Announcements• Crashers, come see me after class• Response paper prompt posted on course website• http://sdsuasian310fall13.wordpress.com• 3-4pg paper due at start of class Thurs 9/12

• Community Event page updated weekly!• Remember it can be submitted early!

The First Waves of Asian ImmigrationLabor, Class, & Racial Formations

Racial Formations• ideas of racial difference are not

biologically determined; they are social constructions• these ideas of racial difference

strengthen and are strengthened by social, economic and political forces the feedback loop• race is an unstable formation that

is constantly challenged but still has serious consequences on the lives of people who are racialized racial formations

Racial meanings

Social, political, economic forces

What does it mean to be Asian American?

• Externally imposed categorization vs self-identification• constant negotiation with dominant racial

formations• “it might properly be viewed as a means

of achieving political integration. For some, this may simply be situational political mobilization” (Hing 32)• To identify with others who have been

grouped with you in order to respond to specific situations and fight for political recognition

• “Situational political mobilization” recognizes that not all Asians are naturally the same but they will identify with each other and act together to resist marginalization

Early Asian Racial Formations• Peoples of Asia-Pacific perceived as less

civilized as US expands beyond North American continent• Parallels perception of Native Americans

during westward expansion• Asian immigrants necessary as cheap

labor for 19th century US economy• Parallels use of slave labor during

plantation era• Result according to Takaki Asian

immigrants racialized as perpetual strangers• Asian = pure labor (Takaki 25)• Asian = incapable of claim to land &

proper self-rule

Manifest Destiny• ideology motivating US westward

expansion and processes of racialization

• US = novus ordo seclorum• Best of Europe meant to transform

the New World• US = new stage of Anglo-Saxon

civilization

“God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing… He has made us master organizers of the world... He has given us the spirit of progress… He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples… He has marked the American people as his chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man.” (Sen. Albert Beveridge, 1900)

Imperial Expansion• Manifest Destiny’s racial meanings

justify imperial expansion• Ex: Annexation of HI

• Success at imperial expansion proves Manifest Destiny• Being able to defeat native peoples

proves their racial inferiority• Imperial expansion enables

capitalist economic development• Access more raw materials• Open new markets• Create cheap labor

Racial Meanings

Social, Economic, Political Forces

Center & Periphery“Constituting the center of commerce and manufacturing production, ‘core’ nations like the United States, England, France, Spain, and Portugal penetrated politically and economically the less-developed, ‘semi-peripheral’ areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in their search for new markets, raw materials, and sources of labor. European and American colonialism disrupted economies there and also increased problems of poverty. The ‘necessities’ of the ‘modern world-system’ powered international labor migrations, ‘pushing’ workers from Africa and Asia and ‘pulling’ them to Latin America, the West Indies, and the United States” (Takaki 31)

Capitalist World System

Ethnic Antagonism• Recruiting & importing multiple waves of immigrant workers =

using racial difference to divide labor • “’By employing different nationalities, there is less danger of

collusion among laborers and the employers [are able to] secure better discipline’” (Takaki 25)

• Foreign labor is used “to weigh down white workers during periods of economic expansion and to hold white labor in check during periods of overproduction” (29)

• “Asian immigrants constituted a unique laboring army of ‘strangers’ ... nonwhites allowed to enter as ‘cheap’ migratory laborers and members of a racially subordinated group, not future citizens of American society” (31)

•Racialized w

orkers are blamed rather than the

system of keeping w

ages low in order to increase

profit = economic forces creating racial m

eanings

Major First Waves of Asian Immigration• Chinese – 1849 to 1930• 46,000 to HI; 380,000 to mainland US

• Japanese – 1885 to 1924• 200,000 to HI; 180,000 to mainland US

• Korean – 1903 to 1920• 9,000 total to US

• Filipino – 1900 to 1930• 110,000 to HI; 40,000 to mainland US

• South Asian – 1907 to 1918• 6,400 total to US