Chronology of Race and Racism in the United States

Irey

COM 597J

Week 5: Intersectionality in Cultural Studies

April 27, 2007

Sayumi Irey

Chronology of Twentieth-Century Race and Racism in the United States (selected)

(Source: Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States)

Simpson, C (1988). Out of an obscure place: Japanese war brides and cultural pluralism in

the 1950’s. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Retrieved April 18,

from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/differences/v010/10.3simpson.html

Scholar: Caroline Chung Simpson

Associate Professor at UW (Dept. of English)

Scholar’s Disciplinary Foci: Modern Literature, Popular Culture, Women's Literature, Autobiography, and Twentieth-Century Literature

Selected Publications by the author:

"Review of Masking Selves, Making Subjects: Japanese American Women, Identity and the Body." Amerasia (Winter 2000).

with Joycelyn Moody. "Chapter 20: "Themes, Topics, Criticism"." American Literary Scholarship. Indiana University Press. (2000).

Methodology: Historical & literacy analysis – Sources such as Life (1947, 1955), Saturday Evening Post (1952), and Atlantic Monthly (1947) are used

Abstract: In the 1950’s, the Brown case added significant force for integration in America. However, the notion of integration was still challenging to swallow for most white Americans; thus, in order for cultural pluralism to be real, White Americans needed to embrace its idea. In Simpton’s article, she compares and contrasts African Americans and Japanese Americans’ social mobility and social isolation by illuminating historical legal cases and personal accounts as well as examining main stream media. Simpton argues that the White America tolerated Japanese war brides more openly because it was a less threatening way to demonstrate culturally inclusiveness without “ever taking up the historical and political threat to white privilege posed by the Brown decision” (p.16). In other words, Sachiko’s story is the “ideal postwar of white-middle class domesticity to absorb and dissolve such anxieties, such [as democracy and white guilt]” (p.16). Story like Sachiko’s gave a sense of innocence and goodness for the mainstream White America.

Keywords: cultural pluralism, social accommodation, social isolation, economic mobility, model minority, American exceptionism, miscegenation, Orientalism, Nisei (Second generations), white guilt

a) Model Minority: As Asian American critics of the 1960s model minority narrative have repeatedly pointed out, the narrative is dubious because it ultimately serves “to discredit the protests and demands for social justice of other minority groups” by positing the success of Asian Americans as implicit proof of the failure of other racialized groups (Suzuki) (p.12).

b) Asian American women marrying up? – “Whiteness as Property (discussions from last week)”

* While about three-in-four Asian Americans marry someone of the same ethnic group, about a quarter marry an Asian American of a different ethnic group than their own or a non-Asian. This rate of intermarriage is 3-4 times higher than for the general U.S. population (about 7%) (Census, 2006).

* Asian Americans who intermarry usually marry Whites. (Census, 2006)

References:

Min, P. (Ed.) (2005). Encyclopedia of racism in the United States. Connecticut:

Greenwood Press.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2006). Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006. Section 1:

Population. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Questions:

1) What do you think the “national” identity was like in 1950’s? Has it changed since then, if so, how has it changed?

2) How was the ideological “romance” played between White Americans and Japanese women in the main stream media? What are some underlying ideologies?

3) What are strengths and weaknesses of this article in terms of methodology she applied?

Additional Sources (selected):

Okada, J. (1981). No no boy. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Takaki, R. (1989). Strangers from a different shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York:

Penguin Books.

Yamanoto, E. (2001). Race, rights, and reparations: Laws and the Japanese American

internment. Gaithersburg: Aspen Law & Business.

Williams, J. (1987). Eyes on the prize: American’s civil rights years, 1954-1965. New York:

Viking.

Wolters, R. (2008). Race and education, 1954-2007. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.