American Oriental Research Articles

Decolonizing the “Universal” Human Rights Regime: Questioning American Exceptionalism and Orientalism

This article aims to decolonize the discourse of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through the lens of Critical Muslim Studies, arguing that such systems of “international norms” are Eurocentric in character and hegemonic in practice. I argue that the promotion of a Western system of human rights as universal works through the two pillars of Orientalism and Eurocentrism, focusing particularly on the discourse of American exceptionalism as a distinct American form of Eurocentrism. Such a critique is a necessary first step for creating the grounds for alternative human rights orders, such as the notion of Islamic human rights. To be successful, any alternative Islamic system for alleviating human oppression and suffering should first dismantle the hegemonic grip of Orientalism and Eurocentrism on human rights.

Orientalism and De-Orientalism in Contemporary Latin America: Reading César Aira

Scholars of Latin American Orientalism have argued that Orientalism from Latin America, because of its peripheral position, does not harbor imperialist intentions but rather a desire for South-South allegiances. Nonetheless, contemporary depictions of Asia and Asians continue to be deeply stereotyped and Orientalist. This paper examines the functions of the Orientalist imaginary in present-day Latin America, especially as consumers and producers have become aware of Orientalism’s discursive power. Analyzing three Asian-themed novels by Cesar Aira, this article argues that there is a momentous convergence of Orientalism and de-Orientalism in contemporary culture which at once dehumanizes and accepts Asia.

Engendering threat in the guise of protection: Orientalism and Sikh vulnerability

ABSTRACTOn August 5, 2012, self-avowed white supremacist Wade Michael Page gunned down six Sikh worshipers at a Gurudwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, before turning the gun on himself. The coverage of the shooting in select media outlets mostly blamed Wade’s obsession with white supremacist hate music and his troubled childhood for the fatal shooting spree. Alternately, I argue that other, neglected factors also converged to produce the conditions that resulted in the Oak Creek massacre. These include the violent interventions of the US into the Muslim world pre- and post-9/11 and the long history of American Orientalism as an ideological force that rationalizes such interventions and racializes Muslim, Arab, and turbaned bodies as threats to American security; Page’s radicalization in the military, including his intense exposure to orientalist discourse as a PSYOP specialist; and his involvement with the organized white supremacist movement. I end with a call for scholars to center Orientalism in their study of emerging security cultures and discourses.

Acculturation and Health Behaviors Among African Americans: A Systematic Review

This systematic review examines the relationship between acculturation and health behaviors in African Americans. To meet inclusion criteria, studies published in English had to examine the relationship between acculturation and a health behavior among African Americans of any age (including children and adults). Twenty-one studies met criteria for inclusion. Studies assessed the relationship of acculturation to one or more of six different health behaviors: tobacco use, alcohol use, illicit drug use, risky sexual behavior, health-promoting behaviors (e.g., physical activity), and cancer screening. Although some studies found that a traditional African American orientation was associated with unhealthy behaviors, other studies found the opposite or no relationship. Also, for several health behaviors, only one or two studies were available, making it difficult to make definitive conclusions about the relationship of acculturation to these health behaviors. Thus, findings should be considered preliminary. Studies examining the relationship between acculturation and health behaviors among African Americans are needed.

Parent involvement in school and Chinese American children's academic skills

ABSTRACTThe authors examined the concurrent associations of school-based parent involvement (PI), family sociocultural factors, and children's academic skills in a sample of 258 Chinese American children (5–9 years old) in immigrant families. Parents reported their American and Chinese orientations and family socioeconomic status (SES). Parents and teachers rated parents' school-based involvement, and children's English reading and mathematics calculation skills were assessed with standardized tests. Results of path analysis indicated that, controlling for SES, parents' American orientation was positively associated with their self-reported PI. Although parent- and teacher-reported PI were positively correlated with each other, only teacher-reported PI was positively associated with children's English reading. These findings support the benefits of school-based PI for Chinese immigrant children's English reading achievement. Results also highlight the need to consider differences between teachers' and parents' perceptions of PI in developing culturally sensitive interventions to encourage immigrant parents' school involvement.

Douglas Little. Us versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat.

“When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly what they were. It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was” (vi). Presidential candidate George W. Bush’s addled Cold War nostalgia serves as the inspiration for Douglas Little’s study of the post–Cold War confrontation between the U.S. and radical Islam. Little picks up on a theme—Americans’ perennial need for a “them”—raised in the third edition of his previous book, American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (2008). In Us versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat, he contributes extensive new research and analysis on the foreign policies of the four most recent U.S. presidents to explain how the “Green Threat” of radical Islam replaced the “Red Threat” of Soviet communism as America’s “other” and larger-than-life enemy. In an engagingly written, compact book consisting of an introduction and six chapters, Little places the war against radical Islam into long-term patterns of U.S. history. Recent Islamophobia, he notes, “echoed xenophobic tales from the distant and not-so-distant past exaggerating the malevolent intentions and diabolical powers of Native Americans, African slaves, Nazi spies, and Bolshevik revolutionaries eager to do ‘us’ harm” (13). Citing examples extending back to the Puritan war against the Wampanoags, Little convincingly argues that “the notion of a virtuous America endangered by wicked and violent enemies was not new at all” (15). The Cold War set the terms for America’s confrontation with radical Islam. Not only did the U.S. support Islamist states, including Saudi Arabia and groups such as the Afghan mujahidin as anti-communist allies, but the Cold War would also provide useful precedents for architects of the war on terror. A prime example is NSC-68, the 1950 charter for globalizing the Cold War under Harry Truman, which neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration invoked as a model for mobilizing American society against a putatively existential threat.

Manufactured “Mismatch”

Studies bear out that African Americans are drastically underrepresented in criminology and criminal justice doctoral programs and that, once admitted, they have lower-than-average rates of completion. On average, throughout their careers, African Americans are less likely to secure positions in the most prestigious programs; publish in the most highly regarded journals; or receive tenure, promotion, and compensation commensurate with their European American colleagues. One explanation is that the academy espouses ideals that disadvantage those from a Black cultural background. Through auto-ethnographic narratives, this article explores the ways in which criminology and criminal justice have adopted and reinforced a professional culture that may be incongruent with that of most Black academics. Borrowing from the tenets of critical race theory, we examine the ways in which the field imposes criteria for success counter to the cultural orientation of many African Americans. Finally, we argue the need for field-wide self-assessment and proactive measures to increase receptiveness to, and inclusion of, scholars who bring broader methodological and cultural lenses to both the academic discipline and the practical administration of justice.

Emily Dickinson and China

Centered upon the complicated relationship between Emily Dickinson and China, this thesis analyzes Chinese cultural imagination of Dickinson in relation to Dickinson’s Oriental vision, searches for a Chinese critical framework in Dickinson studies, and illustrates the significance of cross-cultural reading and rereading. In particular, the thesis advocates the use of the Chinese cultural resources in foreign literary study, heeds creative understanding embedded within cultural imagination and highlights the epistemic advantage of cross-cultural critics’ exotopic vision. Chapter One examines several important critical issues that have occurred since Dickinson was first introduced into China in the early 1920s, plumbing the changes of Chinese cultural and social environments. The next two chapters focus upon two of Dickinson’s distinctively Chinese cultural images — a “Boudoir Lament” and “Daoist Vision,” and illustrate their formation processes, salient configurations, sociological function and cognitive values. Chapter Four employs the journal by Zhong Wenyin, a Taiwanese writer as a case study to scrutinize how a Chinese writer grafts Dickinson and Daoism together to settle the mind. Chapter Five explores Dickinson’s preoccupation with the poetic imaginary of “Re (homing),” and highlights its resemblance to Daoist meditation that most Western Dickinson scholars fail to recognize. In Chapter Six, I examine two of Dickinson’s hummingbird poems, illustrating how the acts of translation and the cultural backgrounds of cross-cultural critics facilitate the discovery of some meanings that have been missed by native scholars, and in addition, explicating how Dickson’s Daoist-like vision, as expressed in “Oriental Circuit” and “Linguistic Non-action,” may have influenced her poetic imagination. Chapter Seven investigates Dickinson’s engagement with the Orient, arguing that her “Circumference,” which resembles Daoism constitutes an enriching part of American Orientalism represented by Transcendentalism.

Acculturation, psychological adjustment, and parenting styles of Chinese immigrant mothers in the United States.

This study examined whether acculturation to American culture, maintenance of Chinese culture, and their interaction predicted Chinese immigrant parents' psychological adjustment and parenting styles. We hypothesized that American orientation would be associated with more positive psychological well-being and fewer depressive symptoms in immigrant mothers, which in turn would be associated with more authoritative parenting and less authoritarian parenting. The examination of the roles of Chinese orientation and the interaction of the 2 cultural orientations in relation to psychological adjustment and parenting were exploratory. Participants were 164 first-generation Chinese immigrant mothers in the United States (Mage = 37.80). Structural equation modeling was used to examine the direct and indirect effects of acculturation on psychological adjustment and parenting. Bootstrapping technique was used to explore the conditional indirect effects of acculturation on parenting as appropriate. American orientation was strongly associated with positive psychological well-being, which was in turn related to more authoritative parenting and less authoritarian parenting. Moreover, American and Chinese orientations interacted to predict depressive symptoms, which were in turn associated with more authoritarian parenting. Specifically, American orientation was negatively associated with depressive symptoms only at mean or high levels of Chinese orientation. Results suggest acculturation as a distal contextual factor and psychological adjustment as 1 critical mechanism that transmits effects of acculturation to parenting. Promoting immigrant parents' ability and comfort in the new culture independently or in conjunction with encouraging biculturalism through policy intervention efforts appear crucial for the positive adjustment of Chinese immigrant parents and children. (PsycINFO Database Record

‘“La Choy Chinese Food Swings American?:”’ Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship and American Orientalism Before World War II

This article traces the early years of La Choy Food Products, a company that pioneered the mass production of Chinese food for home consumption in the early part of the twentieth century in the USA. In particular, this article focuses on how Ilhan New, a Korean immigrant entrepreneur negotiated American Orientalism to carve out an economic niche in the American ethnic food market. Importantly, the story of Ilhan New and the rise of La Choy and its role in assimilating Chinese food for American consumers, demonstrates how Asian immigrants understood and utilized Orientalist discourse to negotiate a "space" that benefited their material experiences. It also reveals how racial understandings structured the economic opportunities of Asian immigrants in the USA before World War II.

Bicultural Competence and the Latino 2.5 Generation

The 2.5 generation refers to individuals who have one parent born in the United States and one born in another country. The presence of both native-born and foreign-born parents has the potential to enhance bicultural adaptation. Across two studies with Latino young adults, we examine the extent to which the 2.5 generation is distinct from members of other generations with regard to cultural orientation, acculturative stress, and parent ethnic socialization. Results suggest that the 2.5-generation individuals report greater native cultural orientation, ethnic identity, and parental socialization compared with third-generation individuals, along with greater American orientation than first-generation individuals. The 2.5 generation also reports less language use and more acculturative stress due to Spanish competency pressures than first- and second-generation individuals. These results demonstrate that the 2.5-generation individuals may have some bicultural advantages compared with third-generation individuals; however, they may also experience similar challenges with regard to language maintenance.

Who’s Zoomin’ Who? Bhagavadgītā Recensions in India and Germany

This article discusses the political and theological ends to which the thesis of different “recensions” of the Bhagavadgītā were put in light of recent work on the search for an “original” Gītā (Adluri, Vishwa and Joydeep Bagchee, 2014, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology; Adluri, Vishwa and Joydeep Bagchee, 2016a, Paradigm Lost: The Application of the Historical-Critical Method to the Bhagavad Gītā). F. Otto Schrader in 1930 argued that the “Kashmir recension” of the Bhagavadgītā represented an older and more authentic tradition of the Gītā than the vulgate text (1930, 8, 10). In reviews of Schrader’s work, Franklin Edgerton (Journal of the American Oriental Society 52: 68–75, 1932) and S. K. Belvalkar (New Indian Antiquary 2: 211–51, 1939a) both thought that the balance of probabilities was rather on the side of the vulgate. In a trenchant critique, Edgerton took up Schrader’s main arguments for the originality of the variant readings or extra verses of the Kashmir version (2.5, 11; 6.7; 1.7; 3.2; 5.21; 18.8; 6.16; 7.18; 11.40, 44; 13.4; 17.23; 18.50, 78) and dismissed them out of hand (1932, 75). Edgerton’s assessment was reinforced by Belvalkar, who included a survey of various other “versions” of the Gītā in existence, either by hearsay or imitation. Belvalkar was especially hostile to the possibility of a Kashmir recension, because, as he noted, “once Schrader’s thesis is accepted as proved, it raises the possibility of other recensions of the Poem being current at different times in different parts of India” (1939a, 212). Belvalkar was consequent in following this assessment in the Critical Edition of the Bhagavadgītā, and the text reprinted there is essentially that of Śaṅkara’s eighth-century commentary. Yet, the publication of the Critical Edition has not sufficed to end the controversy, as witnessed by the latest spate of works (Vedavyas, E, 1990, Ancient Bhagavad Gita: Original Text of 745 verses, with Critical Introduction) (Bhattacharjya, Sunil Kumar, 2013, The Original Bhagavadgītā. Complete with 745 Verses) that claim to have discovered the “original” Gītā. In light of these attempts, we raise the question: why is there such interest in identifying versions of the text at variance from the normative one? And why do Indologists, in the name of “critical” scholarship, continue to welcome the creation of apocryphal versions of Indian texts? We suggest that there is a historical link between German Indology’s emphasis on creating new texts and German Protestantism.

Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle: Umayyad Crucifixion in Its Late Antique Context. By Sean W. Anthony. American Oriental Series 96. New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society, 2014. Pp. x + 99. $39.50 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsCrucifixion and Death as Spectacle: Umayyad Crucifixion in Its Late Antique Context. By Sean W. Anthony. American Oriental Series 96. New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society, 2014. Pp. x + 99. $39.50 (cloth).Christian LangeChristian LangeUtrecht University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 75, Number 1April 2016 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/684979 Views: 178Total views on this site © 2016 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse a book review in this section, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Prof. Dr. h.c. György Hazai (1932-2016)

Friends, students, and colleagues around the globe are grieving the passing of the great Turkologist and Ottoman scholar Gyorgy Hazai in Budapest on 7 January, 2016. Gyorgy Hazai was both a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and an honorary member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA), as well as an honorary member of numerous scholarly institutions and organizations including the Turkish Language Association (TDK), the American Oriental Society, the Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, and the Societas Uralo-Altaica. He received numerous academic and state honours and citations. In 2014 Abdullah Gul, the President of the Republic of Turkey, honoured him with the Order of Liyakat Nisani.

Prosocial Tendencies among Chinese American Children in Immigrant Families: Links to Cultural and Socio‐demographic Factors and Psychological Adjustment

AbstractThe present study examined relations between prosocial tendencies (dispositional sympathy and prosocial behavior) and psychological adjustment using a multi‐method and multi‐informant approach in a socioeconomically diverse sample of first‐ and second‐generation Chinese American children from immigrant families (N = 238, M age = 9.2 years). We tested the concurrent associations between: (a) children's dispositional sympathy (rated by parents, teachers, and children, and observed prosocial behavior), (b) psychological adjustment (parent‐ and teacher‐reported externalizing problems and social competence); and (c) cultural and socio‐demographic factors (children's Chinese and American orientations, family Socioeconomic Status (SES), only child status, and children's age, sex, and social desirability). Results from correlations and structural equation modeling suggested that different measures of prosocial tendencies related differently to children's psychological adjustment. Parent‐ and teacher‐rated sympathy were associated with higher child social competence and lower externalizing problems within, but not across, reporter. By contrast, child‐rated sympathy was associated with higher teacher‐rated social competence, and observed prize donation was associated with lower teacher‐rated externalizing problems. Different measures of prosocial tendencies also showed different relations to cultural and socio‐demographic factors. These findings suggest that prosocial tendencies are not a unitary construct in Chinese American immigrant children: the manifestations of prosocial tendencies and their adjustment implications might depend on the context and/or targets of these tendencies.

Intergenerational Transmission of Tridimensional Cultural Orientations in Chinese American Families: The Role of Bicultural Socialization.

It is important to understand the acculturation process of ethnic minority youth: To which cultures do they orient, and how do their cultural orientations develop? The present study tests a tridimensional acculturation model in Chinese American families and examines a potential mechanism through which parental cultural orientations may relate to adolescent cultural orientations. Participants were 350 Chinese American adolescents (M age =17.04, 58% female) and their parents in Northern California. Results support the tridimensional acculturation model by demonstrating moderate associations among Chinese American orientation, Chinese orientation, and American orientation; our findings also point to a unique effect of parental Chinese American orientation on parental bicultural socialization beliefs. Most importantly, we identified an indirect pathway from parental to adolescents' Chinese American orientation through adolescents' internalization of parental bicultural socialization beliefs.

Performing Transnational Arab American Womanhood: Rosemary Hakim, US Orientalism, and Cold War Diplomacy

Author(s): Koegeler-Abdi, Martina | Abstract: The first Miss Lebanon-America, Rosemary Hakim, landed at Beirut Airport in July 1955 to start a public diplomacy tour. As an American beauty queen from Detroit visiting Lebanon, her parents' homeland, she was greeted enthusiastically by the local press and closely monitored by US government representatives. After her return to the States, she documented her experiences abroad in an unpublished memoir, entitled Arabian Antipodes. However, this 1955 account does not just chronicle her travels. Hakim performs here her own approach to Arab American womanhood. In this essay Koegeler-Abdi contextualizes her narrative performance within the histories of American orientalism, the emerging Cold War, and ethnic beauty pageants to provide a better understanding of the specific intersection in these 1950s hegemonic discourses that framed and enabled her public agency. Her analysis then looks at how Hakim herself strategically cites these discourses in her self-fashioning to claim her own subject position as a white Arab and American woman during the 1950s. She argues that, while most Arab American authors at this time avoid a serious Arab ethnic affiliation, Rosemary Hakim already proudly uses a transnational sense of Arab Americanness to negotiate her own gender and ethnic identity. This is significant because we currently lack a broader historical understanding of Arab American women’s public agency, particularly during the mid-twentieth century. Hakim’s memoir requires us to rethink the history of Arab American women’s strategies of self-representation in ways that acknowledge but are not confined within the terms of conventional orientalist discourses.

Diasporic Writer’s Self-Orientalisation or Self-Reflexivity: American Orientalist Discourse and the Rejection of Eileen Chang’s <i>The Rouge of the North</i>

By adopting the rules of exclusion in the Foucauldian idea of discourse, this paper explores why The Rouge of the North by Eileen Chang, a diasporic writer, was rejected for publication in the United States. During the early years of the Cold War, a “positive” stereotypical image of Chinese Americans as assimilable was constructed in the American Orientalist discourse, to win over Asian and American minds. Because the more negative image of the characters in the novel did not comply with this image, it was excluded from circulation. This invalidates some current accusations of Chang as self-orientalising. This paper contends that labelling diasporic writers like Chang as self-orientalisng dismisses the ambivalence of the construction of the stereotypes of Orientals in Orientalist discourse. Besides, the label ignores Chang's conscious refusal to contribute to the epistemic production desired by American hegemonic power to facilitate its function. Her refusal demonstrates her self-reflexivity as an intellectual, rather than self-orientalisation.

Developmental outcomes of toddlers of young Latina mothers: Cultural, family, and parenting factors

Children of adolescent mothers are at risk for poor developmental outcomes. This study is among the first to examine how cultural, family, and parenting factors prospectively predict the cognitive and language development of children of young Latina mothers (N=170; Mage=17.9 years). Mothers were interviewed and observed interacting with their children at 18 months (W1). Children were tested at 18 (W1) and 24 (W2) months. Mothers’ cultural orientation (W1) was related to aspects of the childrearing environment (W1), which in turn had implications for the children's development (W2). Specifically, a stronger orientation toward American culture was related to higher mother-reported engagement in parenting by their own mothers (grandmothers), which in turn predicted stronger gains in cognitive and expressive language functioning from W1 to W2. A stronger Latino orientation related to the display of more directiveness and greater mother-reported engagement by the children's biological fathers; directiveness, in turn, predicted fewer gains in cognitive functioning only when father engagement was low and did not predict expressive language development. Finally, mothers’ display of more positive affect, a stronger American orientation, and higher grandmother engagement uniquely predicted gains in W2 expressive language functioning. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Chinese American immigrant parents' emotional expression in the family: Relations with parents' cultural orientations and children's emotion-related regulation.

The present study examined 2 measures of Chinese American immigrant parents' emotional expression in the family context: self-reported emotional expressivity and observed emotional expression during a parent-child interaction task. Path analyses were conducted to examine the concurrent associations between measures of emotional expression and (a) parents' American and Chinese cultural orientations in language proficiency, media use, and social affiliation domains, and (b) parents' and teachers' ratings of children's emotion-related regulation. Results suggested that cultural orientations were primarily associated with parents' self-reported expressivity (rather than observed emotional expression), such that higher American orientations were generally associated with higher expressivity. Although parents' self-reported expressivity was only related to their own reports of children's regulation, parents' observed emotional expression was related to both parents' and teachers' reports of children's regulation. These results suggest that self-reported expressivity and observed emotional expression reflect different constructs and have differential relations to parents' cultural orientations and children's regulation.