Lecture 10: 10/16/2007 &quot;Towards a Critical Transnational Prospective&quot; I. Theories of Assimilation a. Straight-line Assimilation i. &quot;Contact, competition, accommodation, and eventual assimilation&quot; (Robert Park) ii. Contact with culture iii. Competition between white ethnics and Asian American 1. Nativism Violence 2. Assimilation is good iv. Children of immigration 2rd and 3rd generation are hyphenated v. Linear theory tailored towards white ethnics (Italians) vi. **** Assimilation by 3rd generation b. <a href="/keyword/cultural-pluralism/" >cultural pluralism</a> /Melting Pot i. Immigrants tend to assimilate to an American core, but also retain their ethnic values ii. Assimilation by 3rd generation may not be possible because of socioeconomic barriers and racism (Glazer and Moynihan) c. Segmented Assimilation i. Considers structural impediments and suggests a &quot;negative&quot; assimilation is possible ii. Structural barriers (poor schools) can lead to stagnant or downward mobility (downward assimilation) iii. Some children of immigrants follow the 2nd and 3rd generations, some reject the idea and join gangs (downward assimilation) iv. More economically advantaged embrace the cultural background (ethnic reservice, retention) v. Selective culture choose if they want to stay with ethnic culture or new culture they live in d. Questions i. Why do some assimilate by the 3rd generation and why do some not assimilate? By the way they live. Groups have been racialized. ii. Why is the core still seen as white Americans? iii. Another barrier to theories leave linear theory out of question. iv. Why do assimilation theories fail? Dont take into account the impacts of racism. v. Immigration has happened before people have come into U.S. imperialism, wars, corporation, jobs, outsourcing of companies has already touched the outsides. Need to be accounted for in terms of assimilation. vi. Assimilation fails because it doesnt allow us to take in how we remake America. Keywords a. Race/Ethnicity b. Class i. Common class designations: &quot;upper class&quot; or &quot;elite&quot; (rulers and powerful capitalists) ii. &quot;middle class&quot; or &quot;bourgeoisie&quot; II. III. iii. &quot;proletariat&quot; (Depending on the user, may include &quot;low income&quot;, &quot;working class&quot;, &quot;working poor&quot;, &quot;dispossessed&quot;, or &quot;poor&quot;) iv. Colonialism- establishment of colonies in other places, military control, education, going into someones land physically, developing/improving country, (FORCEFUL TAKEOVER OF ANOTHERS LAND) v. internal colonialism- colonialism within the country c. Gender i. A persons &quot;Sex&quot; is not the same thing as his/her &quot;gender&quot; ii. Defined as a socially constructed categorization of individual emphasizing biological sex differentiation iii. Under this definition, then &quot;sex&quot; refers to sexual organs, hormones, genetic coding, etc. that marks people as &quot;male&quot; or &quot;female&quot;. &quot;Gender&quot;, on the other hand, refres to social behaviors and expectations based on culturally-determined &quot;masculinities&quot; and &quot;femininities&quot; iv. Feminist theory- women are expected to take on more house orientation roles v. Class differences and race differences vi. Women from China coming to U.S. were viewed as prostitutes/mail order brides d. Sexuality i. Contemporary studies of sexuality work against associating sexual preferences with specific cultural identifications, biological traits, of &quot;failed&quot; parenting or socialization. These theories also view sexuality and desire as somewhat fluid subject to change, reinterpretations, rediscovery and development. This means that there may not be any easy way for one to concretely &quot;identify&quot; his or her desires or sexual preferences 1. Demographics gays usually tend to lump together 2. Dinks double income no kids e. Hegemony i. Departure from Marxist form of power (communism) f. Intersectionality i. [R]ace, class, and gender (as well as sexual orientation) constitute ,,regions of hegemony ...(omi and winant 68) ii. Studying how history and social factors intersect with each other and how affect everyday practice iii. EX: 1st generation Vietnamese protested against the coming of a Vietnamese ambassador to UCSD because they didnt want to reconnect with homeland. Homeland was communist. Conflicted notions. Identify with the protesters, but go against something you supported. Or support the speaker and go against &quot;uncles&quot; and family members against communism. Shifting Focus for Asian American Studies i. Understanding Capitalist Development (Bonacich) 1. Provides a sketch of economic development of the U.S. since early settlement through slavery and post-civil war 2. Connects Asian immigration to labor needs resulting from western expansionism and competing &quot;modes or production&quot; IV. 3. 3 modes of production 4. Rise of big capital, proletariat, Independent producers were seen as farmers ii. &quot;East of California&quot; (Campomanes) 1. &quot;expression of discontent and a positive program in addressing the developmental imbalance of the field...&quot; (525) 2. &quot;remap the field from alternative locations&quot; (525) a. CA site recruited many for labor b. Alternative location outside of west coast, and U.S. nation (Asia, Mexico, Latin America) not be concerned with how certain groups assimilate. Look at the wars and economic deployments from the U.S. in other countries 3. Contributionism a. Additive solution to &quot;salad bowl&quot;, adding stories (amy tan) to the U.S. b. One piece to formula of immigrants coming to U.S. c. &quot;Asian American&quot; as term that is in fluz, not static or unchanging iii. Denationalization (Wong) 1. Less emphasis on &quot;cultural nationalist&quot; concerns 2. Dialogue between asian (area) and Asian American Studies 3. Diasporic vs. Domestic a. More concerned with migration on a larger scale, how American impacted that region before migration, be able to decenter the U.S. 4. Ay yi group been attacked on being too concerned with masculine Critical Transnational Perspective a. Approach that stresses the global structures of inequality in order to understand Asian immigration and Asian American lives in the U.S. (Espiritu) b. Imperialist mourning in U.S. c. Looking at a more transnationalist perspective The U.S. linear narrative is a contradiction that works to deny the United States involvement abroad as the cause of immigration to its borders and establishes a goal for immigrants to rise to, yet once these immigrants reach that target, legislation prevents them from the chance of become fully American by creating a lengthy process to attain a U.S. citizenship. It is necessary to view the immigration narrative in a circular fashion due to the fact that immigrants are regularly incorporating their own culture to their new lives as they adjust to the American ambiance. The United States influences many immigrants prior to their arrival through globalization. It is unfair that the U.S. narrative disregards this portion of an immigrants life in order to present the United States as a benevolent receiver of the unhappy masses searching for an improved lifestyle when in reality, the United States is most likely to be one of the reasons immigrants had unfortunate lives in their home country. Meanwhile, by analyzing culture as a process of development once an immigrant enters the United States, one can observe the tensions and benefits that culture has on subject transformation. Jinwoos subject transformation is marked by the tensions presented when he is pressured by cultural preferences when influenced by the American setting such as the diversity of potential girlfriends. In addition, another tension is when his foreign birth prevents him from exercising the basic rights of being American when he clearly sees himself as one. On the other hand, his culture and Korean networks have provided him with stability while adjusting to life in America. Immigrants lives cannot be simplified into a linear routine. They maintain a flexible identity that shifts between the American lifestyle and their culture and sometimes both the U.S. culture and their home countrys culture influence one another.