Asian American women demonstrate higher rates of disordered eating than other women of color and comparable rates to European American women. Research suggests that leading sociocultural predictors, namely pressures for thinness and thin-ideal internalization, are predictive of disordered eating in Asian American women; however, no known studies have tested the intersection of sociocultural and culture-specific variables (e.g., ethnic identity, biculturalism, acculturative stress) to further elucidate disordered eating risk in this vulnerable, understudied group. Accordingly, this project (...) used path analysis to simultaneously examine the role of sociocultural and culture-specific effects on disordered eating in Asian American college women (N = 430). Self-report measures assessing disordered eating, sociocultural (pressures for thinness; thin-ideal internalization) and culture-specific (ethnic identity, biculturalism, acculturative stress) variables revealed that a number of sociocultural and culture-specific factors are predictive of disordered eating. Consistent with prior research, heightened perceived pressures for thinness and thin-ideal internalization were predictive of disordered eating, and thin-ideal internalization partially mediated the relationship between pressures for thinness and disordered eating. Acculturative stress predicted disordered eating and fully accounted for the inverse relationship between biculturalism and disordered eating. Overall, findings highlighted the salience of sociocultural predictors for disordered eating in Asian American women and identified biculturalism and acculturative stress as culture-specific contributors that may uniquely impact vulnerability to disordered eating in Asian American women. Thus, the combined consideration of sociocultural and culture-specific factors may be important in disordered eating research and in the development of individualized treatment plans for Asian American women. (shrink)

This essay provides a brief history of how Asian American Christian ethics came to be and sketches the main themes and questions with which this new theological-ethical discipline has grappled since its inception. It then provides an account of two interrelated issues that continue to shape the development of Asian American Christian ethics: whether there is a distinctive Asian American perspective and how the racial marginalization of Asian Americans in Christian ethics and society (...) as a whole might inform this perspective. This essay proposes that as long as Asian Americans continue to be made invisible as model minorities, the goal of racial and social justice will fall short. (shrink)

Less than one percent of U.S. philosophers are Asian American. This essay contends that the low percentage cannot be fully explained by considerations of demographics, immigration, and "Asian culture." Completeness of explanation requires reference to racial politics and Orientalism in their historic and national dynamics. It also requires reference to various kinds of identity derogation specific to the academy and to philosophy, in particular. The essay concludes with reflection on how the "model minority" discourse adds another layer (...) of complication to the way Asian American philosophers and philosophy students negotiate their way through the academy. (shrink)

An ideal volume for researchers, teachers, and students alike, Asian American Christian Ethics articulates the foundations, questions, and goals of this vibrant and flourishing field of study.--Alex Mikulich "Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics".

Integrating race and gender in a social constructionist framework, the authors examine the way that second-generation Asian American young women describe doing gender across ethnic and mainstream settings, as well as their assumptions about the nature of Asian and white femininities. This analysis of interviews with 100 daughters of Korean and Vietnamese immigrants finds that respondents narratively construct Asian and Asian American cultural worlds as quintessentially and uniformly patriarchal and fully resistant to change. In (...) contradistinction, mainstream white America is constructed as the prototype of gender equality. Hence, Asian American and white American women serve in these accounts as uniform categorical representations of the opposing forces of female oppression and egalitarianism. The authors consider how the relational construction of hegemonic and subordinated femininities, as revealed through controlling images that denigrate Asian forms of gender, contribute to internalized oppression and shape the doing of ethnicity. (shrink)

_Asian-American Education: Historical Background and Current Realities_ fills a gap in the study of the social and historical experiences of Asians in U.S. schools. It is the first historical work to provide American readers with information about highly individual ethnic groups rather than viewing distinctly different groups as one vague, global entity such as "Asians." The people who populate each chapter are portrayed as active participants in their history rather than as passive victims of their culture. Each of (...) the twelve country-specific chapters begins with a description of the kind of education received in the home country, including how widely available it was, how equal or unequal the society was, and what were the circumstances under which the emigration of children from the country occurred. The latter part of each of these chapters deals with the education these children have received in the United States. Throughout the book, instead of dwelling on a relatively narrow range of children who perform spectacularly well, the author tries to discover the educational situation typical among average students. The order of chapters is roughly chronological in terms of when the first sizable numbers of immigrants came from a specific country. (shrink)

Embodying Asian/American Sexualities is an accessible reader designed for use in undergraduate and graduate American studies, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and performance studies classes as well as for a general public interested in related issues. It contains both overviews of the field and scholarly interventions into a range of topics, including history, literature, performance, and sociology.

Embodying Asian/American Sexualities is an accessible reader designed for use in undergraduate and graduate American studies, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and performance studies classes as well as for a general public interested in related issues. It contains both overviews of the field and scholarly interventions into a range of topics, including history, literature, performance, and sociology.

What is the current status of Asian Americans in philosophy? How do Asian Americans fare in comparison to other minority groups? And, what professional strategies might they use (more or less successfully) in response to their counterstereotypical status in philosophy? In this piece, I will address these questions empirically by extrapolating from available demographic, survey, and experimental studies. This analysis will be too fast and loose, but I offer it in the spirit of constructing a broad-brushed sketch— painted (...) from a pallet of variegated data—for others to critique, improve, and displace. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute toward coalitionbuilding by showing that, even if we try tobuild coalition around what might look like ourmost obvious common concern – reducing racism –the dominant discourse of racial politics inthe United States inhibits an understanding ofhow racism operates vis-à-vis Latino/as andAsian Americans, and thus proves more of anobstacle to coalition building than an aid. Theblack/white paradigm, which operates to governracial classifications and racial politics inthe U.S., takes race in the U.S. to consist ofonly two racial (...) groups, Black and White,with others understood in relation to one ofthese categories.I summarize and discuss the strongestcriticisms of the paradigm and then develop twofurther arguments. Together these argumentsshow that continuing to theorize race in theU.S. as operating exclusively through theblack/white paradigm is actuallydisadvantageous for all people of color in theU.S., and in many respects for whites as well(or at least for white union households and thewhite poor). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Asian American Christian Ethics: Voices, Methods, Issues eds. by Grace Y. Kao and Ilsup AhnAlex MikulichAsian American Christian Ethics: Voices, Methods, Issues Edited by Grace Y. Kao and Ilsup Ahn WACO, TX: BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015. 355 PP. $44.95This volume opens new horizons in Christian ethics. Editors Grace Y. Kao and Ilsup Ahn suggest two ways of conceptualizing Asian American Christian ethics. They (...) describe the first as "agency- or advocacy-centered" and the second as "bringing Western and Asian philosophical, theological, and cultural traditions together in critical dialogue and for selective retrieval for Asian American Christian ethics" (11). While the contributors to this book rightfully develop agency and advocacy-centered approaches within complex histories of colonialism and oppression, they also emulate Michael Walzer's "connected critic" who is not naïvely or uncritically "neutral" or dispassionate. The contributors appropriately use co-critical approaches that make possible "new and creative 'traditioning'" that does not uncritically reinscribe some "purer" Asian past or "undefiled by Western contact" (15).Nearly every chapter unpacks the deeply problematic term "Asian American" that was originally employed by activists who sought a new identity as "self-determining subjects rather than as 'oriental objects' in the United States" (4). But the term obfuscates multiple diversities within richly divergent national, geographical, colonial, and cultural histories and traditions.Hoon Choi explores the complexity of gender and sexual identities through a richly textured intersectional approach, examines how these identities become intertwined in double and triple binds, and reinterprets Christ as the fullness of humanity against Western hegemony and Eastern sexism. Choi's vibrant reinterpretation of Jesus Christ is complemented by a wise and compassionate pastoral approach.Sharon M. Tan calls for a reinterpretation both of Christian and Asian traditions of marriage, family, and parenting that will "entail a bicultural approach to life" and "creative new ways of retelling their stories and imagining their futures" (42). Tan underscores the difficulty of describing a Pan-Asian approach to marriage, family, and parenting by exploring the complexities of "Tiger Mothers," multigenerational households, the "special case of refugees," transnational families, and biculturality and adaptation.Hannah Ka deconstructs a wide range of Christian approaches to environmental ethics and reinterprets Sallie McFague's Body of God ecological theology through a distinctive Asian American approach. Drawing on beautiful and challenging stories from her own family as well as Confucian and Taoist [End Page 215] thought, Ka suggests a reinterpretation both of existential and functional indebtedness between human beings and all living things. She contends that "humans cannot survive even a day without … all other inorganic and organic existents on earth, while [other existents] can flourish without humans. The life of the human species is not merely interdependent with, but utterly indebted to, all the other existents on earth, rendering humans more vulnerable than others" (221).These are only a few examples of how this volume exemplifies clear, cogent, and constructive Christian ethics. Chapters by Ilsup Ahn ("Virtue Ethics"), Keun-Joo Christine Pae ("Peace and War"), Christina A. Astorga ("Wealth and Prosperity"), Ki Joo (KC) Choi ("Racial Identity and Solidarity"), SueJeanne Koh ("Health Care"), Hak Joon Lee ("Immigration"), Irene Oh ("Education and Labor"), and Jonathan Tran ("Cosmetic Surgery") all expand the horizons of contemporary ethics. I highly recommend this text for scholars to engage new horizons of Christian ethics and to use for a wide variety of upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in Christian ethics as well as constructive and pastoral theology.Alex MikulichLoyola University New OrleansCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Postcolonialism has made an impact in today’s world as it affects one’s understanding of self, the other and community. Colonialism has had devastating consequences on many people around the globe. It has created a sense of alienation, dislocation, exile and subordination for many women. Due to colonialism, globalization and migration, many women are living in other places than their birth places. Asian American women are not exempt from the affects of colonialism and they are experiencing the affect of (...) being the other and the foreigner. In light of postcolonial studies, it may be important and helpful to discuss hybridity as a way of understanding identity in an ever changing world. (shrink)

Drawing upon author's long-term psychoanalytical practice, research, and actual clinical data, this book examines the psychological ramifications of transnational immigration to Western countries and the continued influence of indigenous cultures on South Asian Diaspora. It explores new ways of understanding the psyche of migrants from the diverse cultures of South Asia and the universal norms applied in Western practice. To this end it embraces and critiques the categories that are more specific to this region, such as the magic-cosmic world (...) of private destiny, reincarnation, astrology, and palmistry. By using more informed ways of understanding this exodus of people, the book attempts to find a new paradigm fusing spirituality with psychoanalysis. (shrink)

By examining the stories of Asian American Dreamers, or Asian American young adults with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, this essay investigates how these undocumented young adults cultivate virtuous imagination to transcend the violence of uncertainty and radically imagine new paths toward flourishing. The aversive state of structural uncertainty leads them to experience narrative foreclosure and the violent disruption of the pursuit of the good life. This essay subsequently proposes two kinds of stories as (...) moral resources for empowering Asian American Dreamers to cultivate imaginative excellence in order to dream new paths toward flourishing and to resist the toxic internalization of the “model minority” myth: (1) religious stories demonstrating their steadfast commitment to God’s goodness and (2) stories of solidarity co-authored with their suffering neighbors. (shrink)

Without proper recognition of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism that Asian Americans and other racial minorities in the United States are facing, we cannot successfully address structural b...

(2007). A Rview Of “Asian Americans in Class: Charting the Achievement Gap Among Korean American Youth”. Educational Studies: Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 68-71.

Although substantial evidence suggests receiving social support has positive implications for well-being, less is known about how providing support can confer benefits, particularly for Asian American and Latinx individuals who are more likely to come from interdependent cultures that emphasize family obligation. Asian American and Latinx college students reported on anxiety before taking part in a modified laboratory task that elicited a physiological stress response as measured by total cortisol output. They were randomly assigned to write (...) a supportive note to a family member, a supportive note to a close friend, or about their day in a control condition after the mild lab stressor and reported on psychosocial well-being. Those who provided support to a family member experienced higher self-esteem compared to those in the control condition. However, there was variation in Asian American and Latinx participants’ physiological stress response. The findings suggest that providing support to close others, particularly family members, can be differentially meaningful for individuals from diverse backgrounds. (shrink)

IN CRITICALLY ANALYZING THE DEADLY VIPER CONTROVERSY AND MARY Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church's social activism in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we consider questions concerning the ability of Asian Americans to participate in public discourse in meaningful ways that spur social change while fostering solidarity with other marginalized ethnic groups in the United States. Drawing on Christian theo-ethical reflection on the racial or social identity of Jesus as a hybridized concept, we argue for a robust public discourse that (...) recognizes Asian Americans as a social group without succumbing to the ghettoization of Asian American identity or a withdrawal from engagement with other justice-seeking social groups. In doing so, we look toward constructive modes of public discourse carried out by multiple counterpublics that both give voice to the Asian American community and open the space for collaboration across ethnic, racial, class, religious, and national boundaries. (shrink)

This study explores how Asian American experiences are depicted in four high school U.S. history textbooks and four middle school U.S. history textbooks used in Virginia. The analytic framework was developed from the scholarship of collective memories and histories of immigration in Asian American studies. Content analysis of the textbooks suggests the overall narrative of Asian American history in U.S. history textbooks aligns with the grand narrative of American history, that is, the “story (...) of progress.” This major storyline of Asian Americans – that they suffered from nativist racism and discrimination for a long time, overcame these obstacles through their hard work and efforts, and achieved the American dream – fits well into the master narrative of American progress, highlighting the process of their belonging to the U.S. as citizens. This storyline misrepresents the realities and diversity among Asian ethnic groups and their migration histories as well as the fluid nature of their identities across national borders. These findings stress the continued challenges in representing Asian American experiences as well as other marginalized groups in U.S. history textbooks. (shrink)

while conducting a routine patrol, Peter Liang, a Chinese American New York City police officer, accidently fired his gun in the stairwell of the Louis Pink projects of Brooklyn, New York. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and struck Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old black father, who had entered the stairwell with his friend after giving up on the notoriously malfunctioning elevators. According to reports, the bullet "tore through [Akai's] body, fractured his third rib, nicked his sternum, and pierced his (...) heart and diaphragm."1 Akai immediately fell onto the cold concrete floors as blood poured from his chest. His friend ran to his aid and began to pump his chest while Officer Liang debated whether he should report the... (shrink)

This article interprets Michael Kang's independent feature The Motel as a critique of the Asian American fantasy of post- 1965 incorporation into the multicultural US polity. The film discloses that this Asian American Dream is normatively constituted by heteronormative, middle-class, intra-racial kinship. The protagonist Ernest Chin's longing for this kind of normative Asian American family is symptomatic of his identification with the exclusionary norms of the incorporative fantasy. In a moment of disidentification, though, Ernest (...) is able to release his grip on the dream and its reciprocal grip on him. Disidentification, in my usage, is a kind of political action that both disrupts and reworks processes of social formation from within. As a contribution to the critical philosophy of race, my rendition of disidentification draws on recent developments in cultural studies and political theory to address the critical theoretical question of the psychic life of domination. (shrink)

We examined the “othering” of Asian Americans in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given past evidence that pathogen-related threat perceptions can exacerbate intergroup biases, as well as salient public narratives blaming the Chinese for the pandemic, we assessed whether individuals experiencing a greater sense of threat during the pandemic were more likely to apply the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype to Asian Americans. Over a seven-week period, we recruited 1,323 White Americans to complete a measure of the perceived Americanness (...) of Asian, Black, and White targets. Asian targets were consistently perceived as less American than White targets, across variations in subjective health threat and regional case counts. The direct and indirect connections of political ideology to the observed patterns were examined, revealing that White participants who blamed China for the pandemic were more likely to apply the perpetual foreigner stereotype to Asian Americans. These results indicate that the othering of Asian Americans is pervasive among White Americans and that variables related to social conditions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic can predict the potency of this association. (shrink)

The present research examined whether Asian-American (AA) versus European-American (EA) women differed in experiential, expressive, or autonomic physiological responding to a laboratory anger provocation and assessed the mediating role of values about emotional control. Results indicate that AA participants reported and behaviourally displayed less anger than EA participants, while there were no group differences in physiological responses. Observed differences in emotional responses were partially mediated by emotion control values, suggesting a potential mechanism for effects of cultural background (...) on anger responding. (shrink)

A special issue on the state of the field in Chinese philosophy, including work by: Stephen Angle, Roger Ames, Bryan Van Norden, Justin Tiwald, Manyul Im, David Wong, Hugh Benson, Leslie Francis, and Amy Olberding.

This paper examines the role that population vulnerabilities play in insurance coverage for a representative sample of Latinos and Asians in the United States. Using data from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), these analyses compare coverage differences among and within ethnic subgroups, across states and regions, among types of occupations, and among those with or without English language proficiency. Extensive differences exist in coverage between Latinos and Asians, with Latinos more likely to be uninsured. Potential (...) explanations include the type of occupations available to Latinos and Asians, reforms in immigration laws, length of time in the United States, and regional differences in safety-net coverage. Policy implications are discussed. (shrink)

Conflicts abound in Asian American churches between different groups. This study articulates a theological location of forgiveness that speaks to those conflicts. In particular, it situates forgiveness in the liminal space between what Homi K. Bhabha describes as "domains of difference" that define different generational or ethnic groups within Asian American churches. Yet the possibility of forgiveness is enacted only when both sides of a conflict are willing to move from those domains into liminal space. This (...) study argues that Mark Lewis Taylor's articulation of "dialogical questioning" is a useful mechanism for making such movements possible. (shrink)

This study explored the priming effects of discriminated experiences on emotion recognition accuracy of Asian Americans. We hypothesized that when Asian Americans were reminded of discriminated experiences due to their race, they would detect subtle negative emotional expressions on White faces more accurately than would Asian Americans who were primed with a neutral topic. This priming effect was not expected to emerge in detecting negative facial expressions on Asian faces. To test this hypothesis, 108 participants were (...) randomly assigned to one of two conditions: write about their experiences with racial discrimination or write about a neutral topic. Then, they were given an emotion recognition test consisting of White and Asian faces. The current study found a significant interaction effect of priming condition by target race. When Asian Americans were reminded of discriminated experiences, they displayed heightened sensitivity to negative emotional expressions on White faces, but not to the negative expressions on Asian faces. The implications of these findings were discussed. (shrink)

This article examines the social circumstances, both current and past, that have affected the development and transformation of feminist consciousness among Asian American women. Gender, race, class, and culture all influenced the relative lack of participation of Asian American women in the mainstream feminist movement in the United States. It concludes that Asian American women have to come to terms with their multiple identities and define feminist issues from multiple dimensions. By incorporating race, class, (...) and cultural issues along with gender concerns, a transcendent feminist consciousness that goes beyond these boundaries may develop. (shrink)

Explaining how stereotypes and norms influence role-identities during reflected appraisal processes, we develop a theory about diverse groups of minority men—the “minority masculinity stress theory”—and apply it to Asian American men. We conceptually integrate hegemonic masculinity, stereotypes, and mental health to examine how Asian American men experience masculinity and how their experiences are uniquely stressful. We analyze elicited text from an open-ended questionnaire to explain two experiences of masculinity-related stress: trying to live up to the masculine (...) ideal and enacting work-related role-identities. Regarding the former, we discuss four illustrations—toughness, body image, restrictive emotionality, and heterosexuality—and two involving the latter—achiever and provider. We found that Asian American men receive stereotypical reflected appraisals that contradict potentially positive self-concepts and emphasize achievement beyond typical standards of hegemonic masculinity. Moreover, Asian American men’s role-identities contradict hegemonic masculinity, resulting in reflected appraisals that predispose them toward stress. (shrink)

This article examines a school district conference panel discussion to illustrate how `culture' is interactionally emergent and how `identity' is performatively achieved through struggles to position the self and other in socially meaningful ways. Analyzing an interaction between a panel of Asian American teens and an audience of teachers, advisors and administrators, the author traces how the term `culture' emerges as two constructs: `culture as historical transmission' and `culture as emblem of ethnic differentiation'. This is accomplished, in part, (...) through emergent poetic and indexical patterning which shape categories and trajectories of personae to which speech event participants are recruited. It is argued that these two schemas of culture are not merely static essences, but dynamically linked to distinct participation frameworks which achieve particular performative effects. These schemas, which are brought into circulation, reveal how metalevel constructs, such as `identity politics' and `multiculturalism', are played out rather vividly in microlevel interaction. (shrink)

The Asian American identity is intimately associated with upward class mobility as the model minority, yet women's earnings remain less than men's, and Asian American women are perceived to have strong family ties binding them to domestic responsibilities. As such, the exact class status of Asian American women is unclear. The immediate association of this ethnic identity with a specific class as demonstrated by the recently released Pew study that Asian Americans are “the (...) highest-income, best-educated” ethnicity contrasts with another study that finds Asian American women have the highest suicide rates in the United States. To understand these contrasting statistics, this article explores Asian American women's sense of authenticity. If the individual's sense of authenticity is intimately related with one's group identity, the association of the Asian American identity with a particular class ambivalently ensnares her as dichotomously inauthentic—as both the poor Asian American woman who fails to achieve economic upward mobility and the model minority Asian American woman who engages in assimilation practices. Feminist philosophers understand that identities change, but exactly how these transformations occur remains a mystery. The article ends with three speculations on the difficulties for practicing and recognizing individual acts that transform one's group identity. (shrink)

Incidents of racism against Asians have been rising since the COVID-19 pandemic turned global in early 2020. Employing Foucault’s concept of panopticism and Kathryn Lofton’s insights on the function of religion to demarcate group boundaries, this article argues that American religion constructs Asian American stereotypes to limit the discursive space within which Asian Americans may negotiate their identities. These discursive limitations have, in turn, buttressed white supremacy. This article examines how some Asians and Asian Americans (...) respond to anti-Asian sentiments during the pandemic by performing a close reading of an op-ed by prominent Asian American politician Andrew Yang in The Washington Post. This reading reveals that Yang’s colorblind solution upholds whiteness as the American gnosis and limits the discursive space in which Asian Americans may negotiate their identities. This article also discusses how the myth of America as a white Christian country withstands challenges from minority groups contesting its dominance. (shrink)

Cultural differences in the emphasis on positive and negative emotions suggest that the impact of these emotions on well-being may differ across cultural contexts. The present study utilised a momentary sampling method to capture average momentary emotional experiences. We found that for participants from cultural contexts that foster positive emotions, average momentary positive emotions predicted well-being better than average momentary negative emotions. In contrast, average momentary negative emotions were more strongly associated with well-being measures for Asian Americans, the group (...) from a cultural context that emphasises monitoring of negative emotions. Furthermore, we found that acculturation to American culture moderated the association between average momentary positive emotions and well-being for Asian Americans. These findings suggest the importance of culture in studying the impact of daily emotional experiences on well-being. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of intersectional feminist theory by critically examining the notion of identity implicitly assumed in major critiques of intersectionality. Critics take intersectionality to fragment women along the lines of identity categories such as race, class, and sexuality. Underlying this interpretation, I argue, is the metaphysical assumption that identity is a fixed entity. This is a misunderstanding of identity that neglects how identity is actually lived. By exploring how Asian American women experience their “Asian” (...) identity in their everyday lives (e.g., the “Asian-as-patriarchal vs. White-as-gender-progressive” stereotype, growing anti-Asian racism amid COVID-19, and Asian-Black feminist solidarities), I demonstrate that Asian identity is not fixed but changing according to how it is related to power. I identify and discuss three characteristic types of the identity-power relationship: manifestation of power-as-oppression through the construction of identity, reproduction of power-as- oppression, and creation of new forms of power, namely resistance and solidarity, through the reconstruction of identity. The lives of multiply-oppressed women (e.g., Asian women) can be understood as the locus at which the identity-power relationship is worked out, that is, the power dynamics of oppression are manifested, reproduced, and resisted through the (re)construction of identity. Building on this analysis and engaging discussions on non-ideal theory in social/political philosophy, I argue that intersectional feminist theory can be best explained as a non-ideal theory in a strong sense: a theory that, by focusing on the lives of the multiply oppressed, presents the intersecting dynamics of oppression as central and theory-guiding. (shrink)