Asian Immigrants Research Articles

Residential Segregation and Depressive Symptoms in Older Chinese Immigrants: The Mediating Role of Social Processes.

Older Chinese immigrants are at risk for depression due to acculturative stress and language barriers. Residential segregation with respect to language use plays an important role in the mental health of historically marginalized populations. Previous research provided mixed evidence about the segregation effect among older Latino and Asian immigrants. Guided by a model of social processes, we examined the direct and indirect effects of residential segregation on depressive symptoms via multiple mechanisms of acculturation, discrimination, social network, social support, social strain, and social engagement. Four waves of depressive symptoms were assessed in the Population Study of Chinese Elderly (2011-19, N = 1,970), and linked to the 2010-14 American Community Survey estimates of neighborhood context. Residential segregation was measured by the Index of Concentrations at the Extremes which simultaneously assesses Chinese and English language use within a given census tract. Latent growth curve models with adjusted cluster robust standard errors were estimated after controlling for individual-level factors. Residents of segregated Chinese-speaking neighborhoods had fewer baseline depressive symptoms but a slower rate of symptom reduction than those living in neighborhoods segregated with English-only speakers. Racial discrimination, social strain, and social engagement partially mediated the association between segregation and baseline depressive symptoms; social strain and social engagement partially mediated the association with long-term reduction in depressive symptoms. This study demonstrates the importance of residential segregation and social processes in shaping mental well-being among older Chinese immigrants and suggests potential mechanisms to alleviate mental health risks.

Exploring the Socioeconomic Status of Adult Children of New Immigrants in Taiwan

Since the 1990s, Taiwan has witnessed a continuous influx of marriage migrants from Southeast Asian and mainland China and hence a growing number of their children. Given that a significant number of these children have already come of age recently, it might be important to understand how they fare socioeconomically. Accordingly, this study looks into the socioeconomic status of children of new immigrants in early adulthood in Taiwan. Drawing on the Taiwan Social Change Survey data from 2002 to 2020, multiple linear regression results unveil that children of new immigrants are disadvantaged compared to individuals with a non-immigrant background in terms of educational attainment, occupational status, and monthly income. After controlling for parental educational attainment, the only adequate variable available in the data that can be utilized to examine to what extent family socioeconomic status contributes to the disadvantaged socioeconomic situation of children of new immigrants, it appears that parental educational attainment may play a role in the social mobility process of children of new immigrants. Another noteworthy finding is that despite their advantage in educational attainment and occupational status, children of mainland Chinese immigrants earn less per month than children of Southeast Asian immigrants on average, which may require future research to explore plausible factors contributing to this phenomenon

Space-Time Colonialism: Alaska's Indigenous and Asian Entanglements by Juliana Hu Pegues

Reviewed by: Space-Time Colonialism: Alaska's Indigenous and Asian Entanglements by Juliana Hu Pegues Michael Roellinghoff (bio) Space-Time Colonialism: Alaska's Indigenous and Asian Entanglements, by Juliana Hu Pegues. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. 232 pp. $95.00 hardcover. ISBN: 978-1-4696-5617-5; $32.95 paper. 978-1-4696-5618-2. Juliana Hu Pegues's Space-Time Colonialism: Alaska's Indigenous and Asian Entanglements is a strikingly original book which examines intimacies and affinities between Alaska Natives and Asian immigrants in the context of both their exclusion from and differential inclusion into settler colonial Alaska. While a small but growing number of critical studies analyze contacts between Asian immigrants and Indigenous peoples within Euro-American colonial settings including Renisa Mawani's Colonial Proximities: Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871–1921 (2009), Iyko Day's Alien Capital: Asian Racialization and the Logic of Settler Colonial Capitalism (2016), and Manu Karuka's Empire's Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (2019), the exact intersections between Orientalism and settler colonialism are rarely problematized. In engaging with the question of how Orientalism relates to [End Page 108] settler colonialism, Hu Pegues displaces white settlers from their customary position at the very center of Alaska's historiography while demonstrating that, rather than a distant northern periphery, Alaska itself became a key site where American settler colonialism in North America and "blue water" imperialism in the Asia-Pacific converged in the late nineteenth century. Using a rich variety of texts ranging from government reports to photographs, and building on the critical scholarship of Jodi Byrd, Iyko Day, and Lisa Lowe, each chapter likewise focuses on a specific economy: tourism, gold mining, salmon canning, and the development of military infrastructure. Through the titular concept of "space-time colonialism," Hu Pegues argues that the constructions of Alaska Natives as "out of time" and Asian immigrants as "out of space" are co-constitutive with American settler colonialism in Alaska. Such discourses define Indigenous peoples as the antithesis of modernity and thereby "exist[ing] inauthentically in the present" and Asian immigrants as unassimilable and therefore "forever foreigners." This serves to cast white settlers as historically normative subjects while facilitating the exclusion of laboring Asian immigrants and dispossession of Alaska Natives (13–14). Admitting that "spacetime colonialism" doubles as a tongue-in-cheek Star Trek reference, Hu Pegues utilizes this term to also highlight the "colonial longing" of an Alaska imagined as America's "last frontier," echoed in Star Trek's ubiquitous title sequence. Reminding us, however, that this "frontier might not be so closed after all," she emphasizes continued assertions of Indigenous sovereignty on the land claimed unilaterally as an American possession (16). Space-Time Colonialism's chapters are arranged chronologically into four distinct periods: the years immediately following Alaska's purchase in 1867, the gold rush, its incorporation as an American territory, and America's entrance into the Second World War. Although a theoretically dense text, the largest single intervention in Space-Time Colonialism is deceptively simple. That is, what Hu Pegues calls "settler Orientalism," or, settler colonialism as functioning in part through the Orientalization of Indigenous peoples. Outlined primarily in the first chapter and drawn upon again in the fourth, Hu Pegues traces the racialized and gendered entrapment of Alaska Natives into "transnational imperial discourses" by which settlers define(d) them as "Orientals" (35). The de-indigenization of colonized peoples through their racialization is certainly not unique to Alaska (consider, for example, the term "Indian"). What is remarkable about the case of Alaska, however, is that this notion became codified as official policy in the years immediately following the 1867 Alaska Purchase. Upholding American claims to Alaska as terra nullius (ownerless no man's land), the Bureau of Indian Affairs granted rights to Alaskan Natives-as-"Orientals" to naturalize as American citizens while stripping them of their legal capacity to engage in nation-to-nation [End Page 109] negotiations over land. The irony, Hu Pegues points out, is that while purported "Asian origins yielded the possibility of citizenship for Indigenous subjects," for Asian immigrants, the same origins "foreclosed such possibilities" (31). Reading Asian American and...

Hepatitis B virus screening in Asian immigrants: Community-based campaign to increase screening and linkage to care: A cross-sectional study.

Despite established screening guidelines, many Asian immigrants remain unscreened. Furthermore, those with chronic hepatitis B(CHB) are not linked to care citing multiple barriers. The objective of this study was to determine the role of our community-based hepatitis B virus (HBV) campaign on HBV screening and the success of linkage to care (LTC) efforts. Asian immigrants from the New Jersey and New York metropolitan areas were screened for HBVfrom 2009 to 2019. We started to collect LTC data starting in 2015, and those found to be positive were followed up. In 2017, because of low LTC rates, nurse navigators were hired to aid in the LTC process. Those excluded from the LTC process included those who were already linked to care, declined, and/or had moved or passed away. Total of 13,566 participants were screened from 2009 to 2019, of which, the results for 13,466 were available. Of these, 372 (2.7%) were found to have positive HBV status. Approximately 49.3% were female and 50.1% were male, and the rest were of unknown gender. A total of 1191 (10.0%) participants were found to be HBV negative but required vaccination. When we started to track LTC, we found 195 participants that were eligible for LTC between 2015 and 2017 after the exclusion criteria were applied. It was found that only 33.8% were successfully linked to care in that time period. After hiring nurse navigators, we saw LTC rates increase to 85.7% in 2018 and to 89.7% in 2019. HBV community screening initiatives are imperative to increase screening rates in the Asian immigrant population. We were also able to demonstrate that nurse navigators can successfully help increase LTC rates. Our HBV community screening model can address issues with barriers to care including lack of access in comparable populations.

Immigrants’ Enforcement Experiences and Concern about Accessing Public Benefits or Services

Although exclusionary immigration policies are associated with fear of deportation and avoidance of public benefits, relationships between immigration enforcement policy and public charge policies are largely unknown. Using a California population-based survey of 1103 Asian and Latinx immigrants in 2018, we tested the relationship between immigrants’ experiences with law enforcement and their concern about public charge. Direct encounters with various forms of law enforcement, including being asked to show proof of citizenship by law enforcement, staying inside to avoid police or immigration officials, and having known someone who had been deported, were associated with immigrants’ avoidance of public benefits due to public charge concerns. Latinx immigrants were more likely to be concerns about public charge than Asians. Intersections among immigration policies deserve further consideration. There is a need to provide accurate and reliable information to immigrant communities about public benefits and advocate for inclusive immigration policies.

Citizenship and Postcolonialism: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Filipino Americans and their Pursuit of the American Dream

This essay seeks to situate discussions of seminal Filipino intellectual Carlos Bulosan's (1946) America Is in the Heart, an early twentieth century autobiographical novel, within the literary trope of the “American dream,” and trace the themes present in his work within contemporary recorded experiences, or in this case, contemporary twenty-first century interviews: in-depth qualitative interviews and personal testimonies of Filipino American citizens. I will highlight the historical and ongoing ethos that Asian American immigrants face with respect to their citizenship, their relationship to the host-nation, or specifically the United States, and the sacrifices that have accompanied attempts of attaining the American dream. The US formally colonized the Philippines during the early twentieth century, a historical relationship that complicates this inquiry. Given the postcolonial dynamic, or that the Philippines is the only Asian country that the United States colonized on a clearly public policy level, how might this historical relation of power shape postcolonial citizenship? Moreover, how might Bulosan's understandings of citizenship connect with Filipino Americans’ notions of the American dream in the early twenty-first century? By reflecting through an interdisciplinary approach, I directly place into conversation a seminal Filipino American thinker from the twentieth century vis-à-vis Filipino Americans in the twenty-first century to interrogate notions of belonging and identity within the framework of the American dream.

Chinese Medicine in the United States: Historical Development and Growth

Chinese medicine is growing rapidly in the United States both as a field of research and in the daily treatment of illnesses. The popularity of Chinese medicine, particularly acupuncture, as a healing mechanism demonstrates American people’s positive experience with Chinese medicine and their embracing it as an alternative to the mainstream Western biomedicine. Chinese medicine is an important part of the Alternative and Complementary Medicine or Integrated Medicine in the United States health system. It is increasingly used and covered by health insurance. Although Chinese medicine has been in the United States since colonial times, it was discriminated against by local authorities. However, things began to change in the 1970s when individual states gradually passed laws to legalize the practice of acupuncture as a healing mechanism. American public interest in Chinese medicine, particularly acupuncture, was aroused by the media’s report of the “magic” power of acupuncture during President Nixon’s visit to China. Non-Asians studied acupuncture in the following decades, which contributed to the establishment of acupuncture as a profession in the American health system. The history of Chinese medicine in the United States illustrates that Chinese and Asian immigrants promoted Chinese medicine in the communities, while Chinese American medical scientists who were trained in biomedicine played an important role in shaping the biomedical method of acupuncture research. This article investigates the changes of Chinese medicine in the United States, with a focus on acupuncture. Situating the discussion in a larger context of social and cultural changes, this study examines the contributions of Chinese immigrants and the popularity of acupuncture in the United States. It analyzes the development of acupuncture practice and research, the professional training in Chinese medicine, and American people’s interest in using Chinese medicine as a reliable healing mechanism to many health problems, including chronic pain, cancer, and drug addictions.

Ecological Risk and Protective Model of East Asian Immigrant Fathers' Psychological Well-Being in the U.S.

In response to the dearth of research focusing solely on immigrant fathers, we propose the Integrative Conceptual Model to investigate the psychological well-being of recent immigrant fathers from East Asia to the United States. This model addresses how multiple factors in the society (e.g., policy), work and community (e.g., employment), family (e.g., father-child and couple relationships), and individual (e.g., education) levels in the host and home countries are linked to East Asian immigrant fathers’ adaptation to their new environment. More specifically, we focus on the unique risk factors and protective factors to their adjustment, which are vital to the psychological well-being of recent immigrant fathers from East Asia. The Integrative Conceptual Model contributes to the limited fatherhood literature to help understand the multifaceted nature of immigrant fatherhood. Implications include creating culturally sensitive education and intervention programs for East Asian immigrant fathers.

Metabolic Syndrome and Chronic Disease Risk in South Asian Immigrants: A Review of Prevalence, Factors, and Interventions

South Asians (SAs) are among the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the U.S. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a condition that is characterized by multiple health factors that increase the risk for chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. MetS prevalence among SA immigrants ranges from 27-47% in multiple cross-sectional studies using different diagnostic criteria, which is generally higher compared to other populations in the receiving country. Both genetic and environmental factors are attributed to this increased prevalence. Limited intervention studies have shown effective management of MetS conditions within the SA population. This review reports MetS prevalence in SAs residing in non-native countries, identifies contributing factors, and discusses ways to develop effective community-based strategies for health promotion targeting MetS among SA immigrants. There is a need for more consistently evaluated longitudinal studies to facilitate the development of directed public health policy and education to address chronic diseases in the SA immigrant community.

Abstract P364: Healthcare Utilization Among Asian, African, and Latino Immigrants With Hypertension or Diabetes in the 2010-2018 National Health Interview Survey

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority groups and can be mitigated by preventative services. However, research describing healthcare use in immigrants with CVD risk in the US is limited. Hypothesis: Immigrants with hypertension or diabetes will have lower healthcare utilization (HCU) than US-born non-Hispanic (NH) White adults. Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional data from the 2010-2018 National Health Interview Survey on 75,631 adults including Asian (N=3,120), African (N=393), and Latino (N=7,315) immigrants and US-born NH White adults (N=64,803) with hypertension or diabetes. HCU was defined as seen/talked to a general doctor, ≥1 doctor’s office visit, and ≥1 emergency department (ED) visit in the past 12 months. We used logistic regression to examine HCU disparities between immigrants and NH White adults and compared HCU among immigrants stratified by length of US residence. Results: Participants had a mean (±SE) age of 60.4 (±0.1) years, and 52% were female. Compared to NH White adults, Asian (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.69-0.89, Table ), African (aOR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.50-0.93), and Latino (aOR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.62-0.74) immigrants were less likely to have seen/talked to a doctor in the past 12 months. All immigrant groups were also less likely to have ≥1 doctor office visit. Asian (aOR: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.55-0.68) and Latino (aOR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.79-0.91) immigrants were less likely to have ≥1 ED visit than NH White adults. Compared to those with <10 years of US residence, HCU improved in immigrants with ≥10 years of residence (data not shown). Conclusion: Immigrants with CVD risk use less health services than NH White adults, yet HCU improves with longer US residence. CVD health policies must account for heterogeneity among immigrant groups, with targeted efforts toward recent immigrants, to improve HCU and prevent CVD complications.

Religious Hybridity of Asian Diaspora: A Postcolonial Criticism on The Buddha of Suburbia and Anita and Me

This article investigated the negotiation of Islamic and Hindu beliefs held by South Asian immigrants in British society, which resulted in religious hybridity as depicted in two diasporic fictions, The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi and Anita and Me by Meera Syal. This was a qualitative study. Data was collected through document studies of the two novels. The data were then analyzed using content analysis techniques in conjunction with cultural hybridity theory. The findings indicated that the religious practices of the British Asian diaspora were ambiguous. On the one hand, they continued to practice Islam and Hinduism, while on the other, they attempted to reconcile their religious beliefs with the religious, social, and cultural aspects of British society.

Midlife Transition Experiences of South Asian Immigrant Women in Canada: A Qualitative Exploration.

South Asians make up a significant portion of the immigrant population in Canada, and a large portion of them are in their midlife. To improve the midlife transition of South Asian immigrant women, it is necessary to understand their lived experiences. Guided by the transition theory, this study investigates the midlife experiences of South Asian immigrant women in Canada. Twenty-two South Asian midlife, immigrant women were recruited to participate in this study from the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada. This study consisted of one asynchronous online focus group with 12 participants and ten one-on-one telephone interviews. Qualitative content analysis was guided by transition theory. South Asian immigrant women experienced many different transitions in their midlife in Canada. These transitions included changes in their (a) lifestyle, (b) career, (c) family, (d) physical health, (e) mental health, (f) social, (g) environment, and (h) personal development. Women actively managed their transitions using strategies such as exercise, socialization, counseling, and religion. Women expressed the need for social, community, and governmental support to facilitate their midlife transitions. To promote healthy midlife transition, governments need to create better employment policies to facilitate immigrant women settlement, transferring skills, and re-employment in Canada. In addition, health care and community services to promote physical and mental health should be emphasized.

Covid-19 and xenophobia in America: media exposure, anti-Asian stigmatization, and deservingness of Asian immigrants

ABSTRACT Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, there has been a significant uptick in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States. Many believe these racist attitudes are cultivated by polarizing political messages and news coverage of the pandemic. Based on a 2021 online survey conducted among 913 White Americans, this study examines possible associations between exposure to pandemic-related news, anti-Asian stigmatization, and the perceived deservingness of Asian immigrants. The findings indicate that the consumption of pandemic-related news on Fox News and social media is associated with higher levels of anti-Asian stigmatization, while exposure to such news on traditional media outlets is not. As expected, respondents with higher levels of anti-Asian stigmatization perceive Asian immigrants as less deserving to come to the United States. Among the five criteria of a newly developed immigrant deservingness scale, especially identity, attitude, and need are associated with anti-Asian stigmatization.

Changes in Breast Cancer Risk and Risk Factor Profiles among U.S.-Born and Immigrant Asian American Women Residing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Breast cancer incidence rates in women of Asian descent have been increasing in the United States and Asia. In a case-control study of Asian American women from the San Francisco Bay Area, we assessed associations with birthplace and migration-related characteristics and compared risk factors between Asian American and non-Hispanic White women by birthplace and birth cohort. Birthplace and migration-related characteristics were associated with breast cancer risk only among women in the younger birth cohort (1951-1984) that comprised 355 cases diagnosed at age ≤55 years and 276 sister and population controls. Breast cancer risk was marginally increased among foreign-born women [OR = 1.40; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.97-2.03] and two-fold among foreign-born Chinese women (OR = 2.16; 95% CI, 1.21-3.88). Two-fold increased risks were associated with migration at age ≥40 years and longer U.S. residence (≥30 years or ≥75% of life). The education level was high among both cases and controls. Differences in the prevalence of risk factors by birthplace and birth cohort suggest temporal changes in reproductive and lifestyle-related factors. The prevalence in risk factors was similar between foreign-born and U.S.-born women in the younger birth cohort, and did not fully explain the observed associations with birthplace and other migration characteristics. In contrast to studies from earlier decades, younger foreign-born Asian American women had a higher risk of breast cancer than U.S.-born Asian American women. It is important and urgent to understand what factors drive the increasing burden of breast cancer in women of Asian descent and implement effective prevention programs.

Racial and ethnic disparities in cervical and breast cancer screenings by nativity and length of U.S. residence

ABSTRACT Objective Previous studies of disparities in breast and cervical cancer screenings have focused on broad racial/ethnic groups or nativity status without accounting for immigration histories. Recent theoretical work argues for using intersectional approaches and examining within-group inequalities. Utilizing multiple years of National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data, we examined between- and within-group Papanicolaou (Pap) test and mammogram screening based on nativity and length of U.S. residence for Asian and Hispanic women, along with non-Hispanic Black and White women. Design The study samples consist of 54,900 women ages 21–64 without a hysterectomy who responded to questions about Pap test screening and 36,300 women ages 40–64 who responded to questions about mammogram screening. Asian and Hispanic women were further stratified by nativity and, for immigrants, length of time in the United States. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify significant associations with Pap test and mammogram screenings. Results Recent Asian and Hispanic immigrants had the lowest Pap test and mammogram rates among all other groups, while Black (and White women for mammograms) women had the highest rates. After accounting for age, marital status, health insurance, education, employment status, and income, both Asian groups had lower odds, and Black and all Hispanic groups had higher odds of Pap test screening compared with White women. Similar results were observed for mammogram screening, except that long-term immigrant/U.S.-born Asian and U.S.-born Hispanic women did not have significantly different odds compared with White women. In general, the strength and direction of most sociodemographic variables were similar across groups for Pap test screening but differed for mammogram screening. Conclusions The between-group differences identified emphasize the disparities in screening between racial/ethnic groups while the within-group differences suggest the need to examine whether more targeted outreach efforts and prevention messages can increase screening for specific groups.

The Making of Modern US Citizenship and Alienage: The History of Asian Immigration, Racial Capital, and US Law

AbstractThis article unravels an important historical conjuncture in the making of modern US citizenship and alienage by drawing on the state's regulation of naturalization as it relates to Asian immigration in the early twentieth century. My primary concern is to examine the socio-legal formations that constructed the thick distinctions between the modern US citizen and alien along the lines of racial difference and racial capital. Specifically, this article argues that Asian immigration to the United States remade the modern US citizen and alien in two significant and interconnected ways. First, it underscores how the adjudication of race in US courts and connected political campaigns re-mapped race in the United States and sharpened the racialization of Asia and Europe in profound ways that ultimately produced immigrants from southern, central, and eastern parts of Asia as the modern US alien. Second, the debate over Asian immigrants’ eligibility to naturalize refashioned legal status as a normative avenue to sustain a regime of racial capital. It cast citizenship as a legal avenue for White men and families to acquire and protect a proprietary interest in citizenship and recast some Asian immigrants as permanent aliens in a period when alienage came to signify disposable immigrant labor. The article concludes by distinguishing how the struggle for US citizenship by Asian immigrants frames the epistemological parameters and political vocabulary of immigration and naturalization reform.

The Not-So-New South Suburbs: Asian Immigration and the Politics of School Integration in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

This article explores how middle-class Asian immigrants disrupted settled geographies and social relations in a high-tech Southern suburb. In a case study of controversies over the redrawing of the Chapel Hill school district attendance boundaries, it asks what middle-class Asian immigrants attempts to navigate the space “between Black and White” reveals about emergent racial and spatial relations in the New South suburbs and the possibilities for advancing more equitable schools and neighborhoods. The case study shows how Asian immigrants struggled to navigate the social, cultural, and educational barriers to organize a united and effective platform, highlighting how new immigrants have challenged old ideas about equitable education policies based on a Black-White binary. But it also showed how their tactics mimicked those of White suburbanites and their resistance to integration, as Asian immigrants rallied around policies that support suburban segregation and inequality and helped to reinforce settled structures of White privilege.

Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America, by Duncan Bell

Reviewed by: Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America by Duncan Bell Marilyn Lake (bio) Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America, by Duncan Bell; pp. ix + 465. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020, $42.00, £32.00. “No one was white before he/she came to America,” wrote African-American writer James Baldwin in the magazine Essence (1970–present) in 1984. “It took generations, and a vast amount of coercion, before this became a white country” (Baldwin qtd. in Richard Delgrado and Jean Stefancic, eds. Critical White Studies: Looking Beyond the Mirror [Temple University Press, 1997], 285). The condition of whiteness was also a preoccupation of W. E. B. Du Bois, Baldwin’s fellow countryman, whose 1910 essay “The Souls of White Folk” identified a “new religion of whiteness” sweeping the world: “Wave upon wave, each with increasing virulence is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores of our time” (Du Bois, “The Souls of White Folk,” Independent [1910], 339). Both Du Bois and Baldwin saw Americans’ subjective identification as white as crucial to their sense of personal and national self and the related conceit that the United States was and must remain a white man’s country. In Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America, the third volume in his self-styled “loose trilogy dedicated to analyzing the metropolitan settler imaginary” (3), Duncan Bell draws on Du Bois’s essay on the advent of the religion of whiteness to locate “Anglo-Saxonism” as the “foremost” expression of what Bell calls “transnational whiteness” (7). He argues that the “Prophets of ‘the religion of whiteness’ . . . galvanized efforts to institutionalize racial supremacy within and beyond the borders of Europe and the Angloworld” (8). Despite his focus on Anglo-America, Bell is not interested in American forms of subjective whiteness. He does not see the defensive and proprietorial dimensions of whiteness identified by Du Bois (“Whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen,” [“Souls of White Folk,” 339]) and relatedly, the pivotal role of the rise of Asia in provoking such proprietorial assertions—and in provoking them afresh today as evident in current concerted efforts by the West to contain a newly resurgent China. In the nineteenth century, Asian immigration to former British colonies precipitated the expression of a new sense of self and galvanized the possessive claims advanced by self-styled white men’s countries against those they called Asiatics. Du Bois defined the [End Page 705] global dimension of the color line in 1910 as “the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” (Gustave Spiller, “The Problem of Race Equality,” Universal Races Congress Papers [1911], 39). In London, the following year, the organizers of the Universal Races Congress, at which Du Bois spoke, stated their goal as the discussion of “the general relations subsisting between the peoples of the West and those of the East, between so-called white and so-called coloured peoples, with a view to encouraging between them a fuller understanding, the most friendly feelings and a heartier cooperation” (Du Bois qtd. in David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 [Henry Holt, 1994], 283). The increasingly virulent assertions of whiteness, they feared, could lead to war. Bell is a British historian of ideas writing of Anglo-American dreams of Anglo-Saxon union from a British metropolitan perspective. His tendency to conflate the English idea of Anglo-Saxonism—at heart a theory of Teutonic history—with postcolonial formations of whiteness impedes his ability to explain the failure and fractured nature of the vision of Anglo-American unity that he delineates. His characterization of his subject as “the metropolitan settler imaginary” elides a conceptual distinction between two different subject positions—metropolitan and settler—key to understanding the ascendancy of whiteness (3). Bell’s focus in Dreamworlds of Race is the utopian vision of Anglo-American racial union that excited the imaginations of elite political thinkers, mostly British, in the late nineteenth century. He locates this dreaming in the context...

Physical and Emotional Sibling Violence Among South Asian Immigrants in the United States

Physical and Emotional Sibling Violence Among South Asian Immigrants in the United States

Asians Are Not Interchangeable.

To the Editor: As we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (at the time of writing), we are compelled to address Liu and colleagues’ article by calling on medical schools across the nation to recognize the realities we face. 1 As 2 Asians in the United States, we repudiate the notion of an ethnic monolith deserving of hate by raising awareness of our distinct heritages and challenging the myth of the model minority, which assumes that all Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are able to achieve high levels of success, because of their well-educated and hardworking nature. We are 2 AAPI physicians-in-training with unique backgrounds and experiences: Filipino-American and Hong Konger, Asian American and Asian Immigrant, native and non-native English speaker, united by this dialogue. We invite medical schools to join in this dialogue on anti-Asian hate, social invisibility, and the model minority myth by addressing the following 3 areas. First, we urge all medical schools to provide opportunities and scholarships for AAPI-related public health research. AAPI-health research is critically underfunded, comprising only 0.17% of the National Institutes of Health budget between 1992 and 2018. 1 This is exemplified by the shockingly low amount of clinical research dedicated to studying cancer in AAPIs. According to ClinicalTrials.gov, only 5 out of over 10,000 registered trials in January 2013 focused on cancer in AAPIs. 2 If research on the diseases that disproportionately affect AAPI individuals, such as liver and stomach cancers, remain underfunded, the research gap will only widen health disparities between AAPIs and the general U.S. population. Second, we ask medical schools to dismantle the barriers to success that AAPI individuals face by introducing inclusion efforts, mentorship, and career counseling. The “bamboo ceiling,” long-standing barriers in AAPI career advancement due to institutional racism, is especially salient in medicine. Compared with other ethnic groups, Asians experience a large disparity between the percentage of department chairs relative to the number of full-time faculty. 3 Third, we urge medical schools to overcome implicit bias and discrimination by integrating dialogue on the effects of anti-Asian hate within antiracism curriculum. Despite the success of AAPIs in medicine, we must not overlook the tragic history of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the WWII Japanese internment camps, to the anti-Asian hate crimes that have risen in recent years. 1 These moments have had a profound impact on AAPIs, with race events since the COVID-19 pandemic as a particular concern for AAPI well-being and safety. As the fastest growing ethnicity group in the United States, 4 we urge all medical schools to proactively develop policies that demonstrate equity, justice, dignity, and respect toward the AAPI community.