Unfound: The Princeton Journal of Asian American Studies - Volume 2, 2015

2015 VOL. 2

UNFOUND

THE PRINCETON JOURNAL OF ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES

UNFOUND Co-Editors-in-Chief

Staff

Andrew Hahm ’17 Evan Kratzer ’16

Angela Feng ’19 Tammy Tseng ’18 Rebecca Weng ’18 Nicholas Wu ’18

Faculty Advisor Professor Anne Cheng

Managing Design Editor Emily Tu ’16

Managing Layout Editor Cailin Hong ‘17

Copy Editor Annabelle Tseng ’19

LETTER from the editors

Dear reader, We have seen a lot of very exciting progress in Asian American studies on campuses across the country so far this academic year. Students at Wesleyan have been making a sustained push to offer more courses in Asian American studies, following the hiring of a visiting professor in Asian American history for this academic year. At Brandeis, a faculty-student committee has been tasked with making “recommendations on the development of courses, programming and a minor in Asian American Pacific Islander studies.” Meanwhile, Yale will be offering a record three Asian American studies courses this upcoming semester in Asian American literature, Asian diasporic history and critical refugee studies.

This has also been an exciting year for Asian American studies at Princeton. Joining Professors Anne Cheng and Beth Lew-Williams are several distinguished Asian-Americanists who will be teaching courses on Asian American studies in the coming few semesters. John Kuo Tchen, the founding director of the A/P/A Studies Program and Institute at New York University, will be a visiting lecturer in the spring semester of 2016, and will teach a seminar on “Yellow Peril.” Professor Henry Yu, Principal of St. John’s College and Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, will be joining the Princeton faculty during the 2016-2017 academic year as a Visiting Professor of Distinguished Teaching. There has also been an offer made for a senior Asian-Americanist faculty position.

In the spirit of the amazing progress and momentum of the past few months, we are incredibly pleased to present to you the second issue of Unfound. Like those from our first issue, these articles represent the wide scope and breadth of Asian American studies as an interdisciplinary academic field. In these pages, you can read about cultural frameworks to understand Chinese food in America, media representations of Asian Canadians in the 20th century, the history and politics of California’s Proposition 209, or the literature of Cynthia Kadohata and Tei Yamashita. We hope that this issue of Unfound continues to demonstrate the dynamic undergraduate research happening in Asian American studies today, and we are grateful for the generous support of our sponsors, the Program in American Studies, the Asian American Studies Research Fund, and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, without whose help this project would not have come to fruition.

Andrew Hahm and Evan Kratzer Unfound, Co-Editors-in-Chief

ABOUT UNFOUND

NAME

SELECTION PROCESS

The title Unfound refers to the ambiguities of the Asian American experience. “Unfound�, in its most basic sense, simply refers to something that remains elusive. But the word connotes deeper, emotional meaning upon reexamination. Unfound implies that there is something to be discovered. Unfound implies that someone has tried and tried again to find what she has been looking for, only to come up short. Caught between two identities, the Asian American seeks to carve out her own place in the greater American narrative. Asian American studies and Unfound seek to create a space where what has remained unfound can be discovered.

All articles submitted to Unfound go through a double-blinded selection process. Following blinding by our managing layout editors, articles are distributed to our selection editing team, of which our managing layout editors are not a part. Each article is read by at least two editors and graded according to a standardized rubric that takes into account factors such as quality of argumentation, quality of writing style, and quality of research. Following discussions between all editors comparing the relative merits of all submitted articles, articles are selected based on group consensus.

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If you would like to subscribe to receive physical copies of Unfound, please email us at unfoundjournal@gmail.com and include your name, address, and institution (if applicable). A subscription fee will apply. Virtual copies of Unfound will be uploaded to unfoundjournal.com via ISSUU.

Unfound is a publication of the Princeton Asian American Students Association.

This journal is possible due to the generous support of the Program in American Studies, the Asian American Studies Research Fund, and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students.

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TABLE

of CONTENTS The Mandarin: Acts of Cultural Mapping that Promoted and Marginalized Chinese Food in San Francisco, 1850-1991

06

Hong Deng Gao, Pomona College ’15 The Racialist Reformation: Transformations of JapaneseCanadians’ Depictions in Toronto Newspapers, 1945-1958

32

Sei Han, Yale University ’16 Unwanted Allies: Proposition 209 and Model Minority Discourse in 1990s California Politics

48

Joy Yueyang Chen, Yale University ’15 Imagining Race Otherwise in Cynthia Kadohata’s In the Heart of the Valley of Love and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange

84

Olivia Lu, Barnard College ’15

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 5

The Mandarin: Acts of Cultural Mapping that Promoted and Marginalized Chinese Food in San Francisco, 1850-1991 Hong Deng Gao, Pomona College ’15 Abstract Before 1965, most Chinese restaurants in the US served cheap, Americanized Cantonese dishes such as chop suey, chow mein, and egg foo young. However, after 1965, Chinese restaurants across the country began to serve Hunanese, Shanghainese, Sichuanese, and other Chinese regional cuisines. Scholars who have written about Chinese food in the US disagree on the significance of this post-1965 Chinese restaurant phenomenon. Some argue that the spread of non-Cantonese regional cuisines in the US suggests that Chinese Americans have evolved from the unassimilable aliens of the Chinese Exclusion era (1882-1943) to prototypical Americans, who enrich the American culture with their traditional tastes. Others suggest that despite the increasing mainstream acceptance of Chinese cuisine, post-1965 Chinese immigrants remain perpetual foreigners just like their earlier counterparts. I hope to join this debate by examining the cultural mapping strategies used by Madame Cecilia Chiang to promote her high-end Chinese restaurant, the Mandarin (1967-1991), in San Francisco. A careful comparison between Chiang’s strategies and those of the Caucasian and Chinese elites from the Exclusion period suggests that much continuity from the Chinese Exclusion era can still be seen in the post-1965 period. All three groups of cultural actors employed strategies that subjugated Cantonese cuisine in the San Francisco’s food hierarchy, normalized the exploitation of Chinese workers, and affirmed the superiority of French culinary standards.

Since the opening of her high-end San Francisco Chinese restaurant, the Mandarin, in 1967, Madame Cecilia Chiang (b.1919) has been celebrated as the doyenne of Chinese cuisine.1 Unlike the dingy chop suey joints of pre-World War II years, which had bland Cantonese dishes, rude waiters, and filthy dining rooms with gaudy décor, Chiang’s 300-seat restaurant in Ghirardelli Square featured northern Chinese dishes, smooth and professional service, and a glamorous interior and atmosphere.2 Between

1. Geoffrey A. Folwer, “Cecilia Chiang, the Queen of Chinese Cuisine,” Wall Street Journal,

April 24, 2013.

2. Michael Bauer, “At the Mandarin, Cecilia Chiang Changed Chinese Food,” Inside Scoop San

Francisco, May 25, 2011. For a thorough history of chop suey, see Renqiu Yu, “Chop Suey: From Chinese Food to Chinese American Food,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives (1987): 94-96. According to Yu, chop suey is one of the most popular Chinese dishes in America between the 1890s and

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1967 and 1991 (the year when Chiang sold the restaurant) the Mandarin attracted influential food critics and restaurateurs, famous celebrities, and political dignitaries.3 To many, Chiang’s restaurant “revolutionized” Chinese food in America by introducing dishes from Shanghai and northern China, and by instill=ing prestige and elegance into the consumption of Chinese food.4 The overwhelming success

of the Mandarin is surprising given the status of Chinese food in nineteenthand early twentieth-century America.

As historian and food scholar Yong Chen points out: “Affordability had been a trademark of Chinese restauci, 70-71; see also Bryan R. Johnson, “Let’s Eat Chinese Tonight,” American Heritage 38.8 (1987), 98. In his article, Johnson claims that a “revolution of Chinese cuisine” in America came in the 1960s, when northern Chinese cooking became increasingly popular. The au-

1960s. The term “chop suey” is derived from

thor praises post-1965 Chinese regional-cui-

the Chinese phrase, zasui, which refers to a

sine restaurants like the Mandarin for enrich-

miscellany of chicken livers, gizzards, fungi,

ing “the range, variety and quality” of Chinese

bamboo shoots, pig tripe and bean sprouts in a

food in the US Using Thomas Kuhn’s idea of a

brown sauce. When Chinese first appeared in

“revolution,” as presented in his classic, The

America, they offered authentic Chinese chop

Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the advent

suey from Guangdong Province (a coastal area

of non-Cantonese Chinese regional cuisines

that includes the city of Canton), using giblets

in America can certainly be viewed as having

or entrails as primary ingredients. However, in

brought about a culinary revolution. The pre-

the late 1890s, they also made an American-

1965 period, based on Kuhn’s framework, was

ized chop suey that used meat as a primary in-

a period of “conceptual continuity,” in which

gredient and whatever sauces their American

the mainstream knowledge about Chinese food

customers found tasteful. Americans primarily

was severely limited to chop suey and other

patronized Chinese restaurants due to their

Americanized Cantonese fares. The discovery

inexpensiveness and chop suey’s connections

of various non-Cantonese dishes in the post-

to Li Hong Zhang, the special envoy of China

1965 period led to new “paradigms” about

who visited America in 1897 and stimulated

Chinese food. These new paradigms made

American curiosity about Chinese food.

most Americans question the authenticity of

foods in the chop suey joints and look eager-

3. Cecilia Chiang, interviewed by

Victor Geraci, Regional Oral History Office, The

ly to the non-Cantonese regional cuisines,

Bancroft Library, January 31, 2006, 73-75, 96-

which claimed to offer real Chinese cooking.

99. According to Chiang, restaurateurs such as

Nevertheless, as later scholars would point

Johnny Kan and James Beard were her regular

out, the definition of “authenticity” must be

customers. Celebrities such as Danny Kaye and

broadened and clarified in order to make more

Walter King and political figures such as the

conclusive arguments about the post-1965

Kennedy family and the King of Denmark were

culinary transformations. More studies on the

her patrons as well.

post-1965 non-Cantonese Chinese regional

cuisine restaurants must be done in order to

4. Pat Barr, “An autobiography that

has taste,” review of The Mandarin Way, by Ce-

find out the extent to which they might have

cilia Chiang. San Francisco Examiner, March 22,

also been Americanized/Westernized. Thomas

1974; Bauer, “At the Mandarin,” May 25, 2011;

S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Cecilia Chiang, interviewed by Victor Gera-

(Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970).

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 7

rants from the beginning.”5 Besides low prices, the generous portions served in Chinese restaurants attracted non-Chinese patrons. Few found Chinese food attractive “only because of its gastronomical merits.”6 What, then, explains the Mandarin’s success?

In other words, why did the Mandarin’s patrons develop an appetite for the restaurant’s luxurious dishes, when Chinese cuisine had been historically associated with cheap foods such as

Before exploring these acts of cultural mapping, I will give a brief account of the broader historical context that informed the development of Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, and its relation to the Chinese immigrant experience in the city. The late nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the passage of two immigration policies that shaped the history of Chinese food and Chinese immigration to the US The first of these was the Chinese Exclu-

chop suey? What is the significance of the Mandarin’s achievement in the context of the Chinese immigrant experience in the US? In order to answer these questions, I will examine the acts of cultural mapping that promoted the Mandarin and its food in late twentieth-century San Francisco, and compare these acts to the earlier strategies that were used by white elites and Chinese merchants in the city in order to advance their own interests.7

sion Act (1882-1943), which marked the beginning of the Chinese Exclusion period. After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, thousands of gold seekers began to voyage across the Pacific Ocean from the Pearl River Delta

5. Yong Chen, Chop Suey, USA: The Sto-

William H. Sewell, “The Concept(s) of Culture,” in Lynn Hunt et al., eds., Beyond the Cultural Turn (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 55-56. Sewell argues that culture is a dialectic between system and practice. The system and its coherence are produced by a process of organizing difference by powerful

ry of Chinese Food in America (New York: Colum-

institutional nodes that are relatively large in

bia University Press, 2014), 127-133. According

scale, centralized, and wealthy. Their agents

to Chen, lavish dishes such as shark fins and

make continuous use of their considerable re-

bird’s nest soup that represent Chinese haute

sources in efforts to order meanings, thereby

cuisine have been introduced to America since

redefining situations in ways that they believe

the nineteenth century. However, American

will favor their purposes. They never establish

consumers never developed an appetite for

anything approaching cultural uniformity, but

these expensive foods. Instead, starting in the

they are constantly engaged in efforts to nor-

late nineteenth century, Americans, especial-

malize, homogenize, hierarchize, encapsulate,

ly those from the lower-middle and working

exclude, criminalize, hegemonize, or margin-

classes, embraced inexpensive Chinese dishes

alize practices and populations that diverge

such as chop suey to the extent that such foods

from the sanctioned ideal. Through these acts

are equated by Chen with “the Big Mac of the

of cultural mapping, these authoritative actors

pre-McDonald’s era.”

attempt, with varying degrees of success, to

6. Ibid., 127.

impose a certain coherence onto the field of

7. I am invoking William H. Sewell’s

cultural practice.

concepts of culture and cultural mapping. See

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region in South China. These early gold seekers, who planned to become rich in America and return home, included both wealthy merchants and male laborers.8 During the early stages of the California Gold Rush, the Chinese were tolerated by the natives. As gold became harder to find and competition increased, animosity toward the Chinese escalated. By the end of the 1850s, attempts to legislate Chinese exclusion became successful at the state level.

under penalty of imprisonment and deportation.9 Chinese immigrants, who were pushed out of jobs in manufacturing and mining and into positions in the service sector by anti-Chinese sentiments and activities in this period, became a major source of cheap labor in the food industry. The popularity of Chinese restaurants during this time had little to do with the gastronomic merits of Chinese food. Rather, it was largely due to the cheap dining-out

Once the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, skilled and unskilled Chinese laborers were excluded from entering the country for ten years

opportunity that the restaurants provided and the cooks’ abilities to adapt to American tastes.10

Exclusion Act, only six categories of Chinese

8. For more information on the early

9. After the passage of the Chinese

Chinese gold seekers and the factors that

were permitted to enter the United States:

pushed and pulled them to California, see

teachers, students, tourists, properly certi-

Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive

fied returning laborers, merchants and their

History (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991), 28

families, and diplomats and their families.

and Yong Chen, Chinese San Francisco 1850-1943

Chinese men who were already in the US had

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000),

little chance of reuniting with their wives, or

11-37. According to Sucheng Chan, in 1852,

of starting families in their new homes. The

over 20,000 Chinese arrived in San Francis-

Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the

co’s Customs House en route to the gold fields

1943 Magnuson Act, during a time when China

in the foothills of Sierra Nevada. In the next

had become an ally of the US against Japan

decade, Chinese arrivals in California fluctu-

in World War II. See Madeline Hsu, Dreaming

ated between 2,000 and 9,000 a year. Yong

of Gold, Dreaming of Home (Stanford: Stanford

Chen argues that the early gold seekers, who

University Press, 2000), 14-16, 57-66 for more

planned to become rich in America and return

details.

home, included both wealthy merchants

from the prosperous counties such as sanyi

pretive History, 34, Chan argues that because

(“three counties”) and male laborers from the

there were very few women of ethnic origin in

less-prosperous siyi (“four counties” region

gold-rush California, men of any nationality

including Xinning, Xinhui, Enping and Kaip-

willing to cook and fee others, or wash clothes

ing). Therefore, the early Chinese emigration

for others found it relatively easy to earn a

from South China to California was not a hun-

living. A few observant Chinese quickly real-

ger-driven, panic-stricken flight from pover-

ized that cooking could provide a more steady

ty. The well-to-do Chinese merchants would

income than many other occupations, so in

later become an important oppositional group

time, thousands of Chinese worked as cooks in

against anti-Chinese activities and policies in

private homes, hotels, restaurants, and farms

the US

all over the American West.

10. Chan, Asian Americans: An Inter-

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 9

A second policy, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, further changed American gastronomy by ending the former immigration policy based on race and nationality.11 Before 1965, most Chinese in the US came from the Pearl Delta Region (which includes the city of Canton) in South China. In contrast, the post1965 Chinese immigrants came from more diverse class, regional, and cultural backgrounds and brought with

Exclusion era (who had to overcome the culinary prejudices of their American patrons by offering cheap, Americanized Cantonese fare) to prototypical Americans who can maintain their traditional food habits while enriching the American culture with new tastes.12 In contrast, another group of scholars—chiefly Haiming Liu, Jennifer Lee, and Madeline Hsu—paints a less rosy picture of the post-1965 Chinese restaurant scene: these scholars agree

them the regional cuisines of Hunan, Shanghai, Sichuan, and Beijing. The Immigration and Nationality Act divides the two generations of scholars who have written about Chinese food. One group of scholars, who hold a generally positive view of the impact of the act, argues that the advent and spread of non-Cantonese Chinese regional cuisines in the US suggest an evolution of Chinese Americans from the unassimilable aliens of the Chinese

with the earlier scholarship that Chinese cuisine and Chinese Americans have obtained greater social acceptance and prestige since the Exclusion era, but they argue that much continuity from the Exclusion era can still be seen in the post-1965 period. Like their earlier counterparts, many post-1965 Chinese immigrants remain perpetual foreigners who are limited to dead-end, back-breaking jobs and have to constantly prove their alien roots in order to gain acceptance.13 What, then, do

11. The Immigration and Nationality

Act, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, abol-

ished the national origins quota system that

nese Food to Chinese American Food,” 87-96;

had been the American immigration policy

Johnson, “Let’s Eat Chinese Tonight,” 98;

since 1921. It provided 20,000 immigration

Gary W. Libby, “Historical Notes on Chi-

quotas to every country annually, focusing on

nese Restaurant in Portland, Maine,” Chinese

immigrants’ skills and family relationships

America: History & Perspectives 20 (2006), 47-55;

with citizens or US residents. Many of the

Andrew Coe, Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chi-

post-1965 Chinese immigrants were edu-

nese Food in the United States (New York: Oxford

cated professionals, engineers, technicians,

University Press, 2009), 112-114, 192; Liu and

or exchange students from mainland China,

Lin, “Food, Culinary Identity, and Transna-

Taiwan, or Hong Kong. See Haiming Liu and

tional Culture,” 137-152; Franklin Ng, “Food

Lianlian Lin, “Food, Culinary Identity, and

and Culture: Chinese Restaurants in Hawai’i,”

Transnational Culture: Chinese Restaurant

Chinese America: History & Perspectives (2010),

Business in Southern California,” Journal of

113-114, 119-120.

Asian American Studies 12.2 (2009), 137-138 for

more details on the demographics of the post-

ticity: Din Tai Fung as a Global Shanghai

1965 Chinese immigrants.

Dumpling House Made in Taiwan,” Chinese

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12. See Yu, “Chop Suey: From Chi-

13. Haiming Liu, “Flexible Authen-

the success of the Mandarin and the popularity of its lavish dishes mean in the context of the Chinese restaurant and immigration history in San Francisco? Do they mark a milestone in the development of Chinese restaurants from a period of culinary bastardization and economic exploitation to an era of high profits and genuine mainstream appreciation of Chinese culinary art?

Despite recent scholars’ efforts to complicate the post-1965 Chinese

by their writings and oral histories.14

The first category consists of elite Caucasian journalists and businessmen such as Samuel Bowles and James Mason Hutchings. In their nineteenth-century writings about Chinese migrants and Chinese cuisine, these influential cultural actors contrasted Chinese practices and habits to those of the Yankee laborers and other Westerners, relegating the Chinese and their culture to a lowly position in the domi-

restaurant scene, there are still critical gaps in the literature. Little attention has been paid to upscale Chinese restaurants in America, especially to those that thrived during the Chinese Exclusion period. Following the lead of the second group of scholars, who have demonstrated a continuity between the Exclusion era and the post-1965 period, I hope to challenge the rosy picture of the post-1965 Chinese restaurant phenomenon by examining the success story of the Mandarin in the context of Chinese immigration and Chinese restaurant history in San Francisco. In particular, I will focus on acts of cultural mapping by three categories of influential cultural actors, as revealed

nant cultural map. These acts successfully helped to marginalize the early Chinese migrants as a reserve army of cheap labor and providers of inexpensive foods.

Chinese merchants who had important voices in San Francisco’s Chinese community in the first half of the twentieth century comprise the second category. Editorials written

14. I draw from both traditional

sources (mainstream newspaper articles and restaurant reviews) and sources that reflect the perspectives of the Chinese (oral histories of Chinese restaurant owners and Chinese language newspaper articles). It is important to note that direct evidence about the Chinese, especially the lower class migrants, is hard to obtain, since most of them left few traces.

Written records on the Chinese are dominated

America: History & Perspectives (2011), 58-65;

by perceptions of the Caucasian elite. These

Jennifer Lee, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles (New

difficulties certainly limit the possibility of

York: Twelve Hachette Book Group, 2008),

telling a truly balanced history of Chinese

10-20, 267; Madeline Y. Hsu, “From Chop

cuisine in San Francisco. However, despite

Suey to Mandarin Cuisine: Fine Dining and

the distortions and biases in the English-lan-

the Refashioning of Chinese Ethnicity during

guage sources, they provide useful data for the

the Cold War Era,” In Chinese Americans and the

primary concerns of the article: acts of cultural

Politics of Race and Culture, ed. Sucheng Chan

mapping by agents of dominant institutions

and Madeline Y. Hsu (Philadelphia: Temple

and subordinate groups, and the marginalizing

University Press, 2008), 1-15.

and exclusionary effects of these acts.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 11

by merchants such as Ng Poon Chew, founder of the influential Chinese-language newspaper, the Chinese Western Daily, reveal the way in which the Chinese merchant elite sought to improve mainstream perception of Chinese food and culture by denouncing old Chinese social customs and traditions, and creating Chinese quarters and restaurants that were clean, safe, and exotic in the eyes of the white consumers. In order to contest the effects of

in the first place; elevated French and Western culinary standards and the cheap labor of Chinese restaurant workers still remained key features of the Chinese food system that helped the Mandarin to garner its wealth and accolades in the second half of the twentieth century.

the dominant cultural map, which had relegated Chinese culture and food to an inferior position, San Francisco’s Chinese merchants had to affirm the Western values and standards that were prescribed by the Caucasian elite, thereby perpetuating the same exclusionary and marginalizing effects that the dominant group had exerted on the Chinese.

The third category is Madame Cecilia Chiang. Oral history interviews with Chiang and local Chinese newspaper articles about her restaurant’s labor issues show that in order to attract a high class of clientele to the Mandarin, Chiang hierarchized disparate Chinese regional cuisines so that non-Cantonese cuisines were presented as a pure and authentic version of Chinese food.

She also had to describe the Mandarin as having the characteristics of a first-rate French restaurant and rely on the exploitation of Chinese workers in the restaurant industry. In this way, despite the success of the Mandarin, Chiang failed to subvert the system that had bastardized Chinese cuisine

gold seekers traveled across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco in 1850, many others were drawn to the region in order to get rich as quickly as possible. In the gold fields, American prospectors discovered that they had to compete with foreign miners, especially the more experienced Chileans, Peruvians, and Mexicans. California’s governmental institutions were hastily formed and could be easily swayed by mob rule or big businesses.15 San Francisco’s transitory quarters, which were occupied by large multitudes of men, further contributed to the image of lawlessness. As John Frost, author of several early books on the history of California in the nineteenth century, noted in 1853: “It was impossible, indeed, for an observer to contemplate San Francisco, at this particular period of its history, and not to feel that everything about it savored of transition … every house, shed, or tent, had manifestly been constructed merely to serve the end of the actual occupier; they were all adapted for trading, but

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Cultural Mapping in Early Chinese San Francisco (1850—1890s)

At the same time that Chinese

15. Coe, Chop Suey, 113.

not a convenience or a comfort appertained to them, to indicate a desire or an intention of settlement. Every day brought new-comers, and added to the number of ephemeral structures which crowded the hill-sides.”16 Frost further commented that there were about ten thousand males and scarcely a hundred females. Without the “humanizing presence of women,” rampant crime and drunkenness were everywhere.17

In order to solve these perceived problems and affirm the superiority of Victorian values and culture, elite Caucasian writers described the early Chinese in San Francisco as a useful source of cheap labor, which was nonetheless backward, vice-ridden, and unassimilable into the American culture. By subordinating the Chinese population in this way, these groups were able to secure the Chinese’s labor for the development of the American West without giving them the equal rights and opportunities that their white counterparts enjoyed.

The writing of Samuel Bowles, an influential journalist and a friend of notable figures in American literature such as Emily Dickinson and Josiah Gilbert Holland, illustrates the process by which members of the Caucasian elite sought to maintain their power and influence by organizing the meanings of the Chinese practices that they saw and redefining the practices in ways that would favor their purposes. In his

16. John T. Frost, History of the State of

book, Our New West: Records of Travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, Bowles recounts his impressions of the Chinese in California during his 1865 travels in the western United States. Based on his observations, Bowles repeatedly applauds the Chinese for their productivity and willingness to work in various manual labor jobs that contributed to the flourishing in San Francisco’s economy: They are good house servants; cooks, table-waiters, and nurses ... In the simpler and routine mechanic arts they have proven adepts … They are quick to learn, quiet, cleanly and faithful, and have no “off days,” no sprees to get over. Four or five hundred of the Chinamen are employed in the San Francisco woolen mills; there are two thousands of them making cigars in the same city; and seven hundred and fifty are enrolled washermen. Indeed, they are participating in all the various big and little manufactures that are so rapidly springing up in San Francisco. Substantially, the grading of the whole Pacific Railroad, through California and Nevada was also done by them; and as many as twelve thousand were employed upon the work at once during the last year.18

18. Samuel Bowles, Our New West:

California (New York: Hurst & co, 1853), 93.

Records of Travel between the Mississippi River

and the Pacific Ocean (New York: J.D. Dennison,

17. Ibid., 103.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 13

Besides describing the Chinese laborers as a homogenized group of obedient, plodding, and reliable workers who were suited for simple and routine mechanical tasks, Bowles also normalizes the cheap wages that the Chinese workers received: “The great success of the woolen manufacture here is due to the admirable adaptation and comparative cheapness of Chinese labor … As factory operatives they receive twenty and twenty-five dollars a

dominant status that only functioned (or had meaning) by being in opposition to the Chinese practices. By simply engaging in these efforts to organize the differences that he saw among the Chinese and Yankee workers from the center of power, Bowles helped to ascribe the boundaries that relegated the Chinese to a subordinate position in the labor market (for cheap and manual labor) such that their entrance into the US was dependent on the inferior value

month, and board themselves, though quarters are provided for them on the mill grounds … the wages (of the Chinese railroad workers) were about one dollar a day and board, which was half the cost of ordinary white labor.”19

Bowles clearly did not try to establish cultural uniformity in the dominant cultural map that he was helping to create. In other words, he did not advocate that the Chinese laborers adopt the Yankee laborers’ practices and wage requirements. Instead, he attempted to organize the differences in the two labor groups’ work practices by hierarchizing them, distinguishing between high (Yankee) and low (Chinese), and normal (Yankee) and abnormal (Chinese) practices. In this way, he turned what otherwise might be a babble of working and living styles that were shaped by distinctive traditions and historical circumstances into a semiotically and politically ordered field of differences. In this cultural map, the Yankee laborers’ practices took the

that was ascribed to their work. In other words, if the Chinese had tried to obtain the same wages that Yankee laborers received, they would most likely not be able to secure their jobs.

Outside of work practices, Bowles also tried to order the meanings of the physical traits and social habits of the Chinese. Bowles claims that “there are a few men of great intelligence and wealth and ability” among the Chinese. However, even these Chinese were of “a low type, mentally and physically, and show little capacity of improvement.” In contrast to “the Asiatic, who seem to have been cast in an iron mold ages old,” the “European races … [have] the power as well as disposition for illimitable growth.”20 In addition to limited intelligence and ability, Bowles suggests that the Chinese had inferior cultural practices and values, which they were unwilling to give up in exchange for the “higher civilization” of the West. He thereby assures his audience that the Chinese would not obtain the equal rights and

1869), 401, 404.

19. Ibid., 404.

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20. Ibid., 399-400.

opportunities that they had: “They do not ask or wish for citizenship; they show no ambition to become voters.

There is no ready assimilation of the Chinese with our habits and modes of thought and action. Their simple, narrow, though not dull minds, have run too long in the old grooves to be easily turned off. They bring here and retain all their home ways of living and dressing, their old associations and religion.

Their streets and quarters in town and

In describing his experiences in the western United States, Bowles contributed to an emerging cultural map that brought widely varying practices into a cultural field. In this dominant scheme of things, individuals of European descent were homogenized as a tightly bounded and coherent group, in which everyone had greater intelli-

city are China reproduced.”

Bowles then suggests that due to their backward culture and inferior intelligence and ability, the Chinese had vices and crimes rampant in their San Francisco quarters. He notes that “assassination is not uncommon among them.” So are “gambling” and “opium-smoking,” which are the great vices that constantly go on in their houses and shops. Moreover, the Chinese leave their “wives at home” and “import Chinese prostitutes, like merchandise and fight among each other for the possession of them … As a rule these base women are taken as a sort of temporary wives, and children are reared by them.”22

seekers were married, most did not bring their

21

acute gender imbalance. Although more than half of the early Chinese merchants and gold wives and families to the US due to the high costs and harsh living conditions in California, the lack of jobs for women, and the additional investment that was required to obtain passage for two or more. Enterprising capitalists certainly did not want the presence of Chinese women and families, since it would only stabilize the Chinese work force, causing them to demand higher wages and better working conditions. Discriminatory American immigration laws, when combined with anti-Chinese prejudice and anti-miscegenation attitudes, further aggravated the shortage of Chinese women in San Francisco and forced most Chinese immigrants to live a bachelor’s existence.

Stranded in America until they could save enough money to return home, both the married and single Chinese men found it difficult to find female companionship. While some married non-Chinese women, the majority

21. Ibid., 406.

sought sexual release in brothels. However, it

22. Ibid., 407. For more details on

is important to note that that it was not only

Chinese women and prostitution in Gold Rush

the Chinese bachelors who benefited from

California, see Judy Yung, Unbound Feet: A

the prostitution trade. Chinese vice rings that

Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco

organized the trafficking of Chinese women,

(Los Angeles: University of California Press,

municipal police, immigration officials, and

1995), 18-31. According to Yung, the need of

politicians who were paid to protect the trade,

the capitalist economy in San Francisco at that

as well as white bachelors who wanted to buy

time for a mobile male labor force, unencum-

sex and narcotics in Chinatown, all had an

bered by women and families, contributed to

interest in perpetuating prostitution in San

the rise of a Chinese quarter in the city with an

Francisco’s Chinatown.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 15

gence and better morals than those of other groups. Meanwhile, the process of organizing differences normalized the vices and crimes in San Francisco’s Chinatown, such that the corruptive practices were assumed to be inherent in an Asiatic group that was clearly bounded and extremely resistant to change (even though Bowles indeed noticed that the Chinese merchants were different from the Chinese laborers in terms of wealth and some-

the quality of its dining service) became their lowly variant.

The first restaurants in San Francisco reflected the identities and tastes of the city’s population, which consisted of dandies from the United States and France, speculators (the majority of whom were ‘old Californians’), dignified Spaniards, Yankees, Irish merchants, Chileans, Peruvians, and natives of China, the Sandwich Islands, and South America.23 These were

times intelligence). By employing this cultural mapping strategy, agents of dominant institutions and elite groups, such as Bowles, successfully relegated the Chinese to the bottom of the social hierarchy and justified the Chinese migrants’ role as a reserve army of lowwage workers, who should be tolerated only as long as their labor was needed.

mostly single men who lived in transitory tents or hotels and whose hunting grounds were the city’s restaurants and gambling houses. They wanted to “avoid the fuss and fumes of cooking about the house.”24 Bayard Taylor, a writer for the New York Tribune, observed as early as 1849 that the restaurants in San Francisco could satisfy “the tastes of all nations”: “There are French restaurants on the plaza and on Dupont Street; an extensive German establishment on Pacific Street; the Fonda Peruana; the Italian Confectionary; and three Chinese houses, denoted by their long three-cornered flags of yellow silk.”25

According to Taylor, the chief draws of the first Chinese restaurants in San Francisco were the price (the allyou-could-eat for $1) and the Western

Cultural Mapping in San Francisco’s Culinary Realm 1850-1890s

Acts of cultural mapping not only helped the white elites in nineteenth-century San Francisco maintain a reserve army of cheap Chinese labor, but it also also helped them to secure cheap and convenient Chinese food services that were crucial in feeding the population in the American West.

In particular, mainstream journalists brought the Chinese food practices that they observed into semiotic relationships with other widely varying food practices, such that French and French-influenced Western cuisines assumed the dominant position and Chinese food (regardless of its price or

16 | UNFOUND

23. Frost, History of the State of Califor-

nia, 89, 90-91, 100.

24. Noah Brooks, “Restaurant Life

in San Francisco,” Overland Monthly 1, no. 1 (1868): 466-467.

25. Bayard Taylor, Eldorado: Adventures

in the Path of Empire (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1859), 116-117.

dishes and drinks that they offered.

They were “much frequented by Americans, on account of their excellent cookery, and the fact that meals [were] $1 each, without regard to quantity.” These eateries served a variety of inexpensive Chinese and English dishes: “The grave Celestials serve up their chow-chow and curry, besides many genuine English dishes; their tea and coffee cannot be surpassed.”

Those who could afford to eat more

they had eaten in their native places.29 The high-end eateries also provided a space for Cantonese merchants to socialize and discuss business interests with American bankers and social elites in an elegant setting.30 Despite their awareness of the existence of the firstrate Chinese restaurants, white elites contrasted French and Chinese cuisines with one another, associating Chinese food with filth, blandness, and depravity.

lavishly preferred the comforts of the city’s French eateries. The lower-grade French eating houses were filled with hungry men, an “unlucky miner, the man seeking employment or the penniless adventurer.” They were mostly attracted to the restaurant’s roasted meat, eggs, vegetables, coffee, and pastry.26 The more well-to-do businessmen dined luxuriantly in first-rate French restaurants with the customary menu of soup, fish, salad, roast, dessert, fruit and coffee, and a bottle of sound claret or coffee.27 Dinner at these restaurants would cost about $5.28

It is important to note that there were also first-rate Chinese restaurants in San Francisco. As early as 1853, high-end Chinese restaurants were opened by Chinese merchants who did their best to produce or procure lavish foods comparable to what

For instance, despite the distinctiveness of the two food cultures, famous journalist and editor Noah Brooks, who was also a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, distinguished French cuisine as a high practice. Brooks argues that “French cookery is cosmopolitan as well as national” because

29. Frost, History of the State of Califor-

nia, 100.

30. It is not surprising that the Chi-

nese entrepreneurs in San Francisco were able to open upscale Chinese restaurants that were patronized by both Chinese and Western elites. According to Mark Swislocki, the Chinese-owned Western restaurants, known as fancaiguan, which came to dominate Shanghai’s high-end restaurant scene in the second half of the nineteenth century, were operated by Cantonese entrepreneurs. The Cantonese-Western connection originated in the pre-Opium War Canton System, which had restricted Western trade to Guangzhou until 1842. This system provided a context for cross-cultural exchange between Western and

26. Brooks, “Restaurant Life in San

Cantonese merchants. For a more detailed dis-

Francisco,” 411; and Frost, History of the State of

cussion of the fancaiguan, see Mark Swislocki,

California, 96.

Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture and the

27. Ibid., 412.

Urban Experience in Shanghai (Stanford: Stan-

28. Taylor, Eldorado, 116.

ford University Press, 2009), 97-141.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 17

“it has the predominance over that of all other peoples” in San Francisco: “The French framework of dinner, from soup to fruit, care noir and cordial, is adopted in San Francisco; and the majority of the restaurants are those which give French cookery and French wines to their guests.”31 Brooks also applauds the spectacle in first-rate French restaurants: “The spotless linen, glittering glass, bright lights, brisk waiters, and deftly changing courses,

marginalizing effects. Writers such as Brooks were certainly aware of the French eateries that did not live up to the sanctioned ideals and Chinese restaurants that did. Brooks notes that “in the vulgar profusion of California larders and markets, the delicatessen of French gastronomic art is lost.” He also writes that even at the high-end French restaurants in San Francisco, the kitchens were unclean.33 In contrast, the upscale Chinese restaurants

present a glamour to the unaccustomed eye which conceals the fearful lack of zest, which sicklies o’er the whole, to the weary eye of the habitual diner-out.

There is an absolute neatness about the table service, and a certain of tastefulness about the simplest dishes served up, which some families, who think highly of themselves, would do well to imitate.”32

Brooks upheld the superiority of French-style meals and their characteristics at a first-rate restaurant: cleanliness, spotless linen, brisk waiters, different courses from soup to fruit, and good French wines. Although French cuisine and Chinese cuisine each had its own logic and techniques, they were organized into a cultural field that made French culinary framework the dominant standard against which Chinese food practices were evaluated.

This cultural strategy that influential white cultural actors employed had notable homogenizing and

in San Francisco were known for an elegant dining environment and quality service. Samuel Bowles, editor of Springfield Republican, observes about a dinner in San Francisco’s Chinatown with leading American bankers and Chinese merchants: “The dinner was unquestionably a most magnificent one after the Chinese standard; the dishes were many of them rare and expensive, and everything was served in elegance and taste.”34

Despite such awareness that the restaurants in San Francisco did not fit into neatly bounded categories, influential writers such as Bowles and Brooks continued to distinguish between high and low culinary practices.

French eateries were associated with the prescribed values of cleanliness, tastefulness, and refined setting and service, while the Chinese restaurants were all lumped into a lowly variant of the sanctioned ideal, ascribed images of filth and depravity that late nineteenth-century San Franciscans came

31. Brooks, “Restaurant Life in San

Francisco,” 468.

33. Ibid., 469.

34. Bowles, Our New West, 413-414.

32. Ibid., 468.

18 | UNFOUND

to associate with the Chinese.

The white elites of San Francisco patronized luxurious Chinese restaurants only when they had to promote business interests with the Chinese merchants.35 Most remained suspicious of, if not sickened by, the lavish dishes, such as shark fins, that were served at Chinese banquets. For instance, Brooks describes a Chinese banquet that he attended in San Francisco in 1868: “They cook chickens and

mouthfuls, and depended for all savoriness upon their accompaniments. The sea-weed, shark fins and the like had a glutinous sort of taste; not repulsive, nor very seductive.”39 The way in which Chinese food became associated with filth and cheapness in the dominant cultural map is best illustrated in the writing of James Mason Hutchings, a prominent businessman in California.

Hutchings describes his worries about an upcoming Chinese banquet: “Come

ducks nicely, though queerly, the bird being first split clean in two; but almost everything has the same taste of nut oil sicklied over all, and few western palates can endure even the most delicate

as it might, whether fricasseed monkey or baked rats made any part of the bill of fare or not … we had heard so much of the strange varieties of food in vogue with the Celestials, as well as some intimations of their peculiarities of taste.” He also thinks he would spot “strings of cockroaches hung up for drying, in preparation” for the banquet.

of their dishes.”36 These dishes include “shark fins, stewed bamboo, duck’s eggs boiled, baked and stewed in oil, pork disguised in hot sauces, and other things like these.”37 He even finds the variety of sweet meats and cakes “ashes and wormwood to the taste.”38

Like Brooks, Bowles did not have any appetite for the food at a lavish Chinese banquet. He describes his experience: “I went to the table weak and hungry; but I found the one universal odor and flavor soon destroyed all appetite; and I fell back resignedly on a constitutional incapacity to use the chopsticks … The meats seemed all alike; they had been dried or preserved in some way; were cut up into

35. Coe, Chop Suey, 107.

36. Brooks, “Restaurant Life in San

In this way, Chinese eateries in San Francisco became bastardized places that offered cheap and convenient food services, which were crucial in feeding the population in the American West, but were not perceived as having much gastronomic merit.

40

Chinese Merchants’ Reform Efforts that Sought to Contest the Dominant Cultural Map 1890s-1940s

The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, commonly known as the “Six Companies,” was the Chinese community’s most im

39. Bowles, Our New West, 413-414.

Francisco,” 415.

40. James M. Hutchings, “A Dinner

37. Ibid.

with the Chinese,” Hutching’s Illustrated Califor-

38. Ibid.

nia Magazine (1856): 312, 513.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 19

portant voice in fighting the mounting anti-Chinese discrimination in late nineteenth-century San Francisco.41 Starting in the late 1890s, Chinese merchant leaders from the Six Companies attempted to attract more customers to Chinese restaurants by contesting the dominant cultural map that the white elites and sensational reports had created. They embarked on a decades-long struggle to sanitize their communities and quell the secret

ern Daily offer a glimpse of the new mentality that came to prevail in San Francisco’s Chinese community. The Chinese Western Daily, or “Chung Sai Yat Po,” was founded in 1900 by Ng Poon Chew, who came to the US from Guangdong in 1881 at the age of fifteen. Besides serving as the managing editor of the newspaper, he was also a Christian minister and a merchant in the community.42 In 1906, the Chinese Western Daily proclaimed: “Social

societies in order to improve the images of Chinatown and promote growth in the Chinatown tourist industry.

The convergence of several forces led to this development. One force was the catastrophic 1906 earthquake that toppled Chinatown. The earthquake did not bury anti-Chinese sentiments.

However, Chinese San Franciscans quickly turned the tragic event into an opportunity to rebuild and renew their community. The modernization reform that took place in China in the first decade of twentieth century further encouraged the Chinese in San Francisco to discard old social customs and accept the progress and superiority that Western values and customs represented.

Editorials in the Chinese-West-

Darwinism was the law that governed the competition among the nations on the five continents. In such a world of racial competition, no scholar, peasant, worker and merchant can avoid the elimination of selection.”43 The newspaper suggests that China and the Chinese communities in America fell behind the West because they had suffered under tyranny for centuries. The old social customs such as foot binding, queues, and opium smoking were precisely the reasons that the Chinese suffered racial injustice. Therefore, the Chinese needed to sweep away these causes of humiliation in order to attain racial equality in America.

After the San Francisco earthquake, the Chinese elite called for social transformation in an editorial entitled, “After Restoration, Chinatown Must Be Reformed.” The article proposed the

41. The organization consisted of

six huiguans, each of which was founded by merchants from the same districts in the Pearl River Delta region and offered a wide range of

42. Ibid., 173-179. The Chinese Western

services and assistance to the early Chinese

immigrants. See Chen, Chinese San Francisco,

Daily remained the largest Chinese newspaper

71-84, for more details on the Six Companies

in America during much of its existence (1900-

and the services that they provided (helping

51).

the sick to return to China, coffins and funeral

43. The Chinese-Western Daily, April 17,

expenses, and expenses of lawsuits).

1906.

20 | UNFOUND

elimination of a long list of old customs seen as the “causes of humiliation.”

The list included the aforementioned opium smoking, queues, and foot binding. It also listed factionalism, the notorious tong wars, and gambling, and urged the Chinese community to discard idols, which represented “a most savage act.” The writer criticized people for being stuck to such customs after many years of exposure to the “civilization” of America.44

The costs of dishes served at these restaurants usually ranged from $0.20 to $0.60. First-rate Chinese restaurants continued to exist until the 1920s (charging $1.00 or more for each dish), when they all closed during the Great Depression.47

From the 1890s to the years leading up to World War II, the Chinese merchant leaders successfully promoted growth in the Chinatown tourist industry, quelled the secret societies,

In subsequent years, the merchant leaders lighted and swept the streets and ornamented buildings of Chinatown to produce quarters that were enticingly foreign but safe and clean.45 Most restaurants began to target a middle-class white clientele who had begun to tour Chinatown in order to get a first-hand glimpse of the exotic quarters and food. Instead of serving shark fins and other dishes that represented Chinese haute cuisine, the Chinese restaurateurs adapted Chinese dishes such as chop suey for American tastes. Unlike the earlier first-rate Chinese restaurants, these eateries did not have elegant decors, services, or lavish dishes. They offered foods such as chop suey and chow mein (Cantonese dishes that were adapted for American tastes) in dingy quarters offset by low prices and delivery services.46

and ended prostitution practices. Chinese chop suey joints that flourished in San Francisco provided steady incomes for thousands of Chinese laborers and merchants who were denied employment in other occupations. However, Chinese restaurants also served as bitter reminders that the Chinese had few other options; they were confined to restaurant work that could only attract American customers if they served cheap and convenient dishes instead of Chinese haute cuisine (with expensive ingredients and careful preparation).

Despite the rising popularity of mainstream Chinese chop suey joints, Chinese and their food culture were still marginalized in the dominant cultural map. One reason was that in their effort to reform San Francisco’s

44. Ibid., June 8, 1907.

later adapted for American tastes by replacing

45. Ivan Light, “From Vice District to

internal organs with the more familiar chick-

sprouts in a brown sauce. This dish came from the Pearl River Delta region and was

Tourist Attraction,” Pacific Historical Review 43,

en, pork or shrimp. Chow mein consists of

no. 3 (1974): 394.

noodles that are stir-fried with meat, onion,

and celery.

46. As noted earlier, chop suey refers

to a miscellany of chicken livers, gizzards,

47. See Hsu, “From Chop Suey to

fungi, bamboo shoots, pig tripe and bean

Mandarin Cuisine,” 13.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 21

Chinatown, the Chinese merchants not only affirmed the superiority of Western cultural values, but also relegated ancient Chinese traditions and norms to a lower position. Chinese culinary culture thus became regarded as having no gastronomic merit of its own; only French cookery was worth the high price. Moreover, in order to craft a clean and safe space that appealed to middle- and upper-class white tourists, the merchant leaders accepted the vice

next, the success of Chiang’s restaurant represents a critical shift in the political, social, and economic landscapes of Chinese America. Numerous circumstances, both local and global, proved favorable for Chiang’s restaurant operation compared to those of the earlier Chinese restaurateurs. Despite these favorable conditions, Chiang had to use the cultural strategies that her earlier counterparts had employed in order to promote her restaurant. In this way,

and depravity that the public associated with Chinese women and laborers as if they were inherent traits of the Chinese culture that must be condemned. In this way, the merchant leaders imposed their own standards of cultural purity on their community, distinguishing between those who were or were not group members (based on their ability to adopt Western ideals and values).

The unjust division of labor along racial lines and the raft of anti-Chinese discrimination laws and activities that had left Chinese male laborers stranded in the US were left out of the picture.

Meanwhile, the centrality of Western values and French styles of cooking in the dominant cultural map was further affirmed by the group that sought to contest the map and its marginalizing effects.

she failed to subvert the institutional powers and practices that had marginalized the Chinese and their food in the first place.

As part of the privileged KMT (Kuomintang)-connected émigré elite that fled to the US after World War II, Cecilia Chiang was in a particularly good position to promote her high-end restaurant in San Francisco. On the individual level, Chiang had access to incredible human and capital resources that allowed her to popularize her restaurants. Although an immigrant, Chiang was born into a wealthy family in Beijing, China, with a dozen siblings and even more servants. During the Japanese invasion in 1945, Chiang and her fifth sister escaped to KMT-controlled territories in Chongqing, China, and she later fled the Communist takeover in 1949 with her diplomat husband to Tokyo. Despite the conditions in post-war Tokyo, Chiang managed to acquire enough capital and supply to run her first successful restaurant venture. When she arrived in the United States in 1958 (in order to

Acts of Cultural Mapping that Promoted the Mandarin Restaurant 1967-1991

It was at this important juncture that Madame Chiang’s Mandarin came to prominence. As I will show

22 | UNFOUND

visit a recently widowed sister), Chiang helped a group of friends open a restaurant on Polk Street and invested $10,000 as a deposit.48 Afterward, her friends backed out on her but left her committed, since she had already put down the deposit. Although her Polk Street restaurant business was not doing well in the beginning, through her friendship with prominent food critics and restaurateurs like Herb Caen and Johnny Kan, she managed to get the

On the macro level, several forces converged and facilitated the success of the Mandarin. First, the economic boom following World War II boosted tourist and consumerist needs in the US. People were more likely to dine out; travel to other continents, including Asia; and develop a more cosmopolitan taste for foods. During the 1960s and 70s, growing interests in the conjunction of food and tourism contributed to the rising stardom of

word out about her restaurant.

Johnny Kan (1906-1972), a Chinese American restaurateur, paved the way for the Mandarin’s success by opening his eponymous Grant Street restaurant in San Francisco and attracting a higher class of clientele to Chinese restaurants. In order to combat the bastardized image of Chinese food and increase the respectability of Chinese cuisine in mainstream society, Kan introduced “exotic” dishes such as bird’s nest soup, Peking duck, and asparagus beef that represented “authentic” Chinese cuisine, and frankly told his American customers not to order chop suey. He also instilled elegance into the experience of Chinese dining by having a Ming or Tang dynasty theme for décor, a fine crew of master chefs, a well-organized dining room crew headed by a courteous host or hostess, and a glass-enclosed kitchen to show everybody that the kitchen was kept clean.49

restaurateurs, chefs, and food writers.50 Second, starting in the early 1940s, changing American foreign policy goals in Asia and the developing alliance with the KMT stimulated ideological shifts regarding the treatment of Chinese in the US. These shifts accelerated with the anti-Japanese partnership of World War II and extended through the Cold War era.51 Interests in ancient Chinese culture and non-Cantonese Chinese regional cuisines grew, especially after President Richard Nixon’s ground-breaking visit to Beijing, China, in 1972. Lastly, the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 brought to San Francisco a new class of better educated, KMT-affiliated, and often affluent Chinese immigrants from Central and North China, as well as other Asian groups that had already developed a taste for Mandarin and

Time Californ’: A Documentary Study of an American Chinatown (New York: Pantheon, 1973), 115.

48. Chiang, interviewed by Victor

Geraci, 65-67.

49. Victor and Brett de Bary Nee, Long

50. Hsu, “From Chop Suey to Manda-

rin Cuisine,” 19.

51. Ibid., 2.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 23

Sichuan cuisines.52

Despite these favorable circumstances, Chiang needed to employ the same cultural strategies that the earlier Chinese merchants used in order to promote her restaurant. For instance, in order to contest the cultural map that associated Chinese food with cheapness, Chiang created her own Chinese food cultural map in which distinctive Chinese regional cuisines were compared and hierarchized. Like

stressed the filthy environment that these Cantonese eateries had: “Chinese restaurants are too greasy, too dirty, a lot of mice, a lot of cockroaches.”54 She noted that the Chinese restaurants in San Francisco did not offer authentic dishes because “people are kind of money-hungry … they try to make money too fast and don’t want to go through all that trouble.”55 As discussed earlier, there were upscale Chinese restaurants with clean linens

Kan, she catered to the desire of local elites for Chinese food that would not be associated with vice, cheapness, and convenience. In conversations with newspaper writers, American food critics and celebrated white patrons, she elevated the status of the non-Cantonese dishes that she introduced and relegated the Cantonese foods to a lower position of inferiority, inauthenticity, and blandness. Chiang recalled during an interview the culinary scene in San Francisco’s Chinatown that she sought to contest: “At that time, compared to now, it was very hard to find the non-Cantonese cook … egg drop soup everywhere … soup that tasted like the water that’s left after you wash your wok. If people can make money with chop suey and egg foo young, then I can do better with the real dishes from my homeland.”53

During the interviews, she also

and elegant services accompanying lavish dishes that existed in San Francisco’s Chinatown since the late 1800s.

The evolution of these restaurants into lower-scale ones was not because Cantonese regional cuisine had little gastronomic merit. It was mainly due to the oppressive historical forces and institutional factors that made it more profitable to serve the cheap and fast dishes with which Americans were more familiar, instead of serving Cantonese haute cuisine dishes.

Without acknowledging these factors, Chiang set out to contest the cultural map that Chinatown merchant leaders had created earlier by contrasting and hierarchizing regional Chinese food practices. She insisted on the importance of educating Americans about “authentic” Chinese food through her non-Cantonese dishes. Chiang clearly sought to portray these non-Cantonese dishes as a tightly bounded and unchanging whole that represented a pure

52. Ibid., 17-18.

53. Chiang, interviewed by Victor

Geraci, 67; and Emerald Yeh, “Cecilia Sun Yun

Chiang,” Asian Pacific Fund Awards Bio, June 15,

Geraci, 74.

2005.

24 | UNFOUND

54. Chiang, interviewed by Victor 55. Ibid., 80.

and authentic version of Chinese food.

In contrast, the Cantonese dishes that were commonly found in San Francisco’s Chinatown were a lowly variant that were to be excluded. As Chiang recalled in the opening of her restaurant in 1957 at 2209 Polk Street: “I had in mind: no chop suey in my menu, and no egg fu young. All this Chinatown stuff is a no-no.56 [She gave up the restaurant in Tokyo because she just wanted to] educate American people

emphasized the Mandarin’s kitchen as the cleanest one among Chinese restaurants in San Francisco and the modernity of her equipment.58 She was also proud of being the first owner to use linen in a San Francisco Chinese restaurant.59 Besides the modern and warm environment, her customers were also surprised by the personal service that the Mandarin provided.

Many of her waiters were well trained and spoke English. Chiang’s gracious

and tell them, ‘Besides chop suey, here is something else! Tastes better!’ This is my whole purpose!”57 In this way, the originally varied Chinese regional cuisines were organized to produce a food culture map and hierarchy in which they were contrasted from one another. Cantonese food and all that was associated with it were bastardized and marginalized by the same individual who tried to defend and present a pure and authentic version of Chinese cuisine to the American public.

In order to associate Chinese cuisine with culinary art, Chiang could not simply serve her clients the northern Chinese dishes alone. She had to organize the meaning of a high-end Chinese dining experience by associating it with characteristics that San Franciscans normally associate with a first-rate French restaurant: professional waiters; clean and elegant environments; and high-quality, fresh, and delicate foods. During her interviews with mainstream critics, she always

hosting also impressed her patrons: she remembered people’s names, allergies, and drinks preferences.60 Lastly, Chiang took tremendous pride in the fresh ingredients that she got from Chinatown and the consistency of her food: “The new restaurant in Ghirardelli had sixteen cooks, nine busboys, fourteen waiters. Each cook is specialized in one task. One cook cooked nothing but Tea Duck. That’s why it’s every time you go in there, it always tastes the same.

There was a woman who makes all the potstickers, 100 in one hour started with the dough.”61 In this way, Chiang packaged the Chinese food she knew with the subscription to Western standards of fine dining for non-Chinese consumers. In order to liberate Chinese food from the disreputable shadow of greasy chop suey joints and the grimy Chinatown ghetto, Chiang had to recognize and affirm, rather than subvert, the centrality of French and Western

58. Ibid., 63.

59. Ibid., 70.

56. Ibid., 67.

60. Ibid., 78-79.

57. Ibid., 72.

61. Ibid. , 80-82.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 25

cuisine in the hierarchy of the mainstream food culture in San Francisco.

Another parallel that can be drawn between Chiang’s operational strategies and those of the Chinese restaurateurs from the earlier period is the importance of cheap suppliers of labor. Both relied on the exploitation and marginalization of Chinese laborers in the economy in order to provide their services. Although the Mandarin was extremely lucrative (its dishes averaged

ner break. However, when the restaurant is busy, we are supposed to work during that break; and the Mandarin being a popular restaurant, is busy most of the time. Those times that we are allowed to eat, the food that we are served is inferior to the customers’ food.

We are not even allowed small ten minute breaks to go to the restroom when needed. Also,

about more than ten dollars per dish and its daily gross was about four thousand dollars in 1974), its workers were still being treated stingily with no paid sick leaves, health insurance or other benefits.62 As an article from a Chinese-language newspaper (Wei Min) reported in 1975: “Like other workers in and around Chinatown, the Mandarin workers received lousy wages, oppressive working conditions (no sick leave, overtime pay, and health benefits), and constant harassment from the management.”63 An information leaflet put out by the workers described the oppressive conditions at the Mandarin in this way: Many employees work as much as 13 hour a day, 60 hours a week without overtime pay …

Some work 13 hours without a rest break. Our only break allowed is a half hour din-

the manager has threatened to fire us if he catches us sitting down three times.

Except for some of the big chefs, most of the workers were never considered central to the restaurant’s success. As Chiang put it, “they just do what I told them to. They are illegal aliens, so they do not have much choice.”64

The workers’ dissatisfaction with Chiang’s restaurant culminated in three unionizing efforts that demanded better working conditions, health insurance and other benefits. The first two attempts failed in 1972, and the third that took place in 1974 was successful. However, after the workers’ successful unionization, the restaurant threatened those who were involved in the unionizing efforts and fired them one by one over the first few months in 1975.65 In fact, in March of 1975, a local judge ordered the Mandarin to rehire a fired union activist. Judge Jerrold Sha-

62. “Chinese Restaurant Workers

Successful Unionization,” San Francisco Weekly,

November 27, 1974.

Geraci, 73.

63. “Mandarin Workers Stand Firm,”

Wei Min, February 1975.

26 | UNFOUND

64. Chiang, interviewed by Victor 65. “Mandarin Workers Stand Firm,”

Wei Min, February 1975.

piro ruled that the Ghirardelli Square restaurant illegally fired waiter Billie Meng in September 1975 after he led a union organizing effort, calling a raise of wage. He ruled that the restaurant granted pay raises to thwart the union drive, threatened reprisals to discourage union support, and illegally gave the impression that union activities were under surveillance. He ordered that all these practices cease.66 Therefore, in trying to contest the dominant

herent cultural field in order to advance their own purpose.

Between the earliest arrival of the Chinese from the Pearl Delta Region in San Francisco in the 1840s and the end of the nineteenth century, elite white journalists helped to construct a dominant cultural map that homogenized and even criminalized the Chinese as a vice-ridden group that was inferior to their European counterparts.

They also relegated Cantonese cuisine,

perceptions of Chinese food, Chiang, a member of the subordinate group, put forth an altered Chinese food cultural map that had many of the same exclusionary and marginalizing effects as those that were produced by the dominant cultural map.

including Chinese haute cuisine dishes, to a lower position by prescribing core values that French cooking seemed to represent. The marginalizing food hierarchy that the writers created was full of inconsistencies, since many firstrate French restaurants did not meet its criteria, while at least some Chinese restaurants did fulfill the requirements. Despite these contradictions, the constructed hierarchy continued to exist and be used as if it was a coherent whole. This apparent coherence effectively helped to keep the Chinese migrants as a reserve army of cheap labor, entertainers, and business partners.

The same marginalizing and exclusionary effects were found when Chinese merchant leaders tried to contest the dominant cultural map in the first four decades of the twentieth century. In order to create a new image of San Francisco’s Chinatown that was clean, safe, and exotic, the Chinese merchants had to recognize the centrality of Western standards and impose discipline on their own community members (such that the Chinese could be seen as capa-

Conclusion

By situating the success of the Mandarin in the context of Chinese restaurant and immigration history in San Francisco, and examining the cultural mappings of Chinese food, I have shown that the meaning and status of a cuisine is often not determined by its gastronomic merits alone. Instead, the cuisine’s position in the official cultural map and those of oppositional groups critically affect how it might be received by the public. The meaning and status of a cuisine may be understood as products of struggles for power by both the dominant institutions and the oppositional groups that tried to organize widely varying practices onto a co

66. “An autobiography that has

taste,” The Examiner, March 22, 1974.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 27

ble of progress). These attempts led to the marginalization of disadvantaged Chinese laborers and prostitutes, who did not fit into the community that the merchants sought to create.

By considering the story of the Mandarin in this light, one is able to capture the somewhat ironic nature of the Mandarin’s success. On the one hand, Chiang undoubtedly altered the landscape of Chinese food in America by opening the Mandarin. She not

restaurants in San Francisco and the rest of the United States today are still low-end eateries. The Euro- and French-centric standards in American food culture have remained uncontested despite the struggle of various oppositional groups. The division of labor along racial lines, much like in the 1850s, still exists, and Chinese workers need to use restaurant work as a critical lifeline; the economy still takes advantage of this cheap labor in order to cater

only introduced new dishes, but also instilled elegance and prestige into the Chinese dining experience for non-Chinese customers. On the other hand, an examination of the strategies that she used to combat the much bastardized reputation of Chinese food from the earlier period in San Francisco raises the question of whether she indeed subverted the powerful institutions that marginalized Chinese food in the first place. Despite all of the favorable circumstances, she still had to employ strategies that marginalized Cantonese regional cuisine, normalized the exploitation of Chinese workers as cheap laborers, and affirmed the superiority of French culinary standards.

In order to help the American public appreciate Chinese cuisine as a culinary art, Chiang had to abide by, rather than subvert, some of the prescribed core values and assumptions in the dominant map of food culture in San Francisco.

This observation points to issues that might explain why after the success of the Mandarin, most Chinese

to the needs of mass consumers. Chiang was one of the few lucky ones who had all the right conditions, resources, and ability to strike it rich and redefine Chinese food culture in ways that would favor her own purpose and ambitions.

I will close with Madame Chiang’s explanation of the success of the Mandarin: I think the most important thing is that you have to really treat people well. Another thing, of course, the food. And the inside, the interior, the environment. And also … I think it’s very important, is the owner’s or the chef’s personality. And another thing is … never in my life I like to follow somebody. I always try to bemove ahead … I really wanted to bring the real Chinese food to America … I think people still talk about it. About me, about the food … I think we just served a lot of things that were one of a kind-nobody else had it. I did something quite

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smart.67 Although Chiang knew that her restaurant’s lucrative operation would not have been possible for 365 days a year without the sixteen cooks, nine busboys, and fourteen waiters who worked as much as thirteen hours a day with tiny breaks, Chiang solely focused on the authenticity of her food, the eating environment, and the personality of the chef and owner in her remarks.68 This bias that overlooks the human cost of serving high-end Chinese food and the power relations involved is not uncommon. As Heather Lee, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues in her recent American Studies dissertation, the “historic blood, sweat, and tears upon which the Chinese food service industry was built” is often neglected in the “particular obsession with culinary authenticity” and the “fetishization of ethnic food.”69 We must pay attention to the acts of cultural mapping, seen through the history of Chinese cuisine in San Francisco, to understand and address their marginalizing effects on the people involved.

Bibliography 1.

“A Chinese Reception.” Harper’s Weekly, 1887.

2.

Barr, Pat. “An autobiography that has taste.”

Review of The Mandarin Way, by Cecilia Chiang. San Francisco Examiner, March 22, 1974.

3.

Bauer, Michael. “At the Mandarin, Cecilia Chiang Changed Chinese Food.” Inside Scoop San Francisco, May 25, 2011.

4.

Bowles, Samuel. Or New West: Records of Travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. New York: J. D. Dennison, 1869.

5.

Brooks, Noah. “Restaurant Life in San Francisco,” Overland Monthly 1, no. 1 (1868):

6.

466-467.

7.

Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1991.

8.

Chen, Yong. Chinese San Francisco 1850-1943.

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

9.

______. Chop Suey, USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America. New York: Columbia

10. University Press, 2014.

11. “Chinese Restaurant Workers Successful Unionization.” San Francisco Weekly, November 27, 1974.

12. Chiang, Cecilia. The Mandarin Way. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1974.

13. ______. Interview by Victor Geraci, Regional Oral History Office. The Bancroft Library, January 31, 2006.

14. Coe, Andrew. Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

15. De Bary Lee, Victor and Brett. Long Time Californ’: A Documentary Study of an American Chinatown. New York: Pantheon, 1973.

16. Folwer, Geoffrey A. “Cecilia Chiang, the

67. Chiang, interviewed by Victor

Geraci, 78-80.

68. “Mandarin Workers Stand Firm,”

Wei Min, February 1975.

69. Heather R. Lee, “Entrepreneurs in

the Age of Chinese Exclusion: Transnational Capital, Migrant Labor, and Chinese Restaurants in New York City, 1850-1943” (unpublished PhD diss., Brown University, 2014), 208.

Queen of Chinese Cuisine.” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2013.

17. Frost, John T. History of the State of California.

New York: Hurst & co., 1853.

18. Hutchings, James M. “A Dinner with the Chinese.” Hutchings’ Illustrated California Magazine, 1856.

19. Hsu, Madeline Y. Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home. Stanford: Stanford University Press,

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 29

2000.

20. ______. “From Chop Suey to Mandarin

California Press, 1999.

32. Swislocki, Mark. Culinary Nostalgia: Regional

Cuisine: Fine Dining and the Refashioning

Food Culture and the Urban Experience in Shang-

of Chinese Ethnicity during the Cold War

hai. Stanford: Stanford University Press,

Era.” In Chinese Americans and the Politics of Race and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan and Madeline Y. Hsu, 1-34. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008.

21. Johnson, Bryan R. “Let’s Eat Chinese Tonight.” American Heritage 38, no. 8 (1987): 98-107.

22. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

23. Lee, Heather R. “Entrepreneurs in the Age of Chinese Exclusion: Transnational Capital, Migrant Labor, and Chinese Restaurants in New York City, 1850-1943.” PhD diss., Brown University, 2014.

24. Lee, Jennifer. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. New York: Twelve Hachette Book Group, 2008.

25. Libby, Gary W. “Historical Notes on Chinese Restaurants in Portland, Maine.” Chinese America: History & Perspectives 20 (2006): 4756.

26. Light, Ivan. “From Vice District to Tourist Attraction,” Pacific Historical Review 43, no.3, 1974.

27. Liu, Haiming. “Flexible Authenticity: Din Tai Fung as a Global Shanghai Dumpling House Made in Taiwan.” Chinese America: History & Perspectives (2011) 57-65.

28. Liu, Haiming and Lianlian Lin. “Food, Culinary Identity, and Transnational Culture: Chinese Restaurant Business in Southern California.” Journal of Asian American Studies 12.2 (2009): 135-162.

29. “Mandarin Workers Stand Firm.” Wei Min, February 1975.

30. Ng, Franklin. “Food and Culture: Chinese Restaurants in Hawai’i.” Chinese America: History & Perspectives (2010): 113-122.

31. Sewell, William H. “The Concept(s) of Culture.” In Lynn Hunt et al., eds., Beyond the Cultural Turn. Los Angeles: University of

30 | UNFOUND

2009.

33. Taylor, Bayard. Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1859.

34. Yeh, Emerald. “Cecilia Sun Yun Chiang.”

Asian Pacific Fund Awards Bio, June 15, 2005.

35. Yu, Renqiu. “Chop Suey: From Chinese Food to Chinese American Food.” Chinese America: History and Perspectives (1987): 87-96.

36. Yung, Judy. Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 31

The Racialist Reformation: Transformations of JapaneseCanadians’ Depictions in Toronto Newspapers, 1945-1958 Sei Han, Yale University ’16 Abstract In the first half of the twentieth century, Asian immigrants to Canada and Asian-Canadians faced onerous racial tensions as embodied by the Head Tax of 1885 and the Labour Day Riots of 1907. After Canada’s declaration of war against Japan in 1941, Japanese-Canadians particularly encountered increasingly nativist sentiments. In contrast to this image, Canada became one of the first nations to adopt an official multicultural policy in 1971, only a few decades after World War II. The adoption of this policy seems to oppose diametrically the vehement nativist attitudes found in Canada of the early twentieth century. An assessment of two of the most widely circulated Canadian newspapers, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, indicates that depictions of Japanese-Canadians between the end of World War II and the end of the post-war era shifted significantly. The depictions are framed in two ways: (1) the victims of moral injustice frame, and (2) the model minority frame. Through these frames, white Canadian society indicates an acceptance of Japanese-Canadians into the collective, multicultural Canadian identity by the late 1950s.

Ever since the founding of New France in 1655, immigrants to Canada have been affected by and have affected racial discrimination upon other residents.1 Racial tensions between Asians and white Canadians first began with the arrival of Chinese immigrants to British Columbia in 1858.2 The extent to which anti-Asian sentiments had quickly expanded in three decades can be readily observed through the Head Tax of 1885, which forced all Chinese immigrants to pay a $50 tax, increased to $500 after 1903. Racism against Japanese immigrants to British Columbia developed along a similar yet more nuanced path. On the one hand, white employers extolled Japanese laborers as hardworking and reliable workers who allowed British Columbian industry to flourish. On the other hand, independent Japanese fishermen in British Columbia faced mounting pressure from white fishermen, who regarded them as a threat

1. John Boyko, Last Steps to Freedom: The Evolution of Canadian Racism, (Winnipeg, MB: Watson

& Dwyer Pub, 1995), 9-15.

2. “Final Report of the President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Race Relations,” University

of Guelph, accessed May 4, 2014, https://www.uoguelph.ca/diversity-human-rights/book-page/racism-against-asian-canadians.

32 | UNFOUND

against their own economic viability.

Trapped within the veiled narrative of Canadian racialism, an anti-Asian rally in Vancouver, BC exploded into violence and vandalism on Labour Day in 1907. Despite the utter destruction of both Chinatown and Japantown, and demands made for “White Canada Forever,” the local government charged only twenty-four people with crimes related to the violence.3

Racialist attitudes toward Jap-

farm workers serving in the Canadian military.

On August 1944, Prime Minister Mackenzie King announced a final policy about Japanese and Japanese Canadians on Canadian soil. They were either to be relocated east of the Rocky Mountains, or to be “repatriated” to Japan the following year. Government officials made active efforts to receive the detainees’ compliance in being “repatriated.” Despite the social and

anese Canadians continued to foment throughout the early twentieth century.

On December 7, 1941, the anti-Japanese conviction in Canada reached its pinnacle with the Empire of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor, an American naval base. In the weeks after the bombing, the federal government began its domestic imprisonment program of both Japanese nationals and Japanese Canadians. Segregated from the larger white Canadian society, Japanese Canadians found themselves living in stables and barnyards among other unsanitary environments. Regardless of their Canadian nationality, Japanese Canadians were forced to relocate to locations arbitrarily without trial. Regardless of their economic successes, they were dispossessed of their property and personal belongings. Regardless of their allegiance and oath to Canada, they were confined in concentration camps. In such conditions, Japanese Canadian prisoners labored in lieu of

economic of devastation of Japan in the aftermath of two nuclear bombings, the Liberal government continued its efforts to return forcibly those both of Japanese nationality and of Canadian nationality. On the whole, the aggressive nature of federal policies against Japanese-Canadians communicates a sense of general intolerance towards those of Japanese ethnicity in the 1940s.

In contrast to their treatment in the early twentieth century, Japanese Canadians were celebrated in popular media by 1960. They were painted as a successful and established minority group composed of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry, rather than as Japanese on Canadian soil. As Japanese Canadians distinguished themselves as judges, doctors, and other professional occupations that had been formerly inaccessible to them, anti-Japanese stigma was no longer apparent on the surface of Canadian society.

One potential impetus for this perceptible change was the federal government’s affirmative position

3. Julie Gilmour, “Interpreting Social

Disorder: The Case of the 1907 Vancouver Riots,” International Journal 67 (2012): 484.

Volume 2, Winter 2015 | 33

towards multicultural policies and their propagation. National identification of a multicultural Canada, as well as attempts for respect for diversity, could potentially promote Japanese Canadians’ acceptance within the larger Canadian society. Such political action, however, does not provide a sufficient justification for reversal of anti-Japanese attitudes that had been so prevalent in the earlier decades. The attitudinal change that occurred in only three

provides an ample ground to observe public opinion of Japanese-Canadians in Toronto, where a significant number of refugees of Japanese origin resided after the end of World War II. Considering the circulation figures of both publications, they are unlikely to have taken an exceedingly radical position on political and social issues.

A close assessment of these two periodical publications suggests that depictions of Japanese Canadians in

decades between the years of war and years of multiculturalism may conceivably be more adequately described as a racialist reformation. One necessary component in understanding this reformation, then, is to discern popular awareness and judgments towards Japanese Canadians in the aftermath of World War II.

This paper aims to examine two Canadian newspapers to see general trends of views on Japanese Canadians between the end of World War II and the end of the post-war era. Specifically, this paper will utilize two of the most widely circulated newspapers in Canada, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. All articles containing the terms “Japanese,” “Japanese-Canadians,” and the like published between 1945 and 1958 were read and considered for analyses prior to the development of a specific topic. Their circulation notwithstanding, these two newspapers were selected also for their base of location. Both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail were and still are based in Toronto, Ontario. This situation

Toronto newspapers can be categorized into two frames: the victims of moral injustice frame and the model minority frame. While these two frames are not mutually exclusive, the depictions of Japanese Canadians as victims of moral injustice developed earlier with the fall of Nazi Germany in the spring of 1945.

As one consequence of such framing, the identity of Japanese Canadians became associated more with Canada than with Japan; they were Canadians of Japanese origin and no longer Japanese residents in Canada. The white community’s acceptance of the Japanese Canadians into their collective Canadian identity thus hints at a correlative decline of racialism towards the minority group.

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Historical Overview

At the dawn of the twentieth century, immigrants from the lately modernized Empire of Japan landed on the shores of British Columbia. Many of these colonists settled in Vancouver and communities along the Pacific coast in search of economic prospects

and escape from political turmoil within their home nation.4 Initial responses toward these immigrants were generally positive, as Canadian employers saw them as industrious and hardworking.

In due time, these settlers began creating a Japanese microcosm within the larger Canadian country. Their efforts culminated in the development of Powell Street in Vancouver and the street’s identification as “Japantown.”

The Japanese community con-

lumbian and Canadian people wanted.5 Fourteen years prior, Prime Minister Laurier feared that despite the limitations of Japanese immigration through the Lemieux Agreement, British Columbians were still “full of the idea that their province [was] to be, as a result of a deep plot and design to be taken possession of by a quiet, persistent and systematic Japanese invasion.”6 Due to this ostensibly popular nativist sentiment, both Japanese and Japanese

tinued to develop through the first half of the twentieth century. A prolonged stay in British Columbia eventually led to the distinction between issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants largely of Japanese citizenship) and nisei (second-generation Japanese Canadians of Canadian citizenship). In the decades following their establishment, anti-Japanese sentiments began to grow at an alarming pace in British Columbia. White blue-collar Canadians claimed that non-white immigrants were stealing their jobs away; they felt that non-Canadians were invading their rights. This racial tension culminated in the September 1907 riot in Vancouver during which several Japanese stores and houses were looted, vandalized, and burnt down to ashes.

In 1921, William Lyon Mackenzie King became the prime minister of Canada. His actions regarding Japanese Canadians seem to have arisen from his interpretations of what the British Co-

Canadians faced incredible pressure from white settlers of British Columbia.

Business, labor, and government leaders colluded to increase anti-Japanese economic segregation laws and regulations. By 1941, Japanese Canadians, who had formerly held more than 1000 licenses, held only twelve percent of fishing licenses in British Columbia due to federal and provincial efforts.7

At the dawn of World War II, many Japanese Canadians attempted to enlist in the Canadian military forces, only to be turned away with the reasoning that “if these men [were] called upon to perform the duties of citizens and bear arms for Canada, it [would] be impossible to resist the argument that they are entitled to the franchise.”8

5. Ibid., 123.

6. Patricia Roy, ed., Mutual Hostages:

Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 11.

7. Boyko, Last Steps to Freedom, 125-

126.

120.

4. Boyko, Last Steps to Freedom, 119-

8. J.L. Granatstein, “The Problem of

Religion in Canadian Forces Postings Liebmann vs the Minister of National Defence et

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 35

In December 1941, Japan launched an offensive against Hong Kong and Pearl Harbor. Stories of Japanese atrocities filled Canadian newspapers—one told of Japanese soldiers “tearing into a Red Cross hospital and bayonetting the wounded in their beds.”9 Within a few weeks, Japanese Canadians found their bank accounts frozen and their life and property insurance policies cancelled.

Order in Council PC 9591 ordered all Japanese nationals to register with the

regarding victories against the Japanese military forces and people could be found throughout the papers, several articles fixated on the viciousness of Japanese actions taken against Westerners. Incendiary descriptions such as “Japan’s unbridled reign of brutality in the Philippines,” “a life of cruel slavery … of the 6,500 U.S. soldiers held in Japanese military camps,” and gruesome catalogues of physical punishments continued this tendency to vilify the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as enemy aliens.10 Japanese-Canadian internment had begun.

Japanese people.12 Not only were the people on the whole painted as ruthless, but the papers also reduced them to caricatures of moral injustice.

Considering the warring relations between Canada and Japan, the Canadian government and media’s attempts to vilify the Japanese people may have been justified. However, the federal government also seems to have considered Japanese Canadians as potentially more allied with Japan, their ethnic nation, rather than with Canada, their birth nation. Concerned that their Japanese ancestry would compel them to aid the Japanese war efforts, the federal government relegated Japanese Canadians to living in concentration camps. Despite such predominant framing of the Japanese, depictions of Japanese Canadians altered from a firm racialist attitude to a more pitying tone in 1945. One motivation for such change was the American treatment

Denazifying Canada: Apperception of Racialism in Canada After World War II

One of the most prominent characteristics ascribed to the Japanese people by newspapers was their brutality in handling war prisoners. A headline article on the front page of the Toronto Star in January 1944 described the Japanese as having “brutally murdered most of the 50,000 prisoners taken at Bataan” by torturing, starving, or refusing to serve medical attention to them.11 By citing that “the Japanese violated not only the principles of international law, but all the canons of decent civilized conduct,” the article broadly rendered the people of Japan as uncivilized and brutish. While articles Al.,” Canadian Military History 19, no. 4 (April 9, 2015), 69.

9. Boyko, Last Steps to Freedom, 131.

10. Ibid., 132.

Slavery,” Toronto Daily Star, January 31, 1944;

11. “Charge Japanese Slew Over 25,000

“Saw Japanese Tank Crush U.S. Soldier Delib-

At Bataan,” Toronto Daily Star, January 28, 1944.

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12. Raymond Cronin, “Life of Cruel

erately,” Toronto Daily Star, January 29, 1944.

of Japanese Americans, who had been released from their relocation centers and were allowed to return to their homes on the Pacific coast by March 1945. “Let British Columbia follow the tolerant example of our good neighbor across the border,” stated one reader of the Toronto Star.13 At the ebb of war, then, the Canadian treatment of its own Japanese people was seemingly intolerant.

The very act of internment was

Comparisons between the American government’s treatment of Japanese-Americans and the Canadian government’s treatment of Japanese-Canadians after the war illustrate the overt racialism that had been construed within the Canadian Parliament.

They do not, however, illuminate why the portrayal of Japanese Canadians had changed significantly in 1945 from the Japanese vilification during the war.

Racialism, which had been implicitly

founded upon the fact that internment “was only a war measure, and that Japanese-Canadians would not be allowed to suffer on account of it.” A poll taken in 1945 also showed that the majority of the Canadian populace opposed any forced repatriation of “loyal Japanese-Canadians.”14 Popular opinions visible in Toronto newspapers thus differed from the policies set by the Canadian government. Until the War Measures Act ended in 1947, Japanese Canadians were detained in detainment camps for two additional years after the closure of war. Such prolonged ethnic segregation reveals both the government’s ignoring of public opinion and its active attempts at displacing an undesirable ethnic group from Canada to a country ruined by bombings and nuclear destruction.15, 16

veiled and accepted by the larger Canadian society, seems to have become stigmatized due to the associations that it had with Nazi Germany and its violation of the Jewish people. Prior to 1945, there was some preliminary awareness of the crimes being committed by the Third Reich among the Western public.

As a result of early discoveries, Prime Minister Mackenzie King proclaimed that Canada “must not permit … the hateful doctrine of racialism which is the basis of the Nazi system everywhere.”17 By conjoining racialism with Nazism, King affirmed to the Canadian populace that Canada’s moral righteousness, in contrast to that of the Third Reich, depended on Canada’s ability to denounce racial discrimination. His speech invoked recent memories of terror that had brought tragic ends to millions of Jews across Europe.

The American and British armies’ liberation of concentration camps located in Western Germany in

13. C.E. Jones, “The Japs in Canada,”

Toronto Daily Star, March 20, 1945.

14. “Our Japanese Canadians,” Toronto

Daily Star, March 13, 1945.

15. “People Are Ahead of the Govern-

ment,” Toronto Daily Star, September 6, 1947.

House,” Globe and Mail, March 16, 1948.

16. Warren Baldwin, “No Room for

Doctrine Of ‘White Supremacy,’ Croll Insists in

17. “The Plight of Japanese Canadi-

ans,” Toronto Daily Star, August 7, 1945.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 37

the spring of 1945 attracted extraordinary media attention in the Western world. The notions of Nazi concentration camps and the Jewish ethnic genocide that occurred within them began to arrive at the forefront of public perception.18 The resemblances between the Nazi’s internment of the Jewish people and Canadian internment of the Japanese people had started to affect the ways in which Toronto mass media and people perceived Japanese-Canadians.

people from the standard “white Canadian” in the first half of the twentieth century. The decision to intern the Japanese Canadians was in striking resemblance to the “fascist state of mind [which was] not confined to Germany … by a long shot.” During his speech to the Canadian Association of Scientific Workers, Dr. Gene Weltfish, an anthropologist at Columbia University, pronounced that the United States “always held Canada up as an

No longer was there the simple, brutish inhumanity of the Japanese people, but people who had been wrongly persecuted by the Canadian government.

The concern for the Canadian treatment of Japanese Canadians arose primarily in Toronto newspapers as a response to the fear towards fascism in the aftermath of Nazi Germany’s collapse. “The animus against the Jewish people in Germany,” stated one columnist in the Toronto Star, “was not only racial but also because in the spheres of culture and influence they occupied positions out of all proportion to their number in the population.”19 In short, both racial and economic fears in Germany culminated in the extermination of the Jewish people during World War II.

Likewise, Japanese Canadians were depicted both as a foreign economic menace and ethnically different

example of a country where such things [racialism] couldn’t happen. But lately, a great many overt incidents, some from your own city, have been brought to our attention in U.S. newspapers.

It is an indication of the spread of the Fascist way of thinking.”20 Racialism, which contemporary scholars consider a part of the larger Canadian narrative, was not apparent to those in the 1940s.

It was because of the fear of fascism and the rise of Nazi ideologies that the discriminating treatment of Japanese Canadians became a consideration of “a major Fascist weapon to promote another war.” A growing number of columnists in 1945 and 1946 remarked and evaluated the similarities between both Germany’s and Canada’s treatments of ethnic minorities.21 In addition, other

January 25, 1946.

18. “BBC - History - World Wars,” ac-

20. “Race Disputes Play Game of

Nazis, Scientist Warns,” Toronto Daily Star, 21. “An Outrageous Situation,” Toron-

to Daily Star, November 24, 1945; Anglo-Saxon,

cessed May 5, 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/his-

“On Dangerous Ground,” Toronto Daily Star,

tory/worldwars/wwtwo/liberation_camps_01.

March 24, 1945; “If Japanese, Why Not Italians,

shtml.

Germans? –Rabbi,” Toronto Daily Star, January

19. “Our Japanese Canadians.”

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21, 1946; “Our Japanese Canadians;” “Ousting

authors also raised a question of quasi-religious morality in Canadian racialism of the 1940s.

One group of authors focused on the racialist and, to an extent, white supremacist attitude in Canada that displayed striking similarities with the Nazi philosophy and actions taken against the Jewish population in Germany. The concern found in these articles was a genuine fear of being similar to Nazi Germany in ways that they had

Canadians in internment camps, then, was hypocritical of Canada. Forcible removal of Japanese Canadians without their expressed permission was, according to another contributor, akin to “supporting the anti-democratic Hitlerism theory of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ races.”24 The federal government, which had respected popular anti-Japanese sentiment at the time, was now receiving critical backlash from its supporters for seemingly having com-

not recognized. In other words, observing the effects of Nazi racialism allowed the apperception of Canadian racialism to commence.

One anonymous contributor stated that he was “appalled by the Nazi-like treatment given to one of our minorities [Japanese Canadians].”22 Suggesting that the Canadian treatment of Japanese Canadians had been as cruel as the Nazis’ treatment of Jews at least since the internment began in 1942, the author also questioned whether or not “the home front had so forgotten what we [Canadians] fought for.”23 It was for moral justice that Canada fought in the Second Great War; it was Canada and the Allied Powers who provided humane treatment of prisoners of war and upheld moral superiority. To have contained Japanese

mitted a “Nazi-like action.”25

These sentiments were not solely individual; they later garnered the support a “group of national Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., churches, social agencies, trade unions, and student organizations” that “appealed to the Prime Minister to prevent in Canada what is said to be a Nazi-like action against a minority group.”26 If the Jewish people were persecuted by Nazi Germany, then Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry were about to be persecuted by a Nazi-like Canada. There was, on a fundamental level, a sense of condolence for the Jewish people in German concentration camps and, relatedly, Japanese Canadians in Canadian concentration camps. As one rabbi claims, “there are astonishing resemblances between the status of Jews in Hitlerite Germany and that of the Japanese in present-day Canada” especially as both have

of Japanese-Canadians Borders on Fascism-Rabbi,” Toronto Daily Star, December 3, 1945; Returned Man, “Punishing Innocent,” Toronto Daily Star, October 29, 1945; “The Plight of

Japanese Canadians.”

Ground.”

22. Returned Man, “Punishing Inno-

cent.”

24. Anglo-Saxon, “On Dangerous 25. “The Plight of Japanese Canadi-

ans.”

23. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 39

“aroused antagonism by their economic industry” and ethnicity.27 The support for the federal government’s “repatriation” of Japanese Canadians from its domestic borders had begun to crumble as the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail displayed the phenomenon.

Another group of authors focused on the quasi-religious morality of the governmental actions against Japanese Canadians. This topic complemented those of the previous group

es could no longer be the vanguard of Canada’s morality. They would simply be a degenerate “mess of pious platitudes.”31 A Jewish rabbi on the front page of the Toronto Star described the situation thusly: If Canada permits this wrong to be committed, it will in that little step have forsaken God … as a Jew I speak with authority.

The wrong being contemplated against the Japanese here may

of authors in that it relegated Nazi-like actions as sins against the Judeo-Christian God.28 With regards to the forced deportation process, the writers attempted to answer the question: “how can we face our former friends and our present-day Japanese-Canadians and so sin against God and man[?]”29 The injection of religion into the topic of Nazism not only concerned the morality of the actions being undertaken against the Japanese Canadians, but also brought to the forefront the collective morality of Canada as a whole.

The forced deportation that Prime Minister Mackenzie King signed in 1944 would not simply be a governmental sin; it would be a national sin. This “habit in Canada” was a problem the “home front had forgotten”; it was a problem for Canadian “churches to get their teeth into.”30 Otherwise, church-

be like a whisper that may send an avalanche of evil, precedent after precedent and wrong after wrong. That was the way of Germany under Hitler.32 The racialist policies against Japanese Canadians, then, were following the course of Germany’s policies under Hitler. Canada had been misguidedly praising the “idol of racialism worshipped by Nazi Germany” and “jeopardizing at home victories won abroad.”33 The fear of committing racialist actions running parallel to the Nazis’ submission of an ethnic minority intensified, in light of the Jewish extermination within concentration camps in 1945. The moral horrors of such discoveries and their media propagation transformed the depiction of not only the Jewish people as victims of racialism, but also Japanese Canadians as

27. “If Japanese, Why Not Italians,

Germans? --Rabbi.”

31. Ibid.

32. “U.S. Didn’t Treat Its Japs As

28. L.M. England, “A Minister’s Pro-

test,” Toronto Daily Star, November 28, 1945.

Harshly-- Senator Wilson,” Toronto Daily

29. Ibid.

Star, January 11, 1946.

30. Returned Man, “Punishing Inno-

cent.”

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33. “Ousting of Japanese-Canadians

Borders on Fascism-- Rabbi.”

potential victims of further racialism.

Elements of Nazi atrocities could no longer be tolerated in Canadian society.

A popular push for the denazification of Canadian racialism had begun.

Constructing and Integrating A Model Minority

A close analysis of the portrayal of Japanese-Canadians in Toronto newspapers has shown that the negativity surrounding people of Japanese origin had been largely replaced by the sympathy for those interned and those being forcibly “repatriated” to Japan.

This portrayal suggests, to some extent, the acceptance of Japanese Canadians as Canadian citizens by specifically the white population in Toronto and perhaps the larger white Canadian society.

The portrayal of Japanese Canadians, however, does not remain stagnant as victims of moral injustice, nor does it disappear entirely from public media. Arising from the identification of “Japanese-Canadians” as hyphenated Canadians and not simply Japanese on Canadian soil, the portrayal of Japanese Canadians in the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail transforms into that of a model minority integrating, not assimilating, with the larger white society. That is, the process is bidirectional—Japanese Canadians integrate with white Canadian culture, and white Canadians make active attempts to comprehend Japanese culture.

Not surprisingly, early articles regarding the Japanese-Canadians’ new lives post-internment in 1947 depicted

them as laborers who were “just about the best workers [Ontario farmers] ever had.”34 A return to Japanese Canadians laboring under white employers signaled a return to normalcy after the internees were released from Canadian concentration camps. For instance, West made an active attempt to construe the internment as a minor foible of the recent past and the Japanese diaspora throughout the North American continent as an enhancement of Japanese-Canadian prosperity. There was certainly a great deal of apologist sentiment painted over the ethnic ordeal, yet this attempt invariably presented Japanese Canadians as morally honorable people. The newly relocated Japanese Canadians were presented not only as “innocent victims of war,” but also “just about the best workers [Ontario farmers] ever had.”35 G. Earnest Trueman, a Southern Ontario placement officer in the Japanese Division of the Department of Labor, claimed that “the movement of Japanese to Ontario has really been a boon to Ontario farmers.”36 Japanese Canadians, while being relegated to a position of lower social standing, were portrayed wholly as positive influences in the development of the Ontario economy. At the same time, there was still a sense of cultural insensitivity and a unidirectional attempt to integrate by Japanese Cana

34. Bruce West, “Uprooted Citizens

Living New Lives, Seem Contented in Toronto Area,” Globe and Mail, September 20, 1947.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 41

dians; the headman could not find the “right English spelling for Mr. Nabeta’s first name.”37 Mr. Nabeta was hence fondly called “Barney.” White Canadians were the financiers and employers of Japanese Canadians and did not find reason to understand their culture. The status quo of the past had been restored.

This portrayal of a return to normalcy, however, could no longer remain static. Prior to 1945, Japanese

One implication of such development was the Japanese-Canadian integration into a white Canadian society and their acceptance by it. Another implication of such success was that Japanese-Canadian economic success was seen as a Canadian economic success. No longer did Japanese-Canadian fishermen of the 1900s have to convince their white fishermen that the Japanese were not stealing Canadian jobs. Rather than seeing Japa-

Canadians were not considered Canadian citizens, and were considered second-class citizens at best.38 However, popular opinion towards Canadian citizenship of ethnic minority became more affirmative as a part of growing anti-racialist standpoint. Recognized largely as Canadian citizens by 1950, Japanese Canadians were able to utilize the newfound opportunity to venture into white-dominated work sectors.39 One article mentioned Art Takeshi, an entrepreneur who created his own phonograph company and dominated the phonograph motor market.40 In addition, he also married an Ottawa girl who was born in England, an interracial marriage between two ethnic groups whose relationships were incredibly strained less than a decade before.

nese-Canadian economic growth as a hindrance to the Canadian economy, the white Canadian society accepted Japanese-Canadian successes as Canadian successes. In addition, there was a continuing vilification of the government – specifically the provincial government of British Columbia – for its illiberal and backwards ethnic policies against Japanese Canadians. In contrast, Toronto and Ontario were described as liberal and accepting of “Canadian values” that were “fair and tolerant treatment of minorities.”41 Anti-racialist sentiments, then, were the values that Canada had kept sacred.

Canadian racialism was fundamentally swept under the rug in consideration of denying Canada’s Japanese-Canadian internment and relocation procedures.

Japanese-Canadian children also seemed to have integrated well in the Canadian education system. For instance, Hannah Nagai, a 13-year-old girl of Japanese-Canadian heritage, received the Lord Dufferin Medal for

37. Ibid.

38. Baldwin, “No Room for Doctrine

Of ‘White Supremacy,’ Croll Insists in House.”

39. “Equals Here, Japs Say; B.C. Ban

Off, But Won’t Return,” Toronto Daily Star, March 12, 1949.

40. Bruce West, “Quits West Coast

Broke Builds Industry Here,” Globe and Mail,

September 26, 1947.

New Lives, Seem Contented in Toronto Area.”

42 | UNFOUND

41. West, “Uprooted Citizens Living

highest standing in the entrance class of 600 students.42 “Though Hannah Nagai moved to Toronto only two years ago from Vancouver,” stated one article, “she quickly established herself as an apt and earnest scholar.” Not only were she and other children integrating well without producing any negative depictions of their ethnicity in newspapers, but Hannah Nagai and Japanese-Canadian schoolchildren also distinguished themselves with their

nese-Canadian students effectively integrated into Toronto society and managed to display a reputation for high academic prowess.

There were no negative portrayals of Japanese Canadians in either the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail from 1945 to 1960. While this void does not signify that there were no negative sentiments toward Japanese Canadians, it does imply that they made active efforts not to stand out negatively.

academic prowess. In contrast to Canadian educational communities’ denial of recognition prior to World War II, Toronto communities were actively supporting the Japanese Canadians’ academic endeavors.

Further articles outlined the development and acceptance of Japanese Canadians’ academic abilities by the larger Toronto community. One article praised Lucien C. Kurata for being admitted to the Ontario bar at age 26.43 Another article praised Nancy Edamura for attaining the position of the Posture Queen of Parkdale Collegiate School in 1949.44 A different article reported that Japanese Canadians were awarded the top Carter scholarships at McMaster University.45 Within a decade, Japa-

Beyond these active efforts, Canadian writers’ descriptions of this ethnic minority served to construct the depiction of Japanese Canadians as a model minority. For instance, a particular author described them as “men and women desiring to enter the Canadian armed forces… loyally.”46 The article depicted Japanese Canadians as having done no wrong in Canada and as some of the most morally just, “law-abiding citizens.” Another writer praised “the conduct of the Japanese-Canadians during this painful ordeal” of internment and relocation, solidifying the honorable and perhaps stoic portrayal of Japanese Canadians.47 One study promoted by the Toronto Star narrated that “most Canadians are more tolerant toward this racial minority than the government gives them credit for being, and much more tolerant than

42. “Lord Dufferin Medal Is Awarded

to Girl, 13,” Globe and Mail, December 4, 1948.

43. “Japanese-Canadians Take Schol-

arships,” Toronto Daily Star, November 27, 1948.

44. “Young Japanese Born in Canada

vember 20, 1948.

’49 Posture Girl,” Globe and Mail, March 10,

46. “An Outrageous Situation.”

1949.

47. Charles Huestis, “Japanese Cana-

45. “First Japanese-Canadian, 26, Is

Admitted to Ontario Bar,” Globe and Mail, No-

dians Victims of Injustice,” Toronto Daily Star, September 11, 1948.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 43

some government policy makers.”48 By blaming the government for the Nazi-like actions taken against Japanese Canadians, the Canadian populace was able to absolve itself from moral guilt and integrate Japanese Canadians into their society positively.

In addition to the acceptance of Japanese Canadians into white Toronto community, there were also active efforts made by the white community itself to understand this foreign cul-

a small Japanese-Canadian population lived surrounded by white Canadian settlement, the white Canadian visitor entered a Japanese-Canadian cultural space. For example, Canadians dining in the restaurant “compl[ied] with Japanese tradition,” which was to be “the fun of it all” in gaining knowledge about an unfamiliar culture. But never to be restricted to complete Japanese customs, the diners could “stretch their legs under the table and make

ture. Rather than assimilating foreign culture, their primary objective seems to have been making bidirectional efforts to integrate both cultures. While it is evident that Japanese Canadians made an attempt at this effort by not recreating the insulated Japantown that caused so much racial tension in Vancouver decades prior, it is not so clear that white Toronto community made reciprocal efforts.

Close observations of the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail provide the insight that both sides made efforts to accommodate bidirectional integration. The article “Japanese Dishes Introduced” from the Globe and Mail described a Japanese-Canadian restaurant that serves both familiar Westernized Oriental food as well as traditional Japanese cuisine.49 The writing conveyed the idea that such restaurants provide room for mutual understanding—within a society where

use of the back and arm rests provided for the occasion.” “The only request,” said the owner of the restaurant, was to “be comfortable.”50 Japanese culture continued to be propagated throughout the Toronto community through efforts made by Japanese Canadians to host and white Canadians to attend.51

By 1958, both Japanese-Canadian Christians and white Canadian Christians were even able to merge in order to have a single congregation as both churches’ membership expanded.52 As both parties made efforts to understand and be understood by each other, the bidirectional integration of both Japanese Canadians and white Canadiansin Toronto transformed the portrayal and perhaps perception of Japanese Canadians from anti-Canadian, unreliable immigrants to successful minorities by the end of the 1950s.

50. Ibid.

51. Mona Purser, “The Homemaker,”

Globe and Mail, May 10, 1948.

48. “People Are Ahead of the Govern-

ment.”

52. “Centennial United, Japanese-Canadian Congregations Hold Joint Communion Service

49. Mary Jukes, “Japanese Dishes

Introduced,” Globe and Mail, January 26, 1956.

44 | UNFOUND

As Churches Merge,” Toronto Daily Star, January 6, 1958.

The framing of Japanese Canadians prior to 1945 expresses the implicit racialism that had been prevalent in Canadian society throughout the settlement of Asians in British Columbia.

This framing formed the basis for the reformation that would occur in 1945 with the awareness of Nazi injustices and racial intolerance toward the Jewish people. Moral and ethical consequences of forcing Japanese Canadians into laboring in internment camps and

media.53 Despite the lack of such depiction, the positive responses towards Japanese Canadians seem to suggest that this particular ethnic group has been accepted largely by at least the Toronto community prior to the federal propagation of a multicultural Canada.

Canadian society, in effect, had already begun its journey towards an anti-racialist Canada.

attempts to expatriate them to Japan, despite most of their Canadian citizenship, brought pity and sympathy for this ethnic minority. The King government, which had tended to follow public opinion, had lost much support from the public by allowing these ostensibly Nazi-like atrocities to be inflicted upon its own Japanese-Canadian citizens.

Japanese Canadians were then able to succeed economically and academically through this claim of Canadian citizenship. Both Japanese Canadians and white Toronto society made efforts to understand one other’s cultures.

From a larger context, framing of Japanese Canadians as Canadian citizens who were victims of political injustice arose again in 1957 with the debate surrounding the Canadian Bill of Rights. While this phenomenon accentuates the acceptance of Japanese Canadians as Canadian citizens, the lack of substantial news regarding them post-enactment suggests that they were, by and large, considered to be a minority group of somewhat trivial importance in white-dominated Canadian

1.

Bibliography Anglo-Saxon. “On Dangerous Ground.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). March 24, 1945.

2.

Baldwin, Warren. “No Room for Doctrine Of ‘White Supremacy,’ Croll Insists in House.”

Globe and Mail (1936-Current). March 16, 1948. “BBC - History - World Wars: Liberation of the Concentration Camps.” Accessed May 5, 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ worldwars/wwtwo/liberation_camps_01. shtml.

3.

Boyko, John. Last Steps to Freedom: The Evolution of Canadian Racism. Winnipeg, MB: Watson & Dwyer Pub, 1995.

4.

“Centennial United, Japanese-Canadian Congregations Hold Joint Communion Service As Churches Merge.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). January 6, 1958.

5.

“Charge Japanese Slew Over 25,000 At Bataan.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). January 28, 1944.

6.

Cronin, Raymond. “Life of Cruel Slavery.”

Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). January 31, 1944.

7.

England, L.M. “A Minister’s Protest.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). November 28, 1945.

“Equals Here, Japs Say; B.C. Ban Off, But Won’t Return.” Toronto Daily Star (19001971). March 12, 1949.

53. Minelle Mahtani, “Represent-

ing Minorities: Canadian Media and Minority Identities,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 33, no. 3 (September 2001): 99.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 45

8.

“Final Report of the President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Race Relations.” University of Guelph. Accessed May 4, 2014. https:// www.uoguelph.ca/diversity-human-rights/ book-page/racism-against-asian-canadians.

9.

“First Japanese-Canadian, 26, Is Admitted to

22. “People Are Ahead of the Government.”

Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). September 6, 1947.

23. “The Plight of Japanese Canadians.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). August 7, 1945.

24. Purser, Mona. “The Homemaker: Cherry

Ontario Bar.” Globe and Mail (1936-Current).

Blossom Program Mixed Western, Oriental.”

November 20, 1948.

The Globe and Mail (1936-Current). May 10,

10. Granatstein, J.L. “The Problem of Religion

1948.

in Canadian Forces Postings Liebmann vs the

25. “Race Disputes Play Game of Nazis, Scien-

Minister of National Defence et Al.” Canadian

tist Warns.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971).

Military History 19, no. 4 (April 9, 2015).

11. Gilmour, Julie. “Interpreting Social Disorder: The Case of the 1907 Vancouver Riots.”

International Journal 67 (2012): 484.

12. Huestis, Charles. “Japanese Canadians Victims of Injustice.” Toronto Daily Star (19001971). September 11, 1948.

13. “If Japanese, Why Not Italians, Germans?

--Rabbi.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971).

January 21, 1946.

14. “Japanese-Canadians Take Scholarships.”

Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). November 27, 1948.

15. Jones, C.E. “The Japs in Canada.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). March 20, 1945.

16. Jukes, Mary. “Japanese Dishes Introduced.”

January 25, 1946.

26. Returned Man. “Punishing Innocent.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). October 29, 1945.

27. Roy, Patricia, ed. Mutual Hostages: Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

28. “Saw Japanese Tank Crush U.S. Soldier Deliberately.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971).

January 29, 1944.

29. “U.S. Didn’t Treat Its Japs As Harshly-- Senator Wilson.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971).

January 11, 1946.

30. West, Bruce. “Quits West Coast Broke Builds Industry Here.” Globe and Mail (1936-Current).

September 26, 1947.

31. ______. “Uprooted Citizens Living New

Globe and Mail (1936-Current). January 26,

Lives, Seem Contented in Toronto Area:

1956.

Japanese -Canadians Now Happily Settled on

17. “Lord Dufferin Medal Is Awarded to Girl, 13.”

Globe and Mail (1936-Current). December 4, 1948.

18. Mahtani, Minelle. “Representing Minorities: Canadian Media and Minority Identities.”

Canadian Ethnic Studies 33, no. 3 (September 2001): 99.

19. “Our Japanese Canadians.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). March 13, 1945. http:// search.proquest.com/hnptorontostar/ docview/1417590714/citation/C0DDCE3E95444302PQ/37?accountid=15172.

20. “Ousting of Japanese-Canadians Borders on Fascism-- Rabbi.” Toronto Daily Star (19001971). December 3, 1945.

21. “An Outrageous Situation.” Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971). November 24, 1945.

46 | UNFOUND

Ontario Farms.” Globe and Mail (1936-Current). September 20, 1947.

32. “Young Japanese Born in Canada ’49 Posture Girl.” Globe and Mail (1936-Current). March 10, 1949.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 47

Unwanted Allies: Proposition 209 and Model Minority Discourse in 1990s California Politics Joy Yueyang Chen, Yale University ’15 Abstract In November 1996, California passed Proposition 209, a ballot initiative that banned affirmative action in education, employment, and contracting across all of California’s public institutions.

Although California’s white voters were the proposition’s primary supporters, the conservative marketing strategy for Proposition 209 centered on rhetoric that cast affirmative action as discriminatory against Asian Americans. Conservatives insisted that Proposition 209 would benefit this minority group, but exit polls revealed that Asian Americans voted overwhelmingly against Proposition 209. Asian Americans spoke out against the initiative through a variety of outlets, and engaged in educational campaigns to mobilize others. This article will examine this disagreement between conservative marketing and Asian American opinion of Proposition 209. It will track the political atmosphere in 1990’s California, the rhetoric employed by conservatives, and the Asian American response to this rhetoric and Proposition 209. In examining these three elements, this article will probe the position of Asian Americans in California politics in the 1990’s.

Introduction

“The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” So reads the text of the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), also known as Proposition 209, a California ballot initiative that passed in November 1996 by a vote of 54 percent to 46 percent. With its passing, Proposition 209 effectively banned California’s affirmative action policies in all public institutions.1

Rhetorically reminiscent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the text of Proposition 209 appears benign. And yet, in the months leading up to its passage, many characterized the proposition as deceptive at best, and as a harbinger of “U.S. Apartheid” at worst.2 In a 1996 news segment, NBC Los Angeles described the zealous debate surrounding Proposition 209 as a “war of emotion.”3 The segment presented sideby-side anecdotes from proponents and advocates of Proposition 209. Professor

1. Leland T. Saito, Race and Politics: Asian Americans, Latinos, and Whites in a Los Angeles

Suburb (Chicago: University of Illinois Press), 1998, 99.

2. Carlos Munoz, “U.S. Apartheid Begins,” The Denver Post, April 27, 1997, G-02.

3. “Proposition 209 Puts Emphasis on Supporters and Detractors of Affirmative Action,” NBC

Nightly News, (New York: NBC Universal), November 4, 1996.

48 | UNFOUND

Gabrielle Forman, an African American professor at U.C. Berkeley, stated that she “wouldn’t be a professor at [Berkeley] without affirmative action,” while Michael Cornelius, a white contractor from San Diego, said that he had lost ten to fifteen contracts over the past five years to minority companies as a result of affirmative action policy.4 At its heart, the debate over Proposition 209 hinged upon a fundamental difference in worldview. Proposition 209’s

groups are not limited by nationality, but may also include ethnic peoples, such as the Hmong. This pan-ethnic grouping of “Asian American” arose in the late 1960s, when UCLA historian and Asian-American activist Yuji Ichioka coined the term to create a new “self-defining” and politically powerful minority group.6 A few decades later, Asian Americans did not seem to constitute a minority group at all.

Though still outnumbered by the white

supporters perceived it as a necessary legal step towards the realization of true equality in a color-blind society. Opponents denounced 209 as a threat to affirmative action, which they viewed as a crucial reparative measure to combat the realities of enduring inequality. To Prop 209’s supporters, the civil rights remedies of the 1960s had gone too far—to its opponents, not far enough.

In the midst of this debate on race, fairness, and equal opportunity, one group in particular occupied an awkward and uncertain position.

Though affirmative action policy was widely understood to benefit minorities, it did not always seem to help Asian Americans. The 2000 United States Census defines Asian Americans as those having family origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent—including, for example, China, India, Japan, Cambodia, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.5 Asian

majority, Asians had shed many of the socioeconomic and cultural hallmarks associated with minorities, and were not popularly understood as disadvantaged. In 1980, the United States census reported that the median family income for Asian Americans was $2,700 higher than that for the US population as a whole.7 By 1991, Asians were twice as likely to have finished four years of college as whites.8 Though these figures elide the ethnic and class diversity of Asian Americans and overlook the poverty, racism, and poor education that many experienced in the 1980s and 1990s, they nonetheless formed the prevailing stereotype of Asian Americans during this period. This indefinite People: Asians in the United States,” https:// www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/censr-17.pdf (accessed Jan 5, 2015).

6. K. Connie Kang, “Yuji Ichioka, 66;

Led Way in Studying Lives of Asian Americans,” Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2002.

7. Pan Suk Kim and Gregory B. Lew-

is, “Asian Americans in the Public Service: Success, Diversity, and Discrimination,” Public

4. Ibid.

Administration Review 54:3 (1994): 286.

5. U.S. Census Bureau, “We the

8. Ibid.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 49

position that Asian Americans occupied—between majority and minority, advantaged and disadvantaged—complicated their involvement in the debate on affirmative action. For Proposition 209’s drafters and advocates, the complex position of Asian Americans became a useful political and rhetorical tool to attack affirmative action policies.

Issue-framing was central to the passage of Proposition 209, which

resolve more than just the grievances of conservative whites. In their discussion of race-based affirmative action policies, neoconservative supporters of Proposition 209 portrayed Asian Americans as the victims of discrimination.

Political scientists Edward Park and John Park have described the political framing of Proposition 209 as one in which conservative politicians cast Asian Americans as victims of “reverse discrimination,” and other minorities

was drafted by Tom Wood and Glynn Custred—two California academics and members of the National Association of Scholars, a conservative organization opposed to multiculturalism, affirmative action, and “liberal bias” in education.9 The California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, the organization that provided funding for Proposition 209, was headed by University of California Regent and conservative critic Ward Connerly and co-chaired by right-wing legal scholar Gail Heriot.10 The California Republican Party and Republican Governor Pete Wilson also endorsed the initiative.11 Despite its right-leaning support base, Proposition 209 was widely advertised as a piece of non-partisan legislation. Advocates insisted that Proposition 209 would

as the “unfair beneficiaries” of affirmative action.12

Despite this characterization of Asian Americans as unwitting victims, polls showed that they overwhelmingly supported affirmative action and voted strongly against Proposition 209.13 A Los Angeles Times exit poll indicated that 61 percent of Asian-American voters opposed 209, and their opposition cut across party lines.14 In the Bay Area and Los Angeles, that figure rose to 84 percent.15 The San Jose Mercury News reported just three days before Proposition 209’s passing that, “72 percent of Asians… see less opportunity for racial and ethnic minorities.”16 In Sacramen-

9. Angela Dillard, Guess Who’s Com-

Journal of Asian American Studies 2:3 (1999), 300.

ing to Dinner Now? Multicultural Conservatism in

America (New York: NYU Press, 2001), 89.

10. Lydia Chavez, The Color Bind: Cali-

12. Edward J.W. Park and John S.W.

Park, “A New American Dilemma?: Asian Americans and Latinos in Race Theorizing,”

13. Saito, Race and Politics, 99.

14. Chavez, The Color Bind, 236.

15. Bert Eljera, “Civil Rights Defender:

fornia’s Battle to End Affirmative Action (Berkeley:

Leading the Challenge to Prop 209,” Asian-

University of California Press, 1998), 124.

week, December 26, 1996, 9.

11. John S. Herrington, “GOP Acted on

16. Michael Cronk, “Minorities’ Grim

Principle in Prop. 209 Campaign,” Wall Street

View of 209: They Feel Need For Affirmative

Journal, December 17, 1996, A23.

Action, Poll Shows,” San Jose Mercury News,

50 | UNFOUND

to alone, over thirty Asian-American businesses, student organizations, civic groups, and professional associations publically endorsed affirmative action prior to the November 1996 elections.17 Numerous Asian-American activists, students, scholars and politicians spoke against Proposition 209 in a variety of arenas—at town hall meetings, during fundraisers, and through media outlets.

Though many scholars and journalists have explored the racial

claims that Proposition 209 passed because many Californian whites “resent[ed] African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.”19 However, he does not discuss how politicians used Asian-American “victims” to justify this resentment. Political scientists like Claire Jean Kim and OiYan Poon have examined the broader trends of racial triangulation—whereby dominant whites valorize Asians relative to blacks—but they also have yet to apply

discourse surrounding Proposition 209, few have explicitly examined the Asian-American involvement in that dialogue. In The Color Bind: California’s Battle to End Affirmative Action, New York Times journalist Lydia Chavez highlights the central role that female, African-American, and Latino activists played in the opposition to Proposition 209, but gives only a nod to Asian-American participation. Though Chavez acknowledges that 61 percent of Asian Americans voted against Proposition 209, she does not probe the reasoning behind this opposition or identify Asian-American organizing as a prominent voice in the conversation.18 Bob Laird, the former Admissions Director of the University of California, Berkeley, similarly overlooks Asian-American involvement in his analysis of the debate over Proposition 209. In his work, The Case for Affirmative Action in University Admissions, Laird

this framework to an in-depth analysis of Proposition 209.20

This essay seeks to remedy the lack of literature on Asian-American activism against Proposition 209. It will examine how conservative politicians and commentators peddled a simplistic image of Asian-American victimhood to advance Proposition 209, and the myriad ways in which Asian-American constituencies resisted both this characterization and the initiative at large. The first part of this essay will establish the background against which this conflict arose and explore the atmosphere of rising social and economic conservatism through the 1980s and 1990s, at both the national and state levels. Proposition 209 was not an anomaly in the state of California, but rather emerged from a period of growing distaste for racial

19. Bob Laird, The Case for Affirmative

Action in University Admission (Berkeley: Bay November 3, 1996, 3B.

Tree Publishing, 2006), 104.

17. Andy Noguchi, “Letters to The

Sacramento Bee,” September 29, 1996, F04.

18. Chavez, The Color Bind, 236.

20. Claire Jean Kim, “The Racial Tri-

angulation of Asian Americans”, Politics and Society 27:1 (1999), 107.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 51

preferences across the country. With the landscape of conservatism in place, this essay will next tackle Proposition 209’s entry onto California’s political scene and examine the ways in which conservatives at the national, state, and local levels of politics discussed Proposition 209. Specifically, this paper will probe how the conservative framing of Proposition 209 both relied on and perpetuated Asian-American stereotypes. Finally, this essay will examine

1960s and 1970s, the Asian-American mobilization against Proposition 209 in the 1990s was decidedly more moderate, though it occasionally borrowed the rhetoric of an earlier era. Much of the organizational effort against 209 involved community-based educational campaigns, editorials published in ethnic newspapers and magazines, and legal measures to block the initiative.

In analyzing the various Asian-American responses to Proposition 209, we

Asian-American responses to Proposition 209. How did Asian Americans of different ethnic, class, and immigration backgrounds react to the initiative?

Was there agreement across a pan-ethnic Asian-American community, or was the response more fractious?

The conflict between the conservative marketing of Proposition 209 and the majority Asian-American opinion reflects an important tension in the history of late 20th-century race relations. The tension highlights not only the simplification and exploitation of racial discourse in an age of conservative politics, but also the emergence of a growing Asian-American electorate with a complex voice. Asian Americans occupied a tenuous position in the public discourse on race and politics in the late 1990s and found themselves vulnerable to political manipulation.

Yet they nonetheless made efforts to speak for themselves, both in the press and at the polls. They contested their simplistic characterization with methods unique to their time; in contrast with the radical activism of the

can understand the discrete sensibilities of a complex minority group that was painted over with a broad brush.

52 | UNFOUND

Affirmative Action’s Coming of Age— The National Picture In 1963, following the forced desegregation of the University of Alabama, President John F. Kennedy delivered a nationally televised address in which he called for nationwide participation in the struggle for civil rights. Speaking against racial segregation in public facilities, employment, and education, Kennedy declared that, “Race has no place in American life or law.”21 With the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, it appeared that Kennedy’s declaration would be fully realized. Not only did the Civil Rights Act prohibit discrimination on the grounds of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” but it also ushered in an era of affirmative action policy.22

21. John F. Kennedy, “Report to the

American People on Civil Rights” (speech, Washington, DC, June 11, 1963).

22. “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of

In September 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, which mandated United States government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed.”23 Affirmative action, implemented largely in the areas of contracting, employment, and education, favored those belonging to groups suffering from structural and historical discrimination. Affirmative action policies were understood as necessary re-

Civil Rights Act,” Connerly reminded the public that, “Race has no place in American life or law.”25 In a mere thirty-three years, the rhetoric of civil rights had been flipped on its head. The passage of Proposition 209 redefined the fundamental underpinnings of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Connerly’s vision of affirmative action was not anachronistic, but rather built upon decades of change that had altered the nation’s understanding of

medial measures, enacted to affirm the civil rights of disadvantaged minorities.

By the 1970s, numerous public and private institutions across America had adopted affirmative action policies in hiring and admissions.24

In February 1997, the Wall Street Journal published an article by the conservative political activist Ward Connerly, the chief advocate of Proposition 209. In his article, Connerly invoked the language of President Kennedy’s 1963 Civil Rights Announcement to laud the passage of Proposition 209 and to endorse a federal ban on affirmative action. Calling upon American society to realize its “colorblind commitment … made with the passage of the 1964

affirmative action. From the late 1970s onwards, affirmative action encountered many legal challenges, and the Supreme Court increasingly demanded that policies be examined with precision.26 In the landmark 1978 case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a divided Supreme Court determined that the University’s use of fixed quotas for minority students in their medical school admissions violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.27 Though Bakke upheld affirmative action in general, it struck down the use of strict racial quotas. Through the 1980s, the courts continued to limit the scope of affirmative action. In 1984, the court ruled in Stotts v. Memphis Fire Department that race could not trump seniority in the case of lay-offs—in other

1964,” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accessed January 10, 2015, http://www.

eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm.

‘Gut’ Affirmative Action,” Wall Street Journal,

23. “Executive Order No. 11246,” U.S.

25. Ward Connerly, “Prop 209 Wont

February 11, 1997, A22.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ac-

cessed January 10, 2015, http://www.eeoc.gov/

Americans and Affirmative Action,” Nexus, A

eeoc/history/35th/thelaw/eo-11246.html.

Journal of Opinion 47 (1996), 9.

24. Gautam Dutta, “Tokenism, 209,

26. Daniel P. Tokaji, “The Club: Asian

27. “A Brief History of Affirmative

and the Politicization of Asian Americans,”

Action,” UC Irvine Office of Equality Opportu-

UCLA Asian Pacific American Law Journal 45

nity and Diversity, accessed November 3, 2014,

(1998): 209.

http://www.oeod.uci.edu/aa.html.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 53

words, minorities could be fired before non-minority employees with seniority.28 As the late 1980s ushered in an increasingly conservative Supreme Court under the Reagan administration, the court began to take a more hardline approach towards affirmative action policy. In 1989, the court ruled in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. that the city of Richmond’s set-aside program, which awarded minority businesses a portion of its municipal contracts, was

during the Carter administration, and the increasing crime in many urban areas. Neoconservatives expertly meshed these various issues together and drew connections between the social crises of crime, the decline in family values, and the negative economic consequences of welfare spending.30 By the 1980s, an irrefutable link could be drawn between neoconservative policies and their impact on communities of color.

unconstitutional.29 In these cases and many more, the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action in general while eliminating those elements that they found unnecessary or even detrimental to ending discrimination. In doing so, the court both proclaimed its support of affirmative action and declared that affirmative action could not advance equality in all circumstances.

These restrictions on affirmative action did not exist in the vacuum of the judiciary, but were endorsed by the era’s conservative politics at large. Through the latter half of the 20th century, conservatism in United States politics grew in popularity and intensity. Neoconservatives comprised a coalition of Christian religious leaders, conservative businesspeople, and other fringe groups who opposed the major cultural and social changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Issues that galvanized this coalition included the 1973 Roe v.

Wade decision, the economic downturn

The racial nature of neoconservative policy was most evident in the realm of social welfare. Throughout the 1980s, neoconservatives increasingly latched on to the problem of the inner-city poor, comprised largely of African Americans, who became known as the “urban underclass.”31 Neoconservatives classified the “intractable” poverty of the urban underclass as a behavioral and cultural problem, rather than as an issue defined by occupation or income level.32 To bolster this notion of African-American poverty, the Reagan administration popularized images of “welfare queens and drug pushers,” in what sociologists Nancy Abelmann and John Lie have described as a political maneuver to sustain conservative ascendancy “by a fear and loathing of

30. Dana Takagi, The Retreat From Race:

Asian- American Admissions and Racial Politics (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 114.

31. Nancy Abelmann and John Lie, Blue

Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles

28. Ibid.

Riots (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

29. “A Brief History of Affirmative Ac-

1995), 170.

tion.”

54 | UNFOUND

32. Ibid., 172.

the underclass.”33 Conservative scholars and polemicists of the 1980s held that poverty was an intransigent cultural problem specific to blacks. “In this line of reasoning,” Abelmann and Lie write, “governmental and external efforts to eradicate poverty were doomed to fail.”34 On the basis of this racial and socioeconomic framework, the Reagan administration proceeded to gut major social programs.

ed of either immigrants or the children of immigrants.36 Most immigrants, both documented and undocumented, arrived from Mexico and Asian countries.37

California’s new Asian immigrant populations were extremely diverse.

With the passage of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, which ended over eighty years of Asian exclusion, the Golden State saw a massive influx of Asian immigration.

By 1990, seven of the ten counties with the largest Asian American populations

“Race Wars” in California and the Model Minority By the 1990s, the state of California—the most ethnically diverse state in America—served as the ideal setting for the racial framework of these social policies to begin to come undone. The only state where ethnic minorities outnumbered non-Hispanic Whites, California boasted countless ethnic groups of different class backgrounds, religious ideologies, and political affiliations. Immigration, in large part, produced this diversity. Between 1980 and 1994, California gained 2.8 million new residents through immigration, excluding the estimated 1.4 to 2 million undocumented immigrants that arrived in this period.35 By 1994, nearly 24 percent of Californians were foreign-born, and 42 percent of California’s school-age population consist-

in the United States belonged to California.38 These Asian-American populations consisted of many different ethnic groups. While California boasted the largest Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong populations in the country, it was also a site of enormous Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and South Asian immigration.39 Asian Americans in California ran the full range of the socioeconomic spectrum as well, from well-educated South and East Asian immigrants in pursuit of higher education to destitute Southeast Asian refugees. While Japanese Americans had the highest median family income of $51,550, Hmong Americans had an average family income of just $14,327.40 In religious belief, California’s Asian immigrant populations also differed significantly. Filipino and Vietnamese populations often practiced Catholicism—a product of 16th-century

33. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

34. Abelmann and Lie, Blue Dreams,

37. Ibid.

38. Timothy P. Fong, The Contemporary

172.

35. Caroline J. Tolbert and Rodney E.

Asian American Experience (Upper Saddle River:

Hero, “Dealing with Diversity: Racial/Ethnic

Prentice Hall, 1998),

Context and Social Policy Change,” Political

39. Ibid., 28.

Research Quarterly 54:3 (2001), 578.

40. Ibid., 63.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 55

Spanish and 19th-century French colonialism, respectively.41 By contrast, Koreans experienced a history of Christian conversion, and often practiced Protestantism in their Korean-American immigrant communities.42 Many Chinese were either Buddhist or atheist.43

With its massive immigrant population and diversity of ethnicities, class backgrounds, and religions, California became a site of burgeoning

ti-minority initiatives to gain control over the political arena. Beginning in 1986, voters adopted Proposition 63— an initiative that declared English as the official language of California.46 In 1994, whites overwhelmingly supported Proposition 187, a measure that denied social services like health care and public education to undocumented immigrants and their children.47 Because whites outnumbered minorities as registered voters, they successfully passed

racial tension in the 1990s. Political scientists have applied the “racial threat” theory—typically used to describe Southern White voting patterns—to California. According to the “racial threat” theory, whites living amongst many minorities are more likely to support policies detrimental to those minority groups, in response to the intergroup competition for political control over an area.44 In California, where whites constituted only 52 percent of the state population but 88 percent of registered voters, “racial threat” behavior appeared frequently.45 From the late 1980s into the 1990s, California politics became increasingly conservative, as white voters passed a number of anti-immigrant and an-

initiatives that threatened minority groups and immigrants in particular; both Proposition 63 and Proposition 187 disproportionately impacted California’s Hispanic and Asian populations.

The 1992 Los Angeles Riots serve as perhaps the most interesting and revealing example of California’s racial crises in this era. The riots began on April 29, 1992, after the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers who had been videotaped beating an African-American man named Rodney King. African Americans took to the streets—looting stores, staging protests, and engaging in acts of civil disobedience to protest the acquittal.

Assault, arson, and shootings occurred, too. During the six days of rioting, a majority of the businesses destroyed belonged to Korean Americans. Over half of the 3,100 Korean-American businesses in Los Angeles suffered damage, totaling over 350 million dollars.48

41. Ibid., 53.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. R. Michael Alvarez and Lisa Garcia

Bedolla, “The Revolution Against Affirmative Action in California: Racism, Economics, and Proposition 209,” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 4:1 (2004), 11.

46. Ibid., 573.

47. Ibid.

48. Abelmann and Lie, Blue Dreams, 5.

45. Tolbert and Hero, “Dealing with

Diversity,” 575.

56 | UNFOUND

The media and conservative commentators in particular capitalized on the multiethnic nature of this conflict, characterizing African Americans as villains and Korean Americans as victims. Political scientists have described the framing of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots as an example of racial triangulation, whereby dominant whites valorize Asian Americans relative to Blacks, while simultaneously ostracizing Asians from other areas of

initiatives, but rather became the victims of the black urban underclass. By casting Korean Americans as the victims of African-American abuse, conservatives both reinforced the popular notion of the underclass and bolstered their argument against welfare policy.

However, Korean Americans themselves often disagreed with their characterization as victims engaged in a race war. On the whole, the mainstream media locked Korean Americans out of

society.49 When publicly discussing the riots, neoconservatives explicitly used the Korean position to disparage African American protestors. Politicians like Patrick Buchanan condemned the lootings as “the mindless anarchy and pathological violence of the poor,” and drew attention to the Korean American “victims” of the riots.50 The media repeatedly described Koreans as “model American citizens” with strong capitalist impulses and an industrious work ethic.51 Conservative publications like American Spectator and Heterodoxy lauded Korean immigrants’ reluctance to rely on welfare, and described Koreans as an “argument against the narcotic of self-pity… that has become the elevator music of the ghetto.”52 In the context of the LA Riots, Asian Americans were not merely minorities to be dealt with through anti-immigrant

the conversation. ABC did not invite a single Korean American to participate in a Nightline episode on the so-called “Black-Korean conflict,” prompting an intense protest from Korean Americans across the country.53 Oftentimes, Koreans saw the media portrayal of the conflict as both a fabrication and an attempt to stir up intra-minority conflict.54 In an article for the Korea Times, Jae-Won Lee denounced the media for casting the conflict in racial terms, calling it the “politicization and bureaucratization of a national tragedy.”55 Most critiques, like Lee’s, condemned the media and conservative oversimplification of the riots.

Neoconservatives succeeded in their racial triangulation of the Los Angeles Riots in part because the image of Asian Americans as a “model minority” had already permeated American culture by 1992. Claire Jean Kim defines the model minority myth as the misguided notion that Asian Americans are all “hardworking, law-abiding, thrifty, fam-

49. Claire Jean Kim, “Playing the

Racial Trump Card: Asian Americans in Contemporary U.S. Politics,” Amerasia Journal 26:3 (2000-2001), 37.

53. Ibid., 153.

50. Abelmann and Lie, Blue Dreams, 6.

54. Ibid.

51. Ibid., 163.

55. Jae-Won Lee, “Dehumanizing the

52 Ibid., 164.

Los Angeles Riots,” Korea Times, July 6, 1992, 6.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 57

ily-oriented, and education-revering people who have made it in American society and should serve as a “model’ for other, less virtuous minorities, especially blacks.”56 This notion of the model minority featured most prominently in education. Through the 1980s and early 1990s, Asian-American work ethic came to the forefront of nearly every conversation on academics, and Asian-American “overachievers” became a pervasive cultural stereotype.

describing it as a potentially “misleading stereotype that masks individuality and conceals real problems,” its overall thrust only affirmed the model minority myth.59 The article insisted that Asian-American dominance in education “is going to be a great blessing to society,” and quoted Harvard Psychology Professor Jerome Kagan’s assertion that, “To put it plainly, [Asians] work harder.”60

This notion of hard work as the

The nation’s top newspapers and magazines published a spate of articles over the course of the 80s and 90s devoted to the subject of Asian-American academic success. TIME magazine devoted its August 31, 1987 cover to the story of “Those Asian-American Whiz Kids.”57 The cover photo depicted a group of Asian-American students— backpacks slung over their shoulders and textbooks in their arms— smiling agreeably at the camera. The article opened with a list of assumed facts about Asian-American students—that they excel on the math section of the SAT, spend more time on homework, take more advanced high school courses, and have higher GPAs than students of other racial backgrounds.58 Though the article gave a nod to the damaging effects of the model minority myth,

motor behind Asian-American success served as a convenient explanation for the perceived shortcomings of other minority groups in education. Numerous articles published in the 80s and 90s lauded Asian-American students’ work ethic while noting the comparative lack of tenacity in Black and Latino students. In 1986, the New York Times published a lengthy article entitled, “Why Asians Are Going to the Head of the Class,” which explored the reason behind Asian-American students’ exceptional test scores. The article cited numerous studies on Asian-American academic work ethic, including one survey of San Francisco high school students’ average hours spent doing homework. Following these quantitative data, the article presented testimony from Thomas Sowell, a conservative economist and author on race and education: “It’s an old fashioned story, if you work hard, you do well…

Asian kids study harder than white and black kids and are getting better

56. Claire Jean Kim and Taeku Lee,

“Interracial Politics: Asian Americans and Other Communities of Color,” Political Science and Politics 32:3 (2001), 634.

57. Ted Thai, “Those Asian-American

Whiz Kids,” TIME, August 31, 1987, cover.

58. David Brand, “The New Whiz

Kids,” TIME, August 31, 1987.

58 | UNFOUND

59. Brand, “The New Whiz Kids.”

60. Ibid.

grades.”61 Four years later, the New York Times published yet another article, entitled “Probing Success of Asian Americans,” which echoed earlier sentiments but more clearly juxtaposed Black and Hispanic students against Asian Americans. The article offered an image of Asian students who countered failure with more hard work—Asians who did poorly on a test responded by “study[ing] later at night,” and if they still did not do well, they “[got] up and

their rejection from colleges across the United States. Between 1966 and 1980, Asian-American undergraduate enrollment at Berkeley quadrupled from 5.2 percent to 20 percent.64 At elite universities such as Stanford and Harvard, where enrollment increases were less dramatic, there was nonetheless a significant increase in applications. Through the 1980s, Asian Americans issued two major complaints against elite universities: first, that Asian Americans were being

stud[ied] earlier in the morning.”62 Other minority groups, by contrast, were understood as having a different outlook: “While black and Hispanic students had the same life goals as did Asian-Americans, there was a great difference in their expectations,” the article pronounced.63 Just as commentators used Asian-American work ethic to impugn blacks during the LA Riots, so too did they use Asian-American academic success to criticize other minority students’ performance in school.

admitted at lower rates than whites, despite their higher test scores; and second, that Asian-American enrollment had not risen in proportion to the increase in Asian-American applicants.65 Between 1983 and 1986, Asian Americans accused Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles of discriminating against Asian-American applicants by using unofficial quotas to limit Asian-American enrollment.

Across public and private universities, university administrators vehemently denied the charges of discrimination and attributed the Asian-American enrollment statistics to two levels of analysis in the admissions process. The first level of analysis concerned students’ individual merit. Elite universities in the United States used both “objective” criteria (quantitative indicators like test scores and grades) and “subjective” criteria (extracurricular activities, personal essays, and interviews) to weigh

Asian Americans in Higher Education and the Emergence of Proposition 209 In the period leading up to the introduction of Proposition 209, Asian-American students did indeed excel at impressive rates—so much so that they began to contest

61. Fox Butterfield, “Why Asians Are

Going to the Head of the Class,” New York Times, August 3, 1986.

62. Daniel Goleman, “Probing Success

of Asian Americans,” New York Times, September 11, 1990, C10.

63. Goleman, “Probing Success of

Asian Americans,” C10.

64. Takagi, The Retreat from Race, 21.

65. Ibid., 23.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 59

the merit of their applicants.66 In response to Asian-American criticism, many university officials argued that Asian Americans simply did not meet one or both of the criteria in their applications. For example, between 1981 and 1985, Princeton University deemed Asian Americans “below average” in nonacademic admissions criteria.67 Administrators complemented this argument of individual merit with the argument of diversity. University officials

in ethnic student organizations, it also ushered in a resurgence of racism on college campuses. Campus antagonisms ranged from the common grumblings of white students who complained that they were “tired of hearing about racism,” to widespread episodes of violence against minority students.69 In 1990, the National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence reported that from 1987 to 1990, 300 campuses reported incidents of racial harassment

cited the importance of admissions context, whereby admissions officers had the discretion to select a balanced group of students for the incoming class. At the University of California, Berkeley, admissions officers sought to create a freshman class that encompassed “the broad diversity of cultural, racial, geographic and socio-economic backgrounds characteristic of California,” in the belief that a strong undergraduate education should prepare its students for success in a diverse society.68

By the late 1980s, the university emphasis on diversity had produced a highly racialized—and oftentimes racist—campus climate. From 1987 to 1990, college campuses saw the increasing importance of racial identity and a surge in racial conflict. Though this period introduced the creation of ethnic studies programs and a growth

and violence against minorities.70

Against this backdrop of mounting racism in higher education, neoconservatives expertly shifted the public discourse on admissions to an attack on affirmative action. The racial tension on college campuses gave them grounds to critique preferential policies and debunk the merit and diversity arguments offered by university administrators. In the neoconservative view, affirmative action did not produce diversity, but rather hostility between races. Prominent black conservative scholar Thomas Sowell called the campus racism a “backlash” against affirmative action that revealed the depth of student opposition to “racial representation” measures.71 Others went further with their critiques on affirmative action, casting its beneficiaries as villains in the zero-sum

69. Takagi, The Retreat from Race, 111.

66. Ibid., 67.

70. Manning Marable, Black Libera-

67. Ibid.

tion in Conservative America (Boston: South End

68. Peter Applebome, “The Debate on

Press, 1999), 80.

Diversity in California Shifts,” New York Times,

June 4, 1995.

on Campus,” Fortune, February 13, 1989.

60 | UNFOUND

71. Thomas Sowell, “The New Racism

game of admissions. In an article for the New Republic in 1988, neoconservative writer James Gibney invoked the model minority myth and racial triangulation, pitting Asian-American students against blacks and Hispanics.

“If Asians are underrepresented based on their grades and test scores,” Gibney wrote, “it is largely because of affirmative action for other minority groups.”72 In Fortune magazine, columnist Daniel Seligman went one step further to

as a question of discrimination by affirmative action.

In 1993, the neoconservative stance on affirmative action gained prominence when it became the subject of a major conflict at the University of California. That year, the family of Jerry Cook—a white, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC San Diego who was denied admission to UC’s medical schools—launched a campaign against the University. Echoing the pervasive neoconservative stance

imply that affirmative action expanded on a tradition of “reverse racism,” once limited only to whites: “In college admissions … Asian Americans should now suffer reverse discrimination, just as the whites have suffered it for years.”73 California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher proposed a “merit-only” admissions policy, and advertised it with Asian-American poster-children. “We want to help Asian Americans,” Rohrabacher remarked, “[and] we’re using [the policy] as a vehicle to correct a societal mistake.”74 From the late 1980s into the early 1990s, arguments of this sort increasingly appeared in conservative news outlets and major newspapers alike. Neoconservatives expertly dismissed the merit and diversity arguments offered by admissions officers and recast Asian-American enrollment

on affirmative action, the Cooks alleged that the University had discriminated against their son in the admissions process. According to historian Patricia Pelfrey, what distinguished the Cooks from other “disgruntled” families of rejected applicants was the intensity with which they probed minority admission statistics.75 The Cooks gathered statistics and produced compelling charts to demonstrate two trends: first, that minority students on average had the lowest grades and test scores of UC medical school admits, and second, that minority applicants were three times as likely to be admitted as nonminority applicants.76 Armed with this information, the Cooks insisted that the University used affirmative action to discriminate against qualified whites and Asians in favor of disadvantaged minority students. They appealed to the University’s of California’s Board of Regents, and demanded a hearing of their case.

72. Takagi, The Retreat from Race, 115.

73. Daniel Seligman, “Quotas on

Campus: The New Phase,” Fortune, January 30,

1989.

President: Richard Atkinson and the University of

74. Robert W. Stewart, “ ‘Merit-Only’

75. Patricia A. Pelfrey, Entrepreneurial

California, 1995-2003 (Berkeley: University of

College Entry Proposal Failing,” Los Angeles

California Press, 2012), 4.

Times, December 9, 1989.

76. Ibid.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 61

Within the University of California system, the Board of Regents occupied a distinctly political position in university governance. While individual Chancellors governed each of the nine campuses, the Board of Regents oversaw the campuses as a collective unit and passed University-wide policies. The Board of Regents consisted of seven “ex-officio” members including the Governor of California, as well as eighteen members appointed by the

debate over affirmative action, with Cook’s case at the center of the debate.

The University’s Chancellors unanimously supported affirmative action in admissions, and sought to convince the Board of Regents of its importance.

Over the course of many meetings during this period, UC administrators gave the Board of Regents presentations on the nature and purpose of affirmative action in the admissions process. Though the presentations

Governor.77 Historically, the Governor appointed lawyers, politicians, or businessmen who had donated large sums of money to either the Governor’s campaigns or to party election groups.78 One study into the historical composition of the Board of Regents concluded that, “it would be difficult to describe [the Board] as broadly reflective of the economic, cultural, and social diversity of the state.”79 Though equipped with enormous powers of governance, the Board of Regents did not always act in accordance with the desires of the University’s diverse administrative and student bodies.

From 1993 to 1995, the University of California’s Board of Regents and the UC Chancellors engaged in a bitter

managed to win over some of the Regents, others found themselves siding with the Cooks. Within the Board of Regents, the Cooks won sympathy from Clair Burgener, Ward Connerly, and Republican Governor Pete Wilson himself.80 (Wilson’s outspoken support for Proposition 187 won him reelection in 1994, and he hoped to make a bid for the presidency in 1996 on the basis of an anti-affirmative action campaign).81 Connerly, a conservative African-American businessman appointed to the Board by Wilson, became the Cooks’ most staunch advocate. On July 5, 1995, he introduced Special Policy 1 and Special Policy 2—measures that would abolish affirmative action in admissions, employment, and contracting throughout the University of California—to the Board.82 Weeks later, SP-1 and SP-2 passed by narrow margins of 14 to 10 (with one abstention) and 15 to 10.83 With this vote, it appeared that

77. University of California Board

of Regents, Bylaws of the Regents, Bylaw 5.1: Composition and Powers of Corporation.

78. Brian Pusser and Imanol Ordorika.

“Bringing Political Theory to University Governance: The University of California and the Universidad Nacional Auttónoma de México,”

80. Pelfrey, Entrepreneurial President, 4.

Higher Education, Handbook of Theory and Re-

81. Ibid., 5.

search 16 (2001), 169.

82. Ibid., 8.

83. Ibid., 10.

79. Ibid.

62 | UNFOUND

the neoconservative position against affirmative action had defeated University policy, despite the many objections of the University of California’s Chancellors, admissions staff, and students.

In 1996, Connerly expanded his vision of “colorblindness” to the entire state of California. As the chair of the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, Connerly spearheaded the campaign to pass Proposition 209. Proposition 209 would extend the University of Cali-

To win California, Dole and his campaign team sought to gain swing votes by utilizing Proposition 209 as a “wedge issue.” Yet with 19 million eligible voters of diverse racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds, California represented a strategic challenge for Dole.86 To circumvent the challenge, Dole peddled the language of equality and fairness for all races. Speaking at the San Diego Civic Center on October 28, 1996, Dole issued a powerful and loaded statement—a

fornia’s newly adopted policies to the entire state. By November of that year, Proposition 209 had made it to the ballot, and California’s diverse electorate was tasked with debating the statewide abolition of affirmative action.

statement that held universal appeal: “A Dole administration is going to be guided by certain basic principles. We will not discriminate by race. Discrimination is wrong.”87 Dole’s proclamation came near the end of a speech in which he fervently endorsed Proposition 209 and denounced affirmative action as a vehicle of “systematic discrimination.”88 In unrelentingly pressing the issue of discrimination, Dole characterized opponents of Proposition 209—namely his opponent, Bill Clinton—as misguided bigots.

Asian Americans, and particularly Asian-American college applicants, served as the primary poster children in Dole’s diatribe against discrimination.

Wary of the criticism that Proposition 209 served white interests alone, Dole pronounced that, “The opponents of [Proposition 209] falsely charge that it is merely a response to the anger of white

The Conservative Spin Zone

Just a week before the November 1996 election, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole cancelled plans to appear in Denver and instead scheduled a speech before the World Affairs Council of Orange County in Irvine.84 The sudden alteration was only the last in a series of changes that Dole made to his campaign in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Early in October 1996, Dole decided to invest his remaining time and energy in California, in the hopes of capturing California’s 54 electoral college votes to clinch the presidency.85

84. Maria L. La Ganga, “Dole Sharpens

UCLA: The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles (1997), 2.

his Criticism of Affirmative Action Policies,”

86. Ibid., 3.

Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1996.

87. Robert Dole, “Remarks in San Diego,

California,” (Speech delivered in San Diego, San

85. Bruce E. Cain and Karin MacDon-

ald, “Affirmative Action as a Wedge Issue:

Diego, California, October 28, 1996).

Prop 209 and the 1996 Presidential Election,”

88. Ibid.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 63

males … But we have seen in case after case that quotas and preferences have also hurt women and Asian Americans.”89 Throughout his speech, Dole described the ways in which Asian Americans were being turned away from universities, despite their superior academic achievement: “Asians in recent years have been judged to be ‘over represented’ … school applications have been denied for the single reason that there’s been an Asian name

Orange County was a known Republican stronghold, comprised largely of wealthy, conservative whites.92 It was also home to the largest population of Vietnamese Americans in the United States.93 Orange County’s Little Saigon served as a formidable voting bloc, with an Asian-American population large enough and concentrated enough to make a sufficient impact on regional politics.94 Additionally, Vietnamese Americans traditionally formed a

signed at the bottom.”90 To underscore the injustice of Asian-American rejection in college admissions, Dole went so far as to liken affirmative action to the Japanese internment. He asked his audience to “go back 45 years when the Supreme Court ruled that Japanese Americans could be sent to interment camps,” and to think on how the present resembled the past. “Now it is almost half a century later,” Dole remarked, “and in the name of urgent need we have systematic discrimination against Asian Americans at California schools and universities.”91

Dole’s appearance in San Diego in late October marked a decisive last push to endorse Proposition 209 before Election Day, but he utilized the same strategy through much of the election year. In March, Dole visited Orange County’s Little Saigon to present his stand against special treatment for minority groups. Dole’s choice of location was strategic. Historically,

conservative electorate. Their strong Catholic affiliation and anti-Communist heritage often aligned them with Republican values. Across the nation, Vietnamese Republicans outnumbered Vietnamese Democrats two to one.95 Orange County’s Vietnamese-American population served as a strategic target for Dole. At his appearance, Dole suggested to the crowd that Asian Americans were both living embodiments of the American dream and natural advocates for Proposition 209. Through hard work and determination, they were able to succeed in America without taking advantage of government handouts or institutional favors. Dole’s use of the model minority myth did not

92. Fong, The Contemporary Asian

American Experience, 47.

93. Ibid.

94. Christian Collet, “Bloc Voting,

Polarization, and the Panethnic Hypothesis: The Case of Little Saigon,” The Journal of Politics 67:3 (2005), 907.

95. Deepa Iyer, “A Growing Electorate:

89. Ibid.

Asian Pacific American Political Participation

90. Ibid.

in the 1990’s and Beyond,” In Defense of the

91. Ibid.

Alien 22 (1999), 119.

64 | UNFOUND

just celebrate Asian-American achievement, but also denied the existence of prejudice as an obstacle to success in American society.

During his speech, Dole stood before a banner that read, in both English and Vietnamese, “Celebrate Diversity with Bob Dole and the CCRI.”96 Though Dole had identified Asian Americans as the primary benefactors of Proposition 209, the banner implied that 209 would confer the goods of

proponents relied on similar language to present the initiative as morally righteous and universally appealing. California Republican Governor Pete Wilson accompanied Dole at his speech in Little Saigon, and utilized the same strategies in his own discussion of Proposition 209.

In his public endorsement, Wilson cited the 1994 case of Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District as an example of discrimination against Asian Americans in education, and as a compelling reason for the

diversity upon all Americans. By using the rhetoric of inclusion, Dole hid the insidious fact that Proposition 209 was expected to eliminate most racial diversity on the University of California’s campuses. An internal report conducted by the University of California in May 1995 projected that eliminating affirmative action would result in a 15 to 25 percent increase in Asian Americans across all UC schools, with as much as a 25 to 35 percent increase at Berkeley and UCLA. 97 While the number of white students would remain the same, the number of Hispanic and African-American students would drop significantly.98

Dole’s strategy of casting Asian Americans as the primary victims of affirmative action was central not only to his campaign, but also to the marketing of Proposition 209 at large. Numerous Republican politicians and 209

passage of Proposition 209.99

In Ho, the Asian American Legal Foundation brought suit against Lowell High School on behalf of Chinese-American parents who believed their children were the victims of racial quotas. Lowell High School was the most selective school within the San Francisco Unified School District and one of the most prestigious high schools in the nation.

A school district with historically severe segregation, San Francisco passed a measure in 1983 to produce more balanced enrollment at Lowell and other schools in the district. The measure required the school to represent a number of ethnic backgrounds in its student population, and placed caps on the number of students from any one group.100 Despite the decree, non-Asian minority students were underrepresented at Lowell through the early 1990s—blacks comprised only 5

632.

96. Karen Ball, “Dole Hits Prez on

99. Kim and Lee, “Interracial Politics,”

Race,” New York Daily News, March 25, 1996.

Action Divide,” in Asian American Politics: Law,

97. Norimitsu Onishi, “Affirmative

100. Paul M. Ong, “The Affirmative

Action: Choosing Sides,” New York Times,

Participation, and Policy, ed. Don T. Nakanishi and

March 31, 1996.

James S. Lai (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield,

2002), 391.

98. Ibid.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 65

percent of Lowell’s student body while Chinese-American students comprised over 40 percent.101 To keep student representation within the limits of the measure, Lowell raised the admissions criteria for Chinese-American applicants. Chinese-American parents, incensed by what they perceived as discrimination against their children, sued the district to end the quota system. Though the lawsuit was not settled until 1999, conservatives like Pete

Asian-American activist Jerry Kang has described the paternalism inherent in Connerly’s message in the following terms: “[Conservatives] claim the high moral ground. They can say, ‘We’re not just protecting ourselves, we’re protecting this poor Asian boy over here.’”104

Wilson publicly cited the ongoing court battle to criticize affirmative action and advance Proposition 209.102

Ward Connerly, Proposition 209’s most outspoken advocate, similarly cited Asian Americans as the victims of affirmative action. Noting his own diverse ethnic background of Black, Irish, and Choctaw, Connerly insisted that affirmative action first and foremost handicapped the Black and Hispanic students that it sought to assist. It gave them an inflated sense of success and did not prepare them for the realities of an elite education and a competitive working world. Further— and perhaps more problematically— it produced a system of explicit discrimination against Asian Americans. In an April 1996 op-ed for the New York Times, Connerly directly pitted Asians against other minorities, condemning the practice of holding blacks “to standards different from those of Asian[s].”103

for Proposition 209, Asian Americans of various backgrounds began to weigh in on the initiative, and many openly condemned the conservative critique of affirmative action. In fact, disagreement between the neoconservative platform and Asian-American opinion had historical roots. Sociologist Dana Takagi dates this tension to the early 1980s, when Asian-American activists began to contest the neoconservative characterization of affirmative action.

Neoconservatives perpetuated the notion that unqualified blacks were taking the spots of more qualified whites and Asians, despite the consistently low African-American student population on most college campuses. Though Asian Americans had indeed critiqued what they perceived as discrimination in admissions policies, their criticisms were not directed at affirmative action.

Asian-American Voices: Activism and Community Education

From the start of the campaign

mative Action: The Right Steps, from Mississippi to California,” New York Times, April 29,

101. Ibid.

1996.

102. Kim and Lee, “Interracial Poli-

104. Lucia Hwang, “A House Divided:

tics,” 632.

Asian Americans and Affirmative Action,”

Third Force, December 31, 1996, 10.

103. Ward Connerly, “Up From Affir-

66 | UNFOUND

Through the 1980s and early 1990s, Asian-American activists attempted to “distance themselves from [the neoconservative] critique of affirmative action,” and maintained that an end to discrimination against Asians in admissions was “entirely compatible with affirmative action programs.”105 With the arrival of Proposition 209, the existing tension between the neoconservative platform and Asian-American opinion only grew larger.

Proposition 209. Many activists belonging to these organizations were not new immigrants of the post-1965 era, but rather had deeper generational roots in the United States. Most were educated and politicized in the liberal 1960s and 1970s. In that era, many young Asian Americans saw themselves as united with other people of color in a “Third World” struggle against white oppression.107 They frequently engaged in mass protests alongside other minority students.

The Asian Americans most vocal in their opposition to Proposition 209 were activists who belonged to prominent Asian-American organizations.106 These organizations ranged from nonpartisan institutions to political bodies with strong democratic leanings.

Most were founded in the aftermath of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, when Asian Americans recognized the growing need for community and legal organizations to represent their interests. The Asian Law Caucus, Chinese for Affirmative Action, the National Asian Pacific Legal Consortium, the Asian Pacific Legal Center, and Asian Pacific Americans for Affirmative Action are only a few of the dozens of organizations that defended affirmative action against

For example, in 1968, Asian-American students played a prominent role in the San Francisco State College Strike—the longest student strike in history.108 Marching beside African-American and Chicano students under the banner of Third World Liberation, they demanded a more diverse university curriculum.109 By the 1990s, these students had become the well-educated and professionally successful activists poised to oppose Proposition 209. Most were either Chinese-American or Japanese-American. They were predominantly English speaking, and their voices were the Asian-American voices heard in the popular press.110

These Asian-American activists navigated a difficult role in their opposition to Proposition 209. Because they

105. Takagi, The Retreat From Race,

104.

106. Though I recognize that there

107. Kim, “Playing the Racial Trump

Card,” 39-40.

are many different kinds of activism, I use

“activists” here specifically to mean working

San Francisco State College Strike, 1968-69: The

108. Karen Umemoto, “ ‘On Strike!’

professionals who engage in community orga-

Role of Asian American Students,” Amerasia 15:1

nizing. I discuss campus activism later in the

(1989), 3.

essay, and I refer to those activists as “student

109. Ibid., 21.

activists,” to distinguish them from these

110. Onishi, “Affirmative Action: Choos-

community organizers.

ing Sides.”

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 67

were politicized during the era of the New Left, they espoused a broader vision of social justice that was influenced by a background in coalition building. Their vision emphasized equality for all minority groups over the rights of any one group. For them, the Asian-American identity “signified not only resistance to being used” by neoconservatives, “but also a declaration of solidarity with other oppressed groups.”111 And yet, as the

affirmative action.

To maintain this balancing act of supporting both new Asian-American immigrants and the minority community at large, activists sought to expand the grassroots’ understanding of affirmative action through educational initiatives. In their various community education campaigns, they emphasized three important points; first, that while affirmative action policies might not obviously benefit Asian Americans in

spokespeople for a highly diverse and traditionally apolitical community, they needed to acknowledge the apparent disadvantages that some Asian Americans encountered with affirmative action—particularly in the realm of education. By the 1980s and 1990s, many children of the post-1965 Asian immigrants had reached college age and were applying for college, where they encountered unofficial quotas against them. The parents of these students and their broader communities often opposed affirmative action. While almost all of the California and national Asian-American rights organizations publicly endorsed affirmative action, they did not necessarily have the support of the grassroots as African-American and Hispanic organizations did.

Because Asian Americans as a minority group were split along ethnic, generational, and class lines, activists from California’s largest Asian-American rights organizations struggled to bring the grassroots under their banner of

education, it was imperative to their success in employment and professional advancement. In 1988, Asian-American men were 7 percent to 10 percent less likely to be in managerial occupations than white men with the same educational background, though the US Commission on Civil rights determined that “neither English language deficiencies nor cultural barriers could be responsible for the finding of Asian underrepresentation among managers.”112 From 1992 to 1995, white-male owned contracting companies received 90 percent of San Francisco’s contracts, while Asian Americans were awarded only 3 percent of contracts.113 Among Asian-American women, the statistics were more extreme—in 1990, census data revealed that Chinese American women earned 38 percent less than white males with the same educational

Affirmative Action Myths: Evidence that Discrimination Remains Inbred in U.S. Society,” Asianweek, August 1, 1996, 7.

111. Kim, “Playing the Racial Trump

Card,” 40.

68 | UNFOUND

112. Shiu-Ming Cheer, “Demystifying

113. Ronald Takaki, “To Construct Par-

ity, Back 209’s Alternative,” Asianweek, March 24, 1999, 5.

background.114 Even within academia itself, academic success often failed to translate into professional success for Asian Americans—in 1994, although Asian Americans occupied 20 percent of the University of California’s academic positions, only 4 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities nationwide were Asian-American.115 These figures demonstrated the extent to which racial discrimination held Asian Americans back in the workplace, and they became

matically limiting Asian-American enrollment,” because the subject of school admissions was so sensitive for Asian Americans.117

To combat this myopic vision of affirmative action, activists emphasized the importance of affirmative action beyond education. In a November interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kang used his workplace experiences as an endorsement of affirmative action. He spoke of his own professional debt to race-based

a major platform upon which activists campaigned against 209.

On the subject of employment, new immigrants and second- or third-generation Asian Americans held vastly different outlooks. According to a study conducted by the Urban Institute, by 1996, 66 percent of the 7.3 million Asians in the United States were born overseas.116 While Asian Americans with generational roots were able to disassociate professional success from academic achievement, these new immigrants often viewed education as the only avenue to success in the United States. Conservative advocates of Proposition 209 capitalized on this disconnect between new immigrants and activists, tailoring their message to focus on affirmative action in academic admissions. UCLA law professor Jerry Kang condemned the conservative suggestion “that if you let in Blacks and Latinos, that means you are auto-

preferential policies: “One of the many factors that went into UCLA’s calculation … was that I was Asian American and the law school had no Asian American law faculty.”118 In another wide-reaching interview with the New York Times, Herbert Yamanishi stressed the importance of looking beyond education. Speaking as the executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, the nation’s oldest Asian civil rights organization, Yamanishi stressed that Asian Americans “need to understand that pure academic success does not mean success in America,” before extolling the importance of affirmative action in the workplace.119 Theodore Hsien Wang, lawyer at the San Francisco Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and Frank H. Wu, Professor of Law at Howard University, jointly published an article debunking the notion that Asian Americans did not need affirmative action. “One of the fallacies

117. Hwang, “A House Divided,” 10.

118. Bettina Boxall, “Asians and Lati-

114. Cheer, “Demystifying Affirmative

Action Myths,” 7.

nos Divided Over Prop. 209,” Los Angeles Times,

November 1, 1996.

115. Onishi, “Affirmative Action:

Choosing Sides.”

ing Sides.”

116. Ibid.

119. Onishi, “Affirmative Action: Choos-

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 69

in the attacks on affirmative action,” Wang and Wu wrote, “is that Asian Americans are somehow the example that defeats the rationale for race-conscious remedial programs.”120 In their article, Wang and Wu discussed the existence of a glass ceiling, and cited the dire state of public contracting for Asian Americans as only one example of workplace discrimination.121

Asian-American activists frequently used the ethnic press and me-

affirmative action.123 Emil Guillermo, a Filipino American talk radio host, took a similar approach. Writing for The Filipino Express, Guillermo acknowledged his own success with “breaking [the] glass ceiling,” but emphasized the difficulty that most other Asian Americans encountered with workplace discrimination.124 Like Cheer, Guillermo also criticized media punditry. Responding to Robert Zelnick’s claim that affirmative action hurt Asian

dia as a channel to educate immigrants on the importance of affirmative action in the workplace. In August 1996, ShiuMing Cheer, a civil rights coordinator at the South Asian Network, wrote an extensive article for Asianweek magazine in which she detailed the severity of Asian-American workplace discrimination. With a circulation of over 58,000, Asianweek was the largest and most established newsweekly for Asian Pacific Americans. Cheer began her article by criticizing the “media pundits” who spread “deliberate misinformation” about Asian Americans and affirmative action.122 She presented statistics from the US Glass Ceiling Commission, the Fair Employment Council of Washington D.C., the Urban Institute, and the US Commission on Civil Rights to show that Asian Americans did, indeed, need

Americans, Guillermo scoffed: “Oh, yeah Bob, tell an Asian American who’s been helped by affirmative action more about the pain I supposedly feel.”125, 126 Cheer, Guillermo, and other Asian Americans who spoke on workplace discrimination through the ethnic press played a crucial role in educating new immigrants. According to Kathay Feng, a lawyer for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, much of the voter turnout against Proposition 209 had to do with the success of ethnic print and cable stations. These outlets “stress[ed] the employment rather than the education value of affirmative action,” and were

correspondent well known for his coverage of

120. Theodore Hsien Wang and Frank

123. Ibid.

124. Emil Guillermo, “Emil Amok! My

209 Talk Show,” The Filipino Express, October 6, 1996, 11.

125. Robert Zelnick was an ABC News

H. Wu, “Beyond the Model Minority Myth,”

the Gulf War. In 1996, Zelnick released wrote a

in The Affirmative Action Debate, ed. George E.

book on affirmative action called “Backfire: A

Curry (Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing

Reporter’s Look at Affirmative Action.” In his

Company, 1996), 191.

book, Zelnick argued that affirmative action

121. Ibid., 198.

programs often “backfired” on minorities—

122. Cheer, “Demystifying Affirmative

most notably on Asian Americans.

Action Myths,” 7.

70 | UNFOUND

126. Guillermo, “Emil Amok!,” 11.

able to convince new immigrants that Proposition 209 directly hurt them.127

Another key strategy that Asian-American activists employed was educating new immigrant communities on the historical importance of affirmative action. Because so many new immigrants lacked an understanding of both the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement, they felt little connection to remedial social policies like affirmative action. Daphne Kwok, executive

stance on the initiative, proclaiming that, “Asian Pacific Americans, who [were] relegated to the sidelines in American society until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, have historically benefited from affirmative action programs.”130 The Philippine News took a similar angle on the issue, citing the historical benefit that Filipino Americans gained through preferential policies. Though Filipinos were dropped from the “protected minority” lists at UC Berkeley and UCLA in

director of the Organization of Chinese Americans advocacy group, said of new immigrants: “Many Asian Americans don’t understand the civil rights struggle that had gone on in the 60s and 70s … they don’t understand the history or how they have benefited from what has gone on.”128 Either ignorant or skeptical of the existence of institutional racism and implicit bias, many Asian Americans simply believed that “you get what you deserve in life.”129 This outlook, which so many conservatives extolled as a virtue, negated the history that many Asian Americans actually received assistance from affirmative action policy.

To remedy this ahistorical perspective, opponents of Proposition 209 educated new immigrants on the history of affirmative action. To this end, the ethnic press again served as a particularly useful medium of education. In an October 1996 article entitled “No on 209,” Asianweek magazine issued their own

1992, they nonetheless benefited from 30 years of affirmative action.131 Rodel Rodis, a columnist for Philippine News, implored his readers to remember this history and to oppose Proposition 209.

The Korea Times did not offer an official stance on Proposition 209, but in its extensive coverage of the initiative, it stressed that “to strike down” affirmative action would be “to reverse the clock on substantial gains” that had been made within the Asian-American community.132

Activists also shared information about the historical benefits of affirmative action at rallies and town hall meetings. On September 10, 1996, 400 Asian Pacific American demonstrators gathered to protest Proposition 209 in front of the Los Angeles City Hall. The “Asian Pacific Rally,” as it was called, was organized by a coalition of different Asian-Ameri

130. “No on 209,” Asianweek, October 24,

1996, 4.

131. Paul Rockwell, “Asian American

Voices for Affirmative Action,” In Motion Maga

127. Chavez, “The Color Bind,” 236.

zine, 1997.

128. Hwang, “A House Divided,” 10.

129. Ibid.

Stand?,” Korea Times, August 31, 1996, 7.

132. Yoo Jung Kim, “CCRI: Where Do You

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 71

can organizations, including the Asian Pacific Labor Alliance, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, and the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council.

Speaking before the crowd, attorney Dolly Gee of Asian Pacific Americans for Affirmative Action delivered an address on the historical importance of affirmative action. Gee remarked that before the introduction of “proactive” affirmative action programs, discrimination was rampant throughout Amer-

discrimination were linked, and thus all minority groups had a shared interest in supporting affirmative action.

As a March 1996 New York Times article noted, the Asian-American stance on Proposition 209 came down to the following question: “Do they look out for their own interests… or do they broaden their sense of community to include the interests of African-Americans and Hispanics?”136 For Asian-American activists, whose platform was one

ican society, despite the passage of anti-discrimination laws.133 Affirmative action “broke down stubborn patterns of exclusion” to the benefit of Asian Americans, and the passage of Proposition 209 would only reverse history.134 “Proposition is not about reform… it is about abolition,” Gee proclaimed.135 Through this kind of community-wide education, activists sought to influence the public understanding of affirmative action by positioning it in the context of an important history.

Finally, Asian-American activists emphasized the ideological importance of affirmative action. This notion, though nebulous and perhaps most difficult to grasp for new immigrants, formed the basis of activist thought. Across the spectrum of Asian-American organizations, activists could be heard echoing one common notion—that all forms of

of collective justice and equality, the answer to this question was obvious.

In their campaigns against Proposition 209, they sought to extend their vision of multiracial solidarity to the grassroots. Julie Su, a Chinese-American lawyer with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, told Third Force magazine that Asian Americans had an obligation to “support programs that will advance society as a whole and promote values … like equality and opportunity.”137 Jerry Kang echoed that vision in a piece for the Korea Times, in which he confronted readers with an ethical question: ““I am willing to go beyond my self-interest in order to strive for a community of justice. Are you?”138 Law Professor Frank Wu, the first Chinese American to teach at Howard University, took his job to advance Asian American and African American relations. In

133. Sam Chu Lin, “APAs Ignite Issues:

136. Onishi, “Affirmative Action:

Choosing Sides.”

L.A. Protest of Current State of Affairs,” Asian-

137. Hwang, “A House Divided,” 10.

week, September 19, 1996, 11.

138. Jerry Kang, “The Passage of 209:

134. Ibid.

Its Meaning for the Future,” Korea Times, De-

135. Ibid.

cember 24, 1996, 14.

72 | UNFOUND

his denouncement of Proposition 209, Wu noted that though Asian Americans and Blacks “[had] frequently come into contact with each other in situations of conflict,” they nonetheless shared “a common interest in fighting racism.”139 In these calls for interracial solidarity, Asian-American activists countered the conservative attempts to promote racial infighting and division.

Throughout the election year, some conservative Asian-American

cans in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas—the two areas in California with greatest Asian-American population density—voted overwhelmingly against Proposition 209.142 In the Los Angeles area, 76 percent of the nine hundred Asian Americans polled opposed 209, and in the San Francisco area, 84 percent of the five hundred polled opposed 209.143 Most interesting, however, was the finding that many new voters opposed the measure—of the Asian Amer-

critics accused activists of failing to represent the interests of new immigrant populations and lower-income Asian Americans. Most notably, critics targeted the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC), the Japanese Americans Citizens League, and the Organization of Chinese Americans for being “out of touch with the community” in their defense of affirmative action.140 Arthur Hu, a Chinese-American computer software engineer and prolific conservative blogger, charged “academics and activists” with being “stuck in the 1960s.”141

However, exit polls ultimately contradicted these conservative claims. In the aftermath of the 1996 elections, multiple studies indicated that Asian-American immigrants voted both in large number and against the conservative platform. According to a NAPALC exit poll study, Asian Ameri-

icans polled, 33 percent were first-time voters.144 Another study, conducted by the Chinese American Voter Education Committee, corroborated the NAPALC’s results. It revealed that a large portion of Asian Political American voters in the Bay Area were foreign-born, with limited English proficiency.145 Larry Hajime Shinagawa, principle investigator of the San Francisco area analysis, concluded that the high voter turnout rate was “due to community outreach and Asian American political organizations trying to get out the vote” through educational initiatives.146 Ultimately, the exit poll results vindicated activists from the accusation that they were out of touch with community members. Through “the cultivation and education” of potential new voters, Asian-American activists successfully

143. Ibid.

144. Ibid.

Choosing Sides.”

145. Alethea Yip, “Asian Born Voters

Gain New Clout,” Asianweek, November 7, 1996,

139. Onishi, “Affirmative Action: 140. Alethea Yip, “Asian Votes Shift to

the Left,” Asianweek, November 21, 1996, 8.

12.

141. Onishi, “Affirmative Action:

Choosing Sides.”

142. Yip, “Asian Votes Shift to the Left.”

8.

146. Yip, “Asian Votes Shift to the Left,”

8.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 73

galvanized the grassroots against Proposition 209.147

In many ways, the Asian-American activism against Proposition 209 was both distinctly of its age and reminiscent of the past. At heart, many of these activists embraced the principles of the 1960s and 1970s New Left— principles of interracial solidarity and equity for all. The rhetoric that they used in their organizing reflected these principles. For example, in a near echo of Third World Liberation language, Li’I Furuomto of the Asian Pacific Coalition at UCLA called upon Asian Americans “to stand in unity” with their “African brothers and sisters and Chicano brothers and sisters” in the fight against Proposition 209.148 At the same time, however, these activists needed to appeal to the demands and desires of a sizable new immigrant population.

California’s demographic composition in the 1990s did not lend itself to interracial solidarity, as new immigrants often did not understand the legacies of affirmative action and civil rights. Asian American activists thus employed strategies that balanced New Left values with 1990s pragmatism.

By utilizing a strategy based in education—about the benefits of affirmative action in the workplace, about the historical legacy of preferential policies, and about the importance of interracial solidarity—Asian-American activists succeeded in mobilizing a substantial population of new immigrants.

Asian-American Voices: Campus Activism

Elsewhere, other Asian-American voices joined the debate on Proposition 209. From July through November 1996, colleges and universities across California buzzed with commotion. Despite the fact that the University of California’s Board of Regents passed SP-1 and SP-2 in July 1996, they could not implement the ban on affirmative action until January 1, 1997.149 In the interim period, the status of the measures grew unstable. University administrators—including low-level admissions officers, UC Chancellors, and even a few wary Regents—attempted to rescind the measures. The uncertain status of SP-1 and SP-2 upped the stakes on Proposition 209.

Because Proposition 209 would eliminate affirmative action in education, employment, and contracting across the state, its passage or failure would ultimately determine the fate of SP-1 and SP-2.

At UCLA, UC Berkeley, California State University, and a number of private universities across the state, Asian-American student activists and school administrators alike spoke out against Proposition 209. These Asian-American advocates of affirmative action often participated in the context of broader coalitions, alongside people of many ethnicities, classes, and personal or political motivations. They

149. Megan Messerly, “Affirmative

147. Ibid.

Action: A History of Contention,” The Daily

148. Lin, “APAs Ignite Issues,” 11.

Californian, April 4, 2015.

74 | UNFOUND

also employed many of the strategies used by community activists, such as educational campaigns to inform the public of affirmative action’s history and the importance of interracial solidarity. As a collective, those involved in campus activism posed a formidable threat to Proposition 209.

Across California, countless administrators spoke out against Proposition 209 as private citizens. In October, the heads of one hundred private

[Proposition 209],” a spirit opposed to diversity in education.151

Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien agreed that Proposition 209 would hurt the quality of education, but he also spoke the language of minority rights and interracial solidarity. A Chinese-American professor of mechanical engineering and UC Berkeley’s seventh Chancellor, Tien believed that Proposition 209 would not only “erode the quality of public higher education,” but would also “send a

and public colleges across California declared their personal opposition to Proposition 209. Of the nine University of California Chancellors, two publicly condemned Proposition 209. For administrators, the primary concern with abolishing affirmative action had to do with quality of education. In his public denouncement of Proposition 209, UCLA Chancellor Charles Young warned of the harm to campus diversity that Proposition 209 would bring. According to Young, UC Berkeley and UCLA were two of the best universities in the nation precisely because they offered racial, ethnic, and class diversity: “A lot is learned from those you are studying with and living with … quality and diversity reinforce each other.”150 Karen M. Kennelly, the president of Mount St. Mary’s University, echoed this sentiment. Though private universities did not face the threat of Proposition 209, Kennelly said that they nonetheless “had everything to lose by the spirit of

hurtful message to California’s minority residents.”152 In his defense of affirmative action, Tien stated that “the Asian American community reaped benefits from efforts to integrate American society,” citing the historical importance of preferential policies within the Asian American community.153 Further, Tien emphasized the importance of interracial solidarity. Tien likened the discrimination he experienced as a Chinese American to the feelings of discrimination that Black and Hispanic students would feel with the passage of Proposition 209.154

The strong opposition against 209 at the top ranks of these universities was mirrored by the grassroots activism of students. At UCLA, students engaged in an extensive campaign against Proposition 209 in the lead up to the election.

In early October, a coalition of fifteen different student organizations launched a two-day educational initiative, called the “Death of Education” campaign.155

151. Ibid.

152. Ibid.

153. Ibid.

“Chancellors Say Prop. 209 Would Hurt Educa-

154. Ibid.

tion,” Los Angeles Times, October 21, 1996.

155. Ryan Ozimek, “Student Group

150. Amy Wallace and Bettina Boxall,

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 75

Across campus, student activists disseminated information on the consequences of Proposition 209 and registered their peers to vote. Of the fifteen student organizations involved, a majority were ethnic student groups.

Samahang Pilipino, the Asian Students Association, the Vietnamese Student Union, the Korean Students Association, and the Asian Pacific Coalition represented just a few of the many Asian-American organizations involved

of activism against Proposition 209, UCLA students held a mass protest with over seven hundred participants. The protest, staged only a few weeks after the Death of Education campaign, blocked traffic on a major street for over two hours and led to the arrest of thirty-four student activists.159 The protest was organized by the same coalition of student organizations that launched the educational campaign.

Of the students arrested, a majori-

in leading the campaign.156 Many of the activists belonging to these groups felt that Asian-American students were not fully aware of Proposition 209’s consequences, but would vote against the initiative if informed. Dale Kim, the Vice President of the Korean Students Association, told The Daily Bruin that “many Asian Americans aren’t exposed to the issues, or just don’t care,” but “educating them on the issues will allow them to make an informed vote.”157 John Du, the president of the Undergraduate Student Association Council, reiterated this point on a broader scale, noting that, “Proposition 209 [wouldn’t] pass … if people really knew what it does.”158 The informational thrust behind the Death of Education campaign echoed the strategies employed by Asian American activists involved at the community level.

In a more extreme example

ty belonged to the executive boards of these organizations. Unlike the Death of Education campaign, which stressed the importance of education vis-à-vis Proposition 209, the protest emphasized a more militant vision of justice and equality. Various student leaders and activists issued calls for racial equality as the Korean Cultural Awareness Group beat Korean drums in the background.160 Kendra Fox-Davis of the African Student Union branded Proposition 209 a piece of legislation that “oppressed” minority students.161 John Du declared that the government had “stepped beyond the bounds of justice,” leaving students no choice but to engage in civil disobedience as a last resort.162 The Concerned Asian Pacific Islander Students for Action (CAPISA) called the attack on affirmative action a “continuation of the conservative

159. Ryan Ozimek, “Students March

Unites to Fight Prop. 209,” The Daily Bruin,

Against Prop. 209,” The Daily Bruin, October

October 15, 1996.

24, 1996.

156. Ibid.

160. Ibid.

157. Ibid.

161. Ibid.

158. Ibid.

162. Ibid.

76 | UNFOUND

agenda to keep immigrants and people of color disenfranchised,” and asked students to remember the history of “collective struggle to break down the barriers of racism and discrimination.163 The protest at UCLA thus augmented the educational campaign against Proposition 209, borrowing from a long tradition of interracial coalition building and peaceful protest.

At UC Berkeley, Asian-American students similarly engaged in anti-209

reaching effects” it would have on the Indian-American community.166 Not only that, but Soundararajan also expressed her allegiance with the broader minority community, commenting that 209 would repeal “all the protections minorities won through years of struggle.”167

Not all schools demonstrated interracial solidarity against Proposition 209, however. At UC Irvine, the University of California with the largest Asian-American population, minority

activism with students of other ethnic groups. A week before the passage of Proposition 209, police arrested twenty-three students who occupied the UC Berkeley bell tower in protest of the initiative.164 At least four of the students involved chained themselves to the bell tower, in a demonstration that drew over one thousand participants. The demonstration invoked the history of the civil rights movement and the language of equality, as protestors chanted and played a tape of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.165 Among those involved at the protest were Asian-American students of various ethnic backgrounds. Thenamozhi Soundararajan, an Indian-American junior, was in the forefront of the protest. Speaking to India-West magazine on her involvement, she remarked that she opposed Proposition 209 because of the “far

students often disagreed on 209. When a group of Hispanic students at Irvine staged a hunger strike to draw attention to the threat of 209, they did not attract support from the Asian-American community. Rather, many Asian Americans reported that they felt alienated by the Hispanic students’ extremism.168 This may have been due in part to the wide spectrum of immigrant and ethnic backgrounds among Irvine’s Asian-American students. Irvine’s racial makeup reflected the large influx of Asian migration to Orange County, which began around the early 1970s.169 Chinese immigrants settled the area, but were soon joined by Vietnamese refugees and Korean immigrants. At Irvine, a significant chasm existed between newer immigrants and Asian Americans with deeper generational roots in the United States, many of whom came from Los Angeles, just fifty

vided Over Passage of Prop. 209,” India-West,

163. Rockwell, “Asian American Voic-

166. Viji Sundaram, “Community Di-

es for Affirmative Action.”

November 15, 1996, A28.

167. Ibid.

Protest in Berkeley Tower,” Los Angeles Times,

164. “23 Arrested After Prop. 209

168. Onishi, “Affirmative Action:

November 8, 1996, 27.

Choosing Sides.”

165. Ibid.

169. Ibid.

Volume 2, Fall 2015 | 77

miles north of Irvine. As one student noted, Asian Americans varied from those who were “fresh off the boat” to others “so white washed they joined Irvine’s white fraternities and sororities, instead of Asian ones.”170 This division within the Asian-American student body itself made it difficult for students to organize themselves around Proposition 209, much less in coalition with other ethnic student groups.

Asian-American students at California’s university campuses— most notably UCLA and UC Berkeley— represented a significant constituency of activists opposed to Proposition 209. In many ways, the sentiments of this activist group mirrored the sentiments of their community counterparts. Like the community activists of Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Asian Law Caucus, and other Asian American organizations, student activists grounded their organizing in large-scale educational campaigns.

This was most apparent at UCLA, where students launched a two-day “Death of Education” campaign to spread awareness about the realities of Proposition 209. Student activists also recognized the importance of affirmative action’s history, and sought to convey that history to others. They emphasized the importance of interracial solidarity and built coalitions on their campuses with other minority groups. In this way, Asian-American student activists borrowed from a history of activism rooted in the New Left. At the same

170. Ibid.

78 | UNFOUND

time, however, they were influenced

by California’s unique demographic in the 1990s. Like community activists, Asian-American students opposed to Proposition 209 occasionally clashed with newer Asian-American immigrants. Much like the Asian-American activism in the community at large, California’s Asian-American student activism reveals the depth and diversity of Asian-American reactions towards Proposition 209.

Conclusion

On November 5, 1996, Proposition 209 passed by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent, despite the fervent efforts of affirmative action supporters across California. The ballot won in fifty-three of fifty-eight counties; only Alameda, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz defeated the initiative.171 Though San Francisco overwhelmingly opposed the initiative by a vote of 71 percent to 29 percent, many rural, predominantly-white counties like El Dorado, Butte, and Calaveras reported voter support by two-to-one margins.172 A few days after the election, Ward Connerly commented that the passage of Proposition 209 marked “a step into becoming a colorblind society.”173

Despite the outcome of the elections, Proposition 209’s opponents

171. Bert Eljera, “Prop 209 Wins by

Wide Margin,” Asianweek, November 14, 1996, 16.

172. Ibid.

173. Ibid.

did not rest. One day after its passage, a coalition of civil rights, minority, and women’s groups filed suit for an injunction to block the measure. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represented the anti-209 coalition, and argued that Proposition 209 violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees citizens equal protection of the law.174 Asian-American rights organizations like the Asian

Though a federal appeals court ultimately rejected Henderson’s injunction in April 1997 and upheld Proposition 209 as constitutional, Asian-American activists remained staunch. In addition to continuing their legal challenge against Proposition 209, activists also engaged in community education, as they had before the November election. Lisa Lim, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), told Asianweek magazine that CAA would continue to

Pacific American Legal Center, the Japanese American Citizens League, the Asian Law Caucus, and Chinese for Affirmative Action comprised a significant portion of this coalition. Herbert Yamanishi of the Japanese American Citizens League declared that, “the war against discrimination continues unabated,” and called upon Asian Americans to “acknowledge [the] setback, learn our lessons, and continue to fight the good fight.”175 When US District Judge Thelton Henderson approved the injunction, lead attorney Ed Chen of the ACLU called Henderson’s decision a sure sign that the courts remained “a bulwark in the protection of equal rights for women and minorities in this country.”176

“offer community support and assistance … to educate [citizens] and prepare them for whatever comes up,” while attorneys battled the initiative in courts.177 Indeed, in the months following the appeals court ruling, Asian-American activists continued to engage in massive protests and educational campaigns.

The Asian-American effort against Proposition 209, both before and after its passage, highlights an important racial conflict in 1990s America. It reveals the intransigence of Asian-American stereotypes in the 1990s, as well as the emergence of a new Asian-American electorate keen on speaking for itself.

Proposition 209 appeared at a time when California’s conservative politics came in contact with an increasingly diverse population. This diversity was perhaps most apparent in California’s Asian-American population, which contained a vast array of ethnic, class, and immigration backgrounds. These different Asian Americans constituencies possessed different

174. Bert Eljera, “Advocates Seek to

Block Prop. 209: ACLU Appeals to Supreme Court as California Measure Goes into Effect,” Asianweek, September 11, 1997, 8.

175. Eljera, “Prop. 209 Wins by Wide

Margin.”

176. Bert Eljera, “Court Bars Roll Back

177. “Court Upholds California’s Prop.

of Affirmative Action: Prop. 209 Would Likely

209: Opponents of Anti-Affirmative Action Mea-

Violate Constitution, Judge Rules,” Asianweek,

sure Likely to Request Rehearing,” Asianweek,

January 2, 1997, 8.

April 17, 1997, 8.

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outlooks on affirmative action, yet they all found themselves distilled into the same neoconservative sound bite. In the neoconservative narrative, affirmative action discriminated against Asian Americans—the “model minority.”

Over the course of the debate on Proposition 209, neoconservative politicians time and again invoked a simplistic trope of Asian-American victimhood to advance their initiative. At the same time, however, Asian-American pop-

admission at the University of Texas at Austin. Fisher’s case will be argued again before the Supreme Court in December 2015, and simultaneously Blum has continued to challenge affirmative action through other court cases. In 2014, he launched an attack on Harvard University’s affirmative action policy through his Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) campaign. His new client was an unnamed Chinese-American student who graduated first in his or

ulations made great efforts to speak for themselves. Writing in 1996, Frank Wu and Theodore Hsien Wang issued a directive to their readers: “Rather than let others use them, Asian Americans need to decide for themselves.”178 At both the grassroots community level and on college campuses, Asian-American populations did just that. In the community, Asian-American activists brought new immigrants under the banner of affirmative action to oppose Proposition 209, and on college campuses, student activists engaged in protests and educational campaigns to make their Asian-American voices heard.

Today, nearly twenty years after the passage of Proposition 209, the debate on Asian Americans and affirmative action remains charged, and sadly, eerily familiar. In 2008, the Project on Fair Representation (headed by conservative activist Edward Blum) launched the case of Abigail Fisher, a white student who had been denied

her class, captained the tennis team, and received perfect scores on his or her college admissions tests—only to be denied acceptance from Harvard.179 Blum argued that Harvard rejected the student because affirmative action policies favored disadvantaged minorities. A number of Asian-American journalists and activists immediately jumped to debunk Blum’s assertions.

Tim Mak argued that the legal challenge “doesn’t reflect the wishes of the Asian-American community,” and Jeff Yang noted that 69% of Asian Americans support affirmative action.180 In putting forth these facts, Mak and Yang echoed their Asian-American activist counterparts from the 1990s. They identified the same rhetorical strategy, used by neoconservatives in 1996 to endorse Proposition 209, reverberating in present-day courtrooms and media.

Though Asian Americans continue to

mist, November 29, 2014.

178. Wang and Wu, “Beyond the Mod-

el Minority Myth,” 203.

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179. “Harvard Under Fire,” The Econo180. Tim Mak, “Why Harvard’s Asians

Are Invisible,” The Daily Beast, November 28, 2014.

be simplified and used as pawns in the neoconservative attack on affirmative action, their diverse voices grow stronger with each day.

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Imagining Race Otherwise in Cynthia Kadohata’s In the Heart of the Valley of Love and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange Olivia Lu, Barnard College ’15 Abstract In this paper, I examine how Cynthia Kadohata’s In the Heart of the Valley of Love and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange use the genre of dystopic fiction as a medium featuring alternative forms of kinship challenging mainstream narratives of post-raciality. Using Michel Foucault’s idea of heterotopia as a framework, I explore how Kadohata both constructs and subverts the white-nonwhite binary. The main character Francie overcomes her racial dislocation by using her mobility throughout the white richtowns, nonwhite slums, and natural environment to geographically inscribe familial memories upon the land. Similarly, Yamashita presents characters who defy their hostility of their environment to forge empowering narratives of affective solidarity that ultimately reshape the city’s urban layout. By forging communities whose foundational mythologies “rewrite” the land, Yamashita’s characters resist displacement. Both Kadohata and Yamashita present a vision of Asian Americanness that goes beyond mere racial representation and allows for a seamlessly intersectional extension of kinship without boundaries.

Since the opening of her high-end San Francisco Chinese restaurant, the Manda In her essay “Postmodern Blackness,” bell hooks presents rap as a specifically African-American critical voice that musically animates black youth’s real and imagined accomplishments and offers “an empowering nihilism, a moment of positivity through the production and structuring of affective relations” (27). However, hooks also warns against the interpretation of rap as testimonial evidence for “authentic” blackness as it turns attention away from “the way black identity has been specifically constituted in the experience of exile and struggle” in favor of constricting, prescriptive definitions of blackness (28-29). Advocating for a critique of racial essentialism, hooks renders the critical voice accessible to all marginalized groups in order to forge alternative spaces of resistance and intersectional solidarity. Although Cynthia Kadohata’s In the Heart of the Valley of Love and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange do not address hooks directly, they present particularly multiracial versions of a future, dystopian America where non-essentialistic critical voices are necessary for narrative “exits” from racial and capitalist exploitation. Rather than using critical voices merely as empowering storytelling tools, Kadohata and Yamashita use them to develop

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heterotopic counter-spaces designed to forge affective kinship relations across conventional boundaries of race and class.

Michel Foucault first introduced the concept of heterotopias in his essay “Of Other Spaces.” Foucault argues that people live in a heterogeneous space where heterotopias serve as “a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites … are simultaneously represented, contested, and in-

diates the experience of multilayered realities, then the resulting heterotopic space exists “in a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invent the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect” (3). The back-and-forth interaction between the gazer and the mirror generates heterotopias via the confirmation and confounding of reality and unreality. The utopian contents of the mirror’s reflection thus inform and mediate the gazer’s contestations

verted” (3). Metaphorizing the “mixed, joint experience” of heterotopia via the example of gazing into the mirror, Foucault describes the mirror as a utopia in dialectic with the subject within the space that is being reflected: “In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface...Starting from this gaze that is...directed towards me, from the ground of this virtual space that is on the other side of the glass … I begin again to direct my eyes toward myself and to reconstitute myself there where I am” (4). But, the reconstituted selfhood is not a return to an unchanged and purely tangible reality; rather, it is a selfhood that is thoroughly connected with fantasy because the mirrored gaze “makes this place that I occupy at the moment I look at myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there” (4). If the unreal contents of a mirror reflect a utopia that me-

with reality, all of which are enveloped in paralleling counter-spaces.

While Edward Soja critiques Foucault’s idea of heterotopia as “frustratingly incomplete” and “deviously apolitical” in his book Thirdspace, he considers its ambiguity productive for the conception of a synonymic Thirdspace that is inclusive of other “geohistories of otherness” (162). Soja uses hooks’ writing to highlight the especial relevance of Thirdspace as a site of resistance and empowerment for people of color: “Throughout our history, African Americans have recognized the subversive value of homeplace, of having access to private space where we do not directly encounter white racist aggression … domestic space has been a crucial site for organizing, for forming political solidarity” (qtd. in Soja 103).

Inspired by a line in Junichiro Tanizaki’s essay “In Praise of Shadows” that states, “our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came to discover beauty in shadows,” hooks reconceptualizes blackness so that in her black-skinned “space of shadows” she

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can cultivate “an aesthetic of blackness—strange and oppositional” to the color politics imposed by racist white aesthetics (qtd. in Soja 104). Ultimately, hooks’ narrative is not about her black skin but rather the kinds of mythologies that are associated with it. By spinning an alternative narrative paralleling her blackness with a “homeplace” that is shared in solidarity with her sister and presumably other black people as well, hooks practices a critical voice whose radical anti-essentialism lies in the fact that she uses the narrative of a male Japanese author published in the late 1970s to inform her late 1990s, African-American imagination of blackness. hooks thus creates a framework of radical black subjectivity that does not subscribe to a criteria defining African Americanness but is instead located in relation to the various shared, intersectional, and overlapping heterotopias, or Thirdspaces, of home and solidarity.

hooks’ emphasis on home and emplacement within shared Thirdspatial networks proves to be particularly useful in interpreting In the Heart of the Valley of Love as Kadohata acknowledges the productive power of kinship as a means to escape a helpless victimhood.

In an interview with Hsiu-Chuan Lee, Cynthia Kadohata states, “A relationship can give people a type of safety that environment won’t be able to give.

Safety is produced through making human connections. This is maybe the whole point I would like to make in my writings” (Kadohata 2007). Set in 2052,

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Kadohata’s novel In the Heart of the Valley of Love dramatizes a dystopian Los Angeles marked by mass poverty, class riots, rotting infrastructure, and a government that randomly arrests its own people. In reaction to their minority status in a largely non-white America, wealthy white people hoard money and resources in isolated “richtowns” apart from the poor and primarily non-white population of migrant laborers who rely on inadequately rationed “creds” for water and gas. Despite living in an extremely inhospitable landscape, the narrator Francie (of mixed Japanese, Chinese, and African-American heritage) forges affective kinship with other underprivileged characters in order to cultivate safe spaces and sites of belonging. By writing the book entirely in past tense and as Francie’s renarrativization of LA as her home, Kadohata deliberately “forgets” race to foreground affective modes of kinship.

As a result, she subverts the primacy of the white/non-white binary in favor of alternative imaginings of identity that exceeds the confines of prescribed racial boundaries.

The novel begins with Francie, her aunt Annie, and Annie’s boyfriend Rohn traveling through the desert as part of an illegal business delivering goods to a richtown. Although Kadohata avoids attaching characters to racial markers through her extensive use of Anglophone first names, Francie and her family are already racialized through their vulnerability to state scrutiny and violence. During

his attempt to purchase water from a black market vendor, Rohn disappears without explanation. His money and a bottle of water are still intact on a table as “a warning to tell [Francie] that Rohn had been arrested, not robbed” (Kadohata 15). The government’s deliberate gesture to mark their involvement, especially given Rohn’s plans to cross into richtown, reminds Francie to be acutely conscious that she occupies a hostile space characterized by an active

filling modes of establishing commonalities while working at her community college’s campus newspaper. Francie introduces her community college by describing its location in a part of town “largely abandoned by anyone who mattered to the country’s economy” because “nonwhites and poor whites made up sixty-four percent of the population but made only twenty percent of the legal purchases” (33). However, when she begins working for the news-

richtown rejection of non-white people as threateningly mobile targets of policing. Hence, when Francie crosses the desert border to return home to downtown LA, she hears sirens saying, “You are trespassing on private property. The police will arrive soon” (15).

The threat of potential arrest after the trauma of losing Rohn haunts Francie as she is only able to read her environment as an illumination and rejection of her race: “When I looked at the sky, and saw how yellow the blue was, I didn’t feel like doing anything except reading maps and thinking of where to go” (18). The yellow Francie observes in the air pollution coincides with that of “[her] yellow-brown legs—the yellow from [her] Japanese mother, the brown from [her] Chinese-black father” (22). Francie becomes interpellated into the white/non-white hierarchy as she actively parses out her mixed-race background as the condition for her non-belonging.

However, Francie’s recognition of racial difference reaches its limits as she discovers alternative and more ful-

paper, Francie realizes that “almost all of [her classmates] possessed a cunning that [she] both envied and feared, and eventually realized that [she], too, possessed” as a “sword against … the way wealth was a shield for the people of richtown” (33-34). While Francie initially condescends to the community college students, whom she considers economically unproductive and therefore worthless, her ideological complicity with the state’s white/non-white hierarchy proves to be inadequate as a basis for relating to her classmates.

Instead, she recognizes and is empowered by a shared knowledge of cunning and survival from which the occupants of richtowns have insulated themselves. According to Betsy Huang, the newspaper office is a site of “localizing power” that “defers defeat through the refusal to defer to the dictates of an imperializing white hegemony” (Huang 131). Rather than being unilaterally defined by the state as poor nonwhites, the newspaper staff cunningly capitalizes on the paper’s marginalization and low readership by “writ[ing]

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all sorts of things criticizing anyone [they] wanted” without fear of retaliation (Kadohata 36). As a safe space for the legitimization of non-white opinions and observations where “signs of cultural and physiological difference are normalized as marks of individual distinction,” the newspaper and its office allow “interpellation [to be] shifted from the state to members of the communitas” (Huang 136). Hence, the newspaper staff’s collective invest-

After all, the kinships she establishes exceed the boundaries of coherent dialogue. Lucas, who serves as Francie’s de facto physical therapist, defends her from a man who attempts to sit on her drunk, prostrate body before “lifting [her] up” from the floor and “propp[ing] [her] against a wall” (90).

Francie herself feels responsible for Jewel, who is in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend Teddy: “And maybe [Jewel] would continue to love [Teddy]

ment in documenting their own voices offers an individualized alternative to prescriptive—and possibly essentialistic—racial identities. With race receding into the background, the newspaper provides an empowering and participatory space of freedom requiring Francie to actively engage in meaning-making through her writing.

The newspaper staff thus provides Francie a sense of kinship whose ethos of mutual responsibility and caring defines itself against racialized fears of the underprivileged as competitive richtown parasites. In Huang’s terms, Francie and her fellow newspaper staffers are “bolstered by the strength of their horizontal affiliations that guard them against derogating interpellative forces” (Huang 137). During a party with the entire newspaper staff at the home of Jewel, the managing editor, Francie admits that “[she] couldn’t make sense of any of [her surrounding conversations]”; yet, despite her incomprehension, she insists that “[she] didn’t want to leave these people ever” (Kadohata 90).

even if he beat her again. If that happened, Mark, Lucas, Bernard, Joe, or I would have to help her. That’s what we were all thinking as we sat there staring coolly at each other” (93). The newspaper staff’s silent gestures to help each other highlight their affective investment in the group’s physical and emotional safety, which cannot be quantified in the amount of money or number of creds that characterize richtown privilege. This is because an excessiveness of verbal articulation to express an instinctive consent of mutual obligatory care highlights the threat affective kinship poses to a status quo defined by economic monopolies. Francie and her friends become a surrogate family that creates an alternative form of value in kinship and responsibility, thus refusing the interpellative call of a hegemonic economic system.

In addition, affective kinship enables Francie to reject interpellative calls to recognize her racially hostile environment in favor of cultivating a sense of belonging. Although Mark, Francie’s newspaper

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colleague-turned-boyfriend, lives in a building that resembles “things that have died with smiles frozen on their faces,” Francie still “[feels] very athome in Mark’s place” (119). Francie’s emplacement originates from her romance with Mark, which enables her to conduct an affective reimagining of her surrounding landscape. Likening Mark’s apartment to a friend’s boathouse she used to visit when she was younger, Francie describes the boat-

With the white/non-white binary being displaced as the primary mode through which Francie relates to other characters and her surrounding geography, Kadohata concludes Francie’s final trip to the desert—the site where she was violently jolted to racial awareness—by proposing that belonging is established through interacting with intersecting histories accessed via kinship. Francie and Mark travel to the desert in order to retrieve a box

house as “full of disintegrating wood, dried seaweed, and mold that grew in fabulous flowerlike shapes” (119). Envisioning herself “in the middle of that sort of flowering desuetude,” Francie uses the sense of belonging she feels in Mark’s apartment as a vehicle through which she ties her fantasies and memories to the land: “We belonged there, in a place that wasn’t even meant to be a place any longer … Lying there, kissing the boy next to me, or sleeping, dreaming that the boathouse was a houseboat, I was vulnerable and invincible at the same time” (119-120). By overlaying a fantasy of a houseboat that has beautifully surrendered to nature, Francie’s imagination allows her to transcend the decrepit material conditions that correspond and call attention to her non-white status. Instead, decay in Francie’s imagination becomes resignified as beauty, creating a hospitable landscape that allows her to access an affective state of empowerment and freedom where she can be powerful or vulnerable without fear of being exploited.

that Jewel’s grandfather had buried containing rings and photos documenting his affair with his sister-in-law.

Given that Jewel had once held the rings admiringly “as if she held love there in her outstretched palm,” Francie wanted to send the rings to Jewel (who has since traveled east to escape her abusive relationship) as a present (221). However, when they arrive, they realize that Jewel has already taken the rings, leaving only a note saying “Jewel, July 2052” (223). In response, Francie writes “Francie and Mark” on a piece of paper, later adding “In Love, August 2052” as Mark puts his bracelet, his treasured first purchase, in the box (224). Although Jewel has already left, by adding to the box objects that document their relationship, Francie and Mark present themselves as possibly more successful successors to the romantic legacy left by Jewel’s grandaunt and grandfather. Francie and Mark thus interpellate themselves into a particularly local kinship network whose histories render prescriptions of race too superficial to establish the

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belonging Francie feels for LA Declaring that “Los Angeles was the only home either of us had ever known, and maybe this would be the only love we would ever know,” Francie confirms that “[she] would never leave Los Angeles” (225). Rather than offering a healing process that reclaims race as a source of pride, Kadohata actively “forgets” race in the text in order to explore possibilities of solidarity and kinship that transverse limiting racial barriers.

mashita 1998). Set across both sides of the US-Mexico border, Tropic of Orange presents a hyper-capitalist dystopia where drug-filled oranges have been mysteriously imported into Los Angeles from Mexico, causing a series of deaths and drug overdoses that result in a massive traffic accident on the freeway.

Meanwhile, a Mexican performance artist and boxer named Arcangel travels towards the US for a wrestling match with the Tropic of Cancer, a material

Because kinship and affective relations allow Francie and Mark an agency that is immune from appropriation by the state, they serve as a site of resistance within an environment that constantly seeks to subjugate the underprivileged.

However, affective kinship reaches its limits when it enables Kadohata’s characters to renarrativize but not disrupt the space of their hostile environment.

In contrast, Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange presents affective spaces of resistance that do not merely exist alongside oppressive geographies; rather, they physically change the landscape itself.

While Yamashita does not write directly in response to Kadohata,she questions the effectiveness of a critical voice that relegates itself to marginality without radically disrupting the status quo. In a 1998 interview with Jean Vengua Gier and Carla Alicia Tejeda, Yamashita states that she uses the metaphor of the land moving in order to highlight the cross-border immigration “that has changed the landscape entirely, because [people have] taken their culture and their landscape with them” (Ya-

form of the latitudinal line, attached to his orange. As a result, he distorts the land and causes a mass insurgence of migrants from the Global South into the US – essentially rendering the exclusionary geography of US-Mexico border meaningless. Featuring a diverse cast of characters across racial and class positionalities who remap and renarrativize their surrounding geographies, Yamashita presents an absurdist dystopia where borderless, shared, and overlapping heterotopic spaces serve as crucial instruments in the production of affective kinship.

In his article “The Second Elevation of the Novel: Race, Form, and the Postrace Aesthetic in Contemporary Narrative,” Ramón Salvídar identifies Tropic of Orange as a literary example of what he describes as “speculative realism”: “a parabasis of constant and complete rupture between delightfully comic psychic façades that bar the way of memories of a traumatic past and the equally persistent ironic impulses toward utopian desires that remain impervious to the real” (12). Specula-

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tive realism’s “double impulse toward and against history and utopia” characterizes Tropic of Orange as fantastical re-narrativizations of the land fail to be alternative recordings of history (12). Instead, ruptured and incomplete geospatial narratives that recognize and oppose the conditions producing inequality allow for the participation of other characters as authorial agents whose contributions re-inscribe radical political ideals.

fic, and disgruntled workers as musical elements rather than unhealthy signs of a capitalist economy, Manzanar uses his conducting as a way in which he can cultivate, in hooks’ terms, a homespace within LA that forcefully reads capitalist networks as a site of potential kinship. As a result, Manzanar’s emplacement within LA enables him to interpret the natural geographic surface, man-made grid of civil utilities, water and sewage pathways, and electric cur-

In Tropic of Orange, Manzanar Murakami initally exerts a narrative of extreme control over his compositional recordings of traffic as a homeless “conductor” of traffic rather than music. Manzanar’s name, which is also the name of a Japanese internment camp, suggests that he was once interned, and was perhaps even born there. Manzanar’s desire for musical control, as well as his sudden disappearance from his job as a surgeon—a career characteristic of the post-internment model minority stereotype— seem to betray unresolved trauma from internment (Yamashita 56). Affirming that “[h]e must hear every measure” and “cue every instrument at the final note,” Manzanar retreats into a fantastical, heterotopic space where he has the God-like power to transform the “slow grumpy mass” of drivers on the freeway into a musical “third movement” where “he bore and raised each note, joined them, united families, created a community, a great society, an entire civilization of sound” (35). Romanticizing the freeways, packed traf-

rents as various “mapping layers” that could be “pick[ed] out like transparent windows” and placed “delicately and consecutively in a complex grid of pattern” (56). Describing the underground commercial networks in almost surgical precision, Manzanar reframes his skills from his medical past as an exercise of control over the capitalistic processes that he in reality has no hand in. While Manzanar relegates himself at the side of the freeways in order to claim his spot as conductor, he also marginalizes himself from the masses, who pay him no heed.

Likewise, Buzzworm also exerts control over his surrounding space by “mapping” his environment via time, radios, and palm trees. An African-American war veteran whose experience with rapid gentrification led him to collect a series of keepsake watches, Buzzworm considers watches a way to track and preserve a series of times that correspond to various personal stories: “Watch was an outwards reflection of your personal time … Had to do with a sense of time … Sense of

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history. Like listening to oldies with Margarita” (86). Using watches to fulfill his philosophy that there is “[t]ime for everything,” Buzzworm wears two to three watches on both of his wrists in a desperate attempt to exist in a heterotopic space where histories can be materially grounded and immune from gentrification’s erasure of the spaces in which they took place. Similarly to Manzanar, who listens to the sounds of the freeway, Buzzworm listens to the

historical spaces do not seem sufficient to disrupt capitalism.

Arcangel, however, serves as an explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-colonial critical voice that narrates heterotopic spaces where histories of colonialism and imperialism fantastically reveal cross-border capitalist exploitation within mainstream spaces.

Disrupting Manzanar and Buzzworm’s practice of forming clearly sequestered heterotopias, Arcangel’s heterotopias

radio twenty-four hours a day in order to “give a little light rhythm to the situation” (29). Although he does not understand the content of the non-English channels, Buzzworm depends on the radio as a therapeutic “inner voice” whose regimented programming schedule forges a psychological space allowing him sense of discipline and a retreat from the addictive drug and smoking habits he had presumably had in the past (29). Buzzworm lastly maps his physical environment by studying palm trees, whose height offers the possibility to “see everything … beyond the street, the houses, the neighborhood” (32). As “symbols of the landscape” evoking the imagination of “poor and crazy, ugly or beautiful, honest or shameful” events occurring below, palm trees serve as spatial markers anchoring Buzzworm’s network of imagined personal stories (33). While Buzzworm recognizes the devastating effects of capitalism in the elimination of communities, his efforts to preserve and overlay personal narratives through which lives attached to

explicitly touch and transform spaces as he, as a “prototypal figure embodying the historical consciousness of Latin America,” responds to the past by traveling north as if it is his “manifest destiny” (Chae 99). As the possessor of the orange attached to the Tropic of Cancer, Arcangel also actualizes the subtext behind the orange’s movement northwards. Deemed by the state to be illegal, oranges functioned as a substitute for the stereotypical “unwanted” immigrant: “All oranges were suspect.

And deemed highly toxic … See an orange? Call 911” (141). Arcangel garners support for Mexican migrant workers for role as the fighter against SUPERNAFTA, the boxer symbolizing a North American-Mexican trade agreement, when he invokes the history of exploitative agreements between the US and Mexico. Asking, “Have you forgotten 1848 and the/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?” Arcangel emphasizes the fundamental right for Mexicans to access the Californian land that was once a part of their territory: “1849,/everyone rushed to get the gold in California,/and all

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of your Californios who were already there/ and all of you indigenas who crossed … the new border … have become wetbacks” (133). Demanding the remembrance of American imperialist oppressions against Mexicans in systematically denying them their rights to their land, Arcangel conflates the past with the present by invoking an affective indignation against an unfairly and arbitrarily drawn US-Mexico border.

Meanwhile, Arcangel actively engages in a heterotopic space where his imagination of himself as a “Conquistador of the North” informs his crossing of the “New World Border” (198). When Arcangel, with the migrant laborers and stretched South American space behind him, reaches the US-Mexico border and confronts the no-orange policy, his attempt to argue fails as his voice is “swallowed up by the waves of floating paper money: pesos and dollars and reals, all floating” while “a graceful movement of free capital, at least 45 billion dollars of it” is “carried across by cheap labor” (200). By banning people who do not fit the criteria of American cheap labor while allowing for a seamless transfer of wealth, the US-Mexico border serves as a site that privileges capital over people. With history being “recomposed as a series of simultaneous moments” where Arcangel claims to have been “everywhere every time” milestones in American history occur, the division between Arcangel’s reality and heterotopias dissolves as Arcangel’s subjectivity within previously latent networks of

globalized capitalism is animated by a wave of money sweeping from Mexico into the US (Salvidar 89).

As a result of Arcangel’s migration across the US-Mexico border, the geographical distortions caused by the moving Tropic of Cancer ruptures Manzanar’s heterotopic vision of a self-contained musical orchestra.

After the car crash stops traffic on the freeway, Manzanar has an out-of-body experience where “[t]he past flooded around him” and “[h]e remembered his youth, the woman he loved, the family he once had, a nine-year-old grandchild he was particularly fond of” (170). According to David Palumbo-Liu in his essay “The Occupation of Form: (Re)theorizing Literary History,” once “memory is evoked, attaching people to places, it ‘folds in’ upon itself, withdrawing before a catalogue of an extra-local and extra-personal spatiality” (Palumbo-Liu 830). This is seen at work: “And there was the great land mass to the south, the southern continent and the central Americas … Manzanar saw it … before it would shift irrevocably, crush itself into every pocket and crevice, filling another vacuum with its cultural conflicts, political disruption, romantic language” (Yamashita 170). Although Arcangel has not yet arrived in LA, by chance, Manzanar already seems to participate in Arcangel’s heterotopic vision that the Global South will move into the North. Hence, Manzanar “sense[s] a new kind of grid … defined not by inanimate structures … but by himself and

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others like him” that foregrounds the ironies perpetuated when the homeless population occupy the physical spaces abandoned by the socioeconomically privileged: “Every day Manzanar had watched the daily hires hugging their knees on the back of pickup trucks … challenging the pretensions of other workers inside cars that they imagined defined their existence. Now, for a scant moment in history, the poor looked out of those cars” (238). Com-

modation without prejudice against labor status (239). Manzanar’s singular and sequestered musical space ruptures to overlap with Arcangel’s (also rupturing) heterotopia in order to include the voices of the homeless whose musical contributions complete the stylized welcoming ceremony much deserving of the Northern conquistador. While Manzanar does not express feelings of explicit emotional connection to the others participating in his traffic or-

pared to his previous romanticization of traffic, Manzanar delights in the inversion of class dynamics. His newfound sensitivity to the suffering of migrant laborers—rather than reducing them to musical notes—suggests that the affective resistance to histories of American exploitation has become decentered from Arcangel and accessible to those who participate in his communal heterotopia of Northern conquest.

With other homeless people conducting music of their own in a “choral babel,” the “City of Angels seemed to have opened its singular voice to herald a naked old man and little boy with an orange” in “grandiose proportions only Manzanar could appreciate” (238). “[N]odd[ing] to himself” that the choir is “[n]ot bad,” Manzanar welcomes Arcangel’s arrival with the acknowledgement that once again, “the grid was changing” (238, 239). The repetition of the phrase “the grid is changing” highlights the fact that the alteration of the valley from “ten lanes across” to being “bigger than a tiny island” physically inscribes the priority of human accom-

chestra, his willingness to share his musical space indicates a sense of solidarity with his community. In her article “‘We Are Not the World,’” Sue-Im Lee terms such solidarity as a kind of romantic universalism that “generates a ‘we’ greater in scope than Arcangel’s ‘crowd’ or Buzzworm’s homeless” and “postulates a “we” that is absolutely inclusive because … there is no possibility of exclusion “ (517-518). The resulting borderlessness of Manzanar’s heterotopic space of romantic universalism thus allows people from both sides of the US-Mexico border to create a sense of transnational unity and reciprocity that interacts fluidly with other heterotopias as well.

With the disintegration of his tight control over his orchestra as well as his musical landscape, Manzanar is forced to break the psychic boundaries of trauma that allow him to recognize his granddaughter Emi. Although his out-of-body experience triggers memories enabling him to “[recognize] the motorcyclist in a pink suit and pink helmet,” he does not fully acknowledge

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Emi as his granddaughter until “[t] he entire city had sprouted grassroots conductors” whose musical control over the environment frees him from “need[ing] to conduct music any longer” (254). After all, the romantic universalism of Manzanar’s conducting serves as a mediatory space through which the homeless instill utopian communality into the disaster-torn setting of the freeway. As a result, rather than imposing an artificial sense

his granddaughter” and “took her hand in his like old times” (255). Yamashita deliberately withholds using the title of “granddaughter” with Buzzworm to emphasize that the feeling of familial kinship belongs solely to Manzanar as he reunites with Emi only after she dies from a gunshot wound. Manzanar’s and Emi’s kinship relation appears to have a transformative effect on the environment as it is established right before “[a]ll the airbags in LA ruptured

of family unity by “record[ing] everything … in music,” Manzanar can go beyond mere documentation to active reparation of his long forsworn past.

Having “no need to conduct music any longer” in an environment where every person has taken musical and interpretive control over their environment, Manzanar becomes situated in a heterotopic space of his past and possibly imaginary interaction with a young Emi: “Folk songs. Jazz bits.

Rock tunes. Lullabies. Are you sad today? I have a new song for you. How about that? … He hadn’t meant to leave her, or anyone else” (255). Suddenly whisked to a fantastical space where “[e]verything would churn itself into tiny bits of sand, crumble there at the rim—the descending sun one gigantic blazing orange … boiling the sea intro steamy shades of blood,” Manzanar’s fantasies compel him to decide that “[h]e had seen enough” and “he had heard everything” (255). Consequently, after Buzzworm “place[s] the woman’s body on the hanging gurney,” Manzanar “climb[s] onto the gurney with

forth, unfurled their white powdered wings against the barrage of bullets, and stunned the war to a dead stop” (256). Instead of focusing on kinship amongst the conductors, Yamashita chooses to highlight a hyper-local relationship between Manzanar and Emi because they rely on the communal solidarity created by the various heterotopias in order to be brought together.

Manzanar’s mass orchestra thus serves as a heterotopia influencing the breakdown of Buzzworm’s reliance on the radio as his primary connection to the world. While the police clear out the freeway by massacring homeless people, Buzzworm pulls the plug on his radio as he realizes that the vision it provides for relating to others is dissatisfactory: “radio was like one big love song … We love ourselves but hate some of you. I hate myself but would love you if … I loved you so I killed you” (264-265). Deeming radio “more tripped up than his own mind,” Buzzworm opts instead for a “mythic reality” where “[e]verybody gets plugged into a reality and builds a myth around

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it” so that “[t]hings would be what he and everybody else chose to do and make of it” (265). Buzzworm’s repeated emphasis of the word “everybody” echoes Manzanar’s romantic universalism where the sense of solidarity and kinship paralleling the radio’s version of “love” has no limitations. His mythic reality, “differ[ing] from the cult of love [as propagated by the radio] in its constructivist dimension,” allows people to remain “fully conscious of

grants (265). Hence, Buzzworm alludes to the ultimately arbitrary nature of the US-Mexico border.

Therefore, the deaths of Arcangel (in the guise of El Gran Mojado) and SUPERNAFTA in their fight against each other questions the sustainability of Arcangel’s Thirdspatial persona of the Northern conquistador. As the embodiment of capitalism and geopolitical superpower—as emphasized in the “super” in his name—Arcangel attempts

the fact that one chooses the myth that best accompanies one’s desired reality” (Lee 518). Likewise, Manzanar’s heterotopic orchestra enables its participants the agency to exert musical control over their environment in addition to penetrating into other heterotopias such as that of Arcangel. As a result, with “Manzanar’s symphony swell[ing] against his diaphragm” and “reverberat[ing] through his veteran bones,” Buzzworm chooses to mediate his effort heal LA through Manzanar’s musical conducting. As part of a community with many disparate responses to the chaos, Buzzworm situates himself within a mythical space where everyone is “conducting” different, yet complementary parts of a unified symphony” (265). With Buzzworm generating a sense of solidarity and potential kinship amongst “[h]omeboys fixin’ to do good,” “vigilante groups disbandin’ to Bel Air,” and “Attorney General arrestin’ and investingatin’,” the text “forgets” about the North-South distinction between the residents of LA and its new influx of Mexican immi-

to garner favor from the audience by declaring, “There’s an entire machine of banking computers and technological research … that’s working day and night to put together this billion-dollar package so that you can have your cut.

That’s progress working for you” (257).

Debunking SUPERNAFTA’s vision of “freedom and the future,” El Gran Mojado states, “The myth of the first world is that/development is wealth and technology progress. It is all rubbish” (259).

However, despite the fact that El Gran Mojado “stok[ed] NAFTA to a live nuke,” SUPERNAFTA uses his pointing finger as a “missile launcher that sent its tiny patriot into Arcangel’s human heart” (262). Their double deaths thus end in the line: “The clash of the same world/ with itself, its hands/meeting in a prayer of blood” (263). El Gran Mojado and SUPERNAFTA’s double deaths once again highlight the arbitrary nature of the US-Mexico border as they both exist in the same world. America and Mexico are so profoundly implicated in unequal economic and political relations that neither the success nor failure of

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NAFTA seems to be an immediate and constructive solution.

But, Rafaela Cortès, a Mexican woman, proves to be a more successful parallel to Arcangel as she mobilizes her motherhood to disrupt capitalism as well as the US-Mexico border.

Originally living in the US with her Singaporean-Chinese husband Bobby, Rafaela rebels against her role in the capitalist economy who receive immigrant labor but reject immigrant

slid along … like a child clinging to its mother’s skirt” (153). Because Rafaela’s motherly affect kept her attached to the moving landscape, “the black Jaguar [driven by the trader] followed but never caught up” (154). However, when Rafaela is caught by the trader in her attempt to protect Sol, she “twisted her body into a muscular serpent” and “thrashed at him with vicious fangs” as he rapes her: “gutting and searing the tissue of their existence, copulating in

bodies: “she kept talking, saying we’re not wanted here. Nobody respects our work. Say we cost money. Live on welfare. It’s a lie. We pay taxes” (80).

Rafaela later separates from Bobby and moves back to Mexico when she realizes that “she wanted more” than a life disillusioned with work (80).

Unlike Arcangel, who makes poetic, ideologically-based speeches against capitalism, Rafaela bases her repulsion to capitalism on her lived experience.

Hence, while the Tropic of Cancer is primarily carried through the orange to which it is attached, Rafaela’s motherhood serves as an affective site that also influences the distortion of Mexico’s geography. After Rafaela overhears an illegal organ trader talking about harvesting organs from her, she secretly sends the trader’s baby heart to Gabriel, her Chicano journalist employer, to investigate before leaving to follow Arcangel in his bus journey North. Hugging Sol, her son, close to her, “the landscape was continually familiar” to Rafaela as “Gabriel’s land and the unfinished wall stretched and

rage … blood and semen commingling among shredded serpent and feline remains” (221). When she awakens, she vomits “a wad of black fur” and “hugged her nakedness, tugging at the few shreds of clothing left covering her battered body” (221). Yamashita uses magical realism to narrate Rafaela’s trauma as an animalistic battle where her doubly vulnerable position as a Mexican woman renders her unprotected from the violence and exploitation perpetuated by histories of colonialism and governmental abuse. Conflating her present with the “one hundred mothers pacing day after day the Plaza de Mayo with the photos of their disappeared children, and Coatlalopeuh blessing it all,” Rafaela resignifies her sexual trauma by reconstituting herself as the indigenous snake goddess Coatlalopeuh in a Thirdspace of battle (220221). Rafaela also uses Coatlalopeuh’s symbolism of fertility to reclaim her sexuality as a battle tool enabling her to eat the trader, subverting conventional depictions of female sexual vulnerability in addition to using indigenous Mex-

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ican culture to overpower the trader— who, in the form of a jaguar, represents the Jaguar automobile corporation in animalized form.

Thus, when Rafaela finds Sol at Arcangel’s wrestling fight, she is able to break the line demarcating the Tropic of Cancer. After Bobby meets up with the newly recovering Rafaela in Mexico, even though “[t]hey came together in a fleshy ball … genitals pressed in a lingering fire, heart to heart, mind

as well as the fight’s spectators, “[l] ittle by little the slack on the line’s gone” (267). Although Bobby holds the two ends of the cut Tropic of Cancer, when he asks himself “What are these goddamn lines anyway?” and propels himself towards embracing Rafaela and Sol, he lets go. While the lines slither away, the book ends with three curt sentences: “Go figure. Embrace.

That’s it” (268). Concluding with the scene of Rafaela and Bobby hugging

to mind,” the Tropic of Cancer’s silken thread “unfolded and tugged itself away … as the line in the dust became again as wide as an entire culture and as deep as the social and economic construct that nobody knew how to change” (254). However, when Rafaela makes Bobby cut the orange after Arcangel and SUPERNAFTA fatally injure one another, she feeds the pieces to the enmarscado “[l]ike she’s a soccer mom at half-time” (267). At the moment he “chews and smiles,” crowds rush in to take him away: “Gonna take him home. Home is where mi casa es su casa. Bury him under an orange tree” (267). Given that Arcangel and SUPERNAFTA are both masked, the identity of the enmarscado is ambiguous and irrelevant to Rafaela’s performance of motherhood. By feeding the enmarscado as if he were a child, Rafaela creates a maternal Thirdspace that invites the crowd to pity the enmarscado, no matter his political affiliation, and bring him home. As the phrase “mi casa es su casa” tranforms America into a homespace for the dead enmarscado

each other along with their mixed race son, Tropic of Orange ends by featuring an affective kinship that harks back to Manzanar’s concluding scene with Emi. In both scenes, affective kinship cannot be effectively produced without the background characters’ solidarity and emplacement as Yamashita purports to show that experiences of kinship and seemingly individualized heterotopias are interlinked and thoroughly connected with the environment.

Unlike Kadohata, whose heterotopias primarily consist of individual heterotopias overlaid upon the environment in order to “forget” race and revise past traumas, Yamashita suggests that heterotopias that merely provide safe spaces are insufficient for implementing radical ruptures within an oppressive environment. By presenting overlapping heterotopias whose openness to mass participation also blurs the boundary between the real and unreal, Yamashita highlights the diverse interconnectedness between her diverse characters. Giving her characters ethnically marked

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names in addition to providing constant reminders about their ethnic heritage, Yamashita deliberately emphasizes her characters’ race in order to undercut race as the primary mode through which one mediates kinships and emplacement. Rather, Yamashita introduces various heterotopias such as Manzanar’s, whose musical conducting of traffic serves as a basis of solidarity amongst the homeless people who attempt to impose a control on the geog-

because of the lack of a normative subject (21). Instead, she proposes a subject-less discourse that would explore “complex personhood” in addition to “critiqu[ing] the effects of the various configurations of power and knowledge through which the term [Asian American] comes to have meaning” (11). Kadohata certainly engages with a subjectless discourse as she pushes race into the background in favor of affective kinship relations that recognize

raphy that cannot be taken away by a hostile government. As Peter Johnson states in his article “Unravelling Foucault’s ‘different spaces,’” heterotopias “contest forms of anticipatory utopianism” and “hold not promise or space of liberation,”—their purpose is to “[illuminate] a passage for our imagination” (87). Neither Kadohata nor Yamashita offer stories whose environments are necessarily made less dystopian. However, both authors mobilize heterotopias in order to activate the imagination that is necessary for solidarity, kinship, and remembrance.

The Tropic of Orange’s ending scene is a particularly poignant image of the multiracial family that serves as the post-racial ideal. However, Yamashita reminds the reader that establishing a multiracial family does not alter the racism that still continues to exist; rather, she advocates for a multiracialism that arises from intersectional solidarity against oppression. In her book Imagine Otherwise, Kandice Chuh warns against framing “Asian American” as a positivist identity category

and arise from shared experiences with oppression. Yamashita, on the other hand, foregrounds race in order to emphasize the potential for solidarities not based on racial criteria, but rather the experience of being a race subject.

Similar to hooks, both Yamashita and Kadohata propose heterotopic possibilities for how one can imagine beyond essentialist designations of race in the effort to reclaim dignity in a marginalizing world.

Works Cited 1.

Chae, Youngsuk. Politicizing Asian American Literature : Towards a Critical Multiculturalism.

New York: Routledge, c2008.

2.

Chuh, Kandice. Imagine Otherwise : On Asian Americanist Critique. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

3.

hooks, bell. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1999.

4.

Huang, Betsy. Contesting Genres in Contemporary Asian American Fiction. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

5.

Johnson, Peter. “Unravelling Foucault’s ‘different spaces.’” History of the Human Sciences 19, no. 4 (November 1, 2006): 75–90. doi:10.1177/0952695106069669.

6.

“Jouvert: Interview with Karen Tei Yamashi-

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ta.” Accessed May 1, 2015. http://english. chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v2i2/YAMASHI.HTM. 7.

Kadohata, Cynthia. In the Heart of the Valley of Love. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

8.

Lee, Hsiu-chuan, and Cynthia Kadohata.

“Interview with Cynthia Kadohata.” MELUS 32, no. 2 (July 1, 2007): 165–86.

9.

Lee, Sue-Im. “‘We Are Not the World’: Global Village, Universalism, and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 53, no. 3 (2007): 501–27.

10. Palumbo-Liu, David. “The Occupation of Form: (Re)theorizing Literary History.”

American Literary History 20, no. 4 (2008): 814–35.

11. Saldívar, Ramón. “The Second Elevation of the Novel: Race, Form, and the Postrace Aesthetic in Contemporary Narrative.”

Narrative 21, no. 1 (2013): 1–18. doi:10.1353/ nar.2013.0000.

12. Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace : Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places.

Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1996.

13. Yamashita, Karen Tei. Tropic of Orange. First Edition edition. Minneapolis, MN : Saint Paul, MN: Coffee House Press, 1997.

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