[ Interarea Sessions, Table of Contents ]
[ Panels by World Area Main Menu ]
[ View the Timetable of Panels ]
Roundtable: Bridging Asian and Asian American Studies
Organizer and Chair: Christine R. Yano, Smithsonian Institution
Discussants: Dorinne Kondo, University of Southern California; Mariam Beevi Lam, University of California, Riverside; K. Scott Wong, Williams College; Merry I. White, Boston University; Michael Bourdaghs, University of California, Los Angeles
This panel addresses the bridging of Asian and Asian American Studies by scholars from the disciplines of anthropology, literature, and history who have conducted research in both fields. We are primarily "Asianists" who have extended our research to areas of interest within Asian America. In some cases, this extension has been a by-product of research undertaken while teaching at American institutions, especially given practical considerations of time, funding, and families. More importantly, however, the extension of research into Asian America recognizes the critical need to blur national boundaries: to embed knowledge of Asia (including Asian language resources) into Asian American studies; to recognize the significance of Asian America for Asia; to reconfigure "America" to include citizens of Asian ancestry; to interrogate ways in which Asian Americans are regarded as "natural" bridges between Asia and America on both sides of the Pacific. Our conversation is explicitly not for the purpose of making Asian Americans into forever fresh-off-the-boat Asians. Rather, we find it important to keep one eye on Asia as part of the constituent conditions and considerations under which Asian Americans live or are made to live. It is more than utility and pragmatism that guides us. We find the Asian/Asian-American link utterly crucial these days in order to disrupt cultural and political dichotomies that no longer work and embrace linkages that are part of our daily lives.