{"id":3373,"date":"2023-12-27T13:33:17","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T19:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=3373"},"modified":"2023-12-27T13:33:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T19:33:17","slug":"best-of-2023-not-just-a-monolith-complicating-asian-american-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2023\/12\/27\/best-of-2023-not-just-a-monolith-complicating-asian-american-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of 2023: Not Just a Monolith: Complicating Asian American Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A large city at night, with colorful lights illuminating the cityscape. Photo by <\/em>Wolfram<\/a> from Pexels <\/a>under Pexels license<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Hollywood actors to community activists and literary writers, Asian Americans have been gaining increasing visibility on public platforms. However, given that Asian Americans come from over 20 ethnic and national groups, there is variety and diversity in history, language, culture, and experience that the umbrella term \u201cAsian American\u201d cannot encompass. Over time, in fact, Asian Americans have been lumped into a monolithic culture and stereotypes typically associated with East Asians, erasing the diversity that is a crucial part of Asian America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean to be \u201cAsian American\u201d in the United States? How are Asian Americans defying, redefining, and embracing this ambiguous and monolithic label?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immigration and Asian Americans<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Asian Americans and their immigration to the United States have always been an important part of the history of the United States. Ethnic groups like Chinese and Japanese Americans have been around since the gold rush and sugarcane fields of Hawaii respectively. Other groups, especially Southeast Asian refugees, came to the United States as a result of colonialism and war. It is important to acknowledge how these different histories compose and have shaped Asian American identities, cultures, and communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Lee, Erika. 2015. \u201cA Part and Apart: Asian American and Immigration History.\u201d Journal of American Ethnic History<\/em> 34(4):28\u201342. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Lee, Erika. 2016. The Making of Asian America: A History<\/em>. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Panethnicity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Panethnicity refers to any collective identity built across ethnic boundaries and differences (Okamoto and Mora 2014). For Asian Americans, panethnicity was created as a political identity for activism and solidarity among Asian-origin peoples in the face of a deeply racialized United States. In more recent decades, \u201cAsian American\u201d has become an identity for Asian Americans to share in panethnic cultural histories, activities, and media. However, it has also become an identity forced upon Asian-origin peoples, where entities like the government group all Asian-origin ethnicities under this broad umbrella term to distinguish them from both White people and other people of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • Lee, Jess. 2019. “Many dimensions of Asian American pan\u2010ethnicity.” Sociology Compass<\/em> 13(12). <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
        \n
      • Nakano, Dana Y. 2013. “An interlocking panethnicity: The negotiation of multiple identities among Asian American social movement leaders.” Sociological Perspectives<\/em> 56(4):569-595.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
          \n
        • Okamoto, Dina G. 2014. Redefining race: Asian American panethnicity and shifting ethnic boundaries<\/em>. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
            \n
          • Okamoto, Dina, and G. Cristina Mora. 2014. “Panethnicity.” Annual Review of Sociology<\/em> 40:219-239.Espiritu, Yen Le. 1992. Asian American panethnicity: Bridging institutions and identities<\/em>. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

            The Monolithic \u201cAsian American\u201d – Commonalities and Variations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

            In recent decades, \u201cAsian American\u201d as a panethnic category has also become a point of contention for people who are categorized and racialized as such. Many ethnic groups, like South Asian ethnic groups, feel unrepresented in an umbrella category that seems to predominantly reflect East Asian culture, values, experiences, and socio-cultural status. An example of this is the \u201cmodel minority\u201d stereotype, which upholds Asian Americans as hard-working and high achieving in comparison to other racial minority groups, and yet still inferior and a threat to White people (Kim 1999). However, the model minority is often in reference to East Asians (although depending on the context this can also include Asian Indians and Vietnamese), ignoring the disparities many Asian Americans like South and Southeast Asians experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As a result, there have been calls to disaggregate, or break down, Asian Americans by ethnic groups because of how this monolithic racial label camouflages the vast differences and inequities between Asian American groups. Examples include the income gaps between groups like Chinese Americans and Nepalese Americans, and even within ethnic groups, like Chinese Americans, there are vastly different and unequal experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \n
            • Kibria, Nadia. 1998. \u201cThe contested meanings of ‘Asian American’: Racial dilemmas in the contemporary US.\u201d Ethnic and Racial Studies<\/em> 21(5), 939-958.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Lee, Jennifer, and Karthick Ramakrishnan. 2020. \u201cWho counts as Asian.\u201d Ethnic and Racial Studies<\/em> 43(10):1733-1756.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Tsuda, Takeyuki. 2022. \u201cI Don\u2019t Feel Very Asian American\u201d: Why Aren\u2019t Japanese Americans More Panethnic?\u201d Sociological Inquiry<\/em> 92: 919-942. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Yamashita, Liann. 2022. “\u201cI just couldn\u2019t relate to that Asian American narrative\u201d: How Southeast Asian Americans reconsider panethnicity.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity<\/em> 8(2):250-266<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

              Xenophobia and Anti-Asian Racism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

              Asian Americans continue to face xenophobic sentiments in a country where, no matter who is included or how long their family has been in the US, they are treated as foreigners (Tuan 1998). Even when praised as \u201cmodel minorities\u201d who \u201cmade it\u201d compared to other minority groups, this valorized position can quickly crumble beneath them. The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of anti-Asian hate that followed is an example of Asian Americans\u2019 tenuous position in the racialized hierarchy of the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                \n
              • Kim, Claire Jean. 1999. \u201cThe Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans.\u201d Politics & Society<\/em> 27(1):105-138. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
              • Kim, Nadia. 2007. “Asian Americans\u2019 experiences of \u201crace\u201d and racism.” In Handbooks of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations<\/em>, pp. 131-144. Boston, MA: Springer US.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
              • Tessler, Hannah, Meera Choi, and Grace Kao. 2020. “The anxiety of being Asian American: Hate crimes and negative biases during the COVID-19 pandemic.” American Journal of Criminal Justice<\/em> 45:636-646.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
              • Tuan, Mia. 1998. Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? The Asian Ethnic Experience Today.<\/em> New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                A large city at night, with colorful lights illuminating the cityscape. Photo by Wolfram from Pexels under Pexels license. From Hollywood actors to community activists and literary writers, Asian Americans have been gaining increasing visibility on public platforms. However, given that Asian Americans come from over 20 ethnic and national groups, there is variety and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2217,"featured_media":3374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,33,13,85,14],"tags":[136131,136142,136156,136161,136150,136146,136159,136155,136157,136149,136144,136139,136145,136160,136158,136148,136147,136151,136152,136153,136140,136136,136143,136138,136126,136137,136154,136121,136141],"class_list":["post-3373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-health","category-inequality","category-politics","category-race","tag-anti-asian-racism","tag-asian-american-activism","tag-asian-american-advocacy","tag-asian-american-civil-rights","tag-asian-american-community","tag-asian-american-culture","tag-asian-american-diaspora","tag-asian-american-discrimination","tag-asian-american-diversity","tag-asian-american-experiences","tag-asian-american-history","tag-asian-american-identity","tag-asian-american-literature","tag-asian-american-panethnicity","tag-asian-american-politics","tag-asian-american-representation-in-media","tag-asian-american-social-movements","tag-asian-american-stereotypes","tag-asian-american-studies","tag-covid-19-and-anti-asian-hate","tag-disaggregating-asian-american-data","tag-diversity-within-asian-american-communities","tag-ethnic-diversity-among-asian-americans","tag-immigration-and-asian-americans","tag-model-minority-stereotype","tag-panethnicity-among-asian-americans","tag-racial-identity-among-asian-americans","tag-southeast-asian-refugees","tag-xenophobia-against-asian-americans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2023\/12\/image.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3375,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions\/3375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}