Anti-Asian hostilities and Asian Exclusion Movements Flashcards
(88 cards)
1
Q
Forms of Anti-Asian Hostilities
A
- prejudice
- economic discrimination
- political disenfranchisement
- physical violence
- immigration exclusion
- social segregation
- mass incarceration (Japanese during WWII)
- these are all encoded in laws at federal and state levels that build upon each other, especially starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act
2
Q
Larger Meanings of Anti-Asian Racism in American Society
A
- belonging in the US is called into question
- defining American citizenship and what it means to be “American” is reconceptualized over time
- racializing process
- centrality of race and racism
- Asian immigrants seen as horde, but really tiny minority compared to European immigrants and US citizens at the time
3
Q
Types of Arguments
A
- race-based
- class-based
- gender-based
- these intersect and act simultaneously, but are also unique in certain ways
4
Q
Race
A
- no scientific basis for race
- minimal differences in DNA between humans
- socially constructed
5
Q
Social Construction of Race
A
- during Enlightenment, there was a desire to classify things taxonomically, including making a scientific classification of races
- we all agree on these rules: this is a consensus
- this is how power works: it circulates thru society so that we see it as common sense
- just like how money has no value until we give it value; we agreed upon monetary denominations
- race/racialization is a process; verb of becoming racialized
6
Q
Social Construction
A
- the way that social reality is generated by the way we think, talk about it, and reach social consensus
7
Q
Racial Formation/Racialization
A
- process; verb of becoming racialized
- the process by which political, economic, and social forces determine content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings
- racial categories are one thing (might be appearance-based), but race is the meaning we attach to those categories
- like Asian Americans wanting to change meaning associated w/ Asian and move away from Oriental views
- we ascribe personality traits to races that are meanings we come to consensus over
- racism is societal construct that emerges out of economic, political, and social forces
- race is relational: no black w/out white, etc.
8
Q
Racialized Meanings of “Asian”
A
- permanent foreignness and unassimilability
- embedded w/in institutions and social structures
- race is fundamental organizing principle of social stratification that comes out of power structures and takes a life of its own/has material consequences as a result
- Oriental = fundamental foreignness
9
Q
“Yellow Peril” and “Oriental Problem”
A
- “hordes” of Asians coming are problems to be solved
- same time as “Negro Problem” – when Americans were trying to assimilate freed slaves into society
- these two are intertwined in terms of their defining Asians and blackness
10
Q
Social Construction of Race
A
- we start to see race as normal, natural
- we give race power
- it comes about through popular culture
- we associate certain images w/ racialized beliefs
11
Q
Social Perceptions of Chinese Immigrants (Race-Based)
A
- anti-Chinese sentiment created “Asian” race based on permanent foreignness, aliens
- seen as alien in language, food, customs, appearance, clothing, bizarre habits, “doing things backwards” from W civilizations, superstitious, peculiar odor of ginger and opium
- seen as dishonest, crafty, lacking intelligence to improve their social structures, unhygienic, mouse eaters, etc.
12
Q
Chinatowns
A
- increasingly seen as festering, unsanitary neighborhoods
- subject to intense journalism and health inspections; inspectors went into Chinatowns with the bias that everything they’d heard about Chinese being an alien race (from politicians) was true, and that race was a scientific truth
13
Q
Cartoon Depicting the Three Evils of Chinatown
A
- leprosy, malaria, smallpox
- these images live in the back of your mind until they become fact and common sense
- Chinatown associated w/ disease, unsanitary conditions, all men, no women
- men seen as unsettled, opium smokers, gambling addicts (a place of vice and danger), untrustworthy, dirty, sleazy, sexually depraved
- Chinatown was a place for white women to avoid bcs Chinese men are sexually depraved monsters who preyed on white women
14
Q
Naturalization Act of 1790
A
- citizenship to US is reserved for “free white persons”
- close association between race and citizenship
- white is a racial category with its own set of racial meanings
- 1870 amendment included “persons of African descent” as part of Reconstructionist efforts to integrate recently freed African Americans into US society after Civil War
15
Q
Foreign Miners Tax of 1882
A
- people who were non-US citizens had to pay tax to mine in US gold mines
- was first used to exclude people of Mexican descent
- was then enforced only against the Chinese
- ruled unconstitutional in 1870
16
Q
People vs. Hall (1854)
A
- fundamental question of “are Chinese white or black?” raised
- George Hall, a white man, was convicted of murder based on testimony of Chinese witnesses in the mines
- Hall appealed the conviction, arguing on the basis of 1850 CA law that no black, mulatto, or Indian can give evidence in a court of law
- Chinese have an ambiguous standing
- court ruled in Hall’s favor, stating:
- Indians (Native Americans) originally migrated from Asia, so excluding Native Americans is the same as excluding Asians
- “black” is the opposite of white and includes everything non-white
- therefore, Chinese are non-white
17
Q
In re Ah Yup (1878)
A
- Chinese are scientifically part of the Mongolian race
- Mongolians aren’t white
- based on science classification of 5 races: Caucasian, Ethiopian/black, Mongolian (yellow), Indian (red), and Malayan (Austronesian people)?
- the wording of the 1870 amendment to the Naturalization Act places African Americans in a geographic location (“African descent”)
- therefore, they could no longer call Chinese black
18
Q
Citizenship and Assimilability
A
- if you can’t assimilate, you can’t be citizen
- who could participate in society and on what grounds is defined by citizenship
- by ruling Chinese as non-white, court denied them citizenship
- some Chinese challenged the constitutionality of these laws, but they were taken to the Supreme Court
19
Q
Chinese Immigrant Questioning Constitutionality of Chinese Exclusion Act in 1884
A
- Chief Justice of Supreme Court argued that Chinese are unamerican, unassimilable, and therefore ineligible for citizenship – basically because Chinese maintained their culture
- argues that they will never accept US civic structures, so could never be citizens
- people argued that this unwillingness to assimilate constituted a threat to US society
- feeds into social construction of “Asian” as “forever foreigners”
- holds greater weight because the court, the law of the land, is saying these things, so they must be true
20
Q
Chinese Exclusion (not the act)
A
- excluded from US citizenship
- political disenfranchisement stopped them from being able to get rid of discriminatory legislation
- ordinances that made Chinatown closeness of living illegal, made men cut off their hair cues/ponytails, laundry ordinances, etc.
- anti-Chinese riots and violence; perpetrators faced no consequences because Chinese had no political power
21
Q
Industrialization and Urbanization (Late 19th Century)
A
- time of change and instability in society as American nation growing exponentially
- mass migration from Europe, mass economic growth along with depressions and recessions, unemployment, low-wage labor
- robber barons growing monopolies off of the backs of workers and concentrating wealth in the hands of a few elite
22
Q
American Labor Movement
A
- increasingly militant
- violent labor strikes
- defines itself along racial and class lines as “white working class”
- fundamental conflict between labor versus capital; seen as a terrifying societal conflict
23
Q
Chinese as Economic Scapegoats
A
- became scapegoats for larger structural problems in US economy
- seen as the enemy of the working class because their presence would undercut wages and living standards
- however, Chinese had to work for cheap because of racial stratification of wages
- no blame placed on capitalists paying Chinese lower wages, only on the Chinese themselves
- hatred of the Chinese as tools of capitalism exploitation brought workers together
24
Q
Free Labor
A
- largely a concept in the North; seen as superior to Southern slavery
- ideology of independence and individualism: free will to better yourself and follow your own success through hard work
- achieving American dream
25
Unfree Labor
- slavery, shadow slavery
- no power to negotiate wages
- plantations
- indentured servitude is between free and unfree labor
- what Chinese are seen as
26
Coolie Labor
- product of European expansion into Asia and the Americas
- Coolie referred to as laborer from China or India that was shipped abroad
- term takes on new significance in 19th C when GB abolishes slavery in 1833
- Indian coolies brought to Caribbean, Chinese coolies brought to Cuba -- sugar plantation work
- coolies embodied slavery in age of free labor
27
"Shanghaied"
- getting Shanghaied into service is reference to how coolies were often kidnapped/tricked into labor and shipped abroad
28
Chinese and Labor
- seen as unfree labor
- equated w/ slaves by depictions of Chinese with African American characteristics
- people who came under contract-labor system weren't technically coolies, but still tagged w/ same label --> racialized meaning and association with unfree labor
29
Creation of White Working Class
- how the Irish went from being seen socially and culturally as less than white to white
- Irish were very vocal/ opposed to blacks and Asians
30
Whiteness Scholarship
- bridges diverse cultural, language differences between European immigrants and US citizens
- white is a racial category in and of itself
- whiteness defined against nonwhite other
- whiteness is what other groups are not
- Europeans are claiming white identity by vilifying and alienating the Chinese
31
"Wages of Whiteness" - W.E.B. Dubois
- poor working-class whites define themselves as white
- whiteness provides meaningful compensation/psychological wage for disenfranchisement of white laborers
- way to organize and unite in period of powerlessness and dislocation by devaluating blacks/other ethnicities
32
Chinese and Americanness
- Chinese are the antithesis of the meaning of American
- American citizens more defined as white people
- black people were second-class citizens
- American citizens were equated with free white labor
33
White Identity
- inextricably tied to non-white identity
- created the "other" just like Orientalism
- race is relational; can't have white without black
34
"Indispensable Enemy"
- Chinese are the indispensable enemy for creating white working class identity
- politicians exploit anti-Chinese sentiment because they needed Western states' votes
- discriminatory laws against Chinese perpetuated and facilitated by politicians, esp because Chinese had no political clout
- even though Chinese were 0.002% of US population, mostly in the West, this issue became a national one
35
Workingmen's Party
- CA
- formed in 1877 by Dennis Kearney
- slogan: "The Chinese Must Go!"
- opposed monopoly, corruption, big capital, and the Chinese
- accused Chinese of stealing jobs and advocated for ban on immigration
- incited riots, held rallies, etc.
- Chinese are indispensable enemy for white working class to unify under
36
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
- passed by Congress
- denied Chinese right to naturalization
- prohibited male laborers for 10 years, w/ exception of merchants, students, traders, diplomats
- renewed every 10 years
- in 1904, Chinese immigration suspended indefinitely
- only repealed in 1943
- symptomatic of larger conflict between white labor and white capital: removal of Chinese defused the issues agitating white workers and alleviated class tensions in white society
37
Gender
- man and woman
- not male, female
- socially constructed
- doesn't reflect biological differences, but involves the cultured social meanings given to perceived differences in biological characteristics of males and females
- gender is primary way of signifying relationships of power between men and women
- both men and women are gendered
- "one is not born a woman, one becomes a woman"
38
Sex
- male and female
- biological differences/markers
- chromosomes
39
Images of Chinese Women
- perceived as prostitutes
- women sometimes tricked; told that they were coming as labor or as wives, but sold into slavery essentially
- half of the Chinese women in a census were listed as prostitutes -- false
- seen as sexually immoral, promiscuous, hypersexual
- threat to Christian ideals of purity
- class purity tied to women's purity, so Chinese women seen as lower-class
40
1875 Page Law
- prohibited entry of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian contract laborers, women intended for prostitution, and felons
- really just to exclude Chinese women coming as prostitutes, because male contract laborers were still brought to fulfill labor demands
- even before Chinese Exclusion Act, there were attempts to limit Chinese women entering the US
- this is why there are so few Chinese women in the US prior to 1882 (led to primarily male Chinese bachelor communities)
41
Ulysses Grant
- vehemently advocated for Page Act
- said that Chinese women don't perform honorable labor, but disgrace and demoralize communities
42
Images of Chinese Men
- effeminate (bcs they did laundry)
- lustful, sexual menaces
- threat to white womanhood
- stereotyped as sexual predators, particularly a threat to white women
- purity of the nation represented by women; Chinese men were stain
- provides moral justification for Chinese Exclusion Act
- only solution to Oriental Problem is to exclude them from coming to US
- anti-miscegenation laws that prevented Chinese men from marrying white women
- bachelor societies unsafe, sexually depraved/deprived because they're living without women
- effeminate Chinese compared to strong union man's masculinity
43
Oriental and Negro Problems
- intertwined as two problems confronting American society
- solution to Oriental: Asian exclusion
- solution to Negro: black segregation; second-class citizenship (Plessy v. Ferguson)
44
Organized Labor
- agricultural labor becomes center of discrimination against Japanese (and Koreans more or less)
- organized labor strengthened in the early 20th century
45
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
- craft unions made up by skilled white workers
- led by Samuel Gompers
- equated Chinese and Japanese as degraded, diseased coolies
- said Asians lowered American standard of living and called for exclusion of Japanese
- said Japanese were just coming for money and going back to Japan
- Japanese shifted to settler-permanent resident attitude to dissipate anti-Japanese sentiment
- unionization equated with Americanization
- racialized as white working-class movement and barred Asians from labor movement
46
Gentlemen's Agreement
- caused by growing anti-Japanese sentiment
- Teddy Roosevelt shares belief in racialized meanings of coolies as threats to American labor
- needed to limit Japanese going to Hawaii but also had to deal with power of Japan and SF school board decision
- GA limits Japanese labor immigrants and only allows Japanese gentlemen
- Japanese shift from dekasegi to settler-permanent resident period to try and show their desire to become Americans and dissipate anti-Japanese sentiment
47
Alien Land Law (1913)
- state legislation
- CA (+ 12 other states) prohibits "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from buying land or leasing it for longer three years
- Japanese trying to work their way up the agricultural ladder could no longer buy land and be landowners
- however, overall number of Japanese owning land increased after this law because of agricultural demand
- landowners were dependent on Japanese farmers
- Japan found loopholes in the law; bought land in the names of the nisei because the nisei were American citizens
- ALL provides new avenue of racialization of Japanese immigrants
48
"Free White Persons"
- contested all the way up to the Supreme Court by Japanese and Indians
- Japanese sought to contest “aliens ineligible for citizenship” by contesting what it means to be “free white person”
- 1790 Naturalization Act and 1870 Amendment have words "free white person" and "persons of African descent" (this last is more clearly geographical and not open for interpretation)
- some Japanese and Indians were given citizenship through contesting this term, but had to come from courts
49
Securing Place in American Society
- could appeal to Japanese gov't, but no faith there because gov't didn't help in school board crisis
- could lobby for rights through Congress, but American support would be too weak
- litigation was the only option left
50
Takao Ozawa
- ideal test case for contesting "free white persons"
- Ozawa came to SF in 1894 as student-laborer (schoolboy), attended UC Berkeley for 3 years, moved to Honolulu, worked for American company, had outstanding character references from employer, wife, 2 kids
- pinnacle/paragon of assimilated Japanese and contrasted popular sentiment that Japanese didn't want to become American
- also had very pale skin, so visually looked whiter than other Europeans with darker skin
51
Five Scientific Racial Classifications
- Caucasian
- Mongolian (Asian)
- Ethiopian (black)
- Americans (Native)
- Malay (Pacific Islanders)
52
Takao Ozawa v. US (1922)
- Court ruled that "white persons" included only people of the Caucasian race
- white = Caucasian
- scientifically, Ozawa is part of Mongolian race
- alluding to social construction of race to define whiteness
- Ozawa denied citizenship bcs Japanese are not free white persons
- citizenship rights given to Japanese by lower courts are revoked
- ALL becomes more stringent, closes loopholes that impact Japanese agricultural holdings (can't pass land to kids)
- Ladies Agreement: closes loophole of picture brides
53
1924 Immigration Act
- regulated all immigration to US by setting annual quota system based on nat’l origins
- favored W and N Eur w/ high quotas
- smaller quotas from S and E Eur, who were seen as less than white
- exclusionary clause that prohibited the admission of any alien ineligible for citizenship as an immigrant
- solidified concept of “aliens ineligible for citizenship” as basis for Asian exclusion and “Asiatic” as racial category
- racialization encoded in law
- provides legal cover for racial discrimination against Asians
- final answer to Oriental Problem
54
Nisei
- American citizens by law
- parents wanted them to enjoy the full American experience
- Japanese communities' hopes are pinned on them
55
"Hindoos" and "Hindus"
- term for Indians, who were grouped as different racial categories according to "science"
- misnomer to call them Hindus, because most immigrants were Sikhs
56
Sikhism
- syncretic, reform religion
- tried to bring together Islam and Hinduism
- response against caste system, preached equality
- response against Islam because they were persecuted by Muslim leaders
- Sikhism was militant, very visible group in the eyes of Americans - equated all Indians as Hindus
- Sikhs inherited anti-Asian sentiments
- scientifically, Indians classified as "Caucasian" due to some shared European ancestor
57
Hindu Invasion - "New Yellow Peril"
- new racial peril
- targets of racial violence
- Bellingham, WA riots 1907
- calls to define Caucasian as white, and Mongolian to include Indian
- racialized as coolie threat to free labor
58
Bellingham, WA Riots in 1907
- almost all Indians came from British Columbia, Canada and made way down Pacific Coast
- 400-500 (maybe 1000) white laborers attacked sizable settlement of Indians in WA
- kicked out 500 South Asians, stealing possessions, burning houses, etc.
- many fled down Pacific Coast or back to Canada
- calls for exclusion given growing anti-Asian Indian movement
59
1917 Immigration Act
- "Asiatic Barred Zone"
- marked off area from Saudi Arabia to Asiatic Islands as not allowed to send immigrants
- specifically targeted Indians
- China and Japan excluded because they were already excluded by other legal acts
- included the Philippines in the map, but had clause that allowed any country under US rule to come
- literacy req that allowed people who could read English somewhat to come --> also benefitted Filipinos educated under US education system in the Philippines
- "Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every yr” -- Malcolm X
60
Bhagat Singh Thind v. US (1923)
- came to US in 1913, fought for US in WWI, naturalized in 1920
- this case comes few mo after Ozawa case, which said Caucasian = white, and Indians are Caucasian, so Thind should be a citizen
- Court ruled that there was common ancestry but "free white persons” should now be interpreted with the understanding of the common man, synonymous w/ the word Caucasian only as that word is popularly understood
- ruling was opposite of Ozawa case
- yes, he's Caucasian, but he's not white
- Ozawa case relied on scientific racism
- Thind case throws out scientific racism and relies on social construction of race (if Thind and Scandinavian stood together, we'd know who the white person was)
- defining what is not white in order to define whiteness
- Thind citizenship revoked
- Court said original framers of Constitution only wanted to include people of Great Britain and Northern Europe as white people
- "white" expanded to include other parts of Europe because those people were assimilable
- however, Asians are outside of boundaries of assimilation
- like Ozawa, they could assimilate as much as they wanted, but they were always going to be excluded
61
Whiteness and Asiatic Centrality in Defining US Racial Ideology
- takes Court to define what is white
- but in their cases, they define what isn't white to define what is white
- "Asiatic" established as racial category
62
Carlos Bulosan
- America is in the Heart is not an autobiography
- composite picture of Filipino experience in 1920s and 1930s
63
US Nationals and Filipino Immigration
- post-1924 period immigration rises exponentially
- Filipinos weren't "aliens ineligible for citizenship"
64
Anti-Filipino Hostilities
- inherited anti-Oriental hostility that was 50 years
- agricultural labor, but didn't move up the agricultural ladder, stayed as laborers
- accused of undercutting wages, lowering standard of living for Americans
- experienced racial violence
65
US Colonial Possession and Filipino Racialization
- Filipinos weren't "Oriental" because they were a US colony since 1898 end of Spanish-American War
- before that, had been Spanish colony for 3 centuries
- US perceived Filipinos as uncivilized savages who needed US tutelage to prepare them for self-government
- policy of benevolent assimilation/paternalism --> white man's duty to Christianize and Americanize Filipino people (McKinley)
66
Benevolent Assimilation
- basically like plantation paternalism
- "those who cooperate will be rewarded, all others will be brought w/in lawful rule we've assumed, with firmness if need be"
67
Philippine-American War (1899-1902)
- immediately after Spanish-American War
- Filipinos saw themselves as independent once Spain was defeated
- this was a war of genocide
- 2/3 US Armed Forces sent there to bring Filipinos under control
- "firmness if need be" --> Filipino people had to be beaten into submission/surrender to accept US rule of benevolent assimilation
- concentration camps, death camps
- a lot of soldiers were African Americans, many of whom saw the hypocrisy in the war and joined the Filipinos
- sometimes, Filipinos were called the "n-word"
- soldier condemned racial attitudes of American soldiers of seeing Filipinos as a homogeneous group of savages
68
"White Man's Burden" -- Kipling
- poem written to convince Americans to take on the Philippines as a colony
- the beginning of US imperialism
- there was disagreement among Americans about whether or not to colonize the Philippines
- some didn't want savages coming to the country, African Americans protested the hypocrisy of this, and some said it went against what US stood for
69
American Exceptionalism
- America is the Great Experiment vis a vis the old world
- America is bringing freedom to the new world
- Americans are the trustees
- justified acts of violence in the name of democracy
- McKinley said that going into the Philippines is not colonialism, but a racial question
- God prepared white people as master organizers of the world, and they have a duty to administer government among savage and senile peoples
70
Benevolent Assimilation
- Filipino people not ready for self-rule
- need to be trained to prep for self-rule as democracy
- Americanize Filipinos
- American public education system, classes taught in English
- education available for all kids, unlike under Spanish (edu reserved for elite)
- American education became the vehicle to tame and civilize their savagery
- in Bulosan, they're taught about Lincoln
- fed ideas of American exceptionalism, individualism --> hard work gets anyone success
71
Colonial Paradox
- inherent in benevolent assimilation is Fil racial inferiority, but they’re deemed as assimilable
- they’re uncivilized but can be helped, but there can be no equality w/ American people because the relationship is based on belief in their inferiority
- different racialization process for Filipinos
72
Americanization and Discontents
- Filipinos were not Oriental in the eyes of Americans who saw Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and Indians as so unassimilable
- Filipinos were more Americanized (largely Christian because of Spain and US), spoke English, wore American clothes
- Filipinos displaced white labor
- ability to negotiate American culture became source of resentment
73
Common Complaints Against Filipinos
- they displaced white labor
- represented "sexual menace" particularly because they were lustful after white women
- mostly male Filipino immigrants, so believed that Filipino men were chasing after white women
- interracial relationships disturbed people
- purity of nationhood embodied in purity of womanhood
- labor threat coupled with hypersexuality
- hypersexuality and racialization tied (sexuality tied with primitiveness)
- described as "little brown monkeys"
- equated Filipinos with African American racial perceptions
- David Barrows: Filipino vices based on sexualization
74
Taxi Dance Halls
- 1930s and 1940s
- sources of entertainment
- Filipino men could pay to dance with white women; not brothels
- sites of "Filipino problem" and interracial relationships
- Filipinos spent money on clothes and going to dance halls
- seen as sexual menace
- targets of vigilante violence
75
Watsonville Riots 1930
- frequent clashes about Filipinos dating white women, and judge called for exclusion of Filipinos from the area
- around the same time, a taxi dance hall opened up in Watsonville
- mobs would stand outside clubs and threaten to lynch them
- formed hunting parties to find Filipinos (one Filipino was shot and killed)
- triggers violence like that seen in America is in the Heart
76
World Fairs
- showcased American progress and civilization, new tech, innovation, scientific discovery
77
1904 World's Fair
- Philippine Exposition
- way to see Filipino people as their "authentic selves"
- depicted them as savages to show American people why American intervention needed in Philippines
- these perceptions inform racialization
- way of measuring American civilization against Filipino people
- McKinley assassinated at the 1904 World Fair by Polish American who was radicalized by Filipino-American War
78
Miscegenation Laws
- laws that prevent interracial marriages, especially between white women and men of color (initially, especially targeted against African American men)
79
CA Civil Code, Section 60
- barred black men and white women marriages
- amended in 1905 to forbid marriages between Mongolians (Ch, Jap, Kor) and white persons
- Filipino intermarriage didn’t become issue until later
- amended in 1933 to include Malays
80
Roldan v. LA County (1933)
- Salvadore Roldan challenged the refusal of the court to give him and his white fiance marriage license
- he won the case using ethnological scientific notions of race
- Filipinos considered Malays, not Mongolians
- short-lived victory
- CA Civil Code, Sec 60 amended in 1933 to include Malays
- legally barred Fils from marrying white women
- took away Roldan’s license
81
Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934)
- act of ingenuity as calls to exclude Filipinos increased
- act guarantees Phil nat’l independence over 10 yr transition period
- annual quota of 50 Filipinos to the US
- by granting indep, Phil would be indep nation, not colonial possession
- now Fils could be aliens ineligible for citizenship and could be excluded
- changes their legal status to aliens
- “Racism is like Cadillac, comes out w/ new model every yr”
- they’re different models, but all still Cadillacs
- anti-exclusion movements exclude groups in different ways based on their different backgrounds, but it’s still exclusion
82
Bildungsroman
- America is in the Heart
- alienated young person who feels angry and displaced and their development from lost child to mature, self-aware adult
- journey to self-realization and stability, sense of purpose
83
Conclusion of America is in the Heart
- he finds America
- faithful allegiance to America despite racialization
- right before this bildungsroman realization, he sees the life of the migrant worker, constantly on the move, stuck in labor position on agricultural ladder
- notion of departure, incompletion, instability
- opposite of stabilizing bildungsroman realization
84
Internalized Colonial Mentality
- necessitates identification with colonial master
- benevolent assimilation belief that Filipinos are inherently inferior and need Americanization to reach fulfillment
85
Promise of America -- Education
- unwavering faith in freedom through education
- people went to America for education, Lincoln's education made him president
- however, Bulosan experienced a lack of access to formal schooling and forced to teach himself using bits of books and resources available to him
- his “education” was also informed by observations of exploitation, violence, and marginalization experienced by Filipino immigrants
- highlights disparity between promise of education and unequal access of different racial and economic groups to that education
86
Paradox
- “Why was Amer so kind and yet so cruel? Was there no common denominator on which we could all meet?” (pg. 147)
- there is a disparity between the democratic vision of America that we believe in, but there's also those racial and economic inequalities that deny access to America's possibilities
- contradictions and inequalities at the heart of America
- idea of America is inherently contradictory
87
Bulosan the Analyst vs. Bulosan the Character
- novel published in 1947, WWII
- no one would publish novel bashing the US
- Bulosan the analyst uses Bulosan the immigrant to subvert the notion of America
- claiming that everyone is American, but the people of color get the unequal side of America
- inserting nameless foreigner into America
88
Mobility
- spatial mobility as migrant farm workers
- lack of socioeconomic mobility, immobility
- continual migration highlights departure, impermanence, incompletion, immobility, rootlessness, dispossession
- contrast to sedentary life of plantation
- still no upward movement, still stuck on plantation
- uneven divided America at the heart of America
- scholar said that if Filipinos could find a center for themselves, they could assimilate better
