Blacks and Asians

Blacks and Asians

Crossings, Conflict and Commonality

Hazel M. McFersonAssociate Professor of International Studies

andAssociate, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

George Mason University

Carolina Academic PressDurham, North Carolina

Copyright © 2005Hazel M. McFersonAll Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bl acks and Asians in Am erica : c ro s s i n gs , con fli ct and com m on a l i ty / [ed i ted ]by Hazel M. McFerson.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 1-59460-102-X1 . Af rican Am eri c a n s - - Rel a ti ons with Asian Am eri c a n s . 2 . Af rican Am eri-c a n s - - Social con d i ti on s . 3 . Asian Am eri c a n s - - Social con d i ti on s . 4 . Un i tedStates--Race relations. I.McFerson, Hazel M. II. Title.

E185.615.B55325 2004305.895'073--dc22 2004027978

Carolina Academic Press700 Kent Street

Durham, NC 27701Telephone (919) 489-7486

Fax (919) 493-5668www.cap-press.com

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the memory of David Fagen,African American soldier, Twenty-fourth U.S. Army Infantry Division,

who in solidarity with the Filipino Cause during the Philippine-American War,1899–1902, defected and accepted a commission in the army of

Filipino revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo.

Contents

ForewordFrank H. Wu xi

Preface and AcknowledgmentsHazel M. McFerson xix

Contributors xxiii

Chapter 1 IntroductionHazel M. McFerson 3

Part I The Historical Perspective

Chapter 2 Asians and African Americans in Historical PerspectiveHazel M. McFerson 19

Chapter 3 Is Yellow Black or White? RevisitedGary Y. Okihiro 55

Chapter 4 When Were We Colored?: Blacks, Asians and Racial Discourse

Crystal S. Anderson 59

Chapter 5 Blacks and Asians in a White City, 1870–1942Quintard Taylor 79

Chapter 6 In the Twilight Zone between Black and White:Japanese American Resettlement and Community in Chicago, 1942–1945

Charlotte Brooks 113

vii

Part II Contemporary Issues and Views

Chapter 7 Korean-Black Relations: Contemporary Challenges,Scholarly Explanations, and Future Prospects

Dae Young Kim and L. Janelle Dance 153

Chapter 8 Are Asians Black?: The Asian American Civil Rights Agenda and the Contemporary Significance of the Black/White Paradigm

Janine Young Kim 171

Chapter 9 At Least You’re Not Black: Asian Americans in U.S. Race Relations

Elaine H. Kim 203

Chapter 10 African American and Asian WomenChristine C. Iijima Hall 215

Chapter 11 Desis in the Hood: Indian American Youth Culturein New York

Sunaina Maira 235

Chapter 12 Relations between African American and Asian Indian Students

Kavita Mittapali 265

Chapter 13 Brown Views White over Black:The Filipino Desire to Be White and Their Stereotypes of African Americans

Julian Madison 279

Chapter 14 The Impact of Perceptions on Interpersonal Interactions in an African American/Asian American Housing Project

Patricia Guthrie and Janis Hutchinson 303

Chapter 15 Both Edges of the Margin: Blacks and Asians in Mississippi Masala, Barriers to Coalition Building

Taunya Lovell Banks 319

viii Contents

Chapter 16 Vignettes in Black and YellowGrace Lee Boggs, Colette Jue,Mitzi Uehara-Carter and Mary A. Fukuyama 359

Part III The International Dimension

Chapter 17 The African American Impact on Modern Japan:Beyond an Alliance of Color

Yukiko Koshiro 415

Chapter 18 Ethnographic Report of an African American Student in Japan

Sayoko Okada Yamashita 443

Chapter 19 An African American in South Korea Charlotte Thomas 455

Chapter 20 The Yellow NegroJoe Wood 463

Chapter 21 Hip Hop and Racial Desire in Contemporary Japan Nina Cornyetz 485

Chapter 22 Color Lines: Africa and Asia in the Twenty-First Century

Michael Chege 513

Contents ix

xi

Foreword

Frank H. Wu

What ex act ly is the so-call ed “n ew parad i gm” of race rel a ti ons? “ Beyon dbl ack and wh i te” tells us what it is not, but it fails to tell us what it is. “ Beyon dbl ack and wh i te” is the leading candidate that has em er ged from among thecon trad i ctory worl dvi ews wh i ch purport to inform us abo ut race thro u gh thel enses of n a tu re , nu rtu re , h i s tory, d i s c ri m i n a ti on , c u l tu re , ch a n ce , and power,wh et h er re s pectively or in com bi n a ti on , cl a ri f ying or distorti n g. Wh a tever el s et h ey may have to say abo ut the causes, con tex t , and con s equ en ces of the rac i a ldisparities that continue to mark individuals and communities in our diversedemocracy, most writers are starting to observe life in terms that are complexra t h er than simple, a m biguous inste ad of def i n i te , dynamic and not stati c ,preferring inclusion to exclusion. Nonetheless, much like “post-modern” as as ch ool of t h o u gh t , with wh i ch it may be unders t a n d a bly con f u s ed , “beyon dblack and white” is an oppositional slogan. Like “post-modern,” it names it-self ironically against the prevailing tradition.

It is easy en o u gh to argue that soc i ety needs a new parad i gm , but it is mu chharder to explain how such an approach would work in actual practice. Theresistance was anticipated by the late philosopher-scientist Thomas Kuhn. Heintroduced the concept of a paradigm shift which alters the very frameworkthat disciplines intell ectual activi ti e s . This new parad i gm of “beyond bl ack andwh i te ,” wh i ch can be as facile as it is soph i s ti c a ted , is on ly starting to beadopted . It is en co u n tering the usual re s i s t a n ce from those wh o, as Kuhn pre-dicted, are married to the established methodology even if they cannot helpbut be aware of its limits.

Even after a new paradigm has become established, of course, it only setsforth new qu e s ti on s . It does not nece s s a ri ly determine any new answers . Th a ton going proj ect is exem p l i f i ed by this co ll ecti on of e s s ays . Th ey hold thepromise of a ren ewed com m i tm ent to ac ademic inqu i ry seri o u s ly en ga gedwith race and racism.

xii Foreword

The new paradigm of “beyond black and white” is in some sense a belatedretu rn to difficult re a l i ties distorted by the impo s i ti on of a Jim Crow rac i a lorder wh i ch mandated an imagi n a ry but invi o l a ble bl ack - wh i te co l or line. Th edescriptive and empirical case for this new paradigm is clear. There have al-ways been and there now are obviously individuals and communities who aren ei t h er bl ack nor wh i te , wh et h er Lati n o / Hi s p a n i c , Asian Am eri c a n , Na tiveAm eri c a n , Arab Am eri c a n , or pro u dly mixed . We are not interl opers . A bl ack -wh i te parad i gm produ ces a pictu re of the pop u l a ti on that is inacc u ra te . Itomits much of humanity.

Un til recen t ly, d i f ferent et h n i c i ties would have been rega rded as differen trace s . The Irish no less than the Chinese con s ti tuted a disti n ct “race” u n derthe amateur typo l ogies fashion ed in the name of p s eu do - s c i en ces no bet terthan ph ren o l ogy from the tu rn of the cen tu ry until the Nazi era . Th ere wason ce an “ ” Indian probl em ,” a “Chinese probl em ,” and a “ Mexican probl em ,”which interfered with the manifest destiny of westward progress, just as therewas the “ Negro probl em ,” e ach to be re s o lved by sep a ra te albeit rel a ted regi m e sof ex term i n a ti on , exclu s i on and segrega ti on . The demand for mutu a lly ex-clu s ive categori e s , oppo s ed to one another, l ed to the cre a ti on of wh i ten e s sand its corre s ponding but pre su m ed inferi or co u n terp a rt of bl ack n e s s . Th eIrish assimilated, as the Indian and the Chinese and the Mexican became ar-chetypes of the noble savage, the perpetual foreigner, and the illegal alien.

Even so, t h ere is no need to be en a m ored of a fin er sen s i bi l i ty spec i f yi n gdegrees of c ivi l i z a ti on . Those sch emes were perverse in their own styl e ,whether they were the archaic labels given to varying admixtures of ancestry,f rom octoroon on downw a rd in a scale of d a rk n e s s , or the modern intri c ac i e sof the to u ri s t s’ p a radise of Haw a i i , wh ere everyone has a cousin who is “h a p a”subsumed in the overall regime favoring white Americans, foreign Japanese,and Japanese Americans, all the while disfavoring indigenous peoples, an en-thusiasm exceeding that on the mainland. Such tendencies only confirm thata more precise repre s en t a ti on of the world does not nece s s a ri ly lead to anybetter understanding of the world. It is the hopeful fallacy of the Enlighten-ment era, that knowledge corresponds to wisdom.

Thu s , the slogan of “beyond bl ack and wh i te” has a dual meaning. Th em odel is not on ly literal but also met a ph ori c a l . Beyond the egregious instance sof racial discri m i n a ti on are the su btle but perva s ive patterns and practi ces thatre sult in racial dispari ti e s . It has become impera tive to dem on s tra te how bo t hproblems effectively violate our shared ideals of equality.

The crude story of villains and victims, even as it holds guilty identifiablewron gdoers and indu ces vague sympathies for rom a n ti c i zed vi cti m s , a ll owsus to exon era te ours elves as innocent and cel ebra te the su peri ori ty of our pity

Foreword xiii

without the benefits of self-awareness or self-doubt. There have been and stillare villains and victims, but there also are instances in which the absence ofcertain villains does not relieve the pain of definite victims. Problems such ashouse segrega ti on or infant mort a l i ty may have a host of c a u s e s , but they alsoh ave a stark racial ef fect . So it may be that bl a m eworthiness cannot be assessedand good faith is not su f f i c i en t . In troducing non - bl ack people of co l or isworthwhile for more than merely their own sake; it forces us to acknowledgethe structures that enforce racial injustice.

Asian Am ericans show, for ex a m p l e , that po s i tive images can be danger-o u s . The model minori ty myt h , wh i ch pre s ents Asian Am ericans as the ex-emplars of the “good” subordinate, conceals the risks of backlash against thesubjects themselves. To work hard is to be unfair competition. Furthermore,it en co u ra ges the manipulati on of the su bj ects against others . Asian Am eri-cans become pawns in the taunting qu e s ti on to Af rican Am eri c a n s , “Th eymade it, why can’t you?”

The ch a ll en ge of c a l c u l a ting who has faced the more severe preju d i ce wo u l dbe a con test of su f fering with no wi n n ers , as bet ween the Asian Am erican andthe Af rican Am erican who happen to find them s elves in the sort of m erch a n t -con su m er con fli ct that arises on a daily basis no matter the back ground of t h ep l ayers . The form er is mu ch more likely than the latter to be a newcom er tothe soc i ety, n o t withstanding the many native - born Asian Am ericans and for-ei gn - born bl ack s . The form er is mu ch less likely than the latter to have ex pe-ri en ced the raw su bord i n a ti on on a group basis impo s ed by skin co l or, but itis po s s i ble that in isolated cases an Asian Am erican has faced vi o l en ce that isi n d i s ti n g u i s h a ble at the indivi dual level from what an Af rican Am erican hasen co u n tered , both becoming the targets of the Ku Klux Klan or skinhead ga n gs .

The new parad i gm cre a tes the dangers of false affinities and su perf i c i a lcomparisons. The prescriptive and normative consequences of this new par-adigm are ambiguous. Even if the presence of Latino/Hispanic, Asian Amer-i c a n , Na tive Am eri c a n , Arab Am erican or mixed race pers ons is plain, the im-p l i c a ti ons wh i ch fo ll ow for public policy or social activism from their ad d i ti onto the serious discourse on civil rights remains obscure, other than that com-plications are bound to ensue. African Americans may begrudge the “Johnnycome lately” phenomena, with other groups taking advantage of their mem-ory out of self-interest but without genuine respect. Those other groups mayre s ent the perceived mon opo ly of Af rican Am ericans on the public con s c i en ce ,with everyone else relegated to a seemingly subordinate status in a bizarre in-version of conventional hierarchies.

Although the insertion of non-blacks (or even black immigrants) into po-l a ri zed deb a tes may serve the ulteri or purposes of i n c reasing com peti ti on

xiv Foreword

a m ong com mu n i ties of co l or, it is po s s i ble to pursue a pra gm a tic co u rse ofrecognizing that universal principles may be coupled to particular priorities.Ot h erwi s e , it would be foolish for Af rican Am ericans to rel i n quish their hard -fought gains. Intent matters, and intent is discerned in the subtleties.

The standard “black and white” paradigm was powerfully persuasive in itsown time against the ideo l ogies of wh i te su prem ac y. Its con s i dera ble meri t so u ght not be den i gra ted . As with most parad i gms that become outm oded , i t svery success was its undoing. For once everyone came to the conclusion thatbi go try was wron g, everyone alike den i ed that they had ever been bi gots orinsisted that they had overcome their past. Amnesia in turn leads to abstrac-tion. The proposition that African Americans deserved equal rights, meaningthat wh i tes en j oyed racial privi l ege s , was redu ced to the propo s i ti on thateveryone deserves equal rights, as if there were the same chances in the pastand across locales that whites would be deprived of their customary status byAfrican Americans as vice versa.

Moreover, rh etoric must ad a pt to re a l i ty even as rh etoric shapes re a l i ty. Th ea r g u m ents that the Reverend Ma rtin Lut h er Ki n g, J r. , m ade to So ut h ern wh i tecl er gym en who procl a i m ed them s elves progre s s ive in his “ Let ter from a Bi rm-i n gham Ja i l ” and to the nati on as a whole in W hy We Can’t Wa i t were com-pelling then as little has been since. New arguments are needed that addressc red i bly the con cerns of n on - bl ack people of co l or, not to men ti on the ap-preh en s i on of Af rican Am ericans that the arrival of L a ti n o s / Hispanics andAsian Am ericans wi ll wors en the con d i ti on of those wh om Wi lliam Ju l ius Wi l-s on has call ed “the tru ly disadva n t a ged ” or the corre s ponding anxieties ofwhite Anglos that their numbers will ensure a new heterodoxy.

The interacti ons among people of co l or, t h en , can serve as a corrective . Th ead d i ti on of Asian immigrants and their Am eri c a n - born progeny, for ex a m p l e ,can high l i ght the co l or line and its en suing hiera rchy. The ad d i ti on of As i a nAm ericans can do so, because Asian Am ericans pre s ent the rec u rring probl emof “ wh i ch side are you on ? ” Soc i o l ogist Ha rry Ki t a n o, in the leading mon o-gra ph on Japanese Am eri c a n s , procl a i m ed that if you scra tch a Japanese Am er-i c a n , you find a wh i te An gl o - Sa xon Pro testant undern e a t h . F i l m m a ker SpikeLee , in the re a l i s tic drama Do The Ri ght T h i n g, pre s ents a Korean immigra n texclaiming that he is bl ack , t h ereby managing to save his shop from de s tru c-ti on by Af rican Am ericans angry at the local Italian Am erican pizza joi n t .

Si n ce the inven ti on of the New Worl d , Asian Am ericans have been bl ack orwhite if they are to belong at all, or they are excluded altogether as outsidersof whom the system cannot make sense. It is necessary to point out only be-cause there are those dem a gogues who would deny it, but the demand thatAsian Americans pick a side prevents any denying that there are sides. Asian

Foreword xv

Am eri c a n s , l i ke Lati n o s / Hi s p a n i c s , stand astri de the bl ack - wh i te co l or line bycircumstance if not choice. If Asian Americans are to assimilate, their fittingin rei n forces a rule mu ch as a Chinese immigrant and then his fell ows becom e salternately “the Chinaman” or the “Yellow Peril.” We are eager to extrapolatefrom an individual example to the racial type.

The implicit standard is a white Anglo standard: An Asian American whocon forms to it is com m en d a bly mainstre a m , u pw a rdly - m obi l e , a ll - Am eri c a n ,if perhaps “trying too hard” as a social climber, mildly discomforting for hereagerness. But an Asian American who is distinctly Asian is at once reassur-i n gly ethnic and unmistakably exo ti c , con fin ed to Ch i n a town , Little To kyo,Kore a town , Little Sa i gon , or some su ch place of h er peop l e . And an As i a nAm erican who copies Af rican Am eri c a n s , in speech , m a n n ers , clothing ormusic, is worst of all, either deluded or radical.

The study of “whiteness” as a socially-constructed category does much tode s t a bi l i ze the bl ack - wh i te parad i gm from within itsel f : “Wh i te” is not wh a tit seem s ; it cannot be analogi zed to “p u re” a nym ore than any other skin co l or.The study of “whiteness” as a convenient fiction can be extended, however, toadva n ce a recon s tru ctive proj ect . Just as “ wh i ten e s s” as a category is we a ken edby the “passing” of individuals, “black and white” as a schemata is weakenedby the assimilation of groups.

If some Latinos/Hispanics can be either black or white, but lead lives thata re similar in cultu re but dissimilar due to race , it is po s s i ble to isolate theva ri a ble of race as cannot be done in a social scien ce bo u n ded by bl ack andwh i te . If Asian immigrants are integra ted as “h on ora ry wh i te s ,” with hesita-tion on both sides, that phenomenon will emphasize the remaining segrega-ti on of Af rican Am eri c a n s , even or espec i a lly if the bet ter po s i ti on of As i a nAm ericans is wel com ed as progre s s . In each instance , the bl ack - wh i te para-digm becomes a black-white scale. It is neither biology nor culture that justi-fies it, but expediency. Skin color overwhelms race. Tiger Woods, more out-s t a n d i n gly mu l ti - racial than any of his peers , is for practical purposes bl ackand not Asian.

Af rican Am ericans and Asian Am ericans have mu ch to te ach one another aswell as anyone else who cares abo ut race . The mutual edu c a ti on has been re-s tri cted to the invidious cl i chés set forth by the model minori ty myth and theperpetual forei gn er syndrom e . According to their assu m pti on s , Asian immi-grants wi ll te ach Af rican Am ericans how to stu dy diligen t ly and work hard wh i l eAf rican Am ericans wi ll te ach Asian immigrants abo ut the Am erican Dream byn ega tive ex a m p l e . Asian immigrants wi ll strive to become wh i te (or to be otherthan bl ack , wh i ch passes for the equ iva l en t ) ; Af rican Am ericans can take ref u gein their citi zenship being establ i s h ed to a degree newcom ers cannot cl a i m .

xvi Foreword

The contrary is more true than the stereotypes. The model minority mythand the perpetual foreigner syndrome form the basis for an original interpre-tation of the American dilemma.

The perpetual forei gn er syndrome belies co l or- bl i n d n e s s . One cannot verywell oppose immigration of Latinos/Hispanics and Asians because “they” arepresumed to be incompatible with “us,” but also maintain that we ought notrem edy inequ a l i ties affecting Af rican Am ericans because we cannot be con-scious of race . The fear of forei gn ers ex poses the disti n cti ons that would beden i ed dom e s ti c a lly. At the border, we can see very well who looks like us andwho does not; we demand to know of the Am eri c a n - born who looks “forei gn”where they are “really from,” for it cannot ever be here.

The alarm ex pre s s ed tow a rd the inevi t a ble dem ogra phic shifts of the na-tion, resulting in the eventual “browning” of the people, indicates the powerof race . Com mu n i ties have the ri ght to define them s elves thro u gh their ad-m i s s i ons standard s , by a line of re a s oning that is deem ed inherent to sover-eignty itself. The communal identity, and individual identities in turn, has asolidly racial core in calls for a closing of the borders, as its strongest propo-n ents arti c u l a te with pri de . In a genu i n ely co l or- blind regi m e , t h ere can be noracial majority. Consequently, there can be no fear of the loss of that status.In the nineteenth century, the Know-Nothing political party flourished untilits anti - i m m i grant platform was divi ded against itsel f by the slavery issu e . An-t a gonism tow a rd immigra n t s , m o tiva ted by rel i gi on (Roman Catholic) andrace (Asian), was overwhelmed by hostility premised on skin color (black).

The model minori ty myth reverses the causes of ac ademic su cce s s . By po s i t-ing that Asian Americans do well in school because of their Asianness, it de-fines Asianness as doing well in sch oo l . Traits su ch as doing hom ework , wh i chare not inherently Asian, are commended as Asian as if race determined be-havior. A vicious cycle is set off, in this instance not wholly benign because ofthe expectations imposed on Asian American schoolchildren.

Perceiving the circularity of the ascriptive formula, however, allows a par-a ll el to be drawn to the tre a tm ent of Af rican Am eri c a n s . The more As i a nAm ericans and ac ademic su ccess are con f u s ed , the more app a rent it shouldbecome that attacks on African Americans for possessing an allegedly patho-l ogical cultu re are unw a rra n ted . By dep i cting the trait as rac i a l , before con-demning it (for example, out-of-wedlock births), observers goad the subjectsof the stereotype into agreeing with the description but disagreeing with theju d gm en t . Even if the trait had on ly a weak correl a ti on to race , the stereo typegives it causati on by race . It is easier to accept the trait and va l ori ze it than re-j ect both the ex pect a ti on of h ow one wi ll beh ave and the eva lu a ti on of t h a tbehavior.

Foreword xvii

1. W.E.B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

The ra n ge of topics “beyond bl ack and wh i te” demanding sch o l a rship forman intell ectual fron ti er of bo u n dless po s s i bi l i ty. More than a cen tu ry ago, Fred-eri ck Jack s on Tu rn er famously op i n ed that the Un i ted States was ch a racter-i zed by its physical fron ti er. Wh et h er they fo ll owed his thesis or took obj ec-ti on to it, most thinkers have taken for gra n ted that the issue is wh et h er wh i teAn glo Am erica was defin ed in this manner. Even W. E . B. Du Boi s’s qu o te abo utthe probl em of the twen ti eth cen tu ry being the probl em of the co l or line istypically misquoted in the interests of consistency. He actually predicted—torecall the full sentence: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problemof the co l or line—the rel a ti on of the darker to the ligh ter races of m en in As i aand Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.”1

There is, for example, the beginning of Asian Americans as African Amer-i c a n s . The Yell ow Power movem ent of the San Fra n c i s co Bay Area in the 1960s,wh i ch bro u ght toget h er Asian ethnic groups into the novel form a ti on of “As i a nAm eri c a n ,” was a direct de s cendant or at least distant cousin of the Bl ackPower Movement. There would be no Asian Americans if black had not beenbe a uti f u l . E a rl i er, Asian Am ericans were lega lly the same as Af rican Am eri-c a n s : In c a p a ble of te s ti f ying in co u rt , preven ted from marrying wh i te s , a n drelegated to inferior schools.

Af rican Am ericans also are Asian Am eri c a n s . Rep a ra ti ons for slavery be-came a less quixotic cause when Japanese Americans won redress for the in-ternment of World War II, in the 1988 Civil Liberties Act. The current effortsin Congress are based on the precursor of the Commission on Wartime Relo-c a ti on and In tern m ent of Civi l i a n s , the of ficial panel that con clu ded the in-ternment had been motivated by wartime panic, racial prejudice, and lack ofl e aders h i p, not military nece s s i ty. The precedent cannot be den i ed : If As i a nimmigrants are entitled to recompense, it follows that African Americans are(leaving aside problems of case-by-case proof).

The stu dy of the past is the stu dy of the pre s en t . Ac ross cultu res and in per-petu i ty, it has been easier to discuss the con troversies of the past than the con-troversies of the pre s en t . We wri te our history to ju s tify our con tem pora ry va l-u e s , and we use our con tem pora ry va lues to wri te our history. E ach gen era ti onn eeds to wri te its own history. O u rs may be the first to re a l i ze that our histo-ries are plu ral ra t h er than singular. The stories pre s en ted here are the start .

Frank H. WuWashington, D.C.

xix

Preface and Acknowledgments

Hazel M. McFerson

The idea for this co ll ecti on of e s s ays on po l i tical and social interacti on samong African Americans, Asian Americans, and Asians was born during mytwo years of residence and travel in South and Southeast Asia. Living in andtraveling around the Philippines (where I was a Fulbright Scholar at the Uni-versity of Asia and the Pacific, Manila), and visiting the People’s Republic ofCh i n a , Ca m bod i a , In d i a , Ja p a n , Kore a , L a o s , Ma l d ive s , Nep a l , Si n ga pore , SriL a n k a , Th a i l a n d , and Vi etn a m , provi ded the opportu n i ty to interact with dif-ferent groups of Asian ethnicities and national origins.

My ex peri en ce in the Philipp i n e s , wh ere an Af rican Am erican woman is sti llan atten ti on - d rawing ra ri ty, m ade me curious abo ut how other Asians wo u l dre act to me. Pre su m a bly, t h eir re acti on would differ from the intense atten ti onI attracted in Manila and el s ewh ere in the co u n try, with constant staring ands om eti m e s - i n tru s ive inqu i s i tiven e s s , a l on gs i de good - n a tu red intere s t . Th erewas in that inqu i s i tiveness an intere s ting interp l ay bet ween my gen der and myrace—with gen der prob a bly the more salient influ en ce , as Filipinos have lon gbeen familiar with Af rican Am erican men from the long-standing military pre s-en ce of the Un i ted States in their co u n try. My ex peri en ces in the other As i a nco u n tries proved to be differen t . Ra rely did I look up to find som eone stari n gat me, and there seem ed to be an atti tu de of po s i tive goodwi ll tow a rd me as anAf rican Am eri c a n . People call ed out to me good - n a tu redly: “ Hi , Opra h ! ” An do t h ers shyly requ e s ted to be ph o togra ph ed with me.

Vi s i ting shopping stalls in It aewon , Kore a , I was stru ck by the co u rtesy andf ri en dliness of s h op keepers , and the total absen ce of the ten s i on and ra n corevident in so many Korean-black encounters in Los Angeles and elsewhere inAmerica. This experience was replicated in Indo-China, India, China, Japan,Nep a l , Sri Lanka, and Th a i l a n d . Every wh ere , the atti tu de tow a rd Af ri c a n

xx Preface and Acknowledgments

1. These include the Aetas and the Batak in the Philippines, and the Semang of south-ern Thailand and Malaysia. Cf. Edward L. Powe. The Negritos of the Philippines. Madison,Wisconsin: Armchair Travelers, 1999. Charles P. Warren. “Minority Student Responses tothe Anthropology of Asian Black Populations.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society.10 (1982): 211–224.

American social capital was positive. I did expect to find some familiarity oflocal people with African American music and style, but not such widespreadaffinity. Blues and jazz clubs were everywhere. I was completely enthralled bylocal talents, such as that displayed nightly at Just Blues, Itaewon, Korea, byblues man ex tra ord i n a i re Ch ae so-Yeon g, whose “down - h om e” blues styl e , t a l-en t , and en t hu s i a s tic love of trad i ti onal Af rican Am erican music ranks himwith the best on the Ch i c a go blues scen e . In other venu e s , I en co u n teredyoung people emu l a ting hip-hop mannerisms of d re s s—overs i zed shirt s , u n-ti ed shoe s , and droopy pants—the latter cre a ting peculiar diffic u l ties for thei rmu ch slimmer hips. As i a n - s tyle “ra p” music vi deos dom i n a ted the local MTVequivalent. The admiration for American sports superstars was ubiquitous—the likeness of Michael Jordan and Grant Hill looking down from billboards,and young people we a ring No. 39 Ch i c a go Bu lls jers eys . By con tra s t , t h eir owni n d i genous “bl ack” pop u l a ti on s , in co u n tries su ch as the Philipp i n e s , Th a i-land and Malaysia,1 were nowhere to be seen, and a very strong “white bias”was evi den t , p a rti c u l a rly in the Philippines and Ja p a n , wh ere bi ll boa rds in-va ri a bly show ph en o typ i c a lly wh i te Asian wom en selling va rious skin-wh i ten-ing agents.

What were the re a s ons for this love of Af rican Am erican cultu re and thisground-in bias against darker ph en o types? Why did Asian atti tu des tow a rdAf rican Am ericans appear to be so different in Asian co u n tries than in theU.S.? Was it a result of economic competition, or cultural mimicry, or of theinward turning typical of first-generation immigrant communities that madefor black-Asian conflict in today’s urban America? Were there no elements ofcom m on a l i ty bet ween bl acks and Asians in Am erica? What historical force sshaped their interaction? This book is the result of this curiosity.

It was clear from the start that the “truth” could be found neither in a sim-p l i s tic parad i gm of u n bro ken con f l i ct , n or in a rosy vi ew of working cl a s scom m on a l i ty su perceding ethnic differen ce s . Th ere must be el em ents of bo t hcon fli ct and com m on a l i ty in As i a n - bl ack interacti on in Am eri c a , and thoseelements must perforce have some historical roots—both in the conflict gen-erated by competition for the same low-skilled jobs and in the commonalitygen era ted by the downw a rd leveling of s oc i o - racial status ch a racteri s tic of t h eAm erican racial trad i ti on . It was equ a lly clear from the start that I should not

Preface and Acknowledgments xxi

even attem pt to answer all these qu e s ti ons from my indivi dual pers pective , butweave the story from a variety of informed viewpoints.

My approach was to begin by revi ewing the history of As i a n - bl ack rel a ti on sin Am erica and then , on that basis, to assem ble a diverse group of k n owl-edgeable persons in the field who could provide original contributions fromtheir own viewpoints. This was done through a workshop, which I organizedat Geor ge Ma s on Un ivers i ty in Febru a ry 2003, to discuss the gen eral issu e sand set the broad themes along wh i ch va rious con tri butors would prep a retheir essays. My own chapters and the contributors’ essays were then comple-mented and rounded out by a fairly representative set of well-known articlesand book chapters touching on the various key issues. It is through the con-tri buti ons of a ll these indivi duals that the story of the “c ro s s i n gs” bet weenAsians and Af rica Am ericans is to l d , and pro s pects for their futu re interacti onsketched out without pessimism or naiveté.

My first ack n owl ed gm ent goes to the su pport and en a bling envi ron m en tprovi ded by Geor ge Ma s on Un ivers i ty and parti c u l a rly the Provo s t , D r. PeterS te a rn s , who provi ded financial su pport for the proj ect , t h ro u gh a Provo s t’sFac u l ty Aw a rd gra n t . I also thank Dr. Ha rold Gortn er for his va lu a ble advi cea bo ut the Fenwi ck Fell ows Progra m , wh i ch also of fered financial and logi s ti c a lsu pport . I thank Dr. John Zen el i s , Di rector of the Fenwi ck Fell ows Progra m ,and Kevin Sa n ders , Fenwi ck Libra ry, who alw ays ch eerf u lly and ef fic i en t ly pro-vi ded libra ry su pport . Also at Ma s on I thank the very com petent and pati en ts t a f f of the In ternal Re s o u rces Cen ter: Joann Wray, Di rector, Ja s on Ko t t , Sa bphKh a n , Jim Ken ny, and Ka myer Ja l a l i . I also thank Deb Hi ll , who was inva lu-a ble in helping me to coord i n a te my te aching while I also was invo lved in com-p l eting the manu s c ri pt . S pecial thanks to Danika Myers , for her su perb ed i to-rial assistance , and to Co ll et te Laws on , for her com p uter assistance .

Thanks also to Chai Si ri bon gko t , of Ba n gkok Blu e s , Fa lls Chu rch , Vi r gi n i a ,for his time and insights into the Af rican Am erican musical influ en ce in As i a . Iowe a debt of gra ti tu de to Dean Frank Wu , Wayne State Un ivers i ty Law Sch oo l ,Detroit for his eru d i te and sen s i tive Foreword . My life is ri ch er for all the manygracious and intere s ting Asian fri ends I “d i s covered ” and who “d i s covered ” m edu ring my ye a rs in their midst. In parti c u l a r, I wish to ack n owl ed ge the sch o l-a rship of Rene G. Ontal and Ch erry Mon tej o, who invi ted me to parti c i p a te inthe produ cti on of t h eir path-breaking doc u m en t a ry on David Fa gen ,2 an Af ri c a n

2 . D avid Fa gen is also spell ed as “ Fa ga n .” One ex p l a n a ti on for the different spell i n gs isprovi ded by, Wi lliam Sch roder, a ut h or of Cousins of Col o r, who wri te s , “ while re s e a rch i n gCousins of Col o r, I found Fa gen’s name spell ed both ways . . . . Mi l i t a ry records of the day( m ore likely acc u ra te than news p a per accounts) con s i s ten t ly refer to him as ‘ Fa gen .’”

xxii Preface and Acknowledgments

Am erican mem ber of the U. S . Army du ring the Philipp i n e - Am erican Wa r( 1 8 9 9– 1 9 0 2 ) . Fa gen was one among several Af rican Am ericans who defected tothe Philippine cause, and he later served as an of ficer in Emilio Ag u i n a l do’s army.His story and that of o t h er Af rican Am eri c a n s , in similar circ u m s t a n ce s , h a sbeen long lost to history. But it stands as an early and unpara ll el ed example ofthe many “c ro s s i n gs” bet ween Af rican Am ericans and As i a n s .

An d , of co u rs e , I owe the gre a test thanks to my family for their su pport :My husband of t h i rty-six ye a rs , Rino Sch i avo - Ca m po, our son Rino Jr. ,d a u gh ters Pia, Ma ra , s on - i n - l aw Tommie L. Porter, and daugh ter-in law Za ra ,gra n d d a u gh ter, Jianna Ha zel , and the newest and yo u n gest mem ber of o u rfamily, grandson Rino Vittorio.

Hazel M. McFersonFalls Church, Virginia

xxiii

Contributors

Ha zel M. Mc Fers on is As s oc i a te Profe s s or of In tern a ti onal Stu d i e s , Dep a rtm en tof Pu blic and In tern a ti onal Af f a i rs , and As s oc i a te , In s ti tute for Con fli ct An a ly-sis and Re s o luti on , G eor ge Ma s on Un ivers i ty, Fa i rf a x , Vi r gi n i a . She was a Fu l-bri ght Sch o l a r, 1 9 9 8– 1 9 9 9 , at the Un ivers i ty of Asia and the Pac i fic , Ma n i l a ,P h i l i pp i n e s . She received a B. A . in Soc i o l ogy from UMa s s / Bo s ton , an M.A. i nIn tern a ti onal Po l i tics from the Fletch er Sch ool of L aw and Di p l om ac y, Tufts Un i-vers i ty, and a Ph.D. in Po l i tics from Bra n deis Un ivers i ty. She has publ i s h ed nu-m erous arti cles on ethnic rel a ti ons and con fli ct . She is the aut h or of The Ra ci a lDi m ension of Am erican Overseas Colonial Pol i c y ( Greenwood 1997), and ed i tedMi x ed Blessing: The Im pa ct of the Am erican Colonial Experi en ce on Pol i ti cs and So -ci ety in the Ph i l i pp i n e s ( Greenwood 2002).

Crystal S. An ders on received her Ph.D. in Am erican Studies from The Co ll egeof Wi lliam and Ma ry. She is curren t ly an assistant profe s s or in the Dep a rt-m ent of E n glish at Ohio Un ivers i ty. Her re s e a rch interests inclu de Af ri c a nAmerican/Asian/Asian American literary and cultural interaction in the 19thand 20th centuries.

L . Ja n elle Dance is As s oc i a te Profe s s or of Soc i o l ogy at the Un ivers i ty of Ma ry-l a n d , Co ll ege Pa rk . She received a B. A . in Govern m ent from Geor getown Un i-vers i ty and a Ma s ters and Ph.D. in Soc i o l ogy from Ha rva rd Un ivers i ty. S h ehas aut h ored her first boo k , Tou gh Fronts: The Im pa ct of Stre et Cu l tu re onS ch ool i n g ( Fa l m er Press 2002) and is curren t ly working on two new book man-uscripts. In 1999 she was awarded a Spencer/National Academy of EducationFell owship and in 2003 she received a J. Wi lliam Fu l bri ght Aw a rd to te ach andconduct research in Sweden.

Christine C. Iijima Hall received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from UCLA.Cu rren t ly, she is an ad m i n i s tra tor for the Ma ri copa Com mu n i ty Co ll eges Di s-tri ct , P h oen i x , Ari zon a . Pri or to this, she was with Ari zona State Un ivers i tyand the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C. Dr. Hall hasa ut h ored nu m erous book ch a pters and journal arti cles on mu l ti racial iden-

xxiv Contributors

ti ty, ethnic wom en and body image . Her Ph.D. d i s s ert a ti on was on bi rac i a lidentity in the United States.

D ae Young Kim is curren t ly an assistant profe s s or of Soc i o l ogy and As i a nAm erican Studies Program at the Un ivers i ty of Ma ryl a n d , Co ll ege Pa rk . Hete aches co u rses on ethnic and racial rel a ti ons and Asian Am erican stu d i e s . Hi sP h . D. d i s s ert a ti on , Ci ty Un ivers i ty of New York , ex a m i n ed the edu c a ti on a land labor market outcomes of 1.5 and second-generation Korean Americansin New York City.

Julian Madison is an associate professor of History at Southern ConnecticutState University in New Haven, Connecticut. He earned his Ph.D. at the Uni-vers i ty of Wa s h i n g ton . He and his Filipina wi fe , Ri e z l , a re the parents ofMaria, Julian III, and Philip.

Sunaina Ma i ra is As s oc i a te Profe s s or in Asian Am erican Studies at the Un iver-s i ty of Ca l i forn i a , D avi s . She is the aut h or of Desis in the Hou se: Indian Am er -ican Youth Cu l tu re in New Yo rk , Temple Un ivers i ty Pre s s , 2002 and the co - ed i-tor, with Elisabeth Soep, of You t h sc a pes: Popular Cu l tu re , Na tional Id e ol o gi e s ,Gl obal Ma rket s , Un ivers i ty of Pen n s ylvania Pre s s , 2 0 0 4 . She co - ed i ted (with Ra-jini Srikanth) Co n tou rs of the He a rt: South Asians Map No rth Am eri c a, Tem p l eUn ivers i ty Pre s s , 1997 wh i ch won the Am erican Book Aw a rd in 1997.

Kavita Mi t t a p a lli holds a Ma s ters degree in Soc i o l ogy from Geor ge Ma s on Un i-vers i ty, Fa i rfax VA . She is curren t ly en ro ll ed in the doctoral program at thesame university in the Department of Education. Since 1998, she has workedin the areas of p u blic rel a ti on s , health and interpers onal com mu n i c a ti on , a n deducation research and evaluation both in the U.S. and India. Her prime in-terests are in survey research, research methodology and minority education.She currently works as a research assistant for a federal contracting companyengaged in education research, evaluation and technical assistance.

Frank Wu is curren t ly De a n , Wayne State Un ivers i ty Law Sch oo l , Detroi t , M I .He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan in 2002–03, and hereceived the Teacher of the Year award from the Black Law Students Alliancewhile there. Professor Wu’s Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White,was publ i s h ed in 2002 by Basic Boo k s . His co - a ut h ored tex tboo k , Ra ce , Ri gh t sand Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment, was published in2001 by As pen Elective Seri e s . His more than 200 arti cles have appe a red insuch periodicals as the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, DetroitFree Pre s s , Ba l ti m o re Su n , C h ro n i cle of Hi gh er Edu c a ti o n, Na tional Law Jou r -nal, Legal Times, and Asian Week.