Intersectional perspectives on Asian Pacific American activism and movement building

ABSTRACT

Scholars of American politics increasingly recognize the multidimensionality of oppression and the importance of community-based resistance led by members of intersectionally marginalized groups. Much less is known about the individuals who engage in community activism for social justice, how they became activists, and the challenges they face in the current political-economic context of rising neoconservativism and neoliberalism that is racialized and gendered. The following discussion examines these issues using the less-known case of Asian Pacific Americans and an intersectional approach. Although the dualistic, gendered, and racialized constructions of Asians as both “model minorities” and “yellow perils” make it difficult to build and sustain mass movements for social justice, the local political-economic contexts and personal experiences of community members matter. I suggest that an intersectional approach to the study of citizenship practice among progressive Asian Pacific American activists offers key insights into the ways in which groups marginalized by race, gender, ethnicity, class, and other social forces build and sustain communities of resistance and transformation towards social justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Race
• panethnicity
• gender
• intersectionality
• Asian Americans
• community activism
• citizenship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The decision to center my analysis on APA activism in Los Angeles and Las Vegas was in large part due to their distinct histories of community formation, similarities in issues facing the communities, and proximity of these sites to my home institution and hometown. In the larger project, interviews were supplemented with content analysis of the missions and programmatic goals of local CBOs organizations and secondary analysis of existing interviews in order to clarify and situate interview responses within broader community narratives. Current demographic and economic data at the local and regional levels conducted by APA organizations and U.S. Census were also assessed in order to contextualize the interview findings.

2 Author’s pseudonym.

3 2008 UCLA Asian American Studies Center Community Directory for Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

4 U.S. Census Bureau, 2011–2015 ACS, C24010.