Korean Female Graduate Students’ Experiences in the United States

The unique experiences of Korean female graduate students (KFGS) in the United States (US) have not received much attention or been discussed although Korea has been one of the leading countries sending students to the US. By examining literature regarding the experiences of KFGS studying and living in the US, this paper reports their challenges (e.g., racial and gender discrimination, the model minority stereotype, and multiple roles as students and as wives and/or mothers) and ways to respond to those challenges. This paper also urges to conduct more research on lives of KFGS to make them visible and heard in US academia.

“The Model Man:” Shifting Perceptions of Asian American Masculinity and the Renegotiation of a Racial Hierarchy of Desire

Although Asian-descent men in the United States have been subjected to negative race-gender stereotyping and sexual racism, evidence suggests that mainstream perceptions and Asian American men’s self-definitions are in flux. Drawing on in-depth interviews of U.S.-born and -raised, middle-class, heterosexual Asian American men, supplemented by popular media textual analysis, we examine how these men are drawing upon a new form of alternative Asian American masculinity— one that we call “The Model Man”—in order to renegotiate their position within the present hierarchy of romantic preference. “The Model Man,” a hybrid masculinity construction that combines the elements of White hegemonic masculinity and model minority-based “Asian” masculinity, is co-opted and deployed by men as sexual/romantic capital—especially in relation to White women—because it enables the men to present themselves as desirable romantic partners. Although this masculinity strategy contains possibilities for further straitjacketing Asian American men via the model minority stereotype—and for re-inscribing heteronormativity and patriarchy/heterosexism—it may possess an unexpectedly subversive potential in allowing the men to contest their masculinity status and even remap hegemonic American manhood.

Reassessing Japanese American Collective Memory Through Gene Oishi’s Internment Narratives

Seven decades after Japanese Americans were interned during the Second World War, former journalist and internment survivor Gene Oishi published Fox Drum Bebop (2014). The protagonist, Hiroshi, had been introduced in Oishi’s previous memoir, In Search of Hiroshi (1988), as “quasi-fictional” and “neither American nor Japanese, but simply me”. Yet, in the same memoir, Oishi had also described his inability to write about ‘Hiroshi’, thus settling on ‘Gene’ as a main character and waiting 28 more years before publishing a book about his true self. A comparison between the two books highlights that In Search of Hiroshi was written as an attempt at telling a story that would implicitly support the ‘model minority’ myth by offering an account of the internment experience as a direct response to the sociopolitical constraints related to the request by Japanese Americans for redress from the U.S. government. On the other hand, the more recent Fox Drum Bebop represents a fictional retelling of Oishi’s memoir which reveals the limits of the collective memory of the internment as developed during the redress years by openly defying the ‘model minority’ stereotype while at the same time once more denouncing the injustices suffered by the Japanese American community during the war. This essay focuses on Oishi’s double narrative as a reassessment of the collective memory of the internment experience and of its lasting effects on Japanese Americans.

Model Minorities and Overcoming the Dominance of Whiteness

Stereotyping Asian Americans as successful or model minorities is not positive. Instead, it is a form of racist love that reinforces White supremacy. How can a positive stereotype reinforce White supremacy? Because the process of revering Asian Americans as model minorities leads to other groups of people, such as people of color and Indigenous people, being reviled. But if the model minority characterization of Asian Americans is inaccurate, what should curriculum studies scholars do? Disproving a “stereotype” is impossible. Curriculum studies scholars and theorists should not attempt to disconfirm something that is untrue, or something that is racist, but instead should narrate the reality of being Asian American. The model minority stereotype of Asian Americans has been studied and contested over 50 years within the context of the United States. Over these 50 plus years, the model minority stereotype has taken on a transcendent meaning. Overcoming the dominance of Whiteness requires Asian Americans to transcend “positive” stereotypes via critical storytelling. This will require curriculum studies as a field to continue to interrogate: What are the realities of living in racist Amerika for Asian Americans?

Social and Organizational Identities

Identity refers to a sense of self. It is a complex notion that influences an individual's values, attitudes, and behaviors and can change over an individual's life span. In organizational settings, identity is a powerful force driving employees' motivations, decisions, and actions. Organizations recognize that employees have identities arising from personal and private parts of their lives. At the same time, organizations encourage their employees to develop a (strong) sense of identity as organizational members. Workplaces are thus intriguing environments in which individuals are required to manage and negotiate various identities, both social (personal) and organizational. In this chapter, the authors discuss theories that explain how individuals develop a sense of identity. They then discuss identities that are relevant to Asian American women in work environments. The social identities pertinent in this context include ethnic and racial identities and the model minority stereotype. Work identities, in contrast, include professional and organizational identities.