The Asian American Politics Paradox: When Racial Politics Meets Diasporic Politics

• In Event: Asia and Asian American Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 11: Asia and Asian America Section Roundtable - Race, Culture and Politics

Abstract

In this book chapter, I use Asian Americans as a case to bridge the paradigm of diasporic politics and immigrants’ racialization to illustrate how immigrants’ willingness to cross ethnic lines to support racial solidarity or have linked-fate with people who shared the assigned racial status with them in the host society is embedded in the tension between the diasporic politics and the racial context located in the receiving countries. Using Asian American Democratic and Republican organizers in Houston, Texas, as an example, I argue that the very strategy that seems most promising, mobilizing “Asian American” as a shared racial identity to struggle for political power, repeatedly produces outcomes that cut against organizers’ goals. When appealing to Asian American voters and community members, these organizers aim to downplay the significance of homeland and diasporic politics and emphasize the racialized status that they believe Asian Americans collectively share in the US. Yet, the fact that these voters are called “Asian” Americans has already implied their connection, regardless of its intensity, to places beyond the US territorial boundaries. By mobilizing this racial category to unite people with diverse Asian ethnic backgrounds in the US and promote their unity, these organizers paradoxically summon the very condition that produces the community’s diversity. Many Asian immigrants are unwilling to cross ethnic lines to support Asian American candidates or related political causes due to their hostility toward other ethnic groups that are in opposition to their homeland or diasporic communities. The mobilization of Asian American identity thus paradoxically becomes counterproductive when mobilizing diverse Asian ethnic groups. Empirically, I identify three-tier sources of conflicts: intra-ethnic and religious, intra-Asian regions, and intra-Asian continent conflicts, explicating how they divided the Asian communities in Houston and complicated my respondents’ race-making activism.

Author

• Chen Liang, National Taiwan University