Korean American Diaspora

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Korean American Diaspora

• Dr. Young Rae Oum
• Hanyang International Summer School
• Session 2
• History of Asian Immigration in the US

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Yen Le Espiritu, Ideological racism and cultural
  resistance in Asian American Women and Men.
  
• Controlling Images
• Cultural symbols and ideas generated by the
  dominant group to help justify the economic
  exploitation and and social oppression.
  
• Produced and manipulated by various elites who
  own and control cultural institutions.
  
• Naturalize racism, sexism, and poverty by
  branding subordinate groups as inferior,
  threatening, or praiseworthy.
  
• Exercise
• What are your images of Americans?
• Koreans? Korean-Americans?
• What are the sources of these images?

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Images of Asian (American) women in the US
• Sexuality is indissociable from the effects of
  polarization and differentiation. I.e. Sexuality
  is always utilized in creating an Other.
  
• Two common images of Asian women
• China doll hyperfeminine, attentive, hypersexual
  (sexually available)
  
• Dragon lady castrating, violent, dominant

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images
• Suzie Wong

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images
• Dragon Lady

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images
• How can the contradictory images be associated
  with the same group of women? What is common
  among the two images?
  
• China Doll/Suzie Wong/Lotus Blossom vs. Dragon
  Lady
  
• Sexually depraved
• Abnormal (What is the norm)?
• Exotic
• Deviant
• The process of creating Other/Self

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images
• Images of Asian (American) men
• Early Asian immigrants (late 19C to early 20C)
  were mostly males they were indentured laborers.
  
  
• At the time, Asian men were supposed to be
  hypersexual, sexually aggressive, and dangerous.
  (Oriental rapists were supposed to be
  predatory, that is, eager to rape white women.)
• Over time, the dominant image evolved to the
  opposite Asian men are now seen as effeminate,
  nerdy, asexual, passive, small-framed, weak
  people.

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images
• Charlie Chan

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images

A Wartime propaganda material Titled How to spo
t a Jap. 1942
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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images
• Yellow Peril
• Both Asian American men and women are depicted as
  masculine, dangerous, threatening, and
  untrustworthy on the one hand.
  
• Model Minority
• And on the other hand, both are seen as
  compliant, passive, meek, docile people.
  

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images Yellow Peril (coined by
  Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1895)
  

The Great Duel between Yellow and White
In this Great Duel between Yellow and White,
the United States, France, Germany, and England
look on as Japan (the emperor in a conspicuously
yellow kimono) tries to knock the white Russian
polar bear off its legs (labeled Korea and
Manchuria). All but invisible is a dagger in the
emperors hand.
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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images Yellow Peril
• The idea of yellow peril was used to justify
  xenophobia and the immigration laws that excluded
  Asians, unassimilable aliens.
  
• (also see Mia Tuan, p.42)

Gook Soldier 1870-1885 Anti-Chine
se Movement 1880 CA bans marriages with Mo
ngolians 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act 1907
Gentlemans Agreement 1913 CA Alien Land Law
1924 Immigration Act
Dragon lady
Coolie
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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images Model Minority
• The idea of model minority was used to pit
  minority groups one against another.

banana
nerd
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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images
• Interracial marriages were discouraged and had
  been illegal in many states up until 1960s.
  
• A white man-Asian woman union has been more
  accepted but not as equal partners. Asian women,
  sexually available, became yet another
  possession of white men.

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Controlling Images

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Interracial Marriages
• (Also see Mia Tuan, p. 34)
• U.S.-Born or 1.5 Generation Percentages of the
  Koreans who are Married to
  
• Spouses Race
• Husbands Koreans 63.2
• (24,522) Other Asians 9.2
• Whites 23.9
• Blacks 0.1
• Hispanics/Latinos 3.4
• Wives Koreans 40.0
• (34,464) Other Asians 7.5
• Whites 48.0
• Blacks 1.4
• Hispanics/Latinos 2.5

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Problems with White male-Asian female unions
• Rejection of the race/culture on the part of the
  Asian women
  
• (Pocahontas mythos, Miss Saigon, Madame
  Butterfly)
  
• Internalized racism (desexualization of Asian
  men)
  
• Asian men are boring, ugly, too domineering,
  traditonal, abusive etc.
  
• Sexualization of white racism

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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US

• Mia Tuan, Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites?
  pp. 1-47
  
• Asians are still considered new immigrants.
• Regardless of immigrant generation, always viewed
  as foreigners (Examples)
  
• European immigrants have successfully been
  integrated into the mainstream, and consolidated
  into White race. (Examples)
  
• Problems with the assimilation model. (E.g.
  middle class African Americans.)

DAmato
Ito
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Session 2 History of Asian Immigration in the US
Mia Tuan, Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites?
pp. 1-47 First generation Asian immigrants more
optimistic about being accepted by whites.
Embrace the model minority Asian Americans tend
to see racism as more systemic.
Q Why the difference? Ethnic options for whi
te people vs. Foreignness of Asians
Why the difference? Table 2.6 (p.38) Source
of model minority? 1960s civil rights movement
. Used to defend white establishment to African
Americans.