Final Exam

Week #5 Lecture
 
 
Professors Roger Waldinger and David Fitzgerald of UCLA put forth that,  "International migrants and their descendants do repeatedly engage in concerted action across state boundaries, but the use, form, and mobilization of the connections linking “here” and “there” are contingent outcomes subject to multiple political constraints.”
 
Concepts such as “transnationalism” and “globalization” are an integral part of understanding international migration (and immigration) in the 21st century.  Borders are blurred, travel and communication are instant, and as Waldinger and Fitzgerald have argued the distance between “here” and “there” is no longer as increasingly communities are connected and inter-connected transnationally.    Transnationalism is a theoretical framework that helps to explain the interrelationships between, betwixt, and among individuals, groups, firms, institutions, and to movements beyond state (i.e. national) borders.  It is part of the process of globalization.  It is treated as a “new” socioeconomic and sociopolitical phenomenon.
 
The Asian American & Pacific Islander communities such as the ones in this week’s readings from both textbooks illustrate how these communities are living and breathing examples of those extending beyond loyalties connect to any specific place of origin or ethnicity/national origins.   While those like Waldinger and Fitzgerald argue that “transnationalism” means that these communities go beyond any specific ethnic or national loyalties, others like  Sandhya Shukla and Pei-te Lien from this week’s readings extensively explain how particular communities with their specific ethnic, historical attachments (i.e. Asian Pacific Islander communities) respond to, adjust, adapt, and organize.
 
Due to the “aliens ineligible for citizenship status” and the notion that Asian Pacific Islanders are “perpetual foreigners” unworthy of “American-ness” and all of the *legal benefits* and *legal consequences* attached to what it means to be an American, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th generation Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have often had to distance themselves from their ancestors’ homeland, if not geographically, certainly socially and emotionally.   The distance between “here” (American identity) and “there”  (ancestral homeland) had to be distinct in order to prove one’s “American-ness.”  However, Asian Pacific Islander communities have always been “transnational”  even with immigration restrictions and exclusion (institutional constraints) and personal/social identity struggles “Asian American/Pacific Islander versus American.”   The existence of “Chinatowns,”  “Little Tokyos,”  “Historic FilipinoTowns,”  “Little Saigons,”  and “India Squares” (i.e. “Little Indias”) have been vibrant, existent communities (not just “imagined communities) that have long been “transnational” lessening the distance between “here” and “there” since their founding and establishment.  The discussion of “transnationalism” and “globalization” may be the “trend” in academia, but Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have been living them since their first arrival in the New World.   
 
Let’s take Hawai’i (the 50th state of the U.S. and a former territory, as well as a British colony) as an example.  When Captain Cook arrived in the Hawaiian Islands, it established Hawai’i as a transnational port, as well as a colonial station and the movement of peoples across continents became the driving & building forces of the social, cultural, and economic diversity that we have come to associate with “Hawai’i --including the birth and nurturing of those ranging from the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, to mega-superstar Bruno Mars).   If we take the example of President Obama (Barack Hussein Obama), his white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya met in Hawai’i.  President Obama’s white mother later met his Indonesian step-father in Hawai’i and even spent several years living in and moving back and forth from Hawai’i to Indonesia.   If we take the example of mega-superstar Bruno Mars, his Filipino immigrant mother met his South European-Puerto Rican father in Hawai’i and gave birth to Bruno Mars (born Peter Hernandez).  In these two very famous people’s biographical examples, you can already see the various “transnational  genealogical movements” of their family history.   Famous or not, this is and was the complex and varied personal and social histories of many Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, not to mention “All Americans.”   Many of you should consider your own backgrounds and the transnational nature of your own personal and family histories, whether you are Asian American/Pacific Islander or not.  How has your cultural ancestries remained?  What connections to your cultures and the geographies from which they come have been kept and the connections to where those cultures originate are constantly being affirmed as the day-to-day contact between “here” and “there” continue to thrive.
 
Please go over your readings for this week and examine how Asian Pacific American immigrants and transnational communities are part of the political landscape in the U.S.  Asians, who are now the fastest growing immigrant group.  Although the immigration debate is usually discussed as primarily a “Latino” issue, Asian Pacific Americans will surely need to be one of the main players in this discussion and help to lead the direction of policy-making. 
 
Required Reading:
 *Nakanishi & Lai, “New Immigrants, New Forms of Transnational Community”  (by Sandhya Shukla) pp. 181-192

*Nakanishi & Lai, “Ethnicity and Political Adaptations”  (by Pei-te Lien), pp. 193-210

*Ancheta, Angelo, “Chapter 5:  Language and Legal Conformity.”  pp. 106-128.

*Ancheta, Angelo, “Chapter 6:  Race and Identity,”  pp. 129-149

Recommended:  *Aoki and Takeda, Chapter 8, pp. 156-186
 
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http://www.asamnews.com/2016/06/23/asian-americans-condemn-supreme-court-ruling-on-immigration/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

 
 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.http://apalc.advancingjustice.org/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/us/asians-surpass-hispanics-as-biggest-immigrant-wave.html?_r=0 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
 
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2013/05/28/64474/why-immigration-is-an-asian-american-issue/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
 
 
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-asians-family-visas--20130730,0,5344089.story?track=rss (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.