Imperial Model Minority Refugees: The Comparative Politics of Post-War Resettlement

• In Event: 50855 - Racial Hierarchies and Identity

Abstract

The United States has a long history of imperialistic wars, leading to ensuing waves of immigration. Most recently, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 drew stark comparisons to the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. But unlike formal colonial subjects, migrants from Afghanistan and Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos did not have formal citizenship rights at the time of migration. Rather, these rights were actively negotiated in the aftermath of arrival. In the aftermath of imperialistic military involvement, how are ensuing “refugees” incorporated into the empire-state? Who is declared worthy of citizenship, how is the expansion of immigration rights negotiated, and how are notions of worth racialized? Drawing from a postcolonial foundation of race as a global construct shaped by projects of empire, this paper examines the change in post-war refugee resettlement politics from the War in Vietnam to the War in Afghanistan. Comparing a contemporary case with a historical one, I use archival state records, news articles, legislative records, 26 semi-structured interviews with advocates and organizers, and participant observation at advocacy meetings and events to argue that immigration advocates and state officials rely on the status of post-war immigrants as “military allies” to racialize them as “imperial model minorities” in advocating for status adjustment, an alternative, group-specific pathway to lawful permanent residency. In doing so, advocates and state actors position the incorporation of post-war immigrants as critical for enduring U.S. empire. This comparative analysis expands theories of Asian American racialization and furthers understandings of immigration and racial formation in U.S. statecraft.

Author

• Neha Lund, Brown University