Race and Contention in Twenty-First Century U.S. Media by Jason A. Smith Bhoomi K. Thakore

Author:Jason A. Smith, Bhoomi K. Thakore [Jason A. Smith, Bhoomi K. Thakore]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781138599505
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

The Perpetual Stranger

Despite people of Asian descent in America for more than two centuries, Asian Americans continue to occupy the social status of what Georg Simmel (see Levine, 1971) called the stranger, or one “who comes today and stays tomorrow.” While other ethnoracial minorities have been or are on the margins of U.S. society, the Asian American remains the quintessential stranger. In fact, the very conception of “Asian American” is disputed (Kibria, 1998). I posit that the term “perpetual stranger” is a more fitting than “forever foreigner” (Tuan, 1998) or “perpetual foreigner” (Wu, 2002) in that Asian Americans are indeed Americans, not sojourners or tourists. Palumbo-Liu (1999) describes the peculiar social position of Asian Americans this way: “Asia/America resides in transit, as a point of reference on the horizon that is part of both a ‘minority’ identity and a ‘majority’ identity’” (p. 5; emphasis in original).

Following the lifting of immigration restrictions in 1965, more people from Asian countries were able to claim residency in the United States. As the proportion of Latinos and Asian American continues to grow, the formation of a tri-racial social system (Bonilla-Silva, 2004) seems increasingly possible. The racialized social system unique to the United States did not transpire by accident; it was created by and for powerful White men in an attempt to maintain their privilege and dominance in U.S. society. Media outlets assisted in the transmission of this message, including Hollywood movies (Fuller, 2010; Locke, 2009).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.