Asian American Perspective Research Articles

“Moving Through and Beyond ”: Asian American Theatre and Performance Studies

Abstract: For decades, Theatre Journal has deeply engaged with different aspects of Asian American theatre and performance. This essay surveys a range of Theatre Journal articles published from the 1990s in order to map out this distinctive area of theatre and performance studies. Key articles by James Moy, Karen Shimakawa, and Daphne Lei grapple with the legacy of racial stereotypes and the aesthetics and reception of contemporary Asian American performance. Essays by Angela Pao, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Sean Metzger, and Ju Yon Kim emphasize the racialized bodies of actors and the history of yellowface and brownface acting, while Christopher Eng, Christine Mok, Megan Shea, and Dan Bacalzo emphasize the intersectional and transnational dimensions of Asian American expression. These and other scholars of Asian American theatre and performance continue to engage with new aspects of immigrant and refugee performance as well as gender and sexuality in Asian American theatre. At a time of changing demographics and cultural visibility, this essay helps us see how scholars have addressed the enormous diversity of Asian American experiences and perspectives as well as common preoccupations about visibility and representation, the persistence of orientalist typecasting, and the dynamic and complicated nature of Asian American identity.

The Case for Intersectional Theology: An Asian American Catholic Perspective

Intersectional approaches aim to uncover the multidimensionality of multiply burdened victimhood rather than a single-axis analysis. When intersected with Asian and Asian American postcolonial experiences and perspectives, intersectionality exposes the global reach and colonial origins of white imperialism and ideological, systemic, and mutational nature of white supremacist logic of dominance connected to global capitalism, neocolonialism, class-ism, ableism, caste-ism, racism, etc. While limited and inadequate by itself, there is a family resemblance of intersectional method in the Catholic theological and intellectual tradition that is inclusive of ordinary and marginalized voices and secular disciplines. For Catholic theologians and the church, then, intersectional approach can be instrumental in dismantling white supremacy within the church as an institution and people. Indeed, the intersectional nature of Jesus’ ministry, personhood, and location further solidifies the case for using intersectional theology for ecclesial and personal introspection, growth, and development.

Persistence of police legitimacy: understanding Asian American perspectives

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine Asian Americans' perceptions of the police, specifically how they construct support. Although such literature has been growing in recent years, research on Asian American interactions with the police remains limited. Additionally, this paper is situated within the theoretical framework of system justification theory to account for Asian Americans' views of the police.Design/methodology/approachThis study relies on interview data collected from 20 Asian Americans residing in mid-Atlantic states. Participants were either recruited directly by the researchers or through the snowball-sampling method.FindingsPolice support is influenced by perception of neighborhood safety, personal police contact and empathetic feelings toward the police. Specifically, regarding the latter component, humanizing or empathizing with police officers is a form of rationalizing individual police misconduct that reinforced police legitimacy. Most participants had similar characteristics and displayed police justification. Additional research is needed regarding what characteristics or patterns are likely to lead to lower levels of police justification.Originality/valueThis article's findings improve our understanding of system justification among Asian Americans, particularly as it relates to policing.

A synthetical view of Western, Asian, and Latin American perspectives onorganizational citizenship behaviors: Matching etic, emic, and unique approaches with cultural dimensions

This study proposes a three-practice approach for organizing, analyzing, and studying organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) taking into account the different views reflected across global, regional, and/or national studies. First, OCBs were reviewed and categorized into Western, Asian, and Latin American contexts. Second, the OCBs were grouped based on three practices: etic (global), emic (regional), and unique (national) perspectives. Finally, the cultural dimensions of individualism versus collectivism (IC) and power distance (PD) were examined from the etic, emic, and unique approaches to develop several practices to aid international managers by providing scholars with a more consistent framework for identifying relevant OCBs. This theoretical study proposes a decentralized approach to the predominant Western view of OCBs to guide more accurate research across cultures. A three-practice approach research perspective would ground OCB research cross-culturally with several modifications: (practice 1) the OCBs of altruism, civic virtue, conscientiousness and sportsmanship are generally recognized as etic; (practice 2) the categorization of the emic OCBs of interpersonal harmony, professional development, organizational sincerity, and protecting company resources as exclusive to Asian and Latin American countries; and (practice 3) the two unique OCBs of courtesy and organizational camaraderie were acknowledged only in Western countries and identified primarily in Latin American countries, respectively.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”: An Asian American perspective on mentoring in neuropsychology

ABSTRACT Objective The Asian Neuropsychological Association (ANA) is a recently established cultural identity-based organization with the mission to ensure accessibility and provision of culturally sensitive neuropsychological services for individuals of Asian descent. One of ANA’s programmatic goals has been to foster a pipeline of neuropsychologists through mentoring and networking. In this paper, we aim to understand the historical context as well as unique considerations that are relevant for mentoring in the Asian American community. Methods A search of the existing literature in psychology and allied fields such as counseling and sociology was conducted to identify and formulate suggestions for mentoring culturally diverse communities, with a specific focus on Asian Americans. Firsthand narrative descriptions of effective examples of mentoring experiences in the context of shared values are discussed. Findings and Implications This paper reviews the historical context and establishes an initial contextual foundation for increasing knowledge about best practices that can be used to establish effective mentoring relationships for Asian Americans. Six key considerations were identified: model minority myth, acculturation and enculturation, ethno-racial status and gender, the context of communication, quantity and quality of mentorship, and unique values specific to the Asian American community. Our findings identify the value of cultural identity-based organizations in creating communities that can support the professional development of future neuropsychologists at various career stages. Overall, findings have implications for maintaining the relevance of the field of neuropsychology in adequately serving an increasingly culturally diverse national and international population.

Special issue: the global sixties in the Global South

ABSTRACT This Introduction provides a conceptual framework and preview of the five articles contained in the Special Issue, ”Global Sixties in the Global South.” The articles derive from a two-day, interdisciplinary conference held at Stony Brook University in Spring 2022 and reflect scholarship by both younger and more established scholars who explore diverse topics from African, Asian, and Latin American perspectives. After a brief historiographic overview and discussion of the semantic relationship between ”Global Sixties” and ”Global South,” the Introduction makes the case for the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue as the basis for Global Sixties scholarship. The Introduction further argues how the articles that make up the Special Issue reveal the contradictions inherent to solidarities across disparate lands, the cultural valence of place, the continued if refracted operation of imperialisms, the messiness of ideological schisms, and the corruption inherent to power dynamics that suffused revolutionary consciousness and Third World ambitions alike. Ultimately, we argue that ”Global Sixties in the Global South” provides a framework that reveals a world deeply entangled across geopolitics, political economy, and culture in ways that account for both the meta-narratives of revolution and ideology and the micro-histories of personal intimacy and affective relations.

Examining (Re)Constructive History through the Experiences of Asian American Teachers

This article summarizes a case study of three Asian American teachers and their experiences in integrating Asian American perspectives into their social studies teaching. Through examining these teachers’ experiences, the importance of teacher dispositions, teacher knowledge of Asian American histories, and access to ongoing professional learning opportunities that centered equity emerged as critical to integrating Asian American perspectives into the curriculum.

Asian American Perspectives on Immigration Policy

Despite the rapid growth in both documented and undocumented Asian Americans, their attitudes toward immigration policy are not well understood. Drawing on data from the 2016 National Asian American Survey, this article examines both interracial and intra-Asian differences in views toward immigration. Relative to other racial groups, Asians are as likely to support legal migration, but less likely to support undocumented migration. We document significant diversity among Asians. As labor migrants, Filipinos support a congressional increase in annual work visas. As economic migrants, Chinese and Indians support an increase in annual family visas. As refugees, Vietnamese are least supportive of pro-immigration policy. These findings contribute to research on policy support by systematically including Asian Americans in this debate and by revealing their diverse policy perspectives.

Asian American Perspectives

Microaggressions have a pervasive presence in everyday interactions in the United States (Sue et al. 2007a, 2007b). Our human exchanges are steeped in racism with phrases such as, “When I see you, ...

A Cross-Cultural and Liberative Hermeneutics of Luke 10:25–37 in Asian and Asian-American Perspective: Reading One Text through the Two Lenses

The methodological reading of the Lukan parable reveals some contrasts. While Asian liberationists see the victim in the parable as the primary agent who embodies Jesus Christ, Asian theologians who focus on the intercultural hermeneutics treat the Samaritan as the primary agent who embodies Jesus Christ. This paper argues against emphasizing only one agent without embracing the other. In order to apply a fuller contextual meaning of the Lukan parable for our contemporary context, this paper argues that we should use the middle ground as the methodological tool that reads one text through the two lenses of the Samaritan and the victim. The paper first explores the Samaritan-oriented cross-cultural hermeneutics and then the victim-oriented liberative hermeneutics. Finally, the paper examines both Samaritan-oriented and victim-ordinated hermeneutics from the christological perspective and then offers five proposals for reconciling two different models for an Asian cross-cultural and liberative mission.

Book Review: Postcolonial Theology of Religions: Particularity and Pluralism in World Christianity

Postcolonial Theology of Religions: Particularity and Pluralism in World Christianity. By Jenny Daggers. New York: Routledge, 2013.,x + 236 pp. $44.95 (paper).Postcolonial critique has been constructively applied to an increasing number of theological areas in the past few decades, with great success. This volume by Jenny Daggers is a timely contribution, as her book is one of the first to critique and offer a reconstruction of Christian theologies of religion from a postcolonial framework. Whether one immersed in the Eurocentric theological tradition can be successful in constructing such a work remains to be seen.Daggers seeks to develop a particularist Christian theology of religions founded on feminist and Asian Christian interpretations of postcolonial theology that remains within the orthodox realm as defined by its adherence to trinitarianism. This is no simple goal. Her book arises from a desire to resist the Eurocentric roots of theologies of religious pluralism, which guides her summary and critique of the last six hundred years of Christian engagement with other religions. To construct a new approach that acknowledges the particularity and equality of every religion while still remaining firmly grounded within mainstream theology, she appeals to Asian liberation theologians. These theologians, both male and female, serve to prove that EuroAmerican Christians may borrow understandings of religious co-existence from non-Christians without either succumbing to colonialism or abandoning orthodox Christian theology.The contributions of this book rest in Daggers's introductory critical survey of modern attempts at theologies of religious pluralism and in her argument that a comparative religion methodology is most productive for avoiding colonialism and for valuing the particularity of each religion. She also offers a survey of male and female Asian and Asian-American perspectives on Christianity's co-existence with other religions that is missing from contemporary Euro-American theological endeavors.Unfortunately, Daggers s work falls short of its postcolonial goal on several fronts. First, she does not engage the deeper problems of interreligious dialogue or theologies of religious pluralism: namely, the barrier that soteriology erects when differences are finally recognized. The Christian soteriological claim that Christ saves the world, or even that the realm of God is globally healing and restorative, must be evaluated as a colonial claim on theologies of religious pluralism. Daggers's failure to address soteriology, assuming it rather under the umbrella of trinitarian theology, means that her proposal contains remnants of unrecognized colonial overtones, as when she uncritically adopts Mark S. Heim's proposal that all religions ultimately find their commonality in a single divine ultimate reality that is implicitly, if not explicitly, triune (p. …

Whites Aren’t Bad, Asian Americans Are Just Better: Asymmetrical Attributions for the White–Asian American Achievement Gap

ABSTRACTPrevious research has shown that people often engage in cultural-deficit thinking when reasoning about racial/ethnic achievement gaps. However, it is unclear whether culture-blaming explanations are best thought of as group-level internal attributions, expressions of prejudice against a lower status group, or self-serving bias. In this study, White and Latino participants (N = 328) responded to items that were written to express either a White-critical or pro–Asian American perspective on the White–Asian American achievement gap. Results indicated that Latinos were more likely to engage in pro-Asian than White-critical culture blaming, whereas expressions of culture blaming did not vary across frames among White participants.

Asian Americans in Dixie: Race and Migration in the South ed. by Khyati Y. Joshi and Jigna Desai (review)

Reviewed by: Asian Americans in Dixie: Race and Migration in the South ed. by Khyati Y. Joshi and Jigna Desai Sarah Griffith (bio) Asian Americans in Dixie: Race and Migration in the South. Edited by Khyati Y. Joshi and Jigna Desai. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Pp. 320. $95.00 cloth; $28.00 paper) The essays collected here have two primary purposes. First, the authors set out to destabilize the black-white binary often applied to studies of race and ethnicity in the southern United States. Second, by positioning the region (essentially the Confederate states that seceded from the Union) at the center of dynamic global economic and migration networks that stretch across the Caribbean, Pacific, and Atlantic, this collection challenges contemporary narratives of southern exceptionalism and national myths built around a region perceived as static and unchanging. Broken into three parts, the collection includes ten essays that highlight the experience of Asian and South Asian Americans past and present. The first section, “Disrupting Race and Place,” examines the racializations of Asian Americans from the nineteenth century to the present. Through ships’ manifests, census records, and vital records, Vivek Bald recounts the economic circuits that shaped the lives of Bengali peddlars in nineteenth-century New Orleans and shows how they negotiated existing racial stereotypes and ideas about “the Orient” to their benefit. Leslie Bow examines the interstitiality of Asian Americans in the Jim Crow South and emphasizes the way economic and social mobility remained intertwined with black-white racial binaries through the 1980s. Expanding on their 2008 essay published in the Journal of Asian American Studies, Amy Brandzel and Jigna Desai compare the vocal protests that emerged among Asian Americans in the aftermath of the 1982 beating death of Vincent Chin with the relative silence that followed the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting by Korean American student Seung-Hui Cho. The authors critique media portrayals of Cho and the lack of political mobilization by Asian Americans in the aftermath of the event. The second section, “Community Formation and Profiles,” includes a comparative analysis of early-nineteenth-century federal and [End Page 152] state laws that had lasting impacts on the settlement and longevity of Chinese communities in Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah (Daniel Bronstein) and an examination of the shifting sociopolitical and transnational linkages that shaped Vietnamese communities in Houston during the post–Vietnam era (Roy Vu). Through their investigation of current demographics, Arthur Sakamoto, ChangHwan Kim, and Isao Takei contribute greatly to our understanding of the geographic distributions and socioeconomic characteristics that shape Asian America today. Khyati Y. Joshi rounds out this section by exploring the way Hindu Americans in metro Atlanta have challenged inaccurate and disrespectful depictions of Hinduism through community action and engagement. In the final section, “Performing Race, Region, and Nation,” Jennifer Ho shows how Asian American literature set in the South is reshaping more traditional, East Coast–West Coast narratives, our ideas about “southern literature,” and what it means to be a southerner when told from an Asian American perspective. Jasmine Kar Tang uses the stand-up comedy of Henry Cho to show how individuals find ways to control representations of racial subjectivity and locate articulations of belonging through their public performances. Margarite Nguyen’s essay “‘Like We Lost Our Citizenship,’” uses English and Vietnamese language sources to show how Vietnamese and black New Orleanians overcame a history of sometimes violent ethnic divisions between the two communities in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Afro-Asian alliances brought attention to the marginalization both communities faced and challenged stereotypes of the Vietnamese refugee as permanent outsider. As a person who grew up on the Pacific Coast and relocated to a southern city undergoing the very changes discussed in these essays, I was eager to review this title. While academic jargon distracts the impact of some essays, taken as a whole Asian Americans in Dixie succeeds in revealing the complex nature of race, community, and Asian American identity and experience in the South both past and present. [End Page 153] Sarah Griffith SARAH GRIFFITH teaches in the History Department at Queens University of Charlotte and recently published her work in the Journal of American History. Her first book...

Cultural Considerations in Serving Children With ASD and Their Families: Asian American Perspective

The author of this article reviews cultural differences that will guide clinicians when providing services to Asian American children with autism and discusses culturally based clinical issues/suggestions for working successfully with Asian American families. Theory is followed using examples from three sources: (a) the author’s direct experience, (b) a Korean parent support group, and (c) a one-time open dialogue event among Asian parents of children with autism and professionals who serve them.

South Asian American Perspectives on Overweight, Obesity, and the Relationship Between Weight and Health

IntroductionCompared with other racial groups, South Asian adults develop type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease at a lower body mass index (BMI). Perceptions of weight and the effect of weight on health can influence weight-loss attempts but are not well described in this population. The objective of this study was to examine perceptions of weight appropriateness and the effect of weight on health among South Asian Americans.MethodsWe recruited 75 South Asian American adults from a single metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. During individual, face-to-face interviews, we asked participants what they think about their weight and how weight affects their health. We measured their weight and height and calculated BMI. Each interview was audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, and translated into English. We conducted analyses using NVivo software. A second investigator coded 20% of interviews to verify coding consensus.ResultsSixty-seven percent of participants were overweight or obese; 40% of overweight participants and 12% of obese participants perceived themselves to be normal weight or underweight. Forty-eight percent of overweight and 82% of obese participants believed their weight affected their health. Participants commonly cited physical problems as being associated with their weight, but few connected their weight with risk for chronic diseases.ConclusionSouth Asian Americans may underestimate their weight status and the effect of their weight on their risk for chronic diseases. Interventions to promote weight loss among South Asian Americans should focus on modifying perceptions of normal weight and personalizing the relationship between overweight and chronic diseases.

Embracing Your Bicultural Identity: Implications for Pastoral Theologians from an Asian American Perspective

This article examines the bicultural identity of Asian Americans and its potential relevance to the in-between identity of pastoral theologians. I suggest that both Asian Americans and pastoral theologians have hyphenated identities that allow them to exist betwixt and between two particular cultures or disciplines. Consequently, I explore the unique pressures that are experienced by those who have a bicultural identity. However, I also argue that there are unique strengths and advantages to having a bicultural identity. Two particular images of the bat, as depicted in Aesop’s fables, are used as metaphors to help understand the context of bicultural individuals and pastoral theologians, and to encourage further inquiry of their strengths and vantage points.

Charter School “Miracle”? Youth Participatory Action Research and Education Reform in Post-Katrina New Orleans

This policy brief examines and identifies education disparities within the context of a much-touted New Orleans “charter school miracle.” After describing the Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) method employed at a local Vietnamese American youth organization in New Orleans, we summarize findings on inequalities in academic rigor and access to quality teaching, which suggest that charter school reforms are not bringing about an education “miracle” in post-Katrina New Orleans and that students of color, in particular, are inadequately served. The brief also discusses the potential implications of YPAR methods for asserting Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) perspectives and voices in ongoing education reform debates.

Charter School “Miracle”?: Youth Participatory Action Research and Education Reform in Post-Katrina New Orleans

This policy brief examines and identifies education disparities within the context of a much-touted New Orleans “charter school miracle.” After describing the Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) method employed at a local Vietnamese American youth organization in New Orleans, we summarize findings on inequalities in academic rigor and access to quality teaching, which suggest that charter school reforms are not bringing about an education “miracle” in post-Katrina New Orleans and that students of color, in particular, are inadequately served. The brief also discusses the potential implications of YPAR methods for asserting Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) perspectives and voices in ongoing education reform debates.

Race, rights, and the Asian American experience

In Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience, Angelo Ancheta suggests United States race relations have been framed by a black-white model of race that typically ignores the experiences of other groups, including Asian Americans. When racial discourse is limited to antagonisms between black and white, Asian Americans often find themselves in a racial limbo, marginalized or unrecognized as full participants. The book centers on the distinctive experiences of racial discrimination faced by Asian Americans and how the American legal system fails to recognize that discrimination can differ among racial and ethnic groups. The intersection of these inquiries - how our civil rights laws affect Asian Americans and in turn are affected by them - is the central theme of the book. Ancheta examines legal and social theories of racial discrimination, ethnic differences in the Asian American population, nativism, citizenship, language, school desegregation, and affirmative action. He supplies a fresh interpretation of U.S. civil rights from an Asian American perspective, providing readers with a fascinating mix of constitutional law, personal insights, and practical policy suggestions.

Book Review: Racial Conflict and Healing: An Asian-American Theological Perspective

Book Review: Racial Conflict and Healing: An Asian-American Theological Perspective