, Burmese, Cambodians, Hmong, Laotians, Pakistanis, and Thais. And there are many more smaller groups. The diverse ethnic and national origins of Asian Americans means that their religions have a kaleidoscope of religious styles and cultures.