ASIA AM 50 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Arthur De Gobineau, Asian American Movement, Carl Linnaeus
24 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
9/28/17
- Cultural Hegemony: When the complete domination of the ruling class’s worldview
becomes the accepted cultural norm, whereby others view it as natural, inevitable,
beneficial for everyone rather than questioning it as an artificial social construct (idea
coined by Antonio Gramsci)
- For example: a lot of European Ideals are mainstream, so engraved that we don’t
question it.
- Question: Who is an Asian American? What is an Asian American?
- Definition of Race and Ethnicity
- Race: a socially constructed biological basis of blood quantum, something one is
born into, affected by genetics and ancestry, a generalization based on skin color
- Ethnicity: culture, religion, geographic origin - bring cultures and origins with
them even if people move, subgroups of races that share the same race, but
differ by the languages they speak/and/or their religion.
- Ethnic group: people who see themselves as biologically and historically
connected to each other and seen by others and connected to one another. They
have shared interests, culture, and institution.
- In comparison to White ethnicity (St.Patrick’s day), Asian ethnicity is deeply rooted.
- Carolus Linnaeus: formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial
nomenclature.
- Subdivided human species into four varieties based on continent and skin color
- White
- Black
- Yellow
- Red
10/3/17 Before Asian American: History to 1965 and U.S Immigration Policy
- Arthur de Gobineau: while Carolus Linnaeus classified the human species, Arthur de
Gobineau ranked the races
- Samuel Morton: categorize intelligence of different races based on the size of skull. He
believes cranial capacity determined intellectual ability.
- Important Dates
1875
Page Act - banned Asian (especially Chinese) Women.
- Any individual from Asia who was coming to be a forced laborer
- Any Asian Women who would engage in prostitution
- All people who is considered to be convicts in their own country
1882
Chinese Exclusion Act
- Background: hatred toward Chinese people who came for gold rush
because competition to find gold increase. They reframed from excluding
them at first, because Chinese provided tax revenue. Since economic
becomes better, they decided to ban the Chinese.
1907 ~ 08
Gentlemen’s Agreement
- Created by both countries to appease the growing tension. Japan agreed
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
not to issue passports to Japanese citizens wishing to work in the US. US
agreed to accept the presence of Japanese immigrants already in the US.
1913
Alien Land Act → Only citizens can own land
1921
First immigration Quota Act → Admitting only 3% of the number resident from
the same country
1922
Cable Act → any woman who married an Asian alien lost her US citizenship
1923
US vs Thind → effectively classified Indian people as non-white
1924
Johnson - Reed Act:
- limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any
country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were
already living in the United States
1934
Tydings-McDuffie Act
- Previously when American was colonizing Phillipine, Filipino people were
free to migrate to the states. After gaining independence, the US
classified Filipino people as alien and restricted the immigration process.
1942
Executive Order 9066
- Signed as a result of the end of WWII
- 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were evicted
from the West Coast of the United States and held in American
concentration camps and other confinement sites across the country.
- Japanese American suffered a lot, getting discriminated: prevents them
from owning land, voting, testifying against whites
1952
Walter-McCarran Act
- Changed the way quotas were allocated
- ended Asian exclusion from immigrating to the United States and
introduced a system of preferences based on skill sets and family
reunification.
1965
Hart-Cellar Immigration Act
- Removed the quota that prevented people from immigrating
- Chinese people primarily worked on sugar plantation field in Hawaii
- The feminisation of Asian American Men: Since most Chinese people who came are
men, they had to do the work that usually women would do
- After the Railroad was done being built, Chinese Exclusion act banned working class
Chinese from entering the states. This labor vacuum created from the banning of
Chinese people allowed Japanese to come and fill the void.
10/5/17 The Asian American Movement and Panethnicity
- Japanese fill the labour vacuum formed as a result of the Chinese exclusion act
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- After the WW, Gentlemen’s agreement prevented Japanese men from immigrating, but
did not prevent the migration of Japanese women.
- Picture Bride: Japanese Women would send their picture to the states, and Japanese
men in the states would be ready to marry.
- Anti-Japanese sentiment began to grow due to the growth of the Japanese community in
the states
- Two important Laws
- Ozawa vs US: a Japanese-American who was born in Japan but had lived in the
United States for 20 years, ineligible for naturalization.
- US vs Thind: an Indian man was racially ineligible for naturalized citizenship in
the states
- Because of the Immigration act imposed on Asian countries, a lot of Japanese workers
ended up going to Brazil and other countries in Latin America
- Panethnicity:
- is a political neologism used to group together related ethnic groups. The term
was coined in 1992 by Yen Espiritu to refer to the group of Asian Americans.
- Coined by Yen Le Espiritu
- Asian American was a particular group that was not officially formed until coming
to the U.S, a political idea that emerged out of an Asian American coalition
- The idea that same color race removes the distinctiveness of nationality
- Asian American Movement
- The three main things that spurred the Asian American Movement
- The backdrop of the Vietnam War
- Asian American community were protesting the Vietnam world.
- Unjustified, genocidal, and continuation of U.S imperialism in Asia
- US government saw themselves as liberators while protesters
viewed US as unjustified aggressors.
- Asian American saw the common oppression from the
Vietnamese abroad. Parallel to third world struggle
- Black American who fought in the Vietnam felt the same unequal
treatment when they returned to US
- Ethnic Studies San Francisco State Strike
- 1. Redefine education and to make their curriculum at once more
meaningful to their own lives, experiences, and histories and more
reflective of the community they lived in.
- 2. Demanded that racial/ethnic minorities play a more active role
in the decision making process and administration gives equal
access to minorities into higher education
- 3. To effect larger change in the institutional practices by urging
administrators to institutionalize ethnic studies at the college
10/10/17 The Model Minority and the Brain Drain
- Philippine
- Transferred from Spanish Colonization to US colonization
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
For example: a lot of european ideals are mainstream, so engraved that we don"t question it. Race: a socially constructed biological basis of blood quantum, something one is born into, affected by genetics and ancestry, a generalization based on skin color. Ethnicity: culture, religion, geographic origin - bring cultures and origins with them even if people move, subgroups of races that share the same race, but differ by the languages they speak/and/or their religion. Ethnic group: people who see themselves as biologically and historically connected to each other and seen by others and connected to one another. In comparison to white ethnicity (st. patrick"s day), asian ethnicity is deeply rooted. Carolus linnaeus: formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. Subdivided human species into four varieties based on continent and skin color. 10/3/17 before asian american: history to 1965 and u. s immigration policy. Arthur de gobineau: while carolus linnaeus classified the human species, arthur de.
