From an Epistemic History of "Asia" in the Colonial Present to Asian Diaspora Experience as Curriculum Knowledge

• In Event: Dismantling Colonization: Reclaiming Asian Diaspora Experience as Curriculum Knowledge

Abstract

Contextualized within the United States, in this study, I examine historical policy documents, contemporary news articles, and academic scholarship to trace the history of terms such as Asia/East, Asians, and Asian American to understand where and how the Asian diaspora fits into the colonial present. In so doing, the aim is to contest the monolithic construction of ‘Asian’ as the cultural ‘other’ and reposition the collective, diverse, and heterogenous Asian Diaspora Experience as curriculum knowledge worth knowing. This study also highlights the continued colonial disenfranchisement and cultural exclusion of Asians from curriculum conversations manifested in their lack of representation in K12 school curriculum and relegation to Asian Studies as a minor in most college curricula. Resisting colonial practices against people of color has made it necessary for Asian diaspora scholars to advance education research in pursuit of justice and reclaim their histories, experiences, and knowledges. Accordingly, my research explores the following questions: How has knowledge about Asians been produced historically and in contemporary times? How is this production of knowledge reflected in the curriculum and to what effects? How have Asian diasporic scholars conducted research to produce alternative knowledges that are multiple, fluid, and diverse?
I position myself as part of the Asian diaspora to reclaim cultural, political and educational experiences, both individual and collective under the umbrella of ADE, by building upon the critical research of scholars of color. Ang (2001) defines Asian diaspora as ʺtransnational, spatially and temporally sprawling sociocultural formations of people, creating imagined communities whose blurred and fluctuating boundaries are sustained by real and/or symbolic ties to some original ʹhomelandʹʺ (p. 25). Using Ang’s concept of Asian diasporas as a theoretical framework, this study uses Smith’s (1999) steps to decolonizing as a methodology to delve into the questions above. According to Smith, decolonizing consists of a) reading, to understand colonialism, b) deconstructing to intervene in colonial knowledge, c) storytelling to reclaim and celebrate experience d) connecting by writing to envision alternative knowledges.
Data consisted of primary sources such as government policy and reports; contemporary texts such as news articles, and activist scholarship representing diverse Asian diasporic voices. Results show that the cultural exclusion of Asians from social, cultural, and political life in the U. S. manifested in legal, policy, and news documents is reflected in contemporary educational contexts as social inequality and lack of equal opportunities. Results also indicate that ‘Asians’ is not a static epistemological notion or an ontological given defined within colonial terms; rather, they constitute the voices and knowledges of diverse peoples from multiple locations signifying movement, collectivities, divergence, and activism.
This study examines liberating theoretical frameworks and critical methodologies such as border theory (Hussein & Hussain, 2019), decolonizing orientalism (Palat, 2000), and AsianCrit (An, 2017) that reconfigure diaspora knowledge in the language of interlocking relationships of nation, home, and transnational spaces. The study also theorizes multiethnic and multicultural texts and multifaceted classroom pedagogies that reflect the histories and experiences of communities of color.

Author

• Suniti Sharma, Saint Joseph's University