first 100 days...some thoughts on 'asian american' and 'diversity'

so. somewhat different topic. i'd really like to make time to write on politics/media/cultural representations. and i'm sure that there is poetry that engages with these things - as i am starting to in my own work - but i have yet to explore that realm more in depth. anyway, for now...

is Obama the first Asian American president? some people seem to think so, citing his cabinet picks and his "asia" connection through his childhood in Jakarta, and his sister's part-asian heritage. (it's also interesting to look at some of the pre-election writing that on the one hand questions Obama's appeal to asian american communities and on the other hand - and maybe this has to do with how Obama's campaign progressed - shows some asian american organization's overwhelming support.

and yet what does all this perception/identifying mean, when Obama has publicly self-identified as black or african american? What does it mean when in his 2004 memoir Dreams from My Father, he wrote of struggling with a sense of mixedness - where are the voices claiming Obama as "my/our first biracial president? mixed heritage president?" what would that claim mean, in comparison to these other claims - to blackness, to asianness? certainly there is that claim to mixedness too, but i'm not seeing or hearing that as much. i'm still seeing this language of clear-cut 'demographics' and 'communities,' rather than a language of opening up across color and cultural lines.

there's talk of obama's cabinet as one of the 'most diverse' ever, with african americans and asian americans...yet there's still this idea that the asian american members will simply represent/be links to 'asian american communities' while the african american members will represent and support their populations. amidst all the praise for 'diversity,' there's little critical conversation on how these roles can be tokenizing, and fix or center certain people as representative of actually hugely diverse 'communities.' for instance, if gary locke, a chinese american (see below), is representative of asian america, then that perpetuates a particular image of asian american as primarily of chinese descent. it also makes it seem like 'asian american' is easily identifiable - oh you have chinese parents, but you've lived in the states for this long, you're asian american. this use of 'asian american' fails to account for individuals of all kinds of 'mixedness,' people who come from other parts of 'asia,' etc.

and what's more, there's a huge amount of cultural amnesia in the air; people seem to forget both the histories of opposition and cooperation between african american and asian americans...as well as the histories of all sorts of 'mixing' between people of color in this country. this 'diversity' discourse also erases the political histories of these terms themselves. briefly put, for example, "asian american" was an invention of the 1970s, born out of a specific sociopolitical moment (the civil rights era, then black power, new women's movements, etc). 'diversity,' in this multiculturalist framework, essentializes or a bit more mildly, tokenizes difference.

yes we can. progress. hope. that's great. but in recovering from the hemorrhaging headache of the last 8 (bush) years, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. remember history. think. just because obama has been doing some wonderful things in his first 100 days doesn't mean we should stop asking questions.



interesting bit from the yahoo.com article:

Obama has a deep personal connection with Asia, having spent part of his childhood in Jakarta. His sister is partly of Indonesian descent; her husband in turn is of Chinese heritage.

"Sometimes I jokingly say that this is the most Asian-American president that we will have," said Helen Zia, a prominent Asian-American scholar and activist.

"He recognizes what it means to be bicultural or bilingual -- that it's something we can contribute to America rather than being seen as a potential enemy or alien," she said.

She said there was "poetic justice" that one of the Asian-American members of the Obama cabinet, Steven Chu, heads the Department of Energy.

In 1999, the then energy secretary, Bill Richardson, accused Taiwanese-born scientist Wen Ho Lee of stealing secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory -- the birthplace of the atomic bomb -- to give to communist China.

Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement before the government dropped all charges against him other than carelessness with sensitive documents.

To the dismay of some Asian-Americans, Obama initially named Richardson to be commerce secretary. Richardson bowed out due to an unrelated controversy and Obama replaced him with Gary Locke, a Chinese-American.

& much much more on Obama's first 100 days here.

**

p.s. am i, too, playing into this label game of 'diversity' with my post labels? i like calling them 'tags' better, from my LJ experience, but i guess blogger likes to call them labels. which makes it all the more jarring to think about this whole act of categorization...for practical purposes i do it so i can easily hunt down old entries for future reference/self deprecation/"good times" nods to myself. i want to persist in awareness, however, the uses of these terms. "african american." "asian american." by using these terms, i want to explore their histories (past & present), always calling attention to who is using them, and for what reasons.

p.p.s. cheeeck out my new label cloud widget!! i love those things.

p.p.p.s. i love that blogger automatically saves drafts. i've had to come back to this post 3 times now, because my poor dell laptop keeps dying in this wacko heat.