Browsing by Subject "Asian American"

Graphic Intimations: Postwar to Contemporary Asian Diasporic Art and Writing follows the oblique tensions in Asian diasporic creative compositions between art and writing, performance and inscription. Identifying the graphic—written and/or drawn—as a preeminent form for Asian diasporic artists and writers in North America, this project connects scholarship in Asian American literary studies on questions of form and social formation with the material histories of Asian diasporic visual culture. From postwar graphic internment memoirs to New York City subway writing, this dissertation traces the Asian diasporic graphic’s investments in embodied creative practices that intimate the sensible and sensual in queer, interracial, and cross-cultural liaisons.

Charting the history of the graphic as a twinned positivist technology of measurement and a visceral aesthetic response, this dissertation proposes that the Asian diasporic graphic intimates social possibilities formed in, but not necessarily of, the purview of nation and the state regulation of Asian North Americans as populations. Accordingly, this work examines how these artists’ staging of the graphic encounter might enact disruptive performances of unforeseen social intimacies and political affiliations during these decades that trouble the fidelity of visual documentation.

Based on Berry's (1987) framework on acculturation and ethnic identity interaction, this study examined the link from this interaction among Asian Americans to their political participation. Using the 2008 National Asian American Survey (Study 1) and a self-initiated survey among Chinese students in Fall 2014 (Study 2), this thesis presents a model from which to consider some of the important determinants of Asian Americans' political participation, whether and how acculturation level interacts with (pan)ethnic group resource in predicting their participation. Most findings from these two studies supported the hypotheses. First, all the five traditional models of political participation have significant share in predicting Asian Americans' political participation. Second, the interaction between acculturation and ethnic identity does increase the model fit of Asian Americans' participation, but with varying strengths based on different forms of participation and target populations. Finally, after creating four groups based on acculturation and ethnic identity, I find that the integrated group is generally the most actively engaged in politics, followed by the assimilated group, the separated group and the marginalized group.

My dissertation comprises three studies on topics in selective migration and economic assimilation of new immigrants. The first study examines the influence of selective migration on Asian Americans’ academic success. Conventional explanations attribute their academic advantage to a distinctive academic culture and their socioeconomic status (SES), but ignore the importance of the relative attainment of parents formed in the pre-immigration context (i.e., the high relative educational attainment of parents compared to their non-immigrant counterparts in sending countries) in explaining Asian Americans’ academic success. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study and the Barro-Lee dataset, this chapter shows that Asian parents’ relative attainment predicts their children’s advantage in college enrollment over whites. Part of the advantage from parents’ relative attainment is through youths’ academic culture (e.g., parental educational expectations and youths’ effort, school behaviors, and attitudes). The findings in this chapter suggest the cultural explanation for Asian Americans’ academic advantage could be overstated.

The second study investigates the emigration intentions of Chinese adolescents from a supply-side perspective. Most existing studies employing data in destination countries provide an incomplete image of the selected features of immigrants. Values and norms often attributed to immigrants, such as high educational expectations, may be shaped by experiences during pre-emigration, rather than originating from distinct cultural values or the immigration experience itself. With data from Chinese Education Panel Study, this study finds parents whose children intend to emigrate employ different parenting strategies (via family norms and parental involvement) than children with no intention to emigrate. Adolescents with emigration intentions are also positively selected based on familial income, parental education, and mother’s occupational status, but negatively selected on father’s occupational status. These findings help establish a more comprehensive image of selective migration among Chinese adolescents who potentially emigrate and suggest that distinctive norms and values of emigrants could be shaped by parenting strategies during the early planning stages of emigration.

The third study examines how new immigrants utilize potential resources from religious organizations to help their entrepreneurial businesses in the United States (U.S.). Although a number of qualitative studies have previously identified the resource attainment through ethnic churches among immigrant entrepreneurs, such evidence is limited in quantitative analysis and the role of co-ethnicity is unclear. With the data from the New Immigrant Survey, this study shows that regardless of ethnic backgrounds and religious congregations, immigrant entrepreneurs with limited familial resources have a higher level of church involvement, and higher co-ethnicity in churches also increases church involvement of immigrant entrepreneurs. These findings suggest that immigrant entrepreneurs may actively seek resources in ethnic churches. From a policy perspective, religious organizations that target immigrants in ethnic communities can potentially benefit immigrant entrepreneurs by providing co-ethnic resources and help them overcome initial barriers during economic assimilation.

As a whole, my dissertation concerns about socioeconomic mobility of new immigrants. It contributes to the research on Asian Americans’ academic advantage by integrating the pre-immigration contexts and provides a supply-side explanation on how distinctive cultural elements of potential Chinese emigrations could be selected in the pre-immigration childrearing process. Moreover, it also contributes to the research on immigrant entrepreneurship by providing quantitative evidence that religious organizations could supply resources to start-up businesses of new immigrants and help their economic assimilation in the U.S. context.