Spring 2008 - Asian American Studies

Asian American Studies
at Northwestern University
newsletter
spring 2008
Photo: Ricky Pai
2007 2008 2007 2008 2007 2008
In This Issue
Winter was a busy quarter for
Asian American Studies.
During the Winter, we
sponsored a public lecture
by Professor Moon-Ho Jung,
winner, the Merle Curti Award,
Organization of American
Historians, titled “We Were
Not All Immigrants: Toward
a Radical Vision of (Asian)
American History” .
The following week over 100
people attended a forum on
human trafficking organized
by Asian American Studies
along with KAN-WIN and
the Northwestern University
Conference on Human rights
The beginning of March saw
us hosting Professor Laura
Kina’s artist lecture, “Aloha
Dreams: Hapa Heritage Tourism
and the Quest for Racial
Paradise”
And upcoming in April, is
“Hiphopistan”, a 3-day
showcase and forum with live
performances and workshops
on South Asians in Hip-Hop cosponsored by departments from
Northwestern University and the
University of Chicago.
The The Colloquium on
Ethnicity and Diaspora,
initiated this year by postdoc Shanshan Lan and PhD
candidate Shuji Otsuka now
meets once /month, and each
time draws together a diverse
group of scholars to discuss
topics relevant to the field of
Ethnic Studies.
Asian American Studies Program
Northwestern University
1-117 Crowe Hall
1860 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
847.467.7114
asianamerican@northwestern.edu
Forum on human trafficking of Asian women held at the McCormick Tribune Center Forum on Feb 7
Human Trafficking Forum held at Northwestern
University in February
by Jinah Kim
are Not for
s
r
e
t
is
S
r
u
“O
e
Panelists:
ing the issu
in
m
a
x
E
:
le
sa
Rachel Durchslag (Chicago Alliance
of Asian
s
n
io
t
a
c
li
p
Against Sexual Exploitation)
and im
Kaitlyn Lim (Polaris Project)
s into the
im
t
ic
v
d
e
k
c
Heather Benno (National Immigrant
traffi
Justice Center/Heartland Alliance)
U.S.”
Kavitha Sreeharsha (Legal
Momentum)
Timothy Lim (Professor, Cal State Los
Angeles)
February 7, 2008
Northwestern University
T
he Asian American Studies Program,
KAN-WIN*, and the Northwestern
University Conference on Human
Rights hosted academics and activists in a
panel called Our Sisters Are Not For Sale to
help share experience and broaden knowledge
about the global scourge of human trafficking.
Experts estimate that 600,000-800,000 men
women and children arae trafficked across
*Korean Women In Need
international
borders each year, 14,500­-17,500
into the United States, a criminal phenomena
that extends into nearly every racial and ethnic
community across the country.
Trafficked subjects are denied basic human
rights, isolated and enslaved; their bodies are
treated as an object to be owned and their
labor imagined as the right of someone else.
By taking the broader view of trafficking as
“force, fraud, or coercion” these panelists
enable a painful, but necessary realization of
the multitudes of economies and lifestyles that
depend on exploited trafficked labor.
Panelists also dispelled several myths about
who is trafficked, what drives trafficking
continued on back page
News and Events
Photo: Shuji Otsuka
News and Events
by Heidi Kim
W
Professor Moon-Ho Jung delivering his talk, “We Were Not All Immigrants: Toward a
Radical Vision of (Asian) American History” at Northwestern University.
HO (OR WHAT) WAS A COOLIE? Asks
Moon-Ho Jung, associate professor of history
at the University of Washington, in his book,
Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor and Sugar in the Age of
Emancipation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2006). Asian immigrants to the United States, most scholars
agree, were not “coolies,” or forced laborers. In truth, no one
was. Why then did the term appear so often in government
reports, political speeches, and abolitionist and proslavery
publications of the nineteenth century? In a provocative
thesis that has the potential to transform the way we
understand the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jung suggests
that coolies were a “conglomeration of racial imaginings,”
representative of both slavery and freedom.
Jung delivered a talk at Northwestern University on
January 25, 2008, entitled, “We Were Not All Immigrants:
Toward a Radical Vision of (Asian) American History.” He
also participated in a discussion of his book with graduate
students and faculty from two reading groups, Critical Race
Studies and the Colloquium on Ethnicity and Diaspora.
In the age of emancipation, he explained, plantation
owners intended to replace slaves with so-called coolies so
they recast these migrant workers as “voluntary immigrants.”
The coolie, however, remained as a racialized figure fueling
the anti-Chinese movement, which culminated with the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. According to this racial
logic, slave laws were a precursor to anti-immigration laws
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The
threat of the coolie, therefore, transformed the United States
into a (white) “nation of immigrants.”
The idea for the book resulted from Jung’s long-standing
interest in the links between Asian American and African
American history. He credits the work of W.E.B. DuBois and
Walter Rodney for providing “new ways of understanding
the world.” As an undergraduate at Cornell University, he
majored in Government and took courses in Ethnic Studies.
He stayed for graduate school where he worked with Gary
Okihiro, one of the leading Asian American historians in the
country.
By connecting “seemingly disparate histories,” Jung said,
we can see the “radical possibilities” of moving beyond
binaries such as black and white, slave and free, alien and
citizen. He also hopes we can “interrogate the naturalized
borders of the United States.” In his study, for example,
the production of sugar connects Louisiana, the Caribbean,
Latin America, and Asia. The so-called coolies were a
“global migrant labor force,” unworthy of “equal rights and
opportunities.” He suggests framing Asian American history
as a “story of labor migrations and struggles,” rather than as
one of “immigration and assimilation.”
Shuji Otsuka, a graduate student in history who teaches for
Asian American Studies, raised some interesting theoretical
points. He observed that Tye Kim Orr, featured in the book’s
opening vignette, is not representative of the book’s main
subjects, the so-called coolies. Orr, an ethnic Chinese born
and raised in a British colony in Southeast Asia, traveled to
London, where he persuaded missionaries to fund his work
among the Chinese in British Guiana. After an affair with
a “colored” woman, he fled to Trinidad, Cuba, and finally
Louisiana, where he taught at a school operated by the
Freedmen’s Bureau. He eventually found a niche recruiting
laborers from Asia for plantation owners in Louisiana. To
be sure, in terms of education, religion, and social status, he
differed from many of these workers.
Orr’s story is nonetheless extraordinary. And we may very
well lack a framework to understand his experience. Otsuka
wondered, “How do we make sense of migrant subjectivity
as they traverse national boundaries?” In other words,
“how do we construct a narrative without reducing it to the
larger framework of the liberal nation state and/or Chinese
nationalism?”
Moon-Ho Jung, who recently received the Merle
Curti Award from the Organization of American Historians
for the best work in social, intellectual, and/or cultural
history, smiled and modestly replied, “I wish I had spoken
to you before I wrote the book.” Indeed, re-conceptualizing
Asian American history is no easy task. Jung’s work may
only be the beginning of that “radical vision.”
t intervals of about a month, a diverse group of scholars can be found sitting around the table in the Asian
American Studies conference room in Crowe Hall,
almost absent-mindedly eating lunch while engaged in passionate discussion of a book or dissertation chapter.
The Colloquium on Ethnicity and Diaspora (CED) is a new
venture begun in the fall of 2007, bringing together graduate
students and faculty with shared interests in ethnic studies
to create a dissertation workshop and reading group. Initial
funding was supplied by the Initiative for Comparative Race
and Diaspora, with additional generous funding from the
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, The Graduate School,
and the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities.
Co-organizer Shuji Otsuka, a doctoral candidate in the History department, had originally envisioned a small interdisciplinary seminar for graduate students to share their work.
Co-organizer Shanshan Lan, a Mellon Fellow in Anthropology and Asian American Studies, had also been thinking about
founding a reading group modeled after an informal Asian
American studies reading group that used to exist among Chicagoland faculty a few years ago. Otsuka and Lan combined
their ideas to create this group with two different functions,
which so far has attracted enthusiastic participants from departments including African American Studies, Anthropology,
English, History, Sociology, Radio/Television/Films graduate
program in Screen Cultures, and Performance Studies.
In an email, Senior Associate Dean Simon Greenwold of
the Graduate School wrote, “It is the pleasure of The Graduate
School to support interdisciplinary programs, as we recognize that the boundaries between traditional departments and
disciplines have in many cases evolved
or devolved in the past twenty-five years,
and that much of the most interesting
intellectual work being done today is in
the interstices between and among these
traditional areas of study.”
So far, the CED’s dissertation workshop
has helped several participants reformulate and redraft chapters. Stephen Mak,
doctoral candidate in History, said, “It was
clear to me that the scholars at this forum
wanted me to succeed. They held me to
the highest standard and offered some of
the best feedback I have ever received.”
Otsuka agreed, saying, “I thought the
feedback I received on my chapter was
invaluable on several fronts, most notably
in terms of argument enhancement, wise
encouragement, and interdisciplinary critique. The workshop provided a road-map
of where my research needs to go, giving
me confidence in my work as I navigate the job market.”
The reading group side of the CED has been similarly
active. Past works have included the award-winning book
Between Two Empires: Race, History and Transnationalism in
Japanese America by Eiichiro Azuma and a special event with
Moon-Ho Jung, author of Coolies and Cane (see article). At
least two more book discussions are planned for the remainder
of the school year, including University of Chicago professor
Adam Green’s Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and
Black Chicago, 1940-1955 and State of Exception by noted
Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and Kevin Attell.
Greenwold is also concerned with helping to build community. “We also believe at TGS that intellectual community
building is critical to the success of our students and faculty.
Doctoral education is not easy and it takes a long time. We
believe it is critical to provide resources to students and faculty who are interested in building social networks around their
intellectual affinities, networks that we think will improve the
quality of the intellectual and social life at Northwestern.”
Lan, who presented her work to the CED in February,
concurred with these sentiments. “Knowing that people are
willing to spend time reading my stuff, and coming to the
CED meeting to offer their comments is really encouraging.
They not only help sharpen my intellectual sensitivity, but
offer emotional and moral support so that I can have more
confidence in my research project.”
Jinah Kim makes a presentation to the Coloquium on Ethnicity and Diaspora (CED).
Photo: Greg Jue
A
Prize Winning
Historian
Moon-Ho Jung
Visits NU
By Stephen Mak
New Colloquium Brings
Ethnic Studies Scholars Together
Photo Album
News and Events
Far left: The Registration table
at the “Our Sisters Are Not
For Sale!” panel on human
trafficking, February 7.
r Sale!
“Our Sisters Are Not Fo
d implications
Examining the issue an
s into
of Asian trafficked victim
the U.S.” — Feb 7
Photo: Ricky Pai
Left: Young-Ju Ji (left),
Executive Director of KAN-WIN
and Ji-Yeon Yuh, Director of
Asian American Studies open
the program.
ere
Moon-Ho Jung, “We W
rd
wa
To
:
Not All Immigrants
n)
sia
(A
a Radical Vision of
Jan 25
American History” —
NU students, faculty, members of the community and representatives of community service
organizations mingle at the pre-program reception.
Nitasha
Sharma and
Ji-Yeon Yuh
at the Winter
potluck
hosted by
Ji-Yeon
at her home.
Shuji Otsuka (left) and
Moon-Ho Jung at the
special seminar on
Moon-Ho’s book , Coolies
and Cane: Race, Labor,
and Sugar in the Age of
Emancipation which won
the Merle Curti Award.
Photos: Alan Chan
re
Laura Kina artist lectu
urism and
To
e
Heritag
“Aloha Dreams: Hapa
radise” —March 5
the Quest for Racial Pa
Shalini Shankar and her family
Carolyn Chen and Dylan Penningroth
Laura Kina, painter, Professor of Art, Media and Design
and Program Director of Asian American Studies, De Paul
University, delivered an artist lecture at NU titled “Aloha
Dreams: Hapa Heritage Tourism and the Quest for Racial
Paradise”. On the screen is one of her paintings “Loco Moco”
after the popular Hawaiian dish of hamburger, eggs and gravy
on a bed of white rice.
Asian American Political Alliance members honored at 40th
anniversary conference of the TWLF Strike at UC Berkeley
I
by Greg Jue
n 1968-’69, Asian, Black, Latino and Native American
students at San Francisco State College and University of
California, Berkeley led the “Third World Liberation Front”
(TWLF) strikes that shut down both campuses. They demanded
a Third World College, and with support from students of all nationalities and the community, won their demands after months
of struggle. These student-led strikes brought Ethnic Studies
into the world.
I was a participant in the ’69 TWLF Strike at UC Berkeley,
and on March 1, I was invited, along with other TWLF strikers to address the “Peeling Off the Label” conference at UC. A
major focus of the conference was the ‘69 TWLF Strike. This
was a wonderful experience, getting down on questions facing
the student movement today, learning from the past to serve the
present, and a reunion with old friends whom I hadn’t seen for
over 30 years.
A number of people active in those days went on to become
prominent figures in the Asian American movement and beyond.
Perhaps the best know among them is Richard Aoki, an Asian
American student leader in the ’60s, and a founding member of
the Black Panther Party in Oakland. As I arrived at the MLK
Center on the Berkeley campus, I stopped and stared ...at anyone with gray hair. It had been a long time, and most people I
didn’t recognize at first!
The conference started off with a bang. After a performance
by a great Taiko drum group, it was time to introduce ourselves.
One of the original AAPA* members stood up and addressed
the crowd of 350 students, “We know that many things have
changed, and revolutions have not turned out as we had hoped,
but I urge you to take another look at those revolutionary movements. Don’t give up on revolution!” At this, Richard Aoki
reached into his pocket and pulled out a copy of Quotations
from Chairman Mao (The “Red Book”) and waved it over his
head—evoking images of the revolutionary movements of the
’60s when most people I knew carried a Red Book in their pocket. Another AAPA member stood and pointed out that things are
worse today than in the ’60s — there is even more of a need for
a radical student movement today!”
In the workshops, the exchange between the panelists and
students was very broad. Students expressed a desire to learn
from those who were direct participants in the social movements
that swept the world in the late ’60s. The panelists were very
curious as to what students were thinking today. “How are you
looking at the world? What kind of world do you want to see
come out of your efforts?”
Many spoke from personal experience — doing the right
thing despite the consequences, or in the words of Chairman
Mao, “Serve the people” (vs. “serve yourself”). One panelist
spoke about how he had just gotten to Berkeley in 1969, got
involved in the strike, was assigned to be a Field Marshall, and
lost his scholarship in the process. Others spoke of breaking off
relations with their parents, losing friends who didn’t agree with
the strike, getting tear gassed and pepper-sprayed, and getting
arrested. But the main thing is that for each person, it was a matter of acting on principle, fighting for what was right.
*AAPA (pronounced “Ah-pah”): Asian American Political Alliance
Photos by Andre Nguyen
Richard Aoki holds up the “Red Book” during the API Issues conference
honoring the Asian American Political Alliance of 1968
After the Strike there was a huge movement from the campus
to the community. This was also a part of the “serve the people”
orientation that guided us. We set up revolutionary community programs in San Francisco Chinatown, Manilatown, Japan
Town, Oakland Chinatown. We had a bookstore that distributed
revolutionary literature, a co-op garment factory, a food program, and much more.
In 1968, we mobilized students to go to Manilatown and fight
alongside the manongs and other elderly Filipino men whose
home was the International Hotel. As young men, they had come
to America, to work in agriculture, the shipyards, the merchant
marine. Elderly and retired, but still full of spunk, they were
fighting a major eviction battle, because the large corporation
that bought the I-Hotel planned to tear it down and build a parking lot for Chinatown tourists.
Time was short and we all wished we could have gone on a lot
longer. After a great meal, there was a celebration of the 40th Anniversary of AAPA. Each AAPA member was honored on stage
as students ceremoniously gave each of us a bouquet of flowers.
We posed for a group photo, flowers in one hand and all raised
their other hand in a clenched fist.
Original members of AAPA pose for a 40th anniversary photo.
Returning to Manzanar
N
by Heidi Kim
orthwestern’s Special Collections in Deering Library
houses a unique and under-utilized collection of documents from the Japanese American internment during
World War II. Ranging from loose clippings to Born Free and
Equal, a famous book of Ansel Adams photographs of the Manzanar Relocation Center, these documents shed light on one of the
most infamous civil rights violations in U.S. history. Manzanar,
located inland in southern California, held over 10,000 Japanese
Americans within its barbed wire fences.
The original collection was kept by Thelma Kellesvig, who
taught domestic science at Manzanar and who I also found a
mention of in the camp’s newspaper as a member of the local
draft board, showing that she must have had a large role in daily
life at Manzanar. Her carefully kept scrapbook is currently in
fragile condition but on the libraryís list for restoration. It mostly
consists of invitations and programs from camp entertainments,
photographs of her students and the surrounding landscape, and
clippings, including the famous 1944 Life magazine feature on
the Japanese American internment. Kellesvigís photographs are
a rare commodity, because Japanese Americans were not allowed
to keep their cameras during World War II (for fear of spying
activity). Most unofficial internment camp photographs were
taken by specially licensed visitors or, in rare cases, by Japanese
American military servicemen visiting their families. The posed
photographs show happy-looking teenage schoolgirls.
The university purchased the collection in the 1970s and has
been adding to it piece by piece ever since. A full listing can be
found by doing a search by call number in NUCat, the online
library catalog, for “Manzanar.”
Our Sisters Are Not For Sale! systems that devalue women’s worth
continued from page 1
industries, and where and for whom
men, women, and children are trafficked.
Kavitha Sreeharsha argued that while the
sex worker is the predominant image of
the trafficked subject, in fact many men,
women and children are also trafficked to
work in dangerous, degrading and slave
like conditions as domestic, seasonal and
factory workers.
Without oversimplifying the diversity
of reasons and complex relations behind
human trafficking, panelists targeted
the demand for sex workers, patriarchal
and undercut economic opportunity at
home, poverty, and the fact that many
communities in the United States turn
a blind eye to the coercive sex work
occurring in their neighborhoods.
While the trafficked subject is most
directly impacted by the cumulative
and daily coercion by the traffickers,
the panelists urged their audience to
understand trafficking as a systemic
problem that society as a whole needs to
address. On the state and federal level,
education of law enforcement agencies
and social service providers, as well
as re-framing of immigration laws, are
necessary to protect —
­ not criminalize —
trafficked populations.
Thinking about trafficking
systematically means also pressuring
our own communities to truly commit
to ending violence against women and
children. By recognizing that trafficking
is sustained in our own communities
and by humanizing and connecting with
trafficked subjects we can each play a
small part in furthering global justice. As
Ji-Yeon Yuh, the Director of the Asian
American Studies Program urges, it is
important that we “not ask how big of an
impact we make but that we strive to make
an impact no matter how small.”
A look at Winter Quarter classes
Professor Nitasha
Sharma’s Asian/Black
Relations in the U.S.
has been increasingly
popular since it was
first offered in Spring
2007. It has since
been approved as a
permanent course by
the Curriculum Review
Committee and will
be offered in 2 parts,
Asian Am 218 and
Asian Am 310 after
Professor John Cheng delivers a lecture to his Asian American History
this academic year.
class, Asian Am 214 which reached record enrollments this quarter.