English R1A

Book List

Hagedorn (Editor), Jessica: Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction; Kingston, Maxine Hong: China Men; Lee, Chang-Rae: Native Speaker; Nguyen, Viet Thanh: The Refugees

Other Readings and Media

Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987, dir. Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peñathat)

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (2013, dir. Grace Lee)

Description

This class intends to take a historical approach to studying the racial formation of Asians and Asian Americans in the United States since the late nineteenth century. Asian American historiography has often been concerned with delineating the contours of the Asiatic immigrant’s journey in this country from one position to another: from inadmissible and inassimilable alien associated with social and economic menace (the so-called “Yellow Peril” of the early 20^th century) to a domesticated emblem of upward socioeconomic mobility (the so-called “Model Minority” emerging out of the 1960s).

This class seeks to identify the historical conditions, structures, and patterns underlying these hegemonic representational tropes and epistemological modes. This approach aims at unearthing continuities between the apparent transformations, oscillations, and idiosyncracies of Asiatic racial formation. It also aims at attending to the specificities of minority and marginalized representation – especially the “truth” or “evidence” of individual expression, experience, and agency – in order to discern the shared socio-cultural terrain, historical conditions, and representational tools and tropes that make these expressions possible and mediate our reception of them.

As an R1A course, this class is designed to help students cultivate skills in close and critical reading and in developing and articulating persuasive and elegant arguments about social, cultural, political, and aesthetic issues in writing.

Front Matter:

“Minorities, Yes; But Oppressed, No”: Asian American Racialization from "Yellow Peril" to the "Model Minority Myth" and Beyond; or, Racialization & Representation in the Construction of Asian American Identity

English R1A Section 4 (Fall 2022) ✵ MWF 12:10 – 1:00 ✵ Wheeler 122

GSI: Rumur Dowling

Email: rumur_dowling@berkeley.edu

OH: F 1:10 – 2:00 @ Sather's Cross Path Picnic Tables (North of Dwinelle Hall) or by Zoom Appointment