What's the Matter?: Shakti's (Re)Collection of Race, Nationhood, and Gender

2006 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-95
Author(s):  
Anita Kumar
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
School Community ◽  
American Identity ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
Asian American Identity ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Essay Contest

The 2005 Student Essay Contest winner weaves together the narratives of members of Viji Prakash's Shakti bharatanatyam school community, dancing in and out of positions of marginality to unravel the notion of group identity as cohesive, homogenous, and pure as she confronts her own performance and corporealization of South Asian American identity.

The Ambiguous Practices of the Inauthentic Asian American Woman

Hypatia ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily S. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
American Woman ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Asian American Women ◽  
Asian American Woman ◽  
American Women ◽  
Asian American Identity

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.

From Merging Histories to Emerging Identities: An “Asian” Museum as a Site of Pan-ethnic Identity Promotion

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-54
Author(s):  
Chong-suk Han ◽  
Edward Echtle
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Pacific Islander ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Asian Pacific Islander ◽  
Common Problems ◽  
Asian American Identity ◽  
Asian Pacific ◽  
A Site

In this paper, we explore the significance of the Wing Luke Asian Museum (WLAM) in Seattle, Washington as a site where pan-ethnic Asian American identity can be promoted by analyzing the strategies employed by the staff and artists of the WLAM to promote, foster and disseminate a larger Asian Pacific Islander American pan-ethnic identity. We argue that museums are a significant site that can “provide a setting for persons of diverse Asian backgrounds to establish social ties and to discuss their common problems and experiences.”

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