Ethnic Organizations and Adaptation: A Case Study of Indian Immigrant Engineers in the US

The United States has witnessed waves of immigration throughout its history, with the current immigration policies regulated by the reforms enacted under President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. Immigrants now come from all over the world, with China and India supplying the largest numbers in science and engineering (S&E) fields. Although the US is seen as coping rather successfully with immigration from Europe, that is not the case with Asian immigration. Assimilation theorists have long argued that Asian immigrants face problems in adapting to the American culture and lifestyles; in contrast, multicultural theorists have hailed cultural diversity brought by Asian immigrants. Ethnic organizations can play an integral role in Asian immigrants’ adaptation and integration in the United States. Utilizing 40 in-depth interviews of Indian immigrant engineers working in the US technology companies, the present study examines if they belong to ethnic associations. If yes, why do they feel a need to belong to these associations? If no, why not? It further sheds light on their need to belong to such associations. The findings show that the need to belong to Indian associations varied with the stage of their lives, which can be depicted as a U-shaped curve.

The Multicultural Cringe

The category of the “Asian Australian” has emerged only in recent years, as the exclusionary “White Australia” policy gave way in the late-twentieth century to substantial waves of Asian immigration. Journals and anthologies from the mid-2000s onward have employed the idea of “Asian” identification with an eye on North American examples and shared history, but also with a discomfort with US-style “identity politics.” Ouyang Yu, among the first and best-known Asian Australian poets, is harshly critical of Australian multiculturalism, seeing it as a means of continuing to exclude non-white writers from Australian writing; remaining suspicious of any notion of belonging, his work instead presents itself as a kind of “invasion literature” that seeks to disrupt the English language.

Introduction

In the twenty-first century, Asian American studies has turned increasingly toward diasporic and transnational frameworks, even as some scholars have raised concerns about the loss of an Asian American identity and politics grounded in cultural nationalism. Drawing in part on the work of Paul Gilroy, I propose a new theory of “Asian diaspora” in which “Asian” identity emerges from a dialectic of national and transnational forces. Since the 1970s, this category of Asian identification has circulated among the United States, Canada, and Australia, white settler colonies with histories of Asian immigration and exclusion. The work of Asian poets in these locations registers, in content and form, the history of diaspora that gives rise to Asian identity.

Science mapping in the research of higher education internationalisation from 2013 to 2018 in Asia: publications, regional networking and future trends

PurposeThe advance in higher education in Asian countries is of major interest because it reveals increasing global political and cultural influence in recent years. The review explores the characteristics of publications from 2013–2018 concerned with the internationalisation of higher education in Asia. The study aims to analyse the current trajectory, including the size, growth trends, and regional networking of this domain, with a goal of identifying the influential journals, authors, and documents, as well exploring the thematic structure and topical issues and trends of this domain.Design/methodology/approach241 Scopus-indexed documents were selected and reviewed using a quantitative descriptive way. These documents were analysed by VOS viewer software.FindingsThe results show the most topical issues and trends concern about “Asian immigration and mobility”, “transnational education”, “international students and acculturation”, and “international branch campuses”. Seven main schools of thought were identified and are clearly explained herein, which provides a baseline for future research for new scholars.Social implicationsThe present study suggests that trans-regional cooperation is the future of internationalisation in higher education. Asian scholars are recommended to increase cooperation and exchanges with each other, expand channels of contact, further understand and optimise their own advantages, achieve win-win cooperation and make Asia's voice heard in the world in higher education field.Originality/valueThis bibliometric review can predict the main trends in higher education internationalisation in the future and encourage implication of interdisciplinary research in higher education internationalisation.

Reading Esther as a Postcolonial Feminist Icon for Asian Women in Diaspora

The book of Esther has been the subject of a wealth of scholarship which has, at times, presented Esther’s character as antifeminist. Through the framework of postcolonial and feminist theory, this article interprets Esther in light of her marginalised identity. Her position as a Jewish woman in diaspora who must hide her ethnicity and assimilate into Persian culture reveals parallels to contemporary Asian women in Western diaspora, due to perpetuated stereotypes of passiveness and submission, and the model minority myth associated with Asian immigration. Esther’s sexualisation reveals further parallels to the fetishisation and sexual exploitation of Asian women. If we read the text in light of her marginalisation, we can highlight the racial and gendered oppression within the existing power structures, as well as the levels of privilege at work within the character dynamics. Esther serves as an example of the potential that lies in recognising positions of privilege, the implications of identity, and understanding different forms of resistance in order to form a liberative theology. This article outlines the position of Asian women and their proximity to whiteness in relation to other BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of colour) communities, revealing unexpected connections to Esther’s character. By situating Esther within intersectional and interdisciplinary theory, her status as a postcolonial feminist icon emerges. Through her story, Asian women in diaspora may find their experiences reflected in the journey to liberation.

Prologue

The formation of the Indian middle class around the mid-nineteenth century and of policies of race-based U.S. immigration exclusion in the same time period bears some explanation, since these spatially distinct but temporally overlapping processes merged during the Cold War. The historical development of these eventually entwining, transnational narrative strands forms the substance of this prologue. Concentrating on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the prologue provides the foundational context on which to build a narrative of postwar South Asian immigration to the United States. It provides historical context of the histories of anti-Asian immigration law in the United States and Indian immigration.

Indian Dance in Diaspora: US and Australian Contexts

This article takes a critical and historical look at how South Asian performers and performances circulated in the late 19th and 20th centuries in the United States and Australia. It compares how dance practices, both in the United States and in Australia, are interwoven with 19th- and early 20th-century Orientalism and anti-Asian immigration law in both countries, as primarily white dancers engaged with Indian dance practices to develop intercultural styles of Western contemporary dance. While the comparisons of Indian dance in the United States and Australia highlight the similarities of national policies that curtailed Asian immigration, they also suggest that the patterns of migration and travel, particularly where dance is concerned, are much more complex. Dancers and dance forms moved from India to Australia to the United States in an intricate triangle of exchange and influence.

Mixed Race Asian American Literature

Asian American literature was born from two mixed race Eurasian sisters, Edith Maude Eaton and Winnifred Eaton, who wrote in the early 20th century under the pen names Sui Sin Far and Onoto Watanna, respectively. Edith spent her career chronicling, in fiction and non-fiction, the lives of Chinese in North America, and recounted her own multiracial experiences in the autobiographical “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian,” while Winnifred is best known for her popular fiction about the exotica of Japan, novels and stories that include several mixed race protagonists. More than thirty years later, Kathleen Tamagawa penned a mixed race memoir, Holy Prayers in a Horse’s Ear, describing the difficulties of living as a biracial Japanese-white woman trying to assimilate into the white mainstream of US society. The number of mixed race Asian American authors rose in the mid- to late 20th century due to an increase in mixed race marriages and Asian immigration. The turn of the 21st century saw prominent multiracial Asian American authors writing about Asian American lives, mixed race Asian American authors choosing not to write about multiracial Asian American characters, and monoracial Asian American writers who populate their fiction with multiracial Asian American characters. Among these authors, Ruth Ozeki stands out as someone who has consistently focused her attention on multiracial Asian American characters, illustrating the richness of their mixed race experiences even as her fictional storyworlds shine a light on the environmental issues in a globalized world.

Adopting the Model Minority Myth: Korean Adoption as a Racial Project

Drawing upon racial formation theory, this paper argues that Korean adoption was part of a racial project that advanced the model minority myth, helping shape what it means to be Asian in America. This focus on Korean adoption as part of the foundation of the model minority myth departs from traditional renderings that concentrate exclusively on Japanese and Chinese Americans. It also addresses the exclusion of Korean adoptees from Asian immigration history. In making this argument, I incorporate historical context and draw upon Korean adoptee adults’ online survey responses (N=107) and in-depth interviews (N=37) to examine the multiple domains that enacted this racial project, including policy, family socialization, and interpersonal interactions, and the effect on Korean adoptees. Implications of this racial project are discussed in relation to contemporary adoptee deportations and citizenship rights advocacy.