Asian American Studies Research Articles

The Limits of Shared Panethnic Status: Considering Culture, Age, and Language in Qualitative Research

The increase of qualitative research in gerontology invites discussion of the effects of researcher positionality on data collection and analysis. Analyses of the interviewing experiences of three researchers who conducted a qualitative study of aging Asian Americans illustrate the complexities of negotiating “insider” status. Despite the interviewers’ shared panethnic status (Asian) with the participants, they experienced different levels of insider status, which were based, in part, on cultural competence related to cultural norms and practices, age hierarchies, and language. This suggests that qualitative researchers should engage in reflexive practices that consider researcher positionality in relation to research participants. Researchers need to pay attention to the possible implications of cultural competence on negotiating insider status and when gathering and analyzing data, similar to considerations of culturally relevant approaches in practical settings.

Contributors’ Notes

Contributors’ Notes

The effect of racial discrimination on mental and physical health: A propensity score weighting approach

RationaleThe preponderance of research documents the negative consequences of racial discrimination for the mental and physical well-being across several racial/ethnic groups including Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. Despite this large body of research, few studies have attempted to evaluate racial discrimination as a casual factor of worse health among racial minority groups. The current study utilized nationally representative data to estimate the causal effect of racial discrimination on cardiovascular disease (CVD), self-rated physical health (SRH), body mass index (BMI), depression disorder, and substance use disorder. In addition, we examined whether the effect of racial discrimination on health was moderated by socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., age, race/ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, marital status, geographic location, and health insurance coverage). MethodsData were from the combined National Survey of American Life and the National Latino and Asian American Study. We applied a propensity score weighting approach to estimate the differences between individuals who reported ever (N = 4358) or never (N = 1836) experiencing racial discrimination on a list of health outcomes (e.g., CVD, SRH, BMI, depression disorder, and substance use disorder). ResultsParticipants who reported ever experiencing racial discrimination were about 5 % higher CVD risk, had 0.12 points lower SRH, a 3 % higher probability of a depression disorder, and a 2 % higher probability of a substance use disorder. Moderation effects by race/ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, geographic region, and health insurance coverage were found. ConclusionOur study represents one of the first attempts to apply a propensity score weighting approach to causally link racial discrimination to worse health for racial minority individuals. This study adds to a larger body of research documenting the negative association between racial discrimination and health.

Review: Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place, by D.J. Waldie

Book Review| August 01 2021 Review: Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place, by D.J. Waldie Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place. By D.J. Waldie (Los Angeles: Angel City Press, 2020, 224 pp., $30.00 hardcover). Jonathan van Harmelen Jonathan van Harmelen Jonathan van Harmelen is a PhD student in history at UC Santa Cruz. A specialist in Japanese American history, he is a columnist for the Japanese American National Museum's blog Discover Nikkei and contributes to The Rafu Shimpo, Nichi Bei Weekly, and NikkeiWest. His work has also been published by Southern California Quarterly, Journal of Asian American Studies, and Journal of Urban History. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Southern California Quarterly (2021) 103 (3): 355–357. https://doi.org/10.1525/scq.2021.103.3.355 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jonathan van Harmelen; Review: Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place, by D.J. Waldie. Southern California Quarterly 1 August 2021; 103 (3): 355–357. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/scq.2021.103.3.355 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentSouthern California Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2021 by The Historical Society of Southern California. All rights reserved.2021 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

에스닉 음식(Ethnic food)에서 에스닉 아메리칸 음식(Ethnic American food)으로 — 1850년대에서 1940년대 사이 이민자와 미국의 음식 문화 —

This article examines the ways in which the ethnic food and foodways that Italian, Chinese, and Mexican immigrants brought to the U. S. contributed to the diversity of American food between 1850s and 1940s. It refers to the works of American historians and Asian American studies scholars, which explore the relationship between immigration and American foodways. Food was the epitome of ethnic identity for these three immigrant groups as well as the means to bond members in ethnic communities. Simultaneously, ethnic food allowed these immigrants and Americans to communicate one another. At first, Americans rejected the ethnic food of Italian, Chinese, and Mexican immigrants. Then they came to embrace and even appropriate it. The encounter of the food of these three ethnic groups with Americans of various backgrounds transformed it into ethnic American food.

Chief Editors' Note

To the community,As mass media showcased the increasing instances of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia towards the Asian diaspora, the chief editors saw that there was a lack of research literature on the Asian American experience, both before and during the onset of the pandemic. By providing a platform that empowers students to share their academic work, the AARJ continues the vision initiated by student activists in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) strikes by de-centering academic gatekeeping against people of color and reinforcing the importance of Asian American and Asian Diasporic studies as a scholarly field. We are proud to announce the publication of this first issue of the Asian American Research Journal (AARJ) at UC Berkeley. We created this journal because we saw that UC Berkeley lacked a platform for undergraduate and graduate students to publish their research and scholarly work centered on Asian American and Asian Diasporic experiences, identities, and communities. For our initial publication, we chose the theme “Building Our Voices”. We envisioned a space to recognize and showcase student papers commenting, analyzing, and advising on the various contemporary issues facing the Asian American community, as well as how historical legacies of trauma, discrimination, and oppression continue to affect past, present, and future generations. In addressing the need for a platform for student work and voices, we encouraged a broad range of submissions to capture the multifaceted, non-monolithic stories of the Asian American and Asian diaspora. We are beyond thankful to the editors, designers, authors, faculty editors, and community members for bringing this inaugural journal to fruition and are excited for this publication to continue supporting future generations of scholars to come. We especially thank the tireless efforts of our journal-building community: Anya Fang, our logo designer; Jamie Noh, our chief designer; Rachel Lee and the eScholarship team, and of course, our relentlessly uplifting faculty sponsors, Dr. Khatharya Um, Dr. Lok Siu, and Dr. Michael Omi. Please enjoy the first issue of the Asian American Research Journal! In Solidarity,Anh-Tu Lu, Austin Le, Gabrielle Nguyen, Richie ChuChief Editors 2020-2021Asian American Research Journal Co-founders

Vaccine willingness: Findings from the COVID-19 effects on the mental and physical health of Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders survey study (COMPASS)

Willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine is crucial to reduce the current strain on healthcare systems and increase herd immunity, but only 71% of the U.S. public said they would get the vaccine. It remains unclear whether Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), a population with existing inequalities in COVID-19 infection and mortality, are willing to get the vaccine, and the factors associated with vaccine willingness.Given this imperative, we used data from a national, cross-sectional, community-based survey called COVID-19 Effects on the Mental and Physical Health of AAPI Survey Study (COMPASS), an ongoing survey study that is available in English and Asian languages (i.e., Simplified or Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese) to examine vaccine willingness among AAPI.A total of 1,646 U.S. adult AAPI participants completed the survey. Self-reported vaccine willingness showed the proportion who were “unsure” or “probably/definitely no” to getting the COVID-19 vaccine was 25.4%. The odds for vaccine willingness were significantly lower for were Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (vs. Asian Americans), Korean Americans (vs. Chinese and Vietnamese Americans), women (vs. men), heterosexuals (vs. non-heterosexuals), those aged 30–39 and 50–59 (vs. aged < 30), and those who reported having any vaccine concerns (vs. no concerns).AAPIs’ willingness to get COVID-19 vaccine varied by groups, which underscores the need for disaggregated AAPI data. A multi-pronged approach in culturally appropriate and tailored health communication and education with AAPI is critical to achieve the goal of health equity for AAPI as it pertains to COVID-19 mortality and morbidity.

Mental health care among marginalized populations in the United States

Mental health care among marginalized populations in the United States

Cyborgian Model Minorities for Environmental Justice: East Asian American Stories from the 1991 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit

Despite the growing social consciousness of issues relating to environmental justice (EJ) and the abundance of literature in the disciplines of EJ studies and Asian American Studies, analysis of As...

Family Factors Related to Three Major Mental Health Issues Among Asian-Americans Nationwide.

Asian-Americans (AAs) constitute the fastest growing minority group in the USA. AAs share a common emphasis on collective cultural strengths, especially family values. Using the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) data, this study investigated the roles of family cohesiveness, along with other cultural strength factors and negative family interactions in three psychiatric disorders. Supporting the study's hypotheses, multivariate analyses showed that family cohesiveness was associated with a lower incidence of general anxiety disorder (GAD), while regular religious attendance was linked with a lower likelihood of having substance use disorder (SUD). Conversely, negative family interactions increased the likelihood of experiencing major depression disorder (MDD) and SUD. Whereas perceived discrimination was related to higher odds of all diagnoses, family cohesiveness moderated the relationship between discrimination and GAD. These findings suggest that family relationships play a critical role in AAs' mental health and should be further explored through a prospective design.

Hispanic/Latino Ethnic Identity and Diabetes: An Examination of Underlying Acculturation Processes and the Hispanic/Latino Health Advantage.

Background. Hispanics/Latinos in the United States experience both a health advantage and disadvantage in developing diabetes. Ethnic identity, a predictor of psychological well-being, has not been widely applied to physical health outcomes. The objective of this study is to apply what is known regarding ethnic identity and psychological health to physical health outcomes (diabetes) and to explore the moderating effect of education as a possible underlying mechanism of the Hispanic Health Advantage/Disadvantage. Specifically, this study examines (a) the association between ethnic identity and diabetes prevalence among adult Hispanics/Latinos and (b) determines whether education modifies this relationship. Method. Data come from the nationally representative adult U.S. household study, National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), collected in 2001 to 2003 (N = 1,746). Multiple logistic regression was conducted to examine the relationship between ethnic identity, education, and their interaction with likelihood of diabetes. Results. Hispanics/Latinos with high ethnic identity have a higher odds of reporting diabetes among those with 13 to 15 years of education (odds ratio: 1.84; 95% confidence interval: 1.16-2.92) and a lower odds among those with 16+ years of education (odds ratio: 0.53; 95% confidence interval: 0.34-0.84). Ethnic identity is associated with diabetes prevalence and the relationship is moderated by educational attainment. Conclusion. Given the growth, diversity, and diabetes disparities among Hispanics/Latinos, our buffering and exacerbating findings exemplify the complexity and fluidity of theory in understanding psychological/behavioral processes. The findings highlight the importance of designing targeted health interventions that take into account the diverse psychosocial and educational experiences of Hispanics/Latinos.

Cold War Reformations

ABSTRACT In this special issue, guest editors Crystal Mun-hye Baik and Wendy Cheng discuss the prolongation of the Cold War in the twenty-first century. Foregrounding the racialized, gendered, sexualized, and class-based dynamics of the Cold War, the authors are attentive to the entwined histories of imperialism, racial-settler capitalism, and militarism constitutive of the Cold War. Focusing on reformation as a generative analytic in which to engage the Cold War’s lives in Asia, Oceania, and the United States, Baik and Cheng situate the special issue’s contributions in relation to Asian American studies, Pacific Islander studies, and critical Asian studies.

The Asian American Literature We’ve Constructed

This article deploys text mining and quantitative analysis to survey the breadth of the Asian American literary corpus and the scholarship framing it. We have built a database covering all scholarship in the MLA bibliography, Amerasia, and the Journal of Asian American Studies that studies a literary work under the rubric of Asian American. For the works and authors cited, we collected a wealth of metadata from publisher and genre to gender, ethnicity, and more. Asian Americanists have long debated the definition of Asian American literature, but we have not traced the choices of scholarly attention that have accreted over decades and hundreds of publications to shape a canon. The results here reveal the systemic effects and inequalities generated by those choices. They confirm a long-suspected bias toward contemporary literature. They reveal troubling ethnic inequalities. The literatures of Asian American ethnic groups beyond the six most studied groups receive minimal attention. Korean American literature has leaped to second most studied, resulting in a reconfigured East Asian American hegemony: Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. This was enabled by a troubling decline in studies of Filipinx American literature, once central to the field. Much Filipinx American literature is today studied outside the Asian American framework entirely. Meanwhile, the conflation of Chinese American literature with Asian American literature has intensified. The field’s rhetoric of diversification has masked persistent inequalities in our critical practices. More encouragingly, the corpus has surpassed gender equity, placing women writers at the center of the field. The work of building the Asian American corpus we would want is far from over. Data-driven methods can be powerful allies in the self-scrutiny necessary to this work.

Bio-orientalism and the Yellow Peril of Yellow Life

While recent literature on Asiatic racial form has drawn attention to the ways that techno-orientalism represents Asian life as mechanically non-human, the COVID-19 pandemic and other developments under the Anthropocene draw renewed attention to the construction of Asian peoples as a source of biological and contagious threat to the West. In this article I argue that a unique discourse of bio-orientalism contributes to the depiction of Asians as a "Yellow Life" that is an existential threat to Western forms of life. Western life posits that this Yellow Life must be resisted and ultimately eliminate for the flourishing of all non-Asian life. Through an attention to biological depictions of Asian life in yellow peril literature, I chart how bio-orientalism imagines Yellow Life as ontologically different from Western life forms and as innately animate through both its macroscopic growth and microscopic threat of contagion. Rather than embracing an Asian Americanist response that would also seek to disavow Yellow Life, in a reading of Bryan Thao Worra's poetry I speculate upon embracing Yellow Life as another mode in which Asian American studies imagines otherwise forms of life that challenge and move beyond contemporary Western-centric and humanist responses to anti-Asian racism.

The Crip Tarot Card

The Crip is one of thirty cards in the Asian American Tarot, an original deck of tarot cards I curated as part of my hybrid book arts project on mental health, Open in Emergency (first published in 2016 and then in an expanded second edition in 2019/2020). Each card names an archetype that structures the psychic and material life of Asian Americans, and draws upon knowledge production in Asian American studies and Asian American communities to theorize that archetype’s shape and reach. Each features original art and text, a collaboration between a visual artist and a scholar or literary writer. Each ends with guidance, a gentle directive to the reader for what to do now that they have drawn this card in a tarot reading. The Asian American Tarot is art-meets-scholarship-meets-wellness-practice-equals-magic-for-our-times. The Crip is the twenty-sixth card in the major arcana, and it is here welcoming us all on our disability journeys.

Associations between Food Insecurity and Depression among Diverse Asian Americans.

Background: Proper nutrition is an essential component to both physical and emotional health. Food insecurity (FI) is a potentially critical public health problem. The link between FI and elevated risk for depression has been well documented. Yet, it is largely unknown how diverse older adult populations experience FI differently. Therefore, the aims of this study were to examine how gender, race/ethnicity, and nativity may impact the magnitude of the association between FI and depression.Methods: We used a nationally representative sample of the Asian American population from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS). We built logistic regression models with major depression in the past 12 months as the dependent variable, and FI as the independent variable. Several demographic and socioeconomic characteristics were added to the models to control for potential biases. All statistical estimates were weighted, using the recommended NLAAS sampling weight, to ensure representativeness of the US population.Results: About 35% (weighted adjusted 95% CI: 29.49–39.00) of Asian Americans experienced some level of FI at the time of survey. Experiencing FI over the past 12 months increased the likelihood of having clinical depression (weighted adjusted odds ratio: 1.44, weight adjusted confidence interval: 0.79–2.10). The magnitude of associations between FI and depression varied by race/ethnicity (F (7, 47) = 6.53, p (3, 41) = 10.56, p (3, 41) = 9.85).Conclusions: Food insecurity significantly increases the likelihood of clinical depression among Asian Americans. Greater attention is needed towards food-insecure Asian Americans and their mental health.

Acculturation, social support and suicidal ideation among Asian immigrants in the United States.

This study examined suicidal ideation among Asian immigrant adults in the United States, with consideration of the roles of acculturation and social support. Using the 2002-2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), I conducted latent class analysis with measures of U.S. cultural orientation and Asian ethnic affiliation to create a multidimensional construct of acculturation. Three acculturation groups were identified (assimilated, integrated, separated) that showed different associations with suicidal ideation. Then I analyzed how the association between acculturation status and suicidal ideation is moderated by social support, distinguishing between perceived versus received support. Findings revealed that the buffering role of social support is gender-specific, with perceived support from friends reducing the risk of suicidal ideation only among assimilated women. Implications for future research include further application of acculturation as a multidimensional construct to various health outcomes and behavior as well as to other immigrant subgroups. Public health intervention efforts aimed at preventing suicide should endeavor to promote perceptions of an available social support system among immigrants and aid in establishing sources of support outside the family particularly for immigrant women.

Acculturation and Self-rated Health Among Asian Immigrants: The Role of Gender and Age

Using the 2002–2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), we examine the relationship between acculturation and poor-to-fair self-rated health (SRH) among Asian immigrants (N = 1639). Using latent class analysis, we construct a multidimensional measure of acculturation that considers dimensions of involvement in U.S. culture as well as attachment to Asian ethnic cultures and identify three classes of Asian immigrants: the assimilated, who most strongly adhere to U.S. culture; the integrated, who align with both U.S. and Asian ethnic cultures; and the separated, who are almost exclusively attached to Asian ethnic cultures. Logistic regression results revealed that among the pooled sample of Asian immigrant adults, the separated are significantly more likely to report poor-to-fair SRH than the assimilated. We then tested for gender and age differences in the acculturation–SRH relationship, and found that stratifying by gender yields noticeably different patterns. Among Asian immigrant women, the probability of reporting poor-to-fair SRH increases with age for the separated and the integrated, while it declines with age for the assimilated. Conversely, among Asian immigrant men, the probability of reporting poor-to-fair SRH increases most steeply with age for the assimilated, while it is shallower for the separated and the integrated. Future research should continue to develop a dynamic understanding of acculturation and examine its association with other health outcomes, including how these relationships differ across subsets of immigrant groups.

Assessing the Validity of Self-rated Health Across Ethnic Groups: Implications for Health Disparities Research.

This study examines the association between morbidity (i.e., chronic health conditions) and self-rated health (SRH) with the aim of testing the within-group and across-group validity of SRH across nine ethnic groups: non-Latinx White, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, African American, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese Americans. In addition, we assess whether acculturation (i.e., nativity, years of US residency, language of interview) and health-related factors (e.g., mental disorder) account for ethnic distinctions in SRH. Data are from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL) and the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) (N = 8338). Weighted proportions and means for SRH and chronic conditions are reported. Ordered logistic regression analysis is used to determine ethnic group patterns in SRH. Despite evidence of within-group validity of SRH for each ethnic group, our results seriously challenge the across-group validity of SRH. For example, Chinese and Vietnamese respondents report lower SRH despite having fewer chronic conditions relative to non-Latinx Whites. Moreover, Mexican Americans report fewer chronic health problems but lower SRH compared to non-Latinx Whites. Acculturation factors (e.g., language of interview) partially explain the Mexican-White difference in SRH. Among Chinese Americans, completing an interview in English is associated with higher SRH relative to those who completed an interview in Chinese. These findings have implications for health disparities research that uses SRH as the dependent measure. Studies that compare the health profiles of diverse ethnic groups should use the SRH measure with caution, as SRH does not align with ethnic patterns of morbidity.

Matter Out of Place: The Legacy of Strange Encounters in Asian American Studies

ABSTRACT This article takes the occasion of celebrating the theoretical long durée of Strange Encounters to think about two radically different forms of strange encounters. At the moment when Strange Encounters is celebrating its 20th anniversary it is important for feminists and scholars of race and ethnicity to reflect on the possibilities that Ahmed's work has provided for our critical perspectives about contemporary formations of race, gender and sexuality. The article considers two case studies: an art installation titled Enemy Kitchen by Michael Rakowitz and the memoir Know My Name by Chanel Miller. The article begins by thinking through what it means to form eating publics that often draw strangers together. Intimacy formed through strangers in this context is to be understood as generative and enabling. The kinds of intimacy that are enabled and formed through encounters with the stranger, I argue, are constitutive of positive social change that implicitly jettison the heteronormative logic of familial and familiar intimacy to imagine social worlds and possibilities in which radically different possibilities for coming together – via acts of shared commensality – are imagined and realized. The paper then moves to a different example of the encounter with the stranger, Chanel Miller's memoir. Using Ahmed's work, I explore what it means to confront strange encounters that involve coming into proximity with strange bodies that actually mean to harm women of colour. I shift from thinking about the enabling possibility of coming into contact with strangers to examine the latent violence of the encounter with the stranger that is structurally embedded in the rape survivor narrative. Together, these two examples allow me to ask how Ahmed's work has generated possibilities for a critically engaged form of social critique in Asian American Studies that takes on the challenge of confronting different forms of injustice.