Diverse Asian Diaspora Communities: Complex Asian Diaspora Consciousness

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

Abstract

The paper highlights how the recent Covid pandemic intersects with the Asian diaspora movement and communities to reveal complex Asian diaspora consciousness and experiences that are heterogenous and multiple. Understanding these intersections introduces new approaches to curriculum theory and practice by taking into account the importance of diaspora when constructing curriculum knowledge. Frameworks on the importance of diaspora (Ang, 2001; Tölölyan, 1991), diaspora relational/spectrum (Hall, 1999), diaspora consciousness (Hall 2017a), and diaspora narratives (Lee, 2014; Hall 2017b) are used to guide the analysis of the data. The study focuses on narratives and experiences of diaspora communities in the U.S., from the places or regions identified as Southeast Asia, a geographical southeastern sub region of Asia, specifically communities of Burma’s refugees, Hmong, Lao, and Vietnamese diasporas. The study utilizes stories from various community archives, articles about the communities in the US during the pandemic, and policy texts related to the experiences of these communities.
The study positions Burmese refugees, Hmong, Lao and Vietnamese diaspora experiences in the U.S. within curriculum theorizing to highlight how the pandemic is experienced differently for different communities that fall within ADE. For example, Burmese refugees in the U.S. working at meat plants were disproportionately at risk for Covid facing hard survival, not to mention “barriers to transportation, social services and even basic information” (Payne, June 2020). At the same time, their experiences remain invisible in spite of active participation in the communities in which they have settled. On a different note, Hmong young adults feel that while differences among ADE remain invisible, racial discourses divide Asian communities while their children face micro-aggressions at school and adults fear for their lives in the face of violence against Asians exacerbated by the pandemic.
This study contributes to theorizing and critical analysis of how the current pandemic is interwoven with Asian diaspora movement to reveal their underlying differences in experience and consciousness. The study illuminates the heterogeneous perspectives of diaspora communities in ways that expand approaches to curriculum theory in education and advance knowledge historically absent in curriculum.

Author

• Dinny Risri Aletheiani, Yale University