Possibilities and Limitations of an "Asian-Argentine" Category

• In Event: New Approaches to Asian-Latin American Studies

Abstract

Asians in the Americas share the common experience of being considered "eternally foreign". But while Asian-Americans in the U.S. have forged a sort of panethnic identity and coalition, this is not the case in most of Latin America. In Argentina, for example, Asians self-identify and are externally identified as belonging to discrete ethnic communities (e.g. colectividad japonesa, colectividad coreana). As such, much of the existing scholarship on Asians in Argentina examines them strictly within those enclosed categories—their history of immigration, settlement patterns, and questions of assimilation or discrimination. While these works contribute meaningfully to our understanding of people of Asian descent in Argentina, their approach can unwittingly perpetuate notions of foreignness and practices of exclusion. This paper considers the theoretical implications of using an "Asian-Argentine" category in scholarship, especially when such category is largely unrecognized on the ground by Argentines of Asian descent. This paper examines the potential problems of applying a category inspired by the U.S.-model as well as the new possibilities it would open up—particularly in regards to their participation in debates of Argentine nationhood and against a dominant discourse that does not recognize Asian-Argentine as a category but that nonetheless homogenizes them as "chinos" or "orientales".

Author

• Teresa Ko, Ursinus College